Jury Finds Belmont MA Man Guilty In NH Of Wrongful Voting In 2016

CONCORD, NH ? A man from Belmont, Massachusetts, with a vacation home in the Lakes Region, has been convicted of wrongful voting after casting ballots at both his home in the Bay State and his vacation home in Holderness in November 2016.

After a three day trial in Grafton County Superior Court, Richard Rosen, 85, was convicted Friday on a single felony count of wrongful voting after casting ballots in both communities on Nov. 8, 2016. Michael Garrity, the director of communications with the New Hampshire Attorney General?s Office, said Tuesday the jury found Rosen had knowingly checked in at the checklist at his polling location in Belmont, MA, after already casting an absentee ballot for the same election in Holderness.

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?I extend my sincere thanks to the trial team and election officials in both Holderness, New Hampshire, and Belmont, Massachusetts, for their assistance and cooperation in the investigation and securing this conviction,? Attorney General John Formella said. ?The Department of Justice will continue to hold accountable those individuals who commit voter fraud and attempt to take advantage of our election systems.?

Rosen is expected to be sentenced in July. He faces between three and a half and seven years in prison and a $2,000 fine.

The charge against Rosen was filed in December 2022 after a multi-year investigation into Rosen by the NH AG?s Office after finding him on the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, a database that tracks possible multiple voter registrations in several states. New Hampshire joined the program in 2017. Via the database, Rosen was flagged for having voted in both states during the 2016 general election.

An investigator accused Rosen of voting in both states as far back as the mid-1990s in primaries and general elections.

In June 2020, an investigator called Rosen, and he reportedly denied double-voting. After the phone call, the town clerk in Holderness contacted the NH AG?s Office, reporting Rosen trying to remove his name from the town?s checklist, according to a report on Patch in 2022. Rosen was accused of blaming ID fraud and another man for the double voting, the report said, even after an investigator noted in the report a Belmont Citizen-Herald article from February 2010, in which Rosen ran for school board and said he lived in town for 37 years. His campaign finance reports for the election also listed his Washington Street address as his home. Rosen came in fourth out of four candidates for the Belmont, MA, school board in April 2010.

Rosen, according to his LinkedIn account and prior interviews, is an engineer and entrepreneur and was the CEO of American Ag Energy, a company that was involved in constructing high-tech greenhouses to grow lettuce and tomatoes. One of the greenhouses was recently built in Berlin after five years and a $25 million federal loan.

According to voter registration records, Rosen was registered as a Republican in Belmont, MA, in May 1995. He failed to vote in several elections in the town, placing him on ?inactive? voter status, which occurs before a voter is purged from a list in Massachusetts. While in New Hampshire, Rosen pulled Republican primary ballots, according to the Holderness town clerk.

An attorney from Shaheen & Gordon in 2022 sent a statement to Patch denying the allegation. Patch followed up with the firm on Tuesday for an updated statement.

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