A trial date has been set for the two officers of the Carroll County Republican Club charged with violating state election laws.
Club president Scott Hollenbeck, 40, of Westminster, and treasurer Suzanne Primoff, 56, of Woodbine and Loxahatchee, Fla., are set to appear Feb. 9 in Carroll County District Court.
The state prosecutor?s office charged them in November with illegally engaging in campaign finance activity and publishing campaign literature without the line disclosing that the advertisements had “not been authorized by any candidate.”
“Lawyers have told me that this is the most outrageous prosecution they?ve ever seen,” said Ed Primoff, husband of Suzanne Primoff and a club member.
Suzanne Primoff has hired as her attorney George Nilson, a former state deputy attorney general, a member of the Standing Committee on the Rules of Practice and Procedure for the Maryland Court of Appeals and chairman of a gubernatorial commission dealing with campaign finance issues, according to the Web site of DLA Piper law firm.
Former Carroll Commissioner Perry Jones Jr. blamed his Republican primary defeat on the Carroll County Republican Club ads, which attacked incumbents and accused him of not living in the county, despite his Union Bridge residence.
The ads also supported challengers, including newcomer Michael Zimmer, who bumped Jones in the primary.
Zimmer has distanced himself from the ads and urged residents to not dwell on the mudslinging.
“Now we must look beyond the petty personal attacks of the past,” Zimmer said in a recent statement.
“We must instead reach out to grasp the sort of changes and reforms the voters have entrusted to us.”
The club declined a state prosecutor?s deal to dismiss charges because it would not say it was a political action committee, an organization required to report campaign finance activity to the state.
“We?d rather fight for what we believe than admit we did something wrong when we didn?t,” Ed Primoff said.
Each defendant faces up to two years in jail and $26,000 in fines.
