A San Bernardino County man was arrested today on a federal grand jury indictment charging him and two other defendants with paying people on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles to sign petitions using stolen identities of registered voters to qualify initiatives on ballots in California elections.
James Brass, 47, a.k.a. “Lord,” of Victorville, was arrested this morning and is expected to make his initial appearance this afternoon in United States District Court in Riverside.
The two-count indictment also charges two petition circulators who worked for Brass: Courtney Price, 49, of Jacksonville, Florida, and Jateisha Herron, 33, of Boron, California.
All three defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit identity fraud in furtherance of a state felony. Brass and Price are charged with an additional count of identity fraud in furtherance of a state felony.
“These defendants are charged with using stolen identities of registered voters to manufacture signatures on ballot petitions used to shape California law,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. “They allegedly used people, including members of Skid Row’s vulnerable homeless population, to try to cover up their tracks. The charged conduct undermines the confidence voters have in our election systems, and we will vigorously investigate and charge anyone involved.”
California’s constitution includes a direct-democracy process that lets state voters bypass the California State Legislature and enact laws or constitutional amendments through the ballot initiative process.
“It is imperative that Americans have confidence in our voting system and election infrastructure” said Patrick Grandy, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The scheme outlined in today’s indictment sought to undermine an essential pillar of our democracy and cause an undue burden on taxpayers. We will remain vigilant in detecting those trying to weaken our political process and we will aggressively investigate any allegations of voter fraud or other election crimes.”
To qualify an initiative for inclusion on a ballot in 2026, an initiative’s proponent was required to submit 546,651 signatures to place a proposed statute on the ballot, and 874,641 signatures to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. An initiative’s proponent had up to 180 days to gather these signatures and needed to submit them no later than 130 days before the date of an election.
Given the large number of signatures required in such a short period of time, proponents of initiatives typically hired petition management companies to gather the signatures. These companies charge significant fees and set a price for each signature gathered, contracting with outside individuals to collect signatures.
According to the indictment that a federal grand jury returned on Wednesday, Brass managed a team of signature collectors and collected signatures himself while Price and Herron were signature collectors who worked for Brass. From February 2026 to August 2026, the defendants used a database to identify registered California voters. On Skid Row, Brass and Price handed out these voters’ stolen identities and paid petition signers to copy the voters’ personal information onto ballot initiative petitions and fraudulently sign the petitions in those voters’ names.
After the petitions were signed, Brass and Herron signed declarations at the bottom of the petitions, falsely declaring under penalty of perjury that they personally witnessed the named registered voters sign the petitions and that each signature was, to the best of their knowledge, “the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be.”
Brass and Herron then turned in the bogus petitions to several petition coordinators, knowing the false representations regarding the signatures’ authenticity would result in false and fraudulent signatures being counted in connection with the effort to place the initiative at issue on the ballot.
Brass further knew the false representations about the signatures’ authenticity would result in payments to him from a petition management company.
In total, Brass received approximately $41,600 from coordinators working with one such petition management company.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
If convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each count.
The FBI is investigating this matter with assistance from special agents of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nandor F.R. Kiss of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section and Michael G. Wheat of the Orange County Office are prosecuting this case.
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