The judge in the Portland "voter-owed elections" fraud case has sentenced Vladimir Golovan to "up to nine months" (probably more like half that) in the county jail. But the judge also indicated that he and the jurors felt that the people who hired Golovan to "pimp out" City Council candidates to the Slavic community also should have been prosecuted. That includes candidate Lucinda Tate, who turned in the same sorts of bogus signatures as candidate Emilie Boyles but was pretty much given a free pass by the local media after the crew was busted. Rounding out the judge's theoretical party of four at the Graybar Hotel would be Bruce Broussard, who was trying to run for City Council and the U.S. Congress at the same time and allegedly had Golovan lined up to help. The judge said he thought Broussard perjured himself on the witness stand in Golovan's trial.

There's still time to prosecute these other three, I think. But what do you think the odds are of that ever happening?

Meanwhile, the intensely laundered official version of the story continues to be replayed in the O: "The city rejected Tate's application for public cash because she turned in some paperwork late." Yeah, that and the fact that the reporter for the O itself, this blog, and others were screaming that her signatures, like Boyles's, were fake. Sometimes the city's stated reason is pretty obviously not the real reason -- witness Derrick Foxworth's demotion for "gossiping" -- and one would think it behooves the local media not to act too dumb to catch on.

Anyway, I never thought they'd prosecute anyone for this little fiasco, and I suppose we should all be grateful that one smooth operator will be off the church steps hustling, and faking, signatures for a while.

That is, if there's room in the county jail...