LINCOLN — Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said Friday a statewide investigation continues into “several thousand signatures” collected on ballot initiative petitions, just hours before a key deadline to include them on the November ballot.

Hilgers, a Republican, also announced at least one Grand Island man who had been hired to collect signatures for a marijuana initiative has been criminally charged. Hilgers has opposed legalizing any form of cannabis, but said the timing of his announcement coincided with the conclusion of part of his investigation and not the signature certification deadline.

“We’ve seen these irregularities implicate several thousand signatures,” Hilgers told reporters Friday. “Our work is still ongoing, we will have more to say. Today is the deadline for the Secretary of State but it is not our deadline in order to complete our work.”

Signatures not counted ‘from the get-go’

Hilgers is a former state lawmaker and has also led a statewide campaign against delta-8, which contains THC, the compound in the cannabis plant most commonly associated with getting a person high.

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen must decide Friday whether the petitions from Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana collected enough valid signatures to be included on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Evnen said Aug. 30 that the campaign had provisionally qualified with enough valid signatures. The campaign needs about 86,500 and had 89,000 signatures as of Aug. 30, as the validation process continued. He had not yet decided the petition’s fate as of midday Friday.

Hall County Election Commissioner Tracy Overstreet confirmed to the Nebraska Examiner that the numbers Evnen used at the time did not include the ones from the man who has been criminally charged.

She said they “were flagged as fraudulent and rejected and not counted toward those totals from the get-go.”

Petition verification continues 

Hilgers said “other irregularities” are being investigated but did not specify on which petition or how many on any petition being circulated, or in which counties.

There are currently six petitions vying for a spot on the Nov. 5 ballot, and Evnen has certified four of them. Three were successful Friday morning against legal challenges, and medical marijuana faces its own, including claims against valid signatures.

Should the petitions be placed on the ballot, and enough signatures knocked off in that time frame, Hilgers said, the outcome of his investigation might mean the new laws won’t take effect.

“The integrity of our elections transcends ideology. It transcends policy issues. It transcends party,” Hilgers said. “This is about making sure that Nebraskans have confidence in our election system.”

Petition pages are turned in to the Secretary of State’s Office four months before the general election they seek to be printed on. Local election officials then count and validate the signatures according to state law, not state officials.

Signatures are regularly tossed from the count if local officials determine they are not valid, including for any of the other petitions in circulation this cycle. Klein said officials must link any irregularities back to a specific person in order to pursue charges.

“Petition circulators and voters alike should know and understand that this office — and all election offices across Nebraska — take elections and signature verification very seriously,” Overstreet said in a statement. “We go through each petition line by line by line, signature by signature — just like we do for signatures on early voting ballot envelopes.”

‘Wouldn’t matter what the petition would be’ 

Hilgers said Nebraskans should be confident that election or law enforcement officials who identify any instance of fraud or wrongdoing will investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute. 

He said it is up to Evnen to determine the legal sufficiency of the ballot measures.

Asked whether every other petition circulating in Nebraska this cycle is being given the same scrutiny — those related to abortion, private K-12 school vouchers and paid sick leave — Hilgers said: “We have a process, and it applies to everyone equally and fairly.”

“I can absolutely tell you definitively, with 100% certainty, no matter what the petition was, if we had evidence of signature fraud, the same kind of evidence that we have in this case. Absolutely wouldn’t matter what the petition would be,” Hilgers said.

Hilgers said he and other local officials are on the lookout for fraud, but he is unaware of other irregularities that have at least been brought to his office. He cautioned “that doesn’t mean I’ve blessed the process of any other petitions.”

Marijuana signature case

Hilgers and Hall County Attorney Martin Klein announced that Michael K. Egbert, 66, had been charged with allegedly collecting at least 200 fraudulent signatures. Egbert allegedly did so across 38 signature pages spread between two medical marijuana-related petitions to respectively legalize and regulate the drug between Feb. 9 and June 30.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed Thursday, Egbert said in an Aug. 30 interview he had been working as a paid petition circulator and was paid by the hour, mostly in Hall County.  Egbert allegedly said at the time he submitted “well over 100 pages” of signatures.

“He had in fact written names down, gone out into a phone book and got names of individuals with addresses here in the Grand Island, Hall County area,” Klein told reporters.

The affidavit charged Egbert with making up wrong dates of birth and listing up to eight voters who had died on each petition. 

Hilgers said the count of alleged fraudulent signatures is “not a static, firm number.”

Egbert is charged with false swearing to a circulator’s affidavit on a ballot petition, a Class IV felony. The penalty ranges from probation to up to two years in prison, and up to a $10,000 fine.

The case has been assigned to Judge Arthur S Wetzel. Egbert will be arraigned Oct. 2 in Hall County.

Egbert’s attorney, Robert Alexander, who sat in on an interview with Egbert and local officials on Sept. 10, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At that interview, according to the affidavit, Egbert said he would leave his petitions unattended and did not sign his circulator’s calculator’s oath in the presence of a notary.

Crista Eggers, statewide campaign manager for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, said in a statement that all circulators are given “extensive training.” She thanked Klein and Hilgers for looking into any irregularities and working to protect the integrity of the public initiative process.

“Circulators are held to an extremely high standard and are required to strictly follow all legal requirements for collecting signatures,” Eggers said in a statement. “Any circulators caught violating the law should be held accountable for their actions.”

egbert-probable-cause-affidavit

A pint-sized 27-year-old sicko who posed as a teenager and sexually assaulted high school students sat stonefaced in a Nebraska courtroom when he learned he would spend the rest of his life behind bars for his sex crimes.

For 54 days in 2023, Zachary Scheich “blended in with other students” when he pretended to be 17-year-old “Zak Hess” and attended classes at Southeast High School in Lincoln, Neb. where he committed the vile predatory attacks.

Scheich was sentenced on Wednesday to 85 to 120 years in prison for the felonies he faced including two counts of child enticement with electronic communication device, two counts of first-degree sexual assault/forcible touching, and an attempt of class two felony.

He originally faced nine felony charges, but were reduced as part of a plea deal in July.

The pedophile is eligible for parole in 41 years. Judge Darla Ideus gave Scheich credit for 419 days served.

“They knew not to speak with an adult male on social media. They knew not to meet an adult male by themselves, they knew how to defend themselves against that kind of danger,” Ideus said during the sentencing, KOLN reported.

“They did not know how to protect themselves against you. Because again, they thought you were their peer. Their friend. And because you gained their trust.”

Scheich devised a plan to enroll in the high school where he created a fraudulent birth certificate, immunization records and an “elaborate backstory,” according to the outlet.

He sought the help of his accomplice, 23-year-old Angela Navarro, to pose as his mother as he enrolled into Lincoln Northwest High School before transferring to Southeast where he asked for “pornographic material” from female student.

Between February and March 2023, Scheich sent sexually explicit messages to both a 13 and 14-year-old student.

He also tried to get the 13-year-old to meet up with him for sex, and even sent her money encouraging her to send nude pictures to him, KETV reported, citing an arrest affidavit.

Scheich was arrested on July 20, 2023 at a local library after police received a tip of an alleged impersonator posing as “Zak Hess” who had contacted female students by phone or computers.

The 5-foot-4, 120-pound monster, who graduated from Southeast High in 2015, reportedly cost the Lincoln Public Schools $6,000.

The district faced questions about how a man in his mid-20s managed to enroll in the first place following last year’s arrest.

Schools security chief Joe Wright said the minimum requirements for enrolling in a public high school are a birth certificate, immunization records and transcripts.

At the sentencing, Deputy County Attorney Amber Scholte described Scheich as “the worst kind of predator.”

“He targeted, groomed and lured them via social media,” Scholte said. “He did so under the guise of being their peer, their friend, and in some cases, their boyfriend. And he did so for his own sexual purpose and gratification.”

Navarro, who has acted under the pseudonym Danielle Hess, was arrested and charged with criminal impersonation.

She pleaded not guilty to the charge in April and was released from jail on a $450 bail.

It may be hard to believe, or for some hard to forget, but Nebraska has not played in a bowl game since 2016.

The 2016 Music City Bowl against Tennessee was the last time that the Huskers played a postseason contest. To make matters worse, Nebraska lost that game to the Vols, 38-24. But this season, the Huskers’ postseason outlook is very different.

ESPN writers Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach both released their updated bowl projections and both included Nebraska in the postseason. This is not a surprise considering that the Huskers are ranked No. 23 in this week’s AP Poll and have looked very good at the start of the year. But it is still a sign of the team’s improvement in coach Matt Rhule’s second season.

Bonagura has the Huskers facing off against LSU in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl. The Huskers are 5-0 all-time against the Tigers but have not played them since 1987. This would be an interesting matchup of two storied programs if this game was to come to fruition. It would also be a great quarterback matchup between Nebraska’s Dylan Raiola and LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier. However, it would be another trip to Nashville after Husker fans went there in 2016, but maybe enough time has passed for a return trip to be an interesting possibility.

Schlabach has Nebraska against Oklahoma in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa, Florida. This would be a reunion of an old Big 12 (and Big Eight, Big Seven, Big Six) rivalry that the Sooners lead 47-38 in the all-time series. The two most recently played in 2021 and 2022 in a home-and-home series in which the Sooners won both games.

Both of these matchups could be interesting games for the Huskers and their fan base to participate in. The LSU game would be an opportunity to defeat a perennial SEC power and the Oklahoma game would be a chance to re-connect with an old rival. However, if the Huskers’ season continues to go well, their sights could be set higher than these bowl games.

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