A former East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, selectman has been sentenced to time in jail for his part in a voter fraud scandal. Earlier this week, Enrico Villamaino pleaded guilty to 11 charges including larceny, perjury and conspiracy.
Hampden Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Rup sentenced Villamaino to a year in jail. But he’ll likely only be incarcerated for four months of that, with the balance suspended while he is on probation. Villamaino will also have to perform several hundred hours of community service.
The jail time is less than what prosecutors asked for, but Rup also denied a defense request to continue two of the felony convictions without a finding. This means Villamaino will have those serious crimes on his record. District Attorney Mark Mastroianni says he respects the judge’s decision. He says given the nature of the case, he thinks this was a serious crime.
“It makes it unusually significant. You don’t see cases like this very often, so the planning and the scheming to interfere with people’s voting rights, in my mind, and I think in the court’s mind, made this very serious.”, Mastroianni says.