The last Skid Row ballot fraudster walked out of federal court with 18 months of probation and never spent a day in jail.
Now the man who allegedly ran the whole operation is in federal custody.
What prosecutors found in his text messages to the crew told them exactly what kind of operation this was.
Independent journalist James O'Keefe and his O'Keefe Media Group went undercover on Skid Row in February 2026 – disguised as homeless people, walking the same streets where petition workers were running a professional fraud machine in broad daylight.
The circulators carried voter information sheets with real names and real addresses, handing them to anyone willing to sign for two or three dollars.
"Your name is Robert," one circulator told an undercover reporter on camera.
"You only write what I tell you to write," another said.
The circulators weren't doing this out of political conviction.
Each accepted form put $7 to $10 in their pocket, and a full day on Skid Row could net $1,000.
O'Keefe's footage launched a federal investigation.
In May, prosecutors charged Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, a 20-year petition circulator caught on O'Keefe's tapes paying Skid Row homeless to register to vote.
She pleaded guilty to a federal felony.
U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi sentenced her to 18 months of probation and 120 hours of community service.
Not one day in prison.
James Brass Ran the California Ballot Petition Fraud Ring Above Her
The man prosecutors say built the machine above Armstrong is James Brass, 47, of Victorville, California.
His crew called him Lord.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrest and said his agents had been watching for months.
"For at least 6 months in 2026," Patel said, "these subjects were allegedly paying homeless people on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles to sign petitions in support of ballot initiatives – all using stolen identities of registered voters."
According to the federal indictment, Brass and his two accomplices – Courtney Price, 49, of Jacksonville, Florida, and Jateisha Herron, 33, of Boron, California – accessed California's voter registration database, pulled real names and addresses, and paid homeless men and women $2 to $3 to sign petitions in those voters' names.
A petition management company paid Brass approximately $41,600 for the six-month run.
The indictment includes a text Brass sent to Herron: "Never ever say down town LA."
He knew the operation ran on stolen identities and knew where the homeless were being recruited – so he made sure his crew never said it out loud.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the defendants "used stolen identities of registered voters to manufacture signatures on ballot petitions used to shape California law" – and used the homeless to cover their tracks.
All three defendants face up to five years in federal prison per count if convicted.
The California Ballot Petition Backers Who Funded James Brass Have Not Been Charged
This is the second major Skid Row ballot fraud bust of 2026, and it raises a question nobody in Sacramento wants to answer.
Who paid the petition management company that paid James Brass $41,600?
The backers behind that company aren't named in the indictment.
They aren't charged.
They wanted certain ballot measures on the California ballot badly enough to fund a six-month fraud operation built on stolen voter identities – and right now they face no legal exposure at all.
California has run ballot measures through a signature-collection system for more than a century, and left-wing interests have fought every attempt to add real accountability to that process.
They called concerns about signature fraud a conspiracy theory.
Then O'Keefe put it on hidden camera in February and federal prosecutors charged the first fraudster in May.
Now the man who called himself Lord is sitting in a federal courtroom.
The fraud was real.
The identities were stolen from real Californians – people who never signed anything and whose names were forged to shape state law.
Whoever hired the company that hired James Brass is still out there.
Sources:
- Jim Hoft, "BREAKING: FBI Nabs Skid Row Election Fraud Ringleader After Pre-Dawn Dash," The Gateway Pundit, September 10, 2026.
- Jim Hoft, "OUTRAGEOUS: California Election Fraudster Exposed by James O'Keefe AVOIDS PRISON After Paying Skid Row Homeless to Register to Vote," The Gateway Pundit, August 27, 2026.
- Catherine Salgado, "Feds Arrest California Fraudster Who Paid Homeless to Sign for Other Voters," PJ Media, September 10, 2026.
- Jill McLaughlin, "Feds Charge 3 People Accused of Paying LA's Homeless to Sign Petitions Using Stolen IDs," The Epoch Times, September 10, 2026.
- Ashley J. DiMella, "DOJ Charges California Woman for Allegedly Bribing Skid Row Homeless," Fox News, May 18, 2026.
- Stephen Dinan, "Skid Row Scam: Fraudsters Used Homeless to Pose as Valid Voters for California Referendum Drive," The Washington Times, September 11, 2026.
