Former Boyceville man charged with election fraud reportedly awaiting deportation
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — A 30-year-old former Boyceville man charged with election fraud is reportedly in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is awaiting deportation.
Antonio Antunez-Sandoval is charged with one felony count of election fraud and one misdemeanor count of using fraud to obtain an identification card.
Antunez-Sandoval was scheduled for a status conference in Dunn County Circuit Court October 13 before Judge Christina M. Mayer.
Antunez-Sandoval was not in court, although his attorney, Richard Louis Yonko, was in court, according to online court records.
Yonko told the court that Antunez-Sandoval was in ICE custody and that he had received notice the previous day.
Dunn County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Maki asked if Antunez-Sandoval was facing deportation, and Yonko said that he believed the defendant was facing deportation.
Judge Mayer scheduled another status conference for November 18.
According to the criminal complaint, Boyceville Police Chief Greg Lamkin became aware of a situation with nomination papers for the Boyceville Village Board in 2020 after speaking with Darlene Lee, Boyceville clerk-treasurer, who said that one of the candidates on the ballot for the village board in the spring election had come to the village hall to register to vote and had identified himself with a Minnesota driver’s license.
Police Chief Lamkin reviewed the signature pages for the village board candidate’s nomination papers and observed the signature of Antonio Antunez-Sandoval. Police Chief Lamkin has had prior contacts with Antunez-Sandoval and cited him for operating without a license in 2019. The police chief identified Antunez-Sandoval by a Mexican consular identification card, and at that time, he was on probation in Eau Claire County. Another Boyceville office had pulled over Antunez-Sandoval in January of 2020, and Antunez-Sandoval had a valid Wisconsin driver’s license issued to him in September of 2019, according to the complaint.
Police Chief Lamkin contacted a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Senior Detention and Deportation officer, who said Antunez-Sandoval is a Mexican national illegally in the United States arrested by ICE in March of 2017 and was released on bond in July of 2017 and is still in removal proceedings.
The police chief also contacted the Wisconsin Department of Transportation Division of Motor Vehicles to obtain copies of records Antunez-Sandoval used to apply for his driver’s license at the Menomonie DMV service center. Antunez-Sandoval indicated on the paperwork that he is a “temporary visitor,” after scratching out the check mark that he was a “permanent or conditional permanent resident,” and presented a social security card marked “valid for work only with DHS authorization,” employment authorization, his Mexican passport, and a pay stub from Speciality Pallet and Crate.
When the police chief spoke with the DMV fraud unit, a representative confirmed Antunez-Sandoval had multiple records, including operating while suspended in Eau Claire in 2015, operating without a license in Boyceville in 2018 and operating without a license in Eau Claire in 2018.
The DMV representative said Antunez-Sandoval was at first denied a work permit in 2019 and but then was issued a work permit in July of 2019, in spite of being in the country illegally and awaiting deportation, according to the complaint.
Following a preliminary hearing in Dunn County Circuit Court on July 29 of this year for the charges of election fraud and using fraud to obtain an identification card, Judge Mayer found probable cause and bound Antunenz-Sandoval over for trial.
At the time of the preliminary hearing, Antunenz-Sandoval was in court in custody from the Eau Claire Claire County Jail.
Antunenz-Sandoval entered a plea of “not guilty” to the charges in Dunn County.
