Prosecutors link LA contract to Smartmatic ‘slush fund’ as voting tech firm battles Fox in court

Miami – Smartmatic, the election technology company that pursues Fox News for defamation, now says a growing list of criminal allegations against some of its leaders – including a new assertion of federal prosecutors according to which a “silence fund” to bribe the foreign officials was in part funded with the product of the sale of voting machines in Los Angeles.

The new details on the criminal affair have surfaced this month in the judicial files in Miami, where the co-founder of the company, Roger Pinate, and two Venezuelan colleagues were charged last year to unite of the Philippines officials in exchange for a contract to help organize the 2016 presidential elections of this country. Pinate, who no longer works for Smartmatic, pleaded not guilty.

To support the case, federal prosecutors seek to present evidence which, according to them, show that some of the nearly $ 300 million that the company was paid by the County of Los Angeles to help modernize its voting systems was diverted to a fund controlled by Pinate by Pinate thanks to the use of screens abroad, of false invoices and other means.

Smartmatic himself was not responsible for raping the laws, and the American prosecutors did not accuse Smartmatic or his leaders of falsification of electoral results. Likewise, they did not accuse those responsible for the County of Los Angeles of reprehensible acts, or said if they were even aware of the alleged corruption program. County officials say it was not the case.

But the case against Pinate takes place while Smartmatic continues a legal action of 2.7 billion dollars accusing defamation Fox for having disseminated false complaints according to which the company helped to rig the American presidential election of 2020. Fox says that this legitimately pointed out allegations worthy of interest.

Smartmatic said that the new file of the Ministry of Justice was filled with “false declarations” and is “not attached to reality”.

“Let’s be clear: Smartmatic wins business because we are the best in what we do,” the company said in a statement. “We operate ethically and respected all the laws always, both in the county of Los Angeles and in all the jurisdictions where we operate.”

However, Fox went to court to try to get more information on County’s relations with SmartMatic. The network has long tried to take advantage of the allegations of corruption to undermine SmartMatic’s account of its commercial prospects – a key element in the calculation of potential damage – and to present it as a company plagued by a scandal was low by its own legal problems, and not Fox emissions.

Smartmatic, based south of Florida, was founded more than two decades ago by a group of Venezuelans who had early success to work for the government of the late Hugo Chavez, an electronic voting devotee. The company then developed worldwide, providing voting machines and other technologies to help perform elections in 25 countries, from Argentina to Zambia.

He received his contract to help with the Los Angeles County elections in 2018. The contract, which SmartMatic continues to serve, gave the company important importance in what was then an American market for rapidly expanding American voting technology.

But SmartMatic said his belongings were sent after Fox News had given President Donald Trump’s lawyers a platform to paint the company as part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 elections.

Fox himself finally broadcast a play refuting the allegations after the lawyers of Smartmatic complained, but he defended himself against the defamation trial in New York.

“Faced with the imminent financial collapse and the accusation act, SmartMatic saw a lottery ticket in dispute in the coverage of Fox News of the 2020 elections,” said network lawyers in a court.

Smartmatic challenged the characterization of Fox in court documents such as “lies” and “another attempt to divert the attention of its long -standing lies and defamation campaign”.

As part of his efforts to investigate the work of Smartmatic in Los Angeles, Fox continued to force the clerk of the County of Los Angeles Dean Logan to put public archives back on his relations with the American subsidiary of Smartmatic.

Fox lawyers also questioned Logan in a deposit on a dinner that an intelligent manager bought for him from the Magic Castle Club and restaurant reserved for members in Los Angeles and a smart trip that Logan made in Taiwan in 2019 to supervise the manufacture of equipment by an intelligent supplier. American prosecutors claim that the seller was deeply involved in the alleged bribes’ program in the Philippines. The five -day trip included an airplane ticket in business class, a hotel and many meals as well as time for visits, said Fox.

“The travel route shows that the trip was not a financial inspection or an audit. It was a boondoggy,” said Fox in court documents.

Logan, who did not report the donations in his financial disclosure, said in his deposition in 2023 that the Magic castle meal was a “social opportunity” unrelated to the business and that he was not required to report the trip to Taiwan because his visit was covered by the contract.

Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the Logan office, said in a statement that corruption allegations are not linked to the company’s work for the County of Los Angeles and that the county did not know how the product of his contract would be used. All Smartmatic work has been assessed to comply with the conditions of the contract, added Sanchez, and as soon as Pinate was charged with him and other defendants were prohibited from carrying out business with the county.

As for the trip to Taiwan, Sanchez said that another county has joined Logan for the trip and that the two carried out several visits to the site and carried out detailed examinations of the necessary electoral technological products before the start of their manufacture. Logan’s spouse accompanied him on the trip, but at the couple’s expense, the spokesperson added.

“Unfortunately, it is an attempt to use the county as a pawn in two serious legal actions to which the county was not a party,” said Sanchez.

Smartmatic has set two other defamation proceedings he brought against the Conservative media Newsmax and One America News Network during their 2020 US electoral coverage. The regulation conditions were not disclosed.

The American prosecutors in Miami also accused Pinate of secretly uniting the long -standing electoral chief of Venezuela by giving him a luxury house with a pool in Caracas. Prosecutors say that the home was transferred to the election manager in order to repair relations after the steep exit of SmartMatic from Venezuela in 2017 when she accused the manipulation government Nicolas Maduro of manipulating the results of the elections for a constituent rubber assembly.

Smartmatic denied the allegations of corruption, saying that it had ceased all operations in Venezuela in 2017 after whistling the government and never tried to secure business there again.

“There are no melting snow funds, no gifted house,” said the company. Instead, he accused Fox of engaging in a “victim reprieve” and attempts to use “frivolous” judicial files “we are more about the allegations of the Ministry of Justice not proven”.

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Peltz reported in New York.