The former New England chairman of President Bush’s re-election campaign pleaded innocent in federal court Monday to charges he helped jam Democrats’ get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002.

James Tobin, 44, of Bangor, Maine, faces two criminal counts each of conspiring to make harassing telephone calls and aiding and abetting telephone harassment. The operation also involved a ride-to-the-polls phone line set up by the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters’ union.

Tobin, who was northeast political director of the Republican Senatorial Committee at the time, was indicted Dec. 1 after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. He faces up to five years in federal prison if convicted.

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"He’s no different than a street hooker in Manchester," [U.S. Magistrate Judge James] Muirhead said. "If he’s guilty, then I find his crime as offensive as any other crime." [emphasis added]

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 3:27 PM | Basie! Home