Luis Pozzolo, who is running for Congress in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District as a Republican against incumbent Democrat Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-03), asked Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich this past week to investigate another GOP challenger, Nina Becker. He alleges that she “has a history of producing phony petition signatures” and is connected to “a known leftist white supremacist group.” Becker is currently being prosecuted by the AGO for multiple felonies and misdemeanors, including some related to collecting petition signatures, and a judge in the case has declared her mentally incompetent.
Pozzolo told The Arizona Sun Times, “She is not alone — she is mentally Ill but has been used for somebody else — we want to know who is behind it.”
Pozzolo asked the AGO to look into three issues. First, “Why did the Arizona Secretary of State allow Becker to use old CD7 petition signatures to enter the new CD7 race?” Second, since “Becker was declared unfit to stand trial,” what has changed? And finally, “How far, and for what reasons, is SURJ involved in this race?” SURJ is an acronym for Standing Up for Racial Justice. Pozzolo cites the slogan on SURJ’s website, “a home for white people working for justice.”
He said, “It has been purported that Becker is a shill for SURJ, a known leftist white supremacist group, that has radical aspirations.” He said SURJ has contributed $5,000 to her campaign, which shows up on Open Secrets. “As a Latino immigrant, I take serious issue on this mode of attack, political or not.”
All of the staff and leadership at SURJ appear to be white. One news release is entitled “White People’s Work in Preventing Another Jan 6th.” Another article is called “White People’s Stake in Ending the White Republic.” The site makes claims like “Many white people, like poor and working class, disabled, and queer people, have also been harmed by systemic oppression” and “it is important to bring more and more white people into our work.” They assert, “We reject the harmful stereotypes and the analysis that poor and working-class white people are responsible for racism.”
Regarding the prosecution of Becker, Pozzolo stated, “[H]er motives for being in this race are highly suspicious, as she was previously disqualified as a candidate for office.” He went on, “Becker’s indiscretions in that race led to an indictment being levied against her.”
Becker previously ran for office in the old CD 7 in 2020, against Democrat Ruben Gallego who currently holds the seat. Shelby Busch, a local conservative activist who runs We the People Arizona Alliance, was working on the campaign of Republican Josh Barnett, who was running against Gallego. She noticed Becker jumping in the race and looked at her signature petitions. They all looked like they were done with the same handwriting and included the names of people they were certain did not sign them because they were friends. One was Busch’s daughter-in-law.
Busch filed a complaint against Becker, and in early 2020, Becker was charged with fraudulent schemes and practices; willful concealment, a class 5 felony, five counts of presentment of false instrument for filing, a class 6 felony, and nine counts of improper signing of petitions, a class 1 misdemeanor.
After Busch filed the complaint, she said Becker called her and asked her to drop her complaint in exchange for Becker giving Busch and her partner jobs when Becker won. Busch refused, pointing out that this was illegal. Becker filed a complaint against her, alleging that Busch was a felon and forced people to sign petitions. Busch told The Sun Times that Becker forged affidavits from people saying this about her who were her friends so clearly they did not.
The judge ordered Becker to drop out of the 2020 race. Becker asked the court to give her a mental competency evaluation, which was granted. The court’s latest minute entry in her prosecution, dated March 10, 2022, which analyzed whether she is mentally competent to stand trial, found her “criminally incompetent.” Judge Nicholas Hoskins ordered her to undergo treatment to restore competency in order to resume the prosecution.
Judge Hoskins made several observations about Becker in the minute entry. “The court notes that Defendant appears to share similarities, by presentation rather than specific beliefs, with sovereign citizen defendants.” He also noted that “Defendant holds a variety of false beliefs that appear to impact her assessment of trial.” He was concerned that she didn’t appear to understand she is facing felony charges. He analyzed the evaluation of three doctors, and decided that one who was the most persuasive found that “Defendant’s beliefs were delusional false fixed beliefs.”
Another campaign worker for Barnett played a voice message for The Sun Times that she had saved from 2020, from a friend who she had sign one of Barnett’s petitions. The message said Becker contacted him and claimed that Barnett’s campaign workers like her were “threatening” people to make them sign his petitions. The friend said he responded and told Becker that’s not true, he wasn’t threatened into signing it.
Pozzolo and Busch told The Sun Times Becker is forging signatures again this year, and she’s also forging the affidavits on the back of the petitions of the people purporting to collect the signatures. One of them is 86, suffered a stroke and is housebound in a walker, another one is dead, and two listed the wrong addresses, Busch said. In addition, most of the signatures are from the wrong district. With redistricting, Becker should be submitting signatures from the old CD 7 which is now the new CD 3. Instead, she submitted signatures from the old CD 7 and filed to run in the new CD 7. They will be filing a complaint on Monday challenging Becker’s signatures.
Additionally, Busch said some of the donations Becker provided to the FEC were clearly false. One was allegedly from Jeffrey Epstein, who is dead, and the other was from Bill and Melinda Gates. They have been removed from the FEC website, Busch speculates due to complaints.
One of the photos featured on Becker’s campaign website shows three white people on camels with the caption “White Boy Summer Qatar 2021.” The website is bare bones, with very little on it besides the slogan “Vote America First.” There is no bio on the website, no positions on issues, nor even an indication of which office she is running for.
Pozzolo is frustrated that the Arizona Secretary of State made no effort to check Becker’s signatures, considering the forgery was so blatant. He told The Sun Times that hiring an attorney to challenge a candidate’s petition signatures costs $7,500 to $15,000. Fortunately, Busch has been helping him. Neither Becker nor SURJ responded to questions about this by the time this article was published.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Luis Pozzolo” by Luis Pozzolo.
