The Student Association Election and Credentials committee has thrown out all the charges against Elevation '05 and will not consider new evidence of bribery from the Reform Our Campus party, according to SA officials.
Committee chair Joe Varghese told The Spectrum late Friday the case has been closed despite the surfacing of a second audio-taped conversation in which treasurer-elect Mazin Kased offers delegate candidate Francisco Baiocchi the papacy and the position of SA godfather.
Baiocchi also alleges that Kased tried to bribe him in an earlier conversation with SA jobs in turn for him dropping out of the race and turning on fellow party member Matthew Pelkey.
"We're going to take you into the family now," Kased says on the tape. "You can be anything you want next year. The pope? You got it. The weaker link in Rome will fall, and you will rise up, my son."
Following the election, in which the Reform Our Campus party received an old-fashioned beat down, the Reform Our Campus party filed charges of bribery, slander, perjury, rape, assault, tomfoolery, voyeurism, public nudity and a second amendment violation.
Mazin said he considers most the charges baseless and ridiculous.
"Ninety-nine percent of the charges brought against my party have no facts behind them whatsoever ... except for bribery. That one has some fact behind it. Actually, that one has a whole lot of fact behind it," Kased said.
Elevation has also filed counter-charges of bribery based on the way Baiocchi led Kased on the tape.
"So let me get this straight, and please speak loudly and slowly, preferably towards the direction of this pocket on the side of my backpack," Baiocchi said on the first tape.
Varghese said he considered the charges, but could not find Kased or any of the other party members guilty. He also said the decision had nothing to do with the fact that Kased is an incumbent SA official.
"Oh, it totally was because he's an incumbent SA official," Varghese said. "If Mazin weren't the SA Senate chair, I'd be singing a different tune for sure."
Despite the ruling, both Baiocchi and Pelkey (and that other girl they're running with) said they would keep fighting to bring truth and justice to SA.
"We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests," Baiocchi said. "Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: 'We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!' We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"
Pelkey said he believes if SA's crimes are revealed and vanquished once and for all, students will finally take interest in a pure, Republican, and honest SA.
"Wait a second," Pelkey said. "Weren't we running for SUNY SA delegate positions? So even if we were elected, essentially we wouldn't matter. Oh man."
According to Varghese, the bribery charges also have no basis because the positions offered were not Kased's to give. SA President Anthony Burgio is the only one who can offer the papacy. And as for the position of SA godfather, Varghese said, "that position permanently belongs to ... I mean ... um ... it doesn't exist ... no comment."
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
