A Russian national and an Uzbek national, both residing in Florida, were arrested for their alleged participation in a scheme to submit false and fraudulent voter registration applications to the Pinellas County, Florida, Supervisor of Elections.
According to court filings, Dmitry Shushlebin, 45, a citizen of Russia living in Miami Beach, and Sanjar Jamilov, 32, a citizen of Uzbekistan living in St. Petersburg, conspired to submit 132 fraudulent voter registration applications to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections (SOE) in February and March 2023.
The SOE became suspicious of applications submitted in names other than their own, in envelopes with return and address labels that were identically formatted, including containing the same typographical error, and bore various indicia of fraud including, among other things, repeating dates of birth and addresses and nearly sequential social security numbers.
Change of address forms were also submitted to the U.S. Postal Service to route mail to the names and addresses on the fraudulent applications to three locations that Shushlebin and Jamilov allegedly controlled in Pinellas County.
The SOE compared the names to the records at the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle (DHSMV) and Department of State (DOS) and confirmed that no applicants had ever received driver’s licenses or identification cards in Florida. The SOE issued a rejection letter to each of the voter registration applications.
On March 7, 2023, a man with a Russian accent, claiming to be Foster Haugen called the SOE asking why his voter registration application had been rejected. The SOE official told the caller they could process the application if he would bring identification to their office. The caller ID information was linked to a “Weston Dyer.” That name is a known alias for Shushlebin.
Cell phone call tracing along with fingerprints on the application are just some of the evidence against Jamilov and Shushlebin. The Change of Address requests were submitted to three addresses. Sixty-nine of them went to an address in Ft. Myers, 17 went to an address on Logan Street in Clearwater, and 45 went to an address on Gandy Blvd. Search warrants of the suspect’s Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple iCloud accounts provided additional evidence.
Shushlebin and Jamilov are each charged with one count of conspiring to submit fraudulent voter registration applications and give false information in registering to vote. If convicted, each faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg for the Middle District of Florida, Acting Inspector in Charge Steven Hodges of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Miami Division, and Special Agent in Charge Matthew W. Fodor of the FBI Tampa Field Office made the announcement.
The US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), the FBI, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are investigating the case. This case began after a referral from the Florida Department of State, Office of Election Crime and Security.