Janelle Irwin Taylor
A Russian national living in South Florida has pleaded guilty to conspiring to submit fraudulent voter registrations, as well as four counts of submitting fraudulent voter registrations.
Dmitry Shushlebin, who resides in Miami Beach, entered his guilty plea on Friday at the federal courthouse in Tampa before Magistrate Judge Amanda Arnold Sansone.
“I determined that the guilty plea was knowledgeable and voluntary, and that the offense charged is supported by an independent basis in fact containing each of the essential elements of such offense,” Sansone wrote in her acceptance of the plea, noting that Shushlebin “be adjudged guilty and have sentence imposed accordingly.”
Shushlebin and alleged fellow conspirator Sanjar Jamilov are accused of submitting 132 fraudulent voter registration applications to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections in February and March of 2023. The pair submitted applications in names other than their own, in envelopes with return address labels that were all identically formatted and that contained the same typographic errors.
Other signs of fraud included repeated birth dates and nearly sequential Social Security numbers. The two suspects are also accused of submitting change of address forms to the U.S. Postal Service to route mail to three locations allegedly under the control of Shushlebin and Jamilov.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have investigated the case. The investigation began after a referral from the Florida Department of State’s Office of Election Crime and Security.
Both suspects were indicted on the charges in February.
Jamilov entered a guilty plea in his case in April. In the plea agreement, Jamilov states that Shushlebin hired him and others to submit more than 100 fraudulent voter registration applications to the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections.
Jamilov is an Uzbekistan citizen.
The fraudulent voter registration applications in question were denied by the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections office at the time.
Shushlebin had previously entered a not guilty plea to all counts against him, but has now changed his plea to guilty. It’s not clear what penalties Shushlebin faces for his alleged crimes, but Jamilov faces up to five years in prison for his role.
