By Kelly Lucas
Campus Editor

The eight counts of illegal campaigning filed against Clay Slaughter and Kurt Weiand were not dismissed at Wednesday evening's Purdue Student Government court trials.

According to Michael Brown, special prosecutor, the motion to dismiss the charges was denied and the trial will be heard Monday. This may, in fact, push the announcement of the new student body president and vice president back until Monday evening at the latest.

The announcement was originally supposed to be announced April 7 and continues to be pushed back due to pending infractions.

According to Weiand, a junior in the School of Liberal Arts, assistant prosecutor Brian Vercel is investigating one more aspect of the charges — charged by Vercel and assistant prosecutor Shyam Sriram — and depending on what he finds, he may choose to dismiss the charges.

"Shyam and Brian are working on a plea bargain or dismissal of charges," said Heather Higgins, chief justice. "Even if they are not dismissed, a chance for a plea bargain is still possible."

Higgins said the election secretary may announce the winners today if a dismissal happens; however, if it turns up that this matter will have to go to trial, the announcement will be extended until Monday.

"I'm fairly disappointed; this case is lacking merit," said Weiand. "It's delaying the results of a trial which may end in an acquittal and they know that."

Counts 1 through 6 against Slaughter and Weiand stem from a mass mailing the candidates sent to students living in the residence halls. According to Weiand, the prosecution believes Slaughter and Weiand did not have the authority to send mass campaign mailings because they are not an organization; however, Weiand said they have the right to act as a student organization through PSG.

The prosecution is also accusing Slaughter and Weiand of sending campaign mail supporting their campaign during voting April 4 through 6; however, Weiand said they sent the mailings out the day before voting began. Campaigning during voting is deemed illegal.

"They were all sent out on Monday (April 3) and people obviously didn't check their mail that day," said Weiand. "Basically, they are trying to hold us responsible for what day people check their mail."

Counts 7 through 8 stem from table talks which were posted in three of the residence halls during voting. According to Weiand, the table talks were supposed to be posted on Monday prior to the day voting began; however, the fax that was supposed to be sent from Smalley Center to all of the residence halls was not sent out until Monday evening.

"It ran during elections, which is illegal, but we were unaware of that and we had no intentions of it running," said Weiand.

If found guilty of all 8 counts, Slaughter and Weiand will have 8 percent of their total votes subtracted.

Weiand believes the 8 counts are absurd and said he and Slaughter, a freshman in the School of Science, were never notified of the charges against them and did not know the nature of the charges.

"All these charges were filed by Jim Vaca after (doctoral student) Rick Ridenour filed the charges against Vaca; it's pure retaliation," said Weiand.

Weiand said if the announcement of the student body president and vice president is pushed back any further that it already has been, students will stop caring altogether and lose interest in the elections.

Vaca and Patrick Mondi expressed their outrage with their trial outcome and all trials in general.

"We'll have 160 votes taken away from us because of minor infractions," said Mondi. "PSG wonders why it has the reputation it has. No wonder the students don't care about PSG. The organization is in complete disarray and is not working for the best interests of the students, nor does it care."

Vaca said, "Most lawyers would be (disbarred) or out of business if they had an average like this, but in PSG you can harass and file accusation after accusation and have them all proven wrong. This is a special prosecutor out of control, and he has single-handedly ensured the will of the people will be overturned."

• If the new student body president and vice president are announced Friday, check the Purdue Exponent Web site at www.purdueexponent.org to get up—to—the—minute election results.