NEW YORK, NY — Nicole Torres, an elected district leader in the Bronx and an employee of the New York City Board of Elections (NYC-BOE), has been indicted on multiple charges related to a scheme in which she allegedly demanded payments from Bronx residents in exchange for selecting them as poll workers and falsified documents to fraudulently obtain salaries for no-show workers. The indictment was unsealed on Thursday following Torres’s arrest, and she was presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams announced the charges, stating, “As alleged, Nicole Torres, an elected official and City employee, brazenly abused her power and lined her own pockets for over five years by demanding that poll workers pay her bribes in order to work as a poll worker and by falsifying records to make it look like certain individuals worked as poll workers during an election even though they never did.”
According to the indictment, Torres, who has been a district leader for New York’s 81st Assembly District since 2019 and an NYC-BOE employee since at least 2016, engaged in two primary illegal schemes.
Scheme 1: Extortion for Poll Worker Positions From 2019 through August 2024, Torres allegedly required Bronx residents to pay her or a local organization referred to as the “Bronx Organization” sums of money, typically $150, in exchange for being selected as poll workers for upcoming elections. Torres personally profited approximately $28,000 from this scheme, often receiving payments through mobile payment apps, money orders, and checks, some of which she altered to deposit into her own bank account.
Scheme 2: Falsifying Attendance Records Starting in 2018 and continuing through August 2024, Torres is accused of falsifying NYC-BOE attendance records to make it appear that certain individuals worked as poll workers when they did not. Torres and her co-conspirators, including coordinators who oversaw poll site attendance records, split the fraudulently obtained salaries issued to the no-show workers. Torres is alleged to have personally received at least $36,000 from this scheme.
In one instance, Torres and a co-conspirator used the name of a no-show poll worker in March 2021, splitting the salary issued for work that was never performed.
Charges and Potential Penalties Torres, 43, faces multiple charges, including:
- One count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
- One count of extortion under color of official right
- One count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud
- One count of honest services wire fraud
- One count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud
- One count of mail fraud
- One count of aggravated identity theft
Each of the first six counts carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while the aggravated identity theft charge carries a mandatory term of two years.
