A 68-year-old Carlisle man is facing up to 10 years in federal prison, accused of helping his wife falsely claim U.S. citizenship so she could vote in the 2024 election. Thomas Holtzman and his wife, 50-year-old Marisol Guzman, were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, with Guzman accused of casting an illegal ballot despite not being a U.S. citizen. Holtzman, who is a U.S. citizen, was charged with aiding and abetting, fraudulent registration, and making a false statement of citizenship to vote, while Guzman was charged with voting by an alien.
The Carlisle case was one of five criminal actions the Department of Justice announced on September 4, part of a coordinated federal push across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin, according to the Department of Justice. In total, four noncitizens were charged with illegal voting and one U.S. citizen was charged with aiding and abetting, spanning both the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election. The Carlisle couple was among four defendants named in the initial Pennsylvania and New Jersey filings.
Harrisburg Woman Faces Steepest Penalty in PA Cases
A third Pennsylvania defendant, 30-year-old Katya Rodriguez, a Mexican national living in Harrisburg, was indicted on charges of false citizenship statements, fraudulent registration, and voting as an alien in the 2024 election. Federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Pennsylvania said Rodriguez faces up to 11 years in prison if convicted on all counts — the highest maximum penalty among the five defendants charged in the sweep. Homeland Security Investigations conducted the federal probes into both Pennsylvania cases, per the Justice Department.
In New Jersey, a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey accuses 41-year-old Mercedes Alexandra Cardoso of Union County of entering the country from Ecuador on a B-2 visa before registering to vote online and casting a ballot in the state's June 2024 primary, which included federal presidential candidates. Cardoso registered through New Jersey's Online Voter Registration System and is charged with voting by an alien in a federal election and falsely certifying that she was a U.S. citizen. Her initial court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge José R. Almonte in Newark. The New Jersey case, unlike the Pennsylvania indictments, involved a joint investigation by HSI, the FBI, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Wisconsin Case Reaches Back to 2022 Midterms
The fifth defendant, 25-year-old Mexican national Jesus Javier Jurado Garcia of Beloit, Wisconsin, was charged via criminal information on September 2 for knowingly voting as a noncitizen during the November 2022 midterm election, according to The Heartland Post. His case, filed in the Western District of Wisconsin, shows the federal sweep reached back beyond the 2024 presidential race into an earlier election cycle. All defendants across the three states are presumed innocent, and the charges against them remain unproven allegations.
Why the Penalties Vary So Widely
The wide gap in potential prison time among the five defendants comes down to which specific federal statutes prosecutors invoked. Simply voting as a noncitizen in a federal election is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 611. Immigration consequences are not detailed in these criminal charges.
Knowingly making a false claim of U.S. citizenship to register or vote is a far more serious, separate felony under 18 U.S.C. § 1015(f), punishable by up to five years in prison, according to Alma Immigration. That charge also creates an absolute bar to lawful permanent residency or naturalization, even if the person never actually cast a ballot. That distinction explains why Holtzman and Rodriguez face sentences of a decade or more, while Guzman and Cardoso, charged only with alien voting, face a maximum of one year each.
Federal Crackdown Widens Ahead of Midterms
The five cases fit a broader pattern of stepped-up federal scrutiny of voter rolls heading into the 2026 midterm cycle. Homeland Security Investigations was involved in election-related investigations alongside federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Yet the scale of this enforcement push stands in contrast to how rarely noncitizens actually cast ballots. A July 2026 analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that verified noncitizen voting remains extremely rare nationwide, with state audits showing such ballots make up a microscopic share of total votes cast. A 2024 statewide review in Michigan identified 15 people alleged to be noncitizens who cast ballots in the November 2024 election, representing approximately 0.00028 percent of more than 5.7 million votes cast statewide, as Hoodline previously reported.
The Carlisle indictment also comes amid other federal cases alleging illegal voting, though for now, all five defendants named in the September 4 announcement remain innocent unless and until they are convicted in court.
