AIDS Petition Fraud Case Figure Pleads

A Missouri political consultant pleaded no contest Monday to one count of voter registration fraud for his role in the gathering of signatures for the November, 1986, AIDS ballot initiative advanced by the organization of extremist Lyndon LaRouche.

Stanley Irvin Dale, 37, of Kansas City, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 31. He faces up to three years in prison.

In return for his plea before Los Angeles Superior Court David A. Horowitz, the seven other related felony charges against Dale were dropped by Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth R. Freeman. Dale had been charged with eight counts of inducing perjury and securing an ineligible person to vote.

Freeman said he is satisfied with the plea, calling it “appropriate.”

Dale is a professional petition circulator and was paid by the LaRouche organization to help gather signatures to qualify the AIDS initiative for the ballot.

The investigation of his activities began in June, 1986, when California authorities learned that about a half dozen Missouri residents had answered a newspaper advertisement and then were paid $400 a week for three weeks, plus expenses, to gather signatures for Proposition 64. It is a violation of state law for non-California residents to circulate such petitions. The law is intended as a safeguard against out-of-state interests secretly manipulating a California election.

The Proposition 64 campaign secured sufficient signatures to qualify it for the ballot, but it was soundly defeated by voters. The proposition sought to force state health officials to collect personal information on patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome and to bar them from some jobs. The initiative was widely opposed by civil rights advocates and many medical experts, who said such a measure was counter-productive.

Besides Dale, two others were charged with one felony count each of causing an ineligible person to register to vote. Preliminary hearings for the two, Andrea Diano, 23, of Leesburg, and Bruce E. Kilber, 40, of Seattle, are scheduled to be held next month.