Published July 20. 2026 02:45PM<\/p>\n
United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Matthew Laiss, 32, of Bethlehem, was sentenced today to three years of probation with the first six months on home confinement, a $6,000 fine, and $200 special assessment by United States District Judge Joseph F. Leeson Jr. for election fraud offenses in connection with the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n
The defendant was charged by indictment in September of last year with one count of voting more than once in a federal election and one count of voter fraud. In March, he was convicted on both charges at trial.<\/p>\n
As detailed in court filings, from at least October 2012 until about August 2020, Laiss resided in, and was lawfully registered to vote in Ottsville, Pennsylvania, a municipality located in Bucks County. In or around August 2020, Laiss moved his primary residence from Ottsville to Frostproof, Florida. The same month, he applied for and obtained a Florida driver\u2019s license and registered to vote in Florida.<\/p>\n
In October 2020, the Bucks County Board of Elections mailed a ballot for the November 2020 general election to the defendant\u2019s former address in Ottsville, where Laiss\u2019s parents continued to reside.<\/p>\n
As proven at trial, on or about Oct. 31, 2020, Laiss filled out and returned the Pennsylvania mail-in ballot, casting a vote for the offices of president and vice president of the United States of America.<\/p>\n
On about Nov. 3, 2020, Laiss went to a polling location in or around Frostproof, Florida, and voted in the 2020 general election, casting a vote for the offices of president and vice president of the United States of America.<\/p>\n
This case was investigated by the FBI, with assistance from the Pennsylvania Department of State, and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Dubnoff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published July 20. 2026 02:45PM United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Matthew Laiss, 32, of Bethlehem, was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-248133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}