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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — REAL News Michiana has uncovered a scheme by Democrat Indiana State Senate candidate and current St. Joseph County Treasurer Tim Swager in which he created a Political Action Committee funded by a shell company out of Delaware to launch attacks against his political opponent. If this sounds illegal, that’s because it more than likely is. There are currently several school board members in Goshen facing felony charges for a similar scheme, albeit, not nearly as sophisticated.
Swager has worked overtime to cover his tracks, using out of town associates, addresses with empty offices, virtual mailboxes, secret registered agents and apparent fake phone numbers. All of which was uncovered over a week long investigation by RNM.
THE PAC
REAL News Michiana started its investigation into this entire scheme after seeing a mailed attack ad against Swager’s opponent for State Senate District 10, incumbent David Niezgodski. The ads are effective, damaging and extremely professional, however, they were funded by an unknown Political Action Committee known as the Women’s Voice PAC. A quick search of Women’s Voice PAC found a professionally developed website and Facebook page with only three followers. The Facebook page has been putting out paid advertisements of which are all against Niezgodski, raising another red flag.
RNM then requested all of Women’s Voice PAC’s campaign filings with the state. The filings show the PAC was created in December of 2023, listing its address as a PO Box in South Bend. Three phone numbers listed on the documents go straight to generic voicemails when called.
The documents also list a woman by the name of Brianna Thomas as the President and Jena Stuckey as the Treasurer. The paperwork provides fake addresses for both — an empty office in the Marycrest Building on South Bend’s westside is listed for Stuckey. A virtual mailbox at the Staples on Ireland Road on South Bend’s southside is listed for Thomas.
RNM immediately began doing research on both Stuckey and Thomas. While we have not been able to confirm who Thomas is, RNM did track down Stuckey who lives in Fremont, Indiana — about 75 miles east of South Bend. It turns out, Fremont is Sawger’s hometown. He and Stuckey are long-time friends.
JENA STUCKEY
Stuckey is a former school board member in Fremont who resigned in 2021 amid major controversy in the school district. She currently works at Rees Incorporated in their customer service department. RNM called Rees and spoke with Stuckey over the phone last week. During that conversation, Stuckey confirmed Swager was involved in the PAC’s creation.
“I was kind of a point of contact, you know. Because I’m not obviously in South Bend.” Stuckey told RNM over the phone. “(Swager) is aware of it, yes. (Thomas) kind of headed it up, and they (Swager and Thomas) needed somebody that’s been, you know, I’ve been on like school board, So I don’t know if they thought I’d be… you know.”
Stuckey told RNM she has never spoken to Thomas or worked with her directly and, despite allegedly creating and working on the PAC together, she had no contact information for her.
SHELL COMPANY DONATIONS
According to Women’s Voice PAC’s most recent campaign filing, the PAC has received only two donations. Both of those donations were for $10,000 a piece. Both donations were made in early April. And, both were made by a company out of Delaware called Panza Consulting LLC.
Panza Consulting LLC appears to be a shell company created solely to launder and funnel money into the Women’s Voice PAC. According to Delaware Secretary of State records, Panza was created on March 20th of this year. It has a registered agent listed as “Republic Registered Agent LLC” — Republic Registered Agent LLC is connected to a company called bizee used by many people who create shell companies looking to hide their personal information.
Panza Consulting LLC has a barebones website with no navigation or contact information.
According to multiple sources, Panza Consulting LLC was created by Swager himself.
SWAGER’S MONEY
It turns out, Swager comes from a very wealthy family who owns a cell phone tower company called Swager Communications in Fremont, Indiana. According to online sources, Swager Communications has an annual revenue of between $5-million and $10-million. Swager is now one of the main owners of the company, as both of his parents recently passed away.
Finance records for Swager’s campaign show he has mostly self-funded his campaign, with nearly $30,000 in his coffers coming from donations from himself and Swager Communications.
For nearly a week, RNM has worked unsuccessfully to get in touch with Swager. We have called him, texted him, reached out to him on social media, visited his home and gone to his office at the County-City Building in Downtown South Bend multiple times.
On Friday, we sat on the County-City building and outside of his office for several hours. He never showed up to work.
CAMPAIGN CRIMES
According to the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, the scheme appears to be in violation of Indiana Code 3-9-4-16 — which prohibits making or accepting a campaign contribution in another person’s name. Filing a fraudulent campaign report is also a felony.
There are currently several school board members in Goshen facing felony charges for a similar scheme.
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