Federal Grand Jury Indicts 10 Noncitizens for Voting in North Carolina’s 2024 Election; Charges Announced as Early Voting Begins
Ten noncitizens living in North Carolina have been indicted on federal charges of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register and vote, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina announced Thursday, the same day early voting opened across the state for the 2026 midterms.
Nine of the defendants are lawful permanent residents, prosecutors said, and one is in the country illegally. All ten are charged with falsely claiming citizenship to vote under 18 U.S.C. § 1015, a felony that carries up to five years in prison, and nine are also charged with voting by an alien under 18 U.S.C. § 611. According to the indictments, every one of them cast a ballot in the November 2024 general election, and several had voted in general elections going back to 2004 and earlier.
An indictment is an accusation, and each defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
THE 10 NONCITIZENS WHO WERE CHARGED
The office identified the defendants as natives of El Salvador, the former Yugoslavia, Germany, Jamaica, Haiti, Panama and Canada, living in Cumberland, Robeson, Wayne, Granville, Harnett and Wake counties. The one defendant described as an illegal alien is Eduardd Omar Majano Sosa, 22, of Cumberland County, who prosecutors say registered and voted in 2024.
The longest alleged voting histories belong to lawful permanent residents. Ramona Abreu-Exia, 71, a native of Germany, is accused of registering in 2004 and voting in eight general elections and one primary through 2024. Robert Harold Corbett, 69, a native of Canada living in Wake County, registered in 1998 and voted in seven general elections, the indictment alleges. Karl Fout, 73, also a native of Germany, allegedly voted in seven general elections after registering in 2008.
The case numbers listed by the office run from 5:26-CR-206 through 5:26-CR-215 in Raleigh, plus 7:26-CR-64 in Wilmington. Together with two earlier 2026 cases, a Canadian citizen convicted of voting since 2004 and a convicted felon charged with voting while on supervised release, the office said it has now indicted or convicted 12 people for illegal voting this year.
‘AMERICAN ELECTIONS ARE FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS’
FBI Director Kash Patel said the arrests show that “protecting American elections from criminal interference continues to be one of the top priorities of this FBI.” U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said that “every non-citizen who chooses to illegally vote subverts our constitutional republic, actively canceling out the vote of a law-abiding citizen,” and called the charges “a stark warning to anyone contemplating voting illegally in our 2026 election: we are watching, we will find you if you do it, and we will prosecute you.”
Acting ICE Director David J. Venturella and Reid Davis, the FBI special agent in charge in North Carolina, also issued statements. The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations gathered the evidence, the office said, and federal agents arrested the defendants after the indictments were returned.
Sam Hayes, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said the board identified the cases after running the state’s voter rolls through the federal SAVE database with the Department of Homeland Security in April. The board has also sent letters to about 1,400 more registrants flagged by the database as possible noncitizens, Hayes told reporters, according to WRAL. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein told reporters the same day that the database “contains regular errors” and that a high share of people it flags turn out to be citizens.
THE TIMING AND THE DEFENDANTS’ FIRST DAY IN COURT
Eight of the defendants made their first appearances in federal court in Raleigh on Thursday morning and were released without having to post bond, with prosecutors citing their long residence in the United States, WRAL reported. One defendant was scheduled to appear in New Bern. None has entered a plea yet, and all were assigned federal public defenders, who declined to comment.
Asked why the court appearances and press conference came on the first day of early voting even though the indictments were returned last week, Boyle said the timing was a coincidence, according to WRAL. He argued that even a single illegal vote matters because “the legitimacy of our elections depend not only on the actual security of the system, but also on the confidence that our citizens have in it.”
Corbett, the Canadian-born defendant, told WRAL after court that he was adopted by an American mother as a young child, believed he was a dual citizen, and voted for President Trump in 2024. “I voted like five or six times,” he said. “It was never an issue because I thought I was a dual citizen.”
The 12 cases amount to a small fraction of North Carolina’s roughly 7.9 million registered voters. The Justice Department has made noncitizen voting a priority this year; it sued California on Wednesday over roughly 20,000 alleged noncitizen registrants and has brought similar prosecutions in Missouri and elsewhere.
Sources: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina, press release (Oct. 15, 2026): https://www.justice.gov/usao-ednc/pr/ednc-unveils-ten-federal-indictments-alleging-noncitizens-voted-2024-election | WRAL News coverage of the press conference and first appearances: https://www.wral.com/news/state/6-indicted-lying-citizenship-voting-2024-election-october-2026/ | Case numbers 5:26-CR-206 through 5:26-CR-215 and 7:26-CR-64, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina (PACER).
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