GENESEO–No one could have reasonably anticipated that at 5 p.m. on summer of 2025 Fridays, supporters of Rev. Jason McGuire would gather with him near the Livingston County jail entrance just before his surrender for weekend-long incarceration.

Yet that’s what has happened.

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McGuire, a former Livingston County Conservative party, or LCCP, chair, and the current executive director of New York Families Foundation and New York Families Action, is bright, personable, cheerful, dedicated, and principled, all of which make him an effective advocate.

According to https://newyorkfamilies.org/2025/07/mcguire-responds-to-prosecution-this-is-political-retribution-not-justice, the prosecution of McGuire arose from a 2018 complaint that a political opponent filed. After

≤ state demands for donor lists and sermon recordings, plus

≤ years of investigation, including of 700 pages of documents that McGuire produced in response to eight grand-jury subpoenas,

the state found only that McGuire had omitted — from political-speech reports filed with the state — reimbursements totaling $1283.76.

McGuire told this column outside the Livingston County jail on Aug. 15 that he then produced the receipts.

If such an issue had been before the Federal Election Commission, or FEC, the amending of political-speech reports would likely have ended the matter.

It’s public knowledge that the FEC regularly dismisses, based on prosecutorial discretion, political-speech matters involving less than $1000. It’s safe to predict that at most, the FEC would have issued an admonishment letter to McGuire.

Yet New York prosecutors pursued the matter way, way beyond that.

The estimated expenses of defending McGuire at trial were $250,000, according to https://newyorkfamilies.org/2025/07/mcguire-responds-to-prosecution-this-is-political-retribution-not-justice.

McGuire said on Aug. 15 that his defense had already cost $100,000, so he agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors regarding the reimbursements totaling $1283.76.

All this over $1283.76? Yes.

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But there’s more.

After the plea, prosecutors issued a press release at https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2025/attorney-general-james-announces-conviction-new-york-political-party-leader.

It said the plea was “for illegally using funds from the LCCP’s political committee for personal expenses” and that McGuire had “filed false campaign(-)finance(-)disclosure reports with the New York (s)tate Board of Elections to avoid disclosing over $16,000 in LCCP funds that he transferred to himself. McGuire spent these funds on a variety of personal expenses for himself and his wife.”

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McGuire said on Aug. 15 that he knew nothing of those allegations until the press release.

“Those accounts didn’t even have $16,000 in them,” he said.

Where did state officials get that figure?

“We don’t know,” he said. “They made it up.”

Did the plea deal include not prosecuting him for what prosecutors said in the press release?

“No,” he said.

The “no” answer makes McGuire’s case more, not less, bizarre.

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“The statements,” said McGuire’s counsel, Dr. David Rothenburg of Rochester, at https://newyorkfamilies.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Rothenberg-04042025.pdf, “that (Rev.) McGuire abused his position with the Conservative Party to line his own pockets with party funds, or that he committed any theft whatsoever, cannot be found in the plea agreement or the (i)nformation to which he pled guilty. (Rev.) McGuire adamantly denies any such allegations.”

“Jason did not plead guilty to theft, misappropriation, or using political(-)party funds for personal expenses,” said Dr. Stephen Hayford, New York Freedom Foundation’s, or NYFF’s policy director, at https://newyorkfamilies.org/2025/04/fact-checking-ag-letitia-james-release-regarding-jason-mcguire. “(H)e pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors arising out of errors in campaign(-)finance paperwork. He didn’t steal anything.”

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But there’s even more.

Thereafter, for what at the FEC likely would have led to an admonishment letter at most, the state Supreme Court in Livingston County sentenced McGuire to eight weekends in the Livingston County jail.

The weekends began July 25. Because he has served some partial days, he said his sentence concludes Sept. 7.

McGuire said that afterward he’ll consider filing a libel suit.

“While Jason pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors, he did so for the purpose of making a time-consuming, onerous, and expensive legal problem go away,” said Rev. Emelio Sebastian, NYFF’s board chair, at https://newyorkfamilies.org/2025/07/as-a-result-of-letitia-james-lawfare-mcguire-to-serve-as-a-political-prisoner. “The NYFF (b)oard fully supports Jason McGuire and has confidence in him as our executive director.”

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Why may some of McGuire’s political opponents want to go after him?

Please re-read the third paragraph of today’s column and understand that McGuire is an effective opponent of New York’s powers-that-be.

Do we know for sure that this is the–or even a–motive for prosecuting McGuire? No.

Yet you, faithful reader of this column, aren’t stupid. It’s no secret that in 2018, one person involved in McGuire’s prosecution promised to go after another political opponent and has kept that promise. Does that sound like blind justice?

Neither the identity of that opponent, nor the weakness of that case, nor the continuing erosion of that case is a secret.

Anyway, we needn’t consider prosecutors’ motives for going after McGuire, or prosecutors’ conduct against anyone else, to conclude this prosecution has been not only a waste of taxpayers’ money but also a travesty.

Not because of the waste but because of the travesty, justice requires that New York’s governor pardon Rev. Jason McGuire.

Can the president do so? No, because the charges are state-law, not federal-law, charges.

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Dr. Randy Elf–a Chautauqua County resident who explored seeking the Republican and Conservative parties’ nominations for New York attorney general in 2018 and vowed never to let politics interfere with law enforcement–has practiced political-speech law, including at the Federal Election Commission.

COPYRIGHT (c) 2025 BY RANDY ELF