CONCORD, N.H. -- A federal judge on Thursday acquitted a former Republican Party official accused of taking part in a plot to jam state Democratic Party phone lines on Election Day 2002. James Tobin, the former regional chairman of President Bush's re-election campaign, was convicted in federal court in 2005 of helping arrange more than 800 hang-up calls that jammed get-out-the-vote phone lines set up by the state Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters' union for about an hour. Republican John Sununu defeated then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen for the Senate that day. But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction last year, sending it back to U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe, who scheduled a new trial for Tobin that was to have started this week. The appeals court ruled that Tobin's actions did not fit the specific law he was convicted of violating. On Thursday, McAuliffe agreed, saying he was "constrained" by the appeals court ruling and his reading of the law to acquit Tobin. It wasn't immediately clear if prosecutors would appeal the ruling. After-hours phone messages left Thursday for Tobin, lawyers in the case and state Republican Party officials were not immediately returned. State Democratic Party head Raymond Buckley said he thinks there are questions about the phone-jamming scheme that need to be answered. The House Judiciary Committee said last year that it would investigate the Justice Department's handling of the case. At the time of the phone jamming, Tobin was a regional official with the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, overseeing Senate campaigns in several states. He went on to serve as President Bush's New England re-election campaign chairman in 2004, but resigned after the allegations surfaced. The jamming has led to four criminal prosecutions and a lawsuit that was settled with Republicans paying the Democrats $135,000. The Democrats had sought $4.1 million. Two people involved in the scheme pleaded guilty to criminal charges and served jail time. Shaun Hansen, who was a co-owner of the Idaho telemarketing firm that made the hang-up calls, withdrew a guilty plea and is scheduled to be tried in May. Phone records introduced at Tobin's trial show he made two dozen calls to the White House political office within three days around Election Day 2002, as the phone-jamming operation was finalized, carried out and abruptly shut down.
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