Marva Cook, 66, is charged with illegally voting in a federal election despite not being a U.S. citizen. Prosecutors say she voted in 14 elections between 1999 and 2022. Cook says she recently learned she was adopted as a toddler and born in Germany, contrary to what she had long believed.
The federal charge concerns Cook’s vote in the 2022 general election, according to syracuse.com. Prosecutors allege she knowingly voted despite not being a citizen, as reported by centralcurrent.org. Election records cited by Syracuse.com show votes in 14 primary and general elections from 1999 through 2022. The criminal complaint says Cook told investigators she had assumed she was a U.S. citizen.
Cook turned herself in before her Wednesday court appearance and was released on her own recognizance, with no bond, according to local reporting. Her attorney, Paul Tuck, argued she was neither a danger nor a flight risk and said she would appear in court. No further hearings or filing deadlines have been scheduled, Tuck has said.
A Life Built in Syracuse, A Discovery That Upended It
Cook says she was adopted as a toddler and only recently learned she was born in Germany. She changed her legal name from Mona Maria Kuehn to Marva Marie Cook in 2020 and applied for an updated green card, which prosecutors say she holds. Syracuse.com reported that she worked as a caretaker at Loretto for two decades and has spent the past eight years at the YMCA. Dale Avers, the YMCA’s community school program director, said Cook supports low-income families and youth and that he has known her for nearly 20 years.
How Adoption Can Affect Citizenship
Birth abroad and adoption by U.S. citizens do not, on their own, determine whether someone is a citizen. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says current citizenship provisions for adopted children apply when specified birth-date and timing requirements are met: the child must have been born on or after Feb. 28, 1983, and meet the required conditions on or after Feb. 27, 2001. Its guidance also addresses legal custody and other conditions, and notes that different rules may apply in other circumstances. Those general rules do not establish Cook’s individual status, according to USCIS…