State investigators say a convicted murderer lied about his felony status and earned a short-term spot on Palm Beach County's voter rolls.
Deputies arrested Jivonn Ysbeck, 48, on three counts related to illegal voting Saturday. Investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement say he cast a ballot in the 2020 general election and tried doing so again in 2024, undeterred by ineligibility notices from the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office.
Ysbeck is represented by the Public Defender's Office, which, as a practice, does not comment on open cases. Alison Novoa, a spokesperson for the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office, also declined to comment.
Murder-for-hire plot stripped a teenage Ysbeck of his voting rights
A Miami jury convicted Ysbeck in 1998 of the murder of Formose Gilles,
a former star soccer player in Haiti. Police said Gilles' jealous wife hired Ysbeck, then 17, to hurt the soccer player after learning of his rumored affair with another woman.
"This defendant did the dirty work of a scorned and vindictive wife," said then-Assistant State Attorney Josh Weintraub. "A wife who would do anything to get her husband away from the arms of another woman, including shooting him dead."
Ysbeck's conviction earned him a 15-year prison sentence and stripped him of several rights, including the right to vote. Despite this, election crimes investigator Antonio Mathews said Ysbeck submitted three fraudulent voter applications over four years, with varying success.
County elections office removed convicted felon from voter rolls twice, state says
The first was through an online state portal in October 2020. By then out of prison for 14 years, Ysbeck had moved to a West Palm Beach apartment, worked as a barber and avoided further run-ins with police. His application to vote included his name, birth date, phone number and the declaration: "I affirm that I am not a convicted felon, or if I am, my right to vote has been restored."
Florida voters in 2018 approved Amendment 4, restoring voting rights for many convicted felons on the condition that they complete all terms of their sentences. The amendment, however, did not apply to those convicted of murder or felony sex offenses.
Only through an official pardon could Ysbeck regain his rights. Nevertheless, Mathews said, Ysbeck requested and returned an absentee ballot for 2020 general election. His arrest report does not indicate for whom he voted or to what party he was registered.
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office sent Ysbeck a letter more than a year later, in January 2022, saying he "may have been convicted of a felony" and requesting proof that his rights had been restored. Ysbeck sent none.
The office published a "notice of final ineligibility" the following March, informing him he'd been removed from the voter rolls.
FDLE says convicted felon was twice-removed from voter rolls
Mathews said Ysbeck filled out a second application at an elections office counter in August 2024 and a third the following November. Both times, he checked the box affirming he was either not a convicted felon or that his right to vote had been restored.
Both times, the elections office sent Ysbeck letters informing him of his ineligibility. Ysbeck submitted a provisional ballot in the November 2024 election and, according to Mathews, received another "final ineligibility" notice in December 2024, "removing him again from the voter roll."
Ysbeck's arrest report doesn't say when, or at whose prompting, the state began investigating. Mathews sought Ysbeck's arrest in September after receiving confirmation from the state that he had neither regained his right to vote nor had any pending application for clemency.
A 2013 Palm Beach Post investigation identified eight felons who voted in the prior election despite never having had their civil rights restored. State prosecutors soon launched their own probe but ultimately charged none of the men, unable to prove they "willfully" broke the law.
Some of the men told investigators they hadn't been turned away at the polls and thus assumed they could vote. Others said they'd read news accounts that former Gov. Charlie Crist gave automatic pardons to thousands of felons, which they thought applied to them.
Ysbeck's arrest report doesn't suggest to what extent he understood his own ineligibility. He faces two counts of perjury and one count of voting as an unqualified elector, third-degree felonies punishable by up to five years in prison. Circuit Judge Sarah Shullman set his bail at $20,000.
Hannah Phillips covers public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Convict lied about felony status, voted in 2020 election, FDLE says
