Bridgeport’s Golden Hill courthouse looked more like City Hall on Thursday.

Three City Council members and two other suspects made their first court appearances on 156 election crime charges.

Outside the courthouse, several proclaimed their innocence – and pointed the finger at other top leaders.

The charges include bribing people for votes, harassing voters, forging signatures and harvesting hundreds of absentee ballots.

Wanda Geter-Pataky, the vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Party, faces the most serious charges – 92 counts of illegally possessing ballots, fraudulent voting, watching someone vote and misrepresenting eligibility requirements to vote absentee.

Geter-Pataky made national news after surveillance videos allegedly showed her stuffing absentee ballots into drop boxes during the 2023 mayoral election.

She had no comment on Thursday. But last summer, her husband called accusations of ballot fraud bogus.

“This is political,” Bryan Pataky told News 12 Connecticut in June 2024. “This is from sore losers that couldn’t function within the system. They were allowed to do the same thing.”

City council members Alfredo Castillo, Maria Pereira and Jazmarie Melendez – as well as campaign worker Margaret Joyce – are also charged.

Several pointed the finger at others.

Castillo insisted that he never mishandled ballots or pressured people to vote a certain way. He claimed that state investigators coerced voters into accusing him.

“They intimidate them. They scare them,” Castillo told reporters. “They go in there, knocking on the doors like the po-po and then you scare them. You scare the voters.”

Despite implicating others, Castillo’s attorney does not believe he will flip and work with prosecutors.

“I know that Mr. Castillo and others have said words to that effect. We’ll see where that brings us,” said attorney Frank Riccio. “That may be true; that may not be true. This is all speculation at this point.”

Periera insisted that other campaigns abuse ballots – but not her.

“They’re famously corrupt,” she said.

Melendez asked the judge to separate her case from the others, but was denied.

“She’s not accused of touching anyone’s ballot, of doing anything with anyone's ballot, or interfering with anyone's rights with the election,” said Alex Taubes, Melendez’s attorney.

Election reform groups hope these cases finally end in accountability. “I think they know what they do is wrong,” said Callie Heilmann, with Bridgeport Generation Now. “I think they honestly believe that they'd never get caught.”

All five suspects will appear in Bridgeport felony court on March 21.

Geter-Pataky and Castillo will already be there for earlier ballot charges from the 2019 elections.