Three campaign workers for Democrat New York City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo were arrested Tuesday and charged with falsifying business records, forgery and offering a false instrument for filing, the New York Daily News reported.

Some things never change, and corruption in the Big Apple appears to be one of them.

The three workers were paid a dollar for each signature they collected last summer on Arroyo’s re-election petitions. When staffers for Arroyo’s opponent, Julio Pabon, noticed signatures from celebrities like Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter and model Kate Moss, authorities launched an investigation

Insisting that she and her mother, New York City Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, were the first to spot the forgeries, Arroyo told Board of Elections officials at a July hearing that she felt all she could be guilty of was “trusting people too much,” the Daily News reported.

Even though an investigation found a whopping 81 percent of the signatures were invalid, New York Supreme Court Justice John Carter ruled that Arroyo’s name could remain on the ballot, despite what the judge called her “wholesale failure to supervise the petition-gathering process,” according to the Daily News.

Arroyo went on to win the primary and general elections.

In a statement released Wednesday, Arroyo reiterated her innocence and said she “looked forward to seeing this case through to its conclusion.” Her former employees face up to seven years behind bars if convicted.

H/T WeaselZippers