By Rio Yamat
Las Vegas (AP) – President Donald Trump pardoned a republican politician from Nevada who was waiting for a conviction for federal accusations that she used for money intended for a statue honoring a police officer killed for personal expenses, including plastic surgery.
Michele Fiore, a former municipal councilor of Las Vegas and State legislative who presented himself without success in 2022 for the treasurer of the State, was found guilty in October of six charges of federal wired fraud and a chief of conspiracy to commit fraud by wire. She was out of custody before her conviction, which was scheduled for next month.
In a long declaration Thursday on Facebook, the faithful supporter of Trump expressed his gratitude to the president while accusing the American government and by “selecting the media” of a large conspiracy of a decade to “target and dismantle” his life.
Pardon, published on Wednesday, comes less than a week after Fiore lost an offer for a new trial. She had faced the possibility of decades in prison.
Federal prosecutors told the trial that Fiore, 54, had collected more than $ 70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer who was shot in 2014 in the exercise of his duties, but had rather spent part of the cosmetic surgery, rent and marriage of his daughter.
“Michele Fiore used a tragedy to line his pockets,” said federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar.
FBI agents in 2021 assigned files and searched Fiore’s home in Las Vegas as part of its campaign expenses.
In a statement, the executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party, Hilary Barrett, described the forgiveness of “reckless” and a “slap opposite” to the agents of the forces of the forces.
Fiore, who has no law diploma, was appointed judge in the county of Deep-Red Nye in 2022 shortly after losing his campaign for the treasurer of the State.
She was elected last June to complete the mandate not expired by a deceased judge but had been suspended without salary in the midst of her legal problems. Pahrump is an hour’s drive west of Las Vegas.
In her statement on Thursday, Fiore also said that she was planning to return to the bench next week.
The county of Nye declared in an e-mail to the Associated Press that he awaited an update of the State Commission on the judicial discipline on the current suspension of Fiore. The PA sent emails asking for comments to the Commission, as well as Fiore’s lawyer.
Fiore sat in the state’s legislature from 2012 to 2016. She was a Las Vegas advisor from 2017 to 2022.
While serving as a state legislator, Fiore drew national attention to his support for the breeder Clive Bundy and his family during armed confrontations between militiamen and federal agents of the law enforcement in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 and Malheur, Oregon, in 2016.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
