LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada Republican who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2022 pleaded not guilty Monday to two new charges and headed to trial two weeks after federal charges that he used funds raised for a statue of a slain police officer for political and other purposes. personal expenses including his daughter’s wedding.
The new charges bring to seven wire fraud and conspiracy counts against Michele Fiore, a former state assemblywoman and Las Vegas City Council member who has been fired as a salaried justice of the peace in rural Pahrump. Each country carries a possible 20-year prison sentence. Fiore had pleaded not guilty on July 17 to a five-count criminal indictment.
Fiore and his defense attorney, Michael Sanft, invoked his right to a speedy trial, and U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorse in Las Vegas said jury selection will begin Sept. 24. Sanft and federal prosecutors Dahoud Askar and Alexander Gottfried told the judge they expected a trial. are completed in the second week of October. Askar and Gottfried declined to speak to reporters outside court.
Neither Fiore nor Sanft commented on the case to reporters. They were accompanied by Fiore’s friend Sigal Chattah, a lawyer and conservative GOP official who lost the 2022 race for state attorney general to Democrat Aaron Ford.
Chattah also represents one of six members of the Nevada Republican Party accused of providing affidavits to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election. A Las Vegas state judge dismissed the so-called fake voter case over a venue challenge by attorneys, including state GOP Chairman Michael McDonald. Ford has appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court.
Fiore, 54, is a sometimes flamboyant political figure best known for supporting gun ownership and states’ rights advocate Cliven Bundy in 2014 and then during armed standoffs against federal officers in Bunkerville, Nevada, and a national wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016. .
Nye County lawmakers nominated Fiore to be a judge in 2022 after he lost his campaign for state treasurer. He was elected in June to fill the unexpired term of the deceased judge. Pahrump is an hour’s drive west of Las Vegas.
Fiore served in the state legislature from 2012 to 2016 and made headlines for posing with guns and his family in Christmas cards in 2015. He was a Las Vegas councilman from 2017 to 2022.
