LAS VEGAS — A Nevada Republican politician who ran unsuccessfully two years in the past for state treasurer was discovered responsible Thursday of utilizing funds raised for a statue honoring a slain police officer for private prices, together with cosmetic surgery.
A jury convicted Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas metropolis councilwoman and state lawmaker, of six counts of federal wire fraud and one rely of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported. The weeklong trial in U.S. District Court docket in Nevada started final week.
Every rely carries a potential penalty of 20 years in jail. Fiore, who has been suspended with out pay from her present elected place as a justice of the peace in rural Pahrump, Nevada, will likely be sentenced Jan. 6. She’s going to stay free whereas she awaits sentencing.
Her lawyer, Michael Sanft, stated Fiore will enchantment the conviction.
Federal prosecutors stated at trial that Fiore had raised greater than $70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer shot and killed in 2014 within the line of obligation, however as a substitute spent the cash on cosmetic surgery, lease and her daughter’s wedding ceremony.
“Michele Fiore used a tragedy to line her pockets,” federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar stated.
FBI brokers in 2021 subpoenaed information and searched Fiore’s house in northwest Las Vegas in connection along with her marketing campaign spending. Sanft instructed the jury that the FBI’s investigation was “sloppy.”
Fiore, who doesn’t have a regulation diploma, was appointed as a choose in deep-red Nye County in 2022 shortly after she misplaced her marketing campaign for state treasurer. She was elected in June to finish the unexpired time period of a choose who died. Pahrump is an hour’s drive west of Las Vegas.
The 54-year-old served within the state Legislature from 2012 to 2016, making headlines posing with weapons and her household for Christmas playing cards. She was a Las Vegas councilwoman from 2017 to 2022.
