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A pro-gun, anti-vaccine Nevada politician was found guilty Thursday on more than a half-dozen felony charges for raising tens of thousands of dollars to erect a memorial to a police officer killed in the line of duty, but instead spending the money on, among other things, rent, travel, plastic surgery, and her daughter’s wedding.
Michele Fiore, a 54-year-old MAGA-centric Republican who has publicly expressed the belief that cancer is a fungus curable with baking soda and salt water, was suspended in July from her position as a Nye County justice of the peace after a federal grand jury handed down an indictment on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Fiore at the time called the allegations “repugnant.” A jury convicted Fiore, a member of the Nevada State Assembly from 2012 to 2016, on all seven counts after less than two hours of deliberation, something Fiore’s attorney claimed was indicative of the jurors having already “made up their minds” before the trial was over.
“We’re still in it,” Fiore told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict was handed down. “We’re still in the thick of things and my attorney is going to hopefully, you know, apprise you of a lot of situations that you’re unaware of. You were aware yesterday that I wanted to say a few things to the judge and I wasn’t allowed to.”
According to the indictment, Fiore’s criminal scheme unfolded over a seven-month period between July 2019 and January 2020, while serving on the Las Vegas City Council. She told donors she was collecting funds to erect a memorial statue to fallen Las Vegas Metro PD Officer Alyn Beck, a 13-year veteran who was shot dead on a call in 2014, at the age of 41. Instead, prosecutors accused Fiore of laundering the money through front companies and relatives, then using it to maintain her own luxurious lifestyle.
Fiore proposed the idea of the Beck statue, which a local real estate developer, identified in the indictment as “Company A,” agreed to pay for, the indictment says. At the same time, Fiore began a bogus fundraising campaign, soliciting more than $70,000 in total from Nevadans including the current governor and then-sheriff Joe Lombardo, who would go on to testify against Fiore at trial. Fiore falsely told the sculptor creating the statue that she had been given discretionary funds by the City of Las Vegas for the project, which she proudly unveiled to the public on January 31, 2020, the indictment states.
Fiore has claimed the government has been out to get her for years over her ongoing support for Nevada rancher and militia leader Cliven Bundy, a man she called a “freedom fighter.”
Prior to her political career, Fiore co-wrote, produced, and starred in Siren, a 2006 film about Storm Fagan — played by Fiore — an “ordinary overweight middle-aged wife and mom” whose “dream of being a rock star still weighs heavy on her soul,” according to a synopsis attributed to Fiore on the movie’s IMDb page. And, it says, when “‘they’ say she can’t do it,” Fiore’s Fagan uses that negativity to “transform and over come [sic] life’s brutal obstacles to turn her dream into reality.”
As well as her film pursuits, Fiore operated a home healthcare agency that was shut down in 2015 by state regulators after refusing to allow inspectors routine access to its records. In 2020, following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department, Fiore agreed to co-host a Blue Lives Matter march down the Las Vegas Strip. (It was later called off at the request of the Las Vegas Metro PD, over safety concerns.)
Fiore, who also ran unsuccessful campaigns for governor and state treasurer, is scheduled to be sentenced on January 6, 2025. Each of the counts against her carries up to a maximum of 20 years in prison.
