A Republican activist in Arizona has pleaded guilty for posing as a presidential elector as part of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Arizona.
Lorraine Pellegrino, former president of the group Ahwatukee Republican Women, is one of 11 Republicans who falsely posed as one of Trump’s electors and is the first to be convicted in the state’s fake elector case.
She accepted a guilty plea on one charge of filing a fraudulent "Electoral College certificate" and was sentenced to "unsupervised probation." Before the plea, she faced nine felony charges for attempting to corrupt Arizona’s election results.
In 2020, President Joe Biden won the state of Arizona by 10,457 votes. The incredibly close race prompted Trump and his associates to subvert the election results by creating fraudulent Electoral College certificates to falsely claim Trump had won the election in Arizona and other battleground states.
Pellegrino and 10 others met on Dec. 14, 2020 to sign the false certification, a video of which was posted to social media by the state Republican Party. Seventeen other people were charged in the case alongside Pellegrino.
“Loraine Pellegrino’s decision to accept a plea to a lesser charge reflects her desire to move forward and put this matter behind her,” Joshua Kolsrud, Pellegrino’s attorney, said in a statement.
Trump himself was not charged in the case, but he was identified by the Arizona grand jury as an “unindicted conspirator,” ABC News reported.
Criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme have also been filed in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin.
