LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Suspended Nye County Justice of the Peace Michele Fiore, the one-time state legislator and controversial Las Vegas city councilwoman, told the 8 News Now Investigators on Friday that President Donald Trump pardoned a federal jury’s guilty verdict on wire fraud charges because it was a “fake case.”
In October 2024, a jury convicted Fiore, suspended in July 2024 from her position as justice court judge in Nye County, after deliberating for two hours. The panel convicted her on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud for taking money meant for fallen police officers’ memorials and spending it on herself. Fiore denies she was convicted, technically speaking, and maintains she was never sentenced and the court never entered a judgment of conviction.
In her first televised comments since the Presidential pardon, Fiore, in an impromptu on-camera conversation outside of an AM radio station where she completed an hour-long interview, denied stealing charitable donations to pay for her daughter’s wedding. But federal prosecutors convinced a jury she did just that, with money she said she was raising for the officers’ statues.
“It was a fake case, and the government knew it,” Fiore told the 8 News Now Investigators on Friday. Fiore then got behind the wheel of her pick-up truck and closed the door, ending the interview.
But her conversation with well-known Las Vegas political consultant Tom Letizia, broadcast Friday morning, allowed Fiore to tell some of her story. Fiore has long criticized the media for its handling of her federal trial and its aftermath as unfair and inaccurate.
Explaining her reaction to Trump’s pardon, Fiore told Letizia she cried for 40 minutes.
“I just started crying because, you know, knowing what I was going through. No 1, for some reason, people think I have President Donald J. Trump on speed dial. I do not.”
The Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline, which suspended Fiore with pay when she was indicted on the federal wire fraud charges, revoked her pay after her conviction. Earlier this week, in a written filing, it reinstated her pay but upheld her suspension.
“I don’t know what happened behind the scenes with the judicial commission, but I do know that they are dragging their feet,” Fiore said on Letizia’s radio show, “The Middle Ground.” “And they do know that what’s happening right now is not right or ethical or legal. It’s an abuse of their authority.”
In its decision, the commission said the allegations against Fiore present “a substantial threat of serious harm to the public and to the administration of justice.”
On Thursday, Fiore appealed that decision to the Nevada Supreme Court.
First elected as a Republican Nevada assemblywoman in 2012, Fiore later served as Las Vegas mayor pro tem and unsuccessfully ran for governor and treasurer as a Republican. Nye County Commissioners appointed her to her judgeship in late 2022. Last June, before her indictment, voters re-elected Fiore, who is not an attorney, to that position.
