A jury found former Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore guilty of federal conspiracy and wire fraud charges on Thursday.
Prosecutors accused Fiore, 53, of raising money through her charity and political action committee for a statue honoring Metropolitan Police Department officer Alyn Beck, who was shot and killed with his partner in 2014. But instead of using the money for the statue, prosecutors said Fiore made personal purchases including for rent, plastic surgery and payments on her daughter’s wedding.
Fiore, who recently served as a Pahrump justice of the peace, was indicted in July on federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud.
Jury deliberations began Thursday afternoon, after attorneys presented their closing arguments.
“She is an elected official, it’s her job to safeguard the public trust,” federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar said. “Instead, she abused it through her actions.”
Prosecutors have accused Fiore of soliciting donations and lying to donors about the funds going toward the statue. They said she knew the statue’s cost was going to be covered by Olympia Companies, which developed the Alyn Beck Memorial Park as part of the Skye Canyon planned community.
Several high-profile donors and business owners testified throughout the trial, including Gov. Joe Lombardo.
Lombardo said that he authorized a $5,000 donation from his campaign fund to go to Fiore’s political action committee to help pay for the statue.
Fiore’s defense attorney, Michael Sanft, argued Thursday that prosecutors did not do enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Fiore intended to defraud donors. He also attacked a search warrant carried out by the FBI at Fiore’s home in 2021, and accused the FBI of “spinning” evidence to mislead the jury.
Sanft showed the jury a large poster depicting an optical illusion, that could be viewed as either an old woman or a young woman.
“When you look for one thing only, you can miss everything else,” Sanft said.
He argued that despite seizing documents in that search warrant, prosecutors did not show the jury receipts that tracked what exactly the donations were spent on.
Prosecutors have pointed to bank records showing donation checks deposited into Fiore’s accounts, and then transferred to Fiore’s daughter and turned into cash withdrawals that line up with the dates Fiore made large personal purchases.
Fiore’s daughter Sheena Siegel took the stand earlier this week, claiming she spent money from her mother on various events and charity expenses. The jury was told to disregard her testimony after Siegel invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to not incriminate herself, refusing to answer questions from prosecutors about checks made to her personal account.
Sanft repeated his previous argument that the FBI’s investigation was “sloppy” and that the jury was not shown enough records.
“Sloppy is not good enough,” he said. “They have to be on point. There’s no leeway here for mistakes, there’s no leeway here for interpretation.”
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.