EDITORIAL: Convicted Pahrump JP still wants her paycheck

Michele Fiore is upset that the taxpayers are no longer paying her not to work as a Pahrump justice of the peace. She has only herself to blame.

A federal jury last month convicted Ms. Fiore — a former state lawmaker and Las Vegas city councilwoman — of seven counts related to wire fraud. Prosecutors argued that she raised $70,000 under the pretense of erecting a statue to a fallen Las Vegas police officer but spent the money instead on personal expenses, including rent, plastic surgery and her daughter’s wedding.

Jurors took just two hours to render their verdict. Her sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 6.

Ms. Fiore had served as a justice of the peace in rural Nevada since the Nye County Commission appointed her to the post in December 2022. After she was indicted in July, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline suspended her with pay pending the outcome of the trial. Following her conviction, the panel voted to cut off her $85,500 annual salary.

Ms. Fiore last week appealed that decision.

“I think I should still be receiving a salary because, again, I plead not guilty,” Fiore told the Review-Journal’s Katelyn Newberg. “This is not over. We are appealing this whole thing. It was a true weaponized, political trial.” Ms. Fiore also told Ms. Newberg that “prosecutors lied to the jury and witnesses lied on the stand and should be impeached.”

Her attorney, Paola Armeni, previously acknowledged that the discipline panel has the power under Nevada law to take away a suspended judge’s salary. But she argued that taking away Ms. Fiore’s pay would create “unnecessary financial hardship, violating the principles of fairness.”

Ms. Armeni is apparently a big fan of irony.

Ms. Fiore has a right to contest the verdict, of course — although claiming that all involved were lying doesn’t appear a very promising avenue for reversal. But the discipline commission made the right move in nixing her paycheck.

If Ms. Fiore’s Hail Mary appeal succeeds, she will have the opportunity to claw back the salary that was denied her during her suspension. But if the conviction stands, and she was cashing those paychecks in the interim, the taxpayers would almost certainly never see that money again.

And that, as someone has said, would violate the “principles of fairness.”

The views expressed above are those of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.