A Republican politician in Nevada was found guilty on Thursday for misusing funds raised for a statue to honor a fallen police officer on personal costs.
A jury convicted Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas city councilwoman and state lawmaker who unsuccessfully ran for state treasurer in 2022, to six counts of federal wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.
During the weeklong trial, federal prosecutors said Fiore raised more than $70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer who was shot and killed in 2014 in the line of duty, but instead, she spent the money on plastic surgery, her rent, and her daughter’s wedding.
“Michele Fiore used a tragedy to line her pockets,” federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar said.
Fior will be sentenced Jan. 6, 2025. Each count carries up to a 20-year prison sentence.
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Her attorney, Michael Sanft, said she would appeal the conviction, noting the quick verdict as the jury returned with the verdicts less than two hours after the case went to deliberation.
“Typically, when people are that fast, they’ve already made up their minds even before the closing arguments, so it had to have been some type of testimony that had occurred in the middle of the trial that caused the majority of them to say, oh, that’s all we needed,” Sanft said.