10-05-2025
Nevada commission to decide Michele Fiore's fate as Pahrump judge
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Pahrump judge and former Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore was awaiting a commission's decision Friday on whether or not she could return to her courtroom after receiving a presidential pardon.
Last month, President Donald Trump pardoned Fiore, a Nye County Justice of the Peace, after a jury convicted her of taking money meant for fallen police officers' memorials and spending it on herself. The jury deliberated for two hours, convicting her on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud.
Following Fiore's federal indictment last July, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline suspended her from office with pay amid the proceedings. The commission later suspended her without pay after her conviction.
Trump pardoned Fiore on April 23. 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.
Fiore and her attorney, Paola Armeni, appeared on Zoom before the commission Friday to ask the panel to remove her suspension order.
'When does this end?' Armeni said, adding the commission only has jurisdiction over a judge's actions as a sitting judge. 'The commission can no longer issue, rescind, and reinstate based on this conviction, based on the pardon. There is nothing before this commission about her conduct as a judge, nothing.'
Fiore did not speak during the meeting. The commission's deliberations were private and not shown on the Zoom live stream.
After Trump issued her pardon, Fiore promised a return to the bench on Monday, April 28, in the immediate aftermath of the presidential pardon. That Monday, she did not appear, telling the 8 News Now Investigators, who attended court that morning in Pahrump, that she would return to the bench 'once the procedural formalities are concluded.'
'On Monday, I will walk back into my courtroom as the elected justice of the peace — not because man permitted it, but because God ordained it,' Fiore originally said in a statement announcing her pardon.
On June 8, 2014, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo were gunned down while they were on their lunch break in northeast Las Vegas. Fiore claimed to raise money for statues for the fallen officers, and some of the high-profile citizens from whom she collected donations were Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo and the union boss Tommy White, both of whom testified at trial.
During the trial, Lombardo said he was a victim. He has not commented publicly on the pardon.
'The only way my full story will ever be told is if I write it myself,' she said in late April, criticizing the media coverage. Fiore has alleged investigations into her began following her support for rancher Cliven Bundy and the armed standoff he had with the government in 2014. In court documents filed last year, she claimed the government had labeled her as a 'domestic terrorist.'
Fiore could face state charges should the attorney general or the district attorney decide to move forward.
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