Out in the land of dust and double-dealers, where a man can get robbed of his hat and still get taxed for the privilege, one Michele Fiore, a woman of stubborn disposition and unladylike courage, finds herself once again on the receiving end of a great American pastime–namely, public character assassination masquerading as justice.
It took a federal jury no more time than it does a rooster to crow twice to convict Miss Fiore on several counts of wire fraud back in October ’24. They called it an eight-day trial, but it had all the careful consideration of a saloon brawl. Each count came carrying the weight of twenty years–or, as some call it in Las Vegas, just long enough to forget who dealt the cards.
With a twist befitting a country where justice rides a three-legged mule, President Donald Trump issued a pardon, turning the whole affair upside down and inside out. The mob, it seems, cannot abide when a rope prepared for hanging goes unused.
The cause of all this ruction? Fiore once endeavored to raise money for statues honoring fallen officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo, gunned down like dogs while on a lunch break in 2014. Some money changed hands — from union boss Tommy White, from the then-sheriff and now Governor Joe Lombardo — and soon after, accusations began to breed like rabbits.
Governor Lombardo has stayed silent as a grave, which is prudent when the wolves are baying. Nevada’s Attorney General, Aaron Ford, took to the new-fangled ‘X’ platform to heap curses on the pardon, President Trump, and Fiore.
Ford, who calls himself the “top cop,” declared it a “disgrace, which, coming from a politician, is like being called damp by a fish.
Meanwhile, the law professors and learned men remind everyone that while Miss Fiore cannot get tried twice by the same court, there’s no rule stopping Nevada from dragging her back into the dock under their authority. Like an unlucky gambler who keeps pulling the wrong lever, Fiore now faces the possibility of being charged again.
The esteemed Professor Benjamin Edwards at UNLV, speaking with the gravity of a man who has never missed a meal, explained that federal and state prosecutions are as different as two fleas on a hound–one might jump, but the other still has a bite left. He even suggested that Nevada may have a “responsibility” to pursue her should the hunger for blood prove too strong to resist.
The District Attorney, Steve Wolfson, has maintained a silence deep enough to drown in. No doubt he’s consulting his horoscope to see if political winds favor mercy or mayhem.
As for the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline–a body of bureaucrats well-practiced in removing the speck from others’ eyes while ignoring the planks in their own–they first suspended Fiore with pay, then without, proving that even when standing still, they can manage to step on their own feet. Now, while the high-hatted gentlemen and silk-stockinged reformers sharpen their knives, Fiore remains a symbol of something that rankles the soul of every weak busybody–a woman who refuses to kneel, confess, and die quietly.
And that, dear reader, is why they still hunt her.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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