If ever there was a gal who could ride into a courtroom on a cloud of thunder, gripping a presidential pardon in one hand and a Bible in the other, it would’ve been Michele Fiore. And yet, Monday morning came, and nary a whisper of her heels on the marble nor a bang of her gavel on the bench.
The courtroom doors stayed shut, the bench cold. The press–bless their smug little hearts, wasted no time tapping out headlines with the glee of schoolchildren who just saw the teacher trip on her hemline.
Ms. Fiore, once a Las Vegas City Councilwoman and more recently a Pahrump judge on ice due to a federal conviction, was gifted a presidential pardon last week by President Trump himself—a gesture she took as divine intervention.
“Not because man permitted it, but because God ordained it,” she thundered like Moses coming down from Mount Trumpmore.
She told the world she’d be back in court Monday. But Monday came. She didn’t.
Instead of a return to righteous judgment, reporters got treated to the quiet shuffle of bailiffs, a docket that dragged on without her, and more than a few raised eyebrows. Following her story like flies on a honey jar, the media practically fell over themselves with delight, crowing that the judge-turned-defendant-turned-pardoned-mystic didn’t show.
“Where’s Michele?” was the question of the day, and the grin in every anchor’s voice answered it with a twist of satisfaction.
Now, Ms. Fiore’s fall from grace wasn’t a subtle affair. In October, after a jury mulled over the evidence for two hours, they handed down a tidy verdict–one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud.
The charges, as wild as anything dreamed up in dime-store fiction, involved donations collected for police memorials—money meant for solemn statues, which prosecutors say detoured through Ms. Fiore’s purse. Governor Joe Lombardo and union boss Tommy White, among others, testified against her.
Meanwhile, legal experts are about as enchanted with the pardon as a banker is with counterfeit bills. “The presidential pardon relieves her of legal penalty,” said UNLV law professor Benjamin Edwards, “but it doesn’t undo reality.”
In other words–a jury said she did it, and a pardon pronounces she won’t pay for it—but neither can unring the bell.
As for Ms. Fiore, she’s been sending out dispatches like a general in exile, claiming political persecution, citing her support for Cliven Bundy during his standoff a decade ago, and accusing the government of labeling her a “domestic terrorist.” She’s taken to casting herself as a martyr in pumps, wronged by a crooked system, loved only by God and Donald J. Trump.
And now? She may still face state charges if anyone dares pick up the baton.
But local law officers seem to be playing a game of hot potato with her case. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, when asked, all but shrugged through the radio waves, “If someone brings it, we’ll look,” he said like a man hoping nobody does.
In the meantime, the Nye County Justice Court waits. Voters re-elected Fiore last June, even though she’s not an attorney—a fact that is treated like a punchline–but thank goodness she ain’t. And while Fiore insists her “full story” will only be told if she pens it herself, one suspects the opening chapter of that saga may well be titled “The Day I Didn’t Show Up.”
So the bench sits empty, the media snickers, and somewhere out on the high desert–Fiore remains–pardoned but not present.
The Old Blog in the Desert 