Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo
SEE UPDATE AT END OF STORY
A federal criminal indictment released today in Las Vegas concerns a pet peeve of mine–dodgy fundraising for law enforcement causes. Ex-Las Vegas councilwoman Michele Fiore, 53, stands accused of siphoning off more than $70,000 ostensibly raised to build a fallen-officer memorial, for, among purposes, personal rent and her daughter’s wedding.
From the New To Las Vegas world headquarters I’ve been writing for years documenting such fundraising abuses. Substantially all the money raised from ignorant donors goes nowhere near the stated cause.
But this case, which dates back to activities a half-decade ago, has an interesting twist. If I am reading correctly the indictment and public online campaign contribution records, one of the marks, who coughed up $5,000, was the then-sitting Clark County Sheriff, Joe Lombardo.
He’s now the governor, having gotten elected in 2022 on a platform including law and order.
No criminal activity is alleged on his part, but maybe a little embarrassing if true? I emailed the governor’s press office hours ago asking for comment, and will update this post if I hear back. Meanwhile, let me lay out how I see this now.
Federal criminal indictments have to name the defendant, in this case, Fiore, who other news accounts say couldn’t be reached for comment today. She is a former assemblywoman and GOP national committeewoman who is quite a combative, controversial local figure and, amazingly, now a sitting justice of the peace nearby in wild and woolly Nye County (although, I imagine, not for much longer). But under the illusion of privacy the identity of others mentioned are usually hidden and given titles like “Person A,” “Company B,” “Donor C” and the like. It’s usually not hard to figure many of the players by cross-referencing other documents and asking around.
Fiore, a Republican, is charged with diverting money away from the stated purpose of building statues in honor of Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo. They are Las Vegas Metro cops who were murdered while eating lunch in 2014 by a self-proclaimed revolutionary who fled, killed a bystander, and then was killed police fire. The Beck statue was to be built first.
According to the indictment, Fiore played games using two exempt organizations she formed while serving on the Las Vegas Council. One was “Charity A,” according to public records, likely A Bright Present Foundation Inc., a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) entity. The other was “Political Action Committee A,” which seems to be her Future for Nevadans.
Which brings us to “Donor A,” described in the indictment as “a public official residing in the state of Nevada at the time of of their donation.”
From the wire-fraud indictment:
On or about, July 16, 2019, FIORE caused Donor A to write a $5,000 check to Political Action Committee A, FIORE’s political action committee, by representing that she would use the money for the Alyn Beck Statue. Donor A made the donation for the sole purpose of funding the Alyn Beck Statue.
On the same day, the indictment continues:
FIORE transferred $5,000 from Political Action Committee A, to an account controlled by Person A, which Person A used at FIORE’s direction to purchase money orders to pay rent on FIORE’s personal residence.
In another section the indictment describes Person A as “a relative and co-conspirator of FIORE.”
While the identities of contributors to tax-exempt charities are generally kept secret by federal law, the names of contributors to most PACs are not. I looked up the Contributions and Expenses Report filed by Fiore’s PAC, Future for Nevadans, for the third quarter of 2019.
Whatdayaknow? On July 16, 2019, Fiore’s PAC received a contribution of $5,000, the only one booked that day. The donor? “Lombardo for Sheriff,” the campaign committee of Clark County’s top law enforcer, and a fellow Republican, starting his second elected term in office. The entry listed an address on Elton Ave. in Las Vegas. The contribution would be understandable. As sheriff, Lombardo ran Las Vegas Metro, where he started as a cop in 1988.
If the indictment is to be believed, here’s something else that Donor A didn’t know when that $5,000 was given to Fiore’s PAC: Another donor (“Company A”) was in the process of agreeing to pay for the entire statue project. That contract was finalized three weeks later.
There is one other aspect to the indictment I find intriguing. The statement that Fiore represented directly to “Donor A” that all the money would go to the statue suggests to me that the feds have testimony or a statement to that effect from “Donor A.” That could be vivid evidence should the matter go to trial, where the maximum sentence is 20 years on each of the five counts and “Donor A” could be a popular political figure.
In recent years Las Vegas residents has been inundated with telephone cold-call pitches concerning law enforcement causes from what I call faux charities. They are PACs presenting like they are out to do good works, but don’t, with virtually all donations going to fundraising expenses and profits to hidden operators. Despite this case, Nevada regulators haven’t done much to, ah, police the field, even though a 2021 law gives them new authority. Indeed, this case was brought by federal prosecutors based at the Department of Justice in far-away Washington, D.C.You can see my previous work on this topic by entering “faux charity” in the nearby search box.
Per the indictment, Fiore operated a little differently. She made verbal pitches and sent out pitches in her own name. It’s unclear from the indictment whether she had criminal help from others in the fundraising part; she is the only person charged in the 11-page indictment (suggesting to me she has colleagues going state’s evidence). But her own pitch apparently was more than enough for “Donor A.”