Federal judge bounces media from courtroom in public official’s wire fraud case

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A federal court judge closed her courtroom to the public Monday halfway through a hearing scheduling the criminal trial of a Las Vegas-area politician accused of misappropriating charitable donations.

Judge Jennifer Dorsey removed members of the public and over half a dozen television and print media from an otherwise empty courtroom because federal prosecutors said they wanted to discuss the “private information” of certain witnesses expected to testify at the upcoming trial of Michele Fiore.

In July a federal grand jury indicted Fiore – a former Las Vegas city councilor and now a suspended Justice Court judge in Pahrump – on several counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Fiore “engaged in a scheme to defraud charitable donors of more than $70,000 for her own personal benefit,” a superseding indictment from August reads.

That scheme, court documents allege, occurred between 2017 and 2022, during which time those documents say she founded and mismanaged funds that were intended – among other things – to pay for memorial statues for a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer who died in the line of duty. Those documents also say she spent money from charitable donations for “a variety of personal expenses, including rent, travel … and a payment for Fiore’s daughter’s wedding.”

Fiore pleaded not guilty after the original indictment in July and again to the charges in the superseding indictment Monday. That happened in a brief hearing, which occurred moments before the hearing in Dorsey’s courtroom.

Outside of the first courtroom prior to the arraignment and again outside of the courthouse at the conclusion of the second hearing, Fiore refused to answer questions from the 8 News Now Investigators about the allegations.

During Monday’s so-called calendar call, attorneys said in court that the trial could last over two weeks, and asked whether certain witnesses who live out of state could testify remotely. Dorsey advised that the court has the technological capacity to accommodate that request, and then federal prosecutors indicated that they’d like to discuss the logistics of certain witnesses in private. Dorsey questioned attorneys as to why the rest of the hearing should be conducted in private, especially considering that there was no jury present – and closed the courtroom despite neither party arguing that the reason for the privacy of those witnesses outweighs the “vital interest in open judicial proceedings” enumerated in Department of Justice guidelines.

Court records do not indicate either party wrote a motion requesting permission from the judge to hold the hearing in private, and the judge did not make findings explaining her decision.

Fiore is due back in court on Sept. 20 for a status conference in Dorsey’s courtroom.

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