Prosecutors: No indication Michele Fiore is ‘domestic terrorist’; former Las Vegas councilwoman misread documents

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Prosecutors said Monday that there is no indication former Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore is a “domestic terrorist” and believe her allegation is a “mistaken claim.”

In July, a federal grand jury indicted Fiore — now a suspended Pahrump Justice Court judge — 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 said.

The government classified former Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore as a “domestic terrorist” in 2020, a title she has kept amid recent legal troubles in federal court, her lawyer, Michael Sanft, said in court documents filed earlier this month.

Sanft said his client was classified as a “domestic terrorist” following her support for rancher Cliven Bundy and the armed standoff he had with the government in 2014. The documents surround what evidence could be entered in Fiore’s federal trial.

According to prosecutors, Fiore misread the government’s “threat banding,” which they said “[correlates] to the type of investigation and is unrelated to the level of threat, if any, an individual may pose.” Because the federal case involves Fiore, who is a public official, the FBI deemed it its highest priority threat band, prosecutors said.

“There will be no reference to Fiore as a domestic terrorist in the government’s case-in-chief,” prosecutors said, noting surveillance of Fiore before her arrest in July did not consider her “armed and dangerous.”

Prosecutors add Fiore’s connection to the Bundy standoff has nothing to do with her current case.

Court documents say from 2017 to 2022, Fiore allegedly founded and mismanaged funds that were intended to pay for memorial statues for a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer who died in the line of duty. Documents allege 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 has pleaded not guilty and a trial was scheduled for later this year.

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