LAS VEGAS (AP) 鈥� A Nevada judge dismissed an indictment Friday against six Republicans to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state鈥檚 2020 presidential election, potentially cutting from four to three the number of states with criminal charges pending against so-called fake electors.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said he鈥檒l take the issue to the state Supreme Court after Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case.
鈥淭he judge got it wrong and we鈥檒l be appealing immediately,鈥� Ford, a Democrat, told reporters afterward. He declined additional comment.
Defense attorneys bluntly declared the case dead, saying that to bring it now before another grand jury in another venue such as Nevada鈥檚 capital city of Carson City would violate a three-year statute of limitations that expired last December.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e done,鈥� said Margaret McLetchie, attorney for Clark County Republican party chairman Jesse Law, one of the defendants in the case.
The judge called off the trial, which had been , for defendants also including state GOP chairman Michael McDonald; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; Storey County clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area. Each was accused of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument 鈥� felonies carrying a penalty of up to four or five years in prison.
Defense attorneys led by McDonald's lawyer, Richard Wright, said Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Las Vegas 鈥� Nevada鈥檚 largest and most Democratic-leaning city 鈥� instead of Carson City or Reno, northern Nevada cities in a more Republican region where the alleged crimes occurred. They also accused prosecutors of failing to present to the grand jury evidence that would have exonerated their clients, who they said had no intent to commit a crime.
鈥淐rimes are tried and venue lies in the venue in which the offense was committed,鈥� Wright told the judge on Friday. 鈥淪igning the document occurred in Carson City.鈥�
Challenged by Judge Holthus to respond, Deputy State Attorney General Matthew Rashbrook argued that 鈥渘o one county contains the entirety of these crimes.鈥�
鈥淪ociety is the victim of these crimes,鈥� the prosecutor said. 鈥淰oters who would have been disenfranchised by these acts ... would have been victims of these crimes.鈥�
But the judge decided that even though McDonald and Law live in Las Vegas, 鈥渆verything took place up north.鈥�
After the court hearing, Hindle鈥檚 attorney, Brian Hardy, declined to comment on calls from advocacy groups for his client to resign from his elected position as overseer of elections in Storey County, a jurisdiction with a few more than 4,100 residents. Those calls included a news conference Friday outside the courthouse by leaders of three organizations.
The state Republican party issued a statement welcoming the court decision, pointing to Ford's vow to appeal and asking for contributions to continue the court fight.
Meehan is the only defendant not to have been named by the state party as Nevada delegates to the next month in Milwaukee. His defense attorney, Sigal Chattah, said her client chose not to seek the position. Chattah ran as a Republican in 2022 for state attorney general and lost to Ford by just under 8% of the vote.
Nevada is one of seven presidential battleground states where slates of fake electors falsely certified that Trump had won , not Democrat Joe Biden. Others are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Nevada鈥檚 case, filed last December, focused on the actions of six defendants. Criminal cases in three other states focus on many more 鈥� 16 in , 19 in and 18 in .
Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who last October to helping orchestrate the Trump campaign fake elector scheme in 2020, cooperated with prosecutors in the and was not charged.
In testimony before the grand jury that met in Las Vegas in November, Chesebro said he provided the state GOP with an 鈥渙rganized step-by-step explanation of what they would have to do鈥� to sign and submit certificates falsely stating that Trump, not Biden, won in Nevada.
He also called to the fake elector plot, compared with other states, because the meeting of electors was overseen by the secretary of state. Also, unlike other states, Nevada did not have a legal challenge pending in courts at the time.
Trump by more than 30,000 votes to Biden and the state鈥檚 Democratic electors certified the results in the presence of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican. Her defense of the results as reliable and accurate led the state GOP to , but Cegavske later conducted an investigation that found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.
Ken Ritter, The Associated Press
