PAHRUMP — Michele Fiore has been banned from her courtroom for nearly two years. But that isn’t stopping the Pahrump Justice of the Peace from running for the position she was appointed to in 2022. 

Several mornings a week, she and her campaign manager, Brittany Jenkins, stop at the Smith’s grocery store in Pahrump to pick up boxes of freshly baked donuts or bagels and deliver them to a variety of businesses, including private school offices and nonprofit organizations, along with her campaign flyers. In some places, she gladly removes the election material because it’s not allowed.

The Nevada Independent accompanied her one recent morning as she dropped off baked goods to Cutting Edge Designs, which handled her campaign signs; Nye County Armory, her “favorite” firearms manufacturer; Nye Valley Ready Mix and the Calvada Meadows Airport. 

Just before noon, Fiore walked into a lunch meeting of the Nye County Republican Club at the Pahrump Nugget Hotel and Casino with the last boxes of baked goods, where she was warmly greeted by candidates for other offices and the club’s leadership. Her table included several members of her campaign staff who planned to head out into the neighborhoods to canvass for votes following the event.

“We have paid walkers who go out into neighborhoods,” Fiore said in an interview. “If someone isn’t home and we miss them, we’ll go back. If someone has a question or wants to meet me, we drive right over. I’m always available. It takes energy and it takes hard work.”

It’s all the traditional trappings of an ordinary, small-town judicial campaign. But Michele Fiore is no ordinary candidate.

Occasionally dubbed “Lady Trump” and a fixture in headlines over the last decade, her career as a judge seemed to be over after her 2024 conviction on federal wire fraud charges for using $70,000 she raised from donors that was to be designated for a fallen Las Vegas police officer’s memorial. The indictment said she used the money for her own personal gain, including her rent, plastic surgery and her daughter’s wedding.

She was facing 20 years in federal prison on each count.

However, a life preserver in the form of an April 2025 pardon from President Donald Trump — who gave no reason for the pardon — allowed her to jump-start a 2026 re-election effort.

Despite the pardon, Fiore remains suspended with pay by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline. Her suspension was upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court last month, and the commission filed a formal statement of charges against her several weeks later.

Fiore, 55, is undaunted. 

The goal of the former two-term Republican Assembly member and one-term Las Vegas City Council member is to receive more than 50 percent of the vote next month, which, according to Nevada law, would allow her to avoid a run-off in November.

Though she is not a licensed attorney, Nevada does not require it for rural justices of the peace in counties with fewer than 100,000 residents. She faces three challengers: retired towing company owner Michael Foley, who was appointed by the Nye County Commission more than a year ago to serve as Fiore’s temporary replacement, occupational therapist Scott Oakley and Richard Hamilton, who could not be reached for comment.   

Fiore said she hopes a solid primary win will send a message to the discipline commission and the Supreme Court’s justices to end the investigation and provide a path back onto the bench, where she hears cases involving misdemeanors, small claims, traffic violations, evictions and civil matters under $15,000.

“I’m the hardest-working candidate you will meet,” said Fiore of what has become her full-time job.

“I’ve been suppressed for four years now,” she continued. “Judicial discipline is interfering with an election. As a public figure and as an elected figure, there’s no one I can sue. They have absolute immunity.”

Could a victory by Fiore in June affect or even end the disciplinary matters? UNLV history professor Michael Green referenced the Broadway musical Hamilton when asked.

“I’d like to be in the room where it happens, because it is going to be a difficult decision for them,” Green said in an interview. “On the one hand, she does not act judicially in the least. I know there have been cases where judges have done some things that led to them being disciplined or even removed. In this case, she was convicted and the pardon does not erase that fact.”

Green added neither the discipline commission nor the Nevada Supreme Court could be influenced by voters.

“I don’t think the people on those commissions, who either are elected or have electoral ambitions, really care what the voters of Pahrump think,” Green said. “It’s not going to affect them either way. But does this mean Fiore then goes after them?”

Jeremy Gelman, an associate professor of political science at UNR, suggested Trump’s pardon shouldn’t weigh into the commission’s decision-making process.

“The commission’s purpose is to investigate judicial misconduct, and they focus on issues when somebody is a judge,” Gelman said. “That is what is written into the [Nevada Revised Statutes]. I think it’s speculative about what the commission is doing.”

A colorful past

On her campaign website, Fiore said courts “must remain independent from political pressure, media influence, and special interests.” She vowed to never “rule based on headlines, intimidation, or outside noise, only on facts, evidence, and the law.”

Fiore reported in April that she raised nearly $125,000 in campaign contributions through the first three months of 2026, largely thanks to a $95,000 loan she made to her campaign. She reported spending  $109,000, the bulk of which went toward campaign materials and consultants. She had an ending balance of just over $3,000, but suggested the next report, due in July, will reflect additional fundraising efforts.

She believes residents she has met during her four years in the community, 60 miles west of Las Vegas, have tuned out the noise and will turn out to propel her to an election victory.

“When Michele came here to run for judge, we hopped on her train,” said Pahrump resident Yolanda Magley, who moved from Michigan with her husband, Daniel, a few years ago. The couple is often seen wearing Fiore’s red campaign T-shirts and has trained volunteers to walk door to door. They gladly chat with anyone in Pahrump about their favorite candidate. 

“I believe in her truth. I feel she’s been railroaded, and sometimes people always want to believe the bad,” she said. “They never see the good. I just believe in Michele.”

Fiore’s bright red campaign signs are omnipresent throughout Pahrump — in front yards, at area businesses and along roadways. Highway 160, which cuts through the center of Pahrump, is dotted with large billboards with Fiore’s image and a statement that “President Donald Trump stood with Fiore.”

“As a judge, there is no politics in my courtroom. Just the person,” Fiore said. “It’s very telling when I have so many people who come through our courtroom. Their party affiliation doesn’t matter. It matters how they are treated.”

Pahrump’s voters are reliably red, with 14,000 registered Republicans and 12,000 nonpartisan voters outnumbering the county’s 5,000 Democrats. 

Fiore isn’t taking the numbers for granted. She’s trying to earn support from all sides of the political landscape.

Christopher Salute, a director at Great Basin College’s Pahrump Valley Center, said he has found common ground with Fiore, although he considers himself “a Democrat by nature.” Salute said he admires her loyalty and her spirit.

“When people ask me about her, I say we’re friends,” Salute said. “She’s a loyal person and she fights really hard. Every time I speak to somebody about her, they say that she does her job really well. The world was pretty OK before we started dividing.”

An unorthodox campaign

Fresh off her narrow loss in the 2022 treasurer’s race, Fiore was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in December 2022 out of a pool of 18 applicants by the Nye County Commission following the death of Justice of the Peace Kent Jasperson. 

Following her appointment, she won a primary election in June 2024, gaining more than 50 percent of the vote to fulfill the remaining years of the judicial post. 

But the term didn’t last long. 

She was indicted a month later on the federal charges. 

During the trial, several witnesses testified that Fiore had pledged to use their donations to fund the statue for Alyn Beck, a Metro police officer killed in the line of duty in 2014. Witnesses said they were never contacted about the money no longer being needed, and that they were not fully reimbursed. 

Included in the evidence was a letter from Fiore in October 2019 — which prosecutors said came after she was aware the statue would not need a funding source — seeking donations and pledging that 100 percent would be used to fund the statue. 

Following the pardon, Fiore began producing and paying a local television station to air a 14-part series called The Fiore Files – Breaking the Narrative, which is also being rolled out on YouTube. Episodes feature Fiore talking directly to the camera in long monologues, settling scores, attacking the media and claiming that the entire trial was a setup.

“I’m not going to be silent anymore,” she says in one episode. “I’m fighting for my life, and you need to know the truth.”

The series has rallied her loyal supporters.

“Why would she put herself on a TV news channel and do each one of those segments if she was guilty, right?” asked Yolanda’s husband, Daniel Magley. “Michele’s always willing to talk to anybody. You can’t just believe all the garbage.”

The court case and judicial discipline matters have lingered over some voters.

“I like to hear both sides of what someone has to say,” said Mary Peden, a kindergarten teacher at Community Christian Academy, whose son had appeared in a case in front of Fiore. She said he was treated fairly. 

Later, Peden watched several episodes of the television series.

“I contacted her, and she said she wanted to meet,” Peden said. “I know how higher-ups can come down on someone. I believe in her, I plan to vote for her. I have her sign in my front yard.”

Others in her shadow   

At least two of Fiore’s opponents aren’t scared away by her all-out blitz to retain her seat, which pays $85,500 a year.

Foley, 63, who earns $479.45 per day when he sits as a pro-tem judge according to Nye County, said he enjoys the work. The county commission reappoints him monthly.

He moved to Pahrump two decades ago to get away from the cold winters and the high cost of living in Massachusetts. He first ran for the position in the early 2000s because he thought the job was interesting. He lost the election, but impressed commission members and other judges.

Foley became a pro-tem judge in 2007, sitting intermittently over the years when a judge was away. He attended classes at the National Judicial College in Reno to better understand the role.

After Jasperson died in August 2022, Foley occasionally served as a pro tem until Fiore was appointed. He had applied for the seat. Foley ran against her in 2024, finishing a distant second.

Following her conviction, Foley became the permanent pro-tem judge in January 2025. He said he hasn’t spoken to Fiore since taking over. 

“I’m kind of persona non grata,” Foley said, adding that he couldn’t comment about her legal matters because of judicial rules. “I think she was upset I got into the race.”

Foley said in late April he was hoping to have signs throughout Pahrump by the end of the month, but they came back from the printer “with my name misspelled.” The signs are being reprinted and Foley is paying campaign expenses out of his own pocket. 

“I don’t ask for any money at all. I’m self-funding,” he said. “With the economy the way it is right now, I know money is a little tight. One person wanted to donate. I appreciated it, but said, ‘Your money is better in your pocket.’”

Foley takes his role seriously and does his homework on each case.

“There’s always something to learn,” he said. “Every single day here, I learn something new.”

Oakley, 54, who grew up in Las Vegas and moved to Pahrump more than a decade ago, has only seen a courtroom through his experiences and certifications as a licensed therapist in multiple fields, including marriage and family counseling. 

He said the local governments don’t do enough for their residents in the areas of mental health, drug and alcohol addiction and domestic violence.

“Pahrump and Nye County have no hospitals for mental health, no hospitals for addiction. People overdose here all the time,” said Oakley, who has worked with the court system to help evaluate defendants. However, he said the protocols in the court system and the jail are lacking, which doesn’t allow him or other counselors to make a proper assessment.

“The judges can use my assessments and recommendations to help these people get treatment,” Oakley said. He added that, as a judge, his background would make him better equipped to oversee the process.

“The most important thing that we have to do is identify what we can do as a community, to allow ourselves to get the people the proper help,” he said.

Like Foley, Oakley has begun to place signage around Pahrump to boost his name recognition. He raised $3,370 for his campaign as of April 15, with a $2,500 loan from his wife.

Hamilton, who has raised and spent nothing on the race, could not be reached for comment.

‘A beautiful thank-you note’ 

In an interview, Fiore called the investigation that led up to the fraud conviction “a weaponization of government and people. They might not like that term or words.” 

However, she was convicted by the jury of six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.  

Fiore provided the White House with an “18-page social history” detailing the case. She declined to provide a copy to The Indy.

“To get my pardon, we had to prove the crimes of the FBI and the DOJ (Department of Justice). That’s not an easy task,” Fiore said. “I didn’t call the president on his cell, which I could have done, and ask him to pardon me.”

Fiore claimed the former head of the pardons office “buried the application.” She never spoke with Trump about the pardon but said she sent the president “a beautiful thank-you letter.”

Fiore said she has been writing her autobiography, which she plans to self-publish with her re-election being the final chapter. 

If re-elected, she said she plans to serve just one six-year term and attend law school during that time, hopefully attending classes remotely online and in person at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law. She wants to eventually open her own criminal defense practice.