Michele Fiore, a Nevada politician known for her fiery brand of conservatism, was indicted on fraud charges on Tuesday for what prosecutors said was a scheme to spend charitable donations on personal expenses.
Ms. Fiore, 53, a justice of the peace in Pahrump, Nev., was a city councilor for Las Vegas in 2019 when, federal prosecutors said, she asked for donations to build a statue memorializing a police officer who had been killed while on duty.
In a statement on Wednesday, the prosecutors said that tens of thousands of dollars had been donated to Ms. Fiore — as well as to her political action committee, and to a charity she established in 2019 — but that none of the funding had been spent on the statue, as she had promised.
Instead, according to the statement, “the donations were used to pay her political fund-raising bills and rent and were transferred to family members, including to pay for her daughter’s wedding.”
A grand jury charged Ms. Fiore with four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If she is convicted, she could face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each count. An arraignment has been scheduled for July 29.
“I have always approached my duties with utmost integrity and dedication,” Ms. Fiore said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. “Now that these accusations have been made, I look forward to my day in court and have faith in our judicial system.”
For years, Ms. Fiore cultivated a reputation as a staunch conservative and a colorful figure in Nevada politics. During a brief run for governor in 2021, she released a campaign video in which she parked a pickup truck in the desert and used a handgun to fire shots at beer bottles with labels that said “voter fraud” and “vaccine mandates.”
She opted out of the governor’s race the following year and campaigned to become the state treasurer instead, an election she ultimately lost to her Democratic opponent.
Ms. Fiore was an early supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, and she has long been known for her fierce defense of gun rights. She made national headlines in 2015, when she and several members of her extended family posed with guns in a photograph that she shared online as a Christmas greeting.
In 2016, Ms. Fiore played a pivotal role in assisting negotiations to end a standoff at the Malheur Federal Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon between federal officials and an armed group of anti-government activists who demanded more local control of the refuge. Ms. Fiore and others, including the evangelist Franklin Graham, persuaded the occupiers to surrender without a fight.
The F.B.I. special agent in charge said afterward that Ms. Fiore’s help had been important and thanked her for “significant assistance.”
Ms. Fiore seemed to have sympathy for the group’s charismatic leader, Ammon Bundy, just as she had two years earlier for his father, Cliven Bundy, who in 2014 rallied supporters to join him in defending his cattle from what he described as federal overreach in southern Nevada.
Ms. Fiore served in Nevada’s state assembly beginning in 2012. She lost a bid to join the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016, then won an election in 2017 to become a member of the City Council in Las Vegas.
It was during that term, according to the indictment, that Ms. Fiore told donors that she was collecting money to fund a statue in honor of one officer, Alyn Beck. She had also mentioned plans to memorialize another, Igor Soldo. Both men had been working as patrol officers when they were shot and killed at a pizzeria in June 2014.
Prosecutors said that even as she was collecting donations, Ms. Fiore already knew that a real estate development company had already agreed to pay for the statue of Mr. Beck, which was unveiled when the park opened in Jan. 2020.
In her statement, Ms. Fiore said that the indictment “has been years in the making and has profoundly impacted my life, the lives of my adult children and grandchildren, my friends and especially my constituents. This is unacceptable.”
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