Man to plead guilty to using dead wife’s ballot to vote twice in 2020 election
A Las Vegas business executive facing a voting fraud charge related to the 2020 election is expected to enter a guilty plea at a court hearing Tuesday.
Donald Kirk Hartle was charged with a felony count of voting more than once in the same election, court records show. Hartle’s defense attorney, David Chesnoff, confirmed Monday that the 55-year-old is expected to enter a guilty plea at the hearing.
According to a plea agreement filed Monday, Hartle has agreed to informal probation in exchange for adjudication to be postponed for a year.
If he successfully completes the probation, Hartle has agreed to plead guilty to a gross misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to vote more than once in the same election.
He has also agreed to pay a $2,000 fine, court records show.
District Judge Carli Kierny will need to accept the plea on Tuesday for it to be official.
Hartle was initially charged in Las Vegas Justice Court with felony counts of voting more than once in the same election and voting using another person’s name. The case was bound over to District Court on the single charge in early November, court records show.
Hartle, the chief financial officer of the Ahern family of companies, is accused of voting under the name of his late wife, Rosemarie Hartle, who died in 2017.
Many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, promoted unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election in Nevada.
The case of Rosemarie Hartle’s vote was highlighted by the Nevada Republican Party at the time.
Don Ahern, the head of the Ahern family of companies, is the state GOP’s finance chairman and a supporter of the former president.
Two of his companies faced fines last year for hosting Trump events that defied state-imposed measures to combat the pandemic.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
