Nevada politicians can spend donor cash outside the campaign

When Joe Lombardo gave $5,000 from his campaign account to a political action committee, the future governor thought he was helping pay for the statue of a fallen Las Vegas police officer.

The money was instead used by former Las Vegas councilwoman Michele Fiore to pay her rent. Fiore was recently convicted of wire fraud for diverting contributions to personal use — though donations like Lombardo’s, which came into focus during Fiore’s trial, are perfectly legal in Nevada.

Political candidates in Nevada can spend campaign cash to pay for staff, travel, advertising, polling and the like. Under state law, they also can contribute to other candidates or to political action committees, as Lombardo did when he gave money to Fiore’s Future for Nevadans PAC.

Nevada politicians can return unspent campaign contributions to donors, but they don’t have to. They can spend this leftover cash on their next election if they won the prior race, or they can send it to a political party, nonprofit groups, government agencies or other candidates’ campaigns, state law says.

However, they cannot use political contributions to pay for personal expenses, to pay themselves a salary or to pay a court-ordered judgment, state law shows.

Personal expenses

Las Vegas attorney Bradley Schrager, whose practice areas include election law and campaign finance, said you can only use campaign funds as part of your election run or the duties of your office.

Nevada campaign law does not give specific examples of prohibited “personal use” spending. But it defines the term as using contributions to pay an expense that would exist “irrespective” of the candidate’s run for office.

State lawmakers intended to “disallow” spending campaign cash on personal and household goods such as food, clothing, rent and utilities, according to Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar’s office, which supervises state and local elections.

A federal grand jury indicted Fiore this summer on accusations that she solicited tens of thousands of dollars to fund a statue of Metro police officer Alyn Beck, who was killed with his partner, officer Igor Soldo, in a 2014 ambush, but spent the money on herself and her daughter’s wedding instead of the statue.

Fiore pleaded not guilty, and her lawyer described Fiore’s actions as “sloppy but not criminal.”

Prosecutors also claimed in a court filing in the case that Fiore repeatedly defrauded donors to her campaigns, political action committee and charity by “secretly diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions” for personal use, including plastic surgery and vacations.

Governor testifies

Lombardo was not identified by name in Fiore’s indictment, which said a donor — described only as a “public official” in Nevada — gave $5,000 to her political action committee on July 16, 2019, to help fund the statue of Beck. According to the indictment, Fiore transferred that exact sum on that same day to another account and used it to buy money orders to pay her rent.

State records show an entity called Lombardo for Sheriff gave $5,000 on July 16, 2019, to Fiore’s political action committee.

Lombardo, who was elected governor of Nevada in 2022 and gave the donation when he was Clark County sheriff, took the witness stand in Fiore’s trial on Sept. 30. He called himself a victim and a witness in the case and said the donation came from his campaign account, not his personal funds.

Fiore was found guilty on Oct. 3 of six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She faces up to 20 years in prison on each count, prosecutors said.

Following her conviction, Fiore was suspended without pay from her most recent position as a justice of the peace in Pahrump.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.