Judge dismisses charges in Nevada fake electors case over venue issue; attorney general to appeal

LAS VEGAS —  A Nevada state judge dismissed a criminal indictment Friday against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election, potentially killing the case with her ruling that state prosecutors had filed it in the wrong venue.

Nevada Atty. Gen. Aaron Ford stood in a Las Vegas courtroom a moment after Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus delivered her ruling, declaring that he would take the case directly to the state Supreme Court.

“The judge got it wrong, and we’ll be appealing immediately,” Ford told reporters afterward.

Defense attorneys bluntly declared the case dead, saying that taking it now to another grand jury in another venue such as Nevada’s capital of Carson City would violate a three-year statute of limitations on filing charges that expired in December.

“They’re done,” 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 scheduled for January, for defendants that included the state GOP chairman and national party committee members. Each was charged with offering a false instrument for filing and with uttering a forged instrument, felonies that carry penalties of up to four or five years in prison.

Defense attorneys contended that Ford had improperly brought the case in Las Vegas instead of Carson City or Reno, northern Nevada cities closer to where the alleged crime occurred. They also accused prosecutors of failing to present to the grand jury evidence that would have exonerated their clients, and said their clients had no intent to commit a crime.

All but one defendant have been named by the state party as Nevada delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention next month in Milwaukee.

Nevada is one of seven presidential battleground states where slates of fake electors falsely certified that Trump, not Democrat Joe Biden, had won in 2020. Others are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Criminal charges have been brought in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.

Trump lost Nevada to Biden by more than 30,000 votes in 2020.