Loraine Pellegrino admitted to misdemeanor charge of filing a false document, with 17 other people charged in case

Loraine Pellegrino admitted to misdemeanor charge of filing a false document, with 17 other people charged in case

A Republican activist who signed a document falsely claiming Donald Trump had won Arizona in 2020 became the first person to be convicted in the state’s fake elector case.

Loraine Pellegrino, a past president of the group Ahwatukee Republican Women, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document, the Arizona attorney general’s office spokesperson, Richie Taylor, said on Tuesday, declining to comment further. Records documenting her guilty plea have not yet been posted by the court. Still, court records show Pellegrino was sentenced to unsupervised probation. Before the plea, she faced nine felony charges.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
    582·
    1 month ago

    Seriously? She pleaded down from 9 felonies to 1 misdemeanor and was sentenced to unsupervised probation? Was this another cooperation agreement? Is she going to testify against her co-conspirators or what?

    • ganksy@lemmy.world
      29·
      1 month ago

      That’s what a plea bargain is. If she doesn’t complete the terms of the bargain, the charges will be reinstated. It is likely to testify against the other defendants but whatever it is, it wasn’t trivial.

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
        121·
        1 month ago

        Not necessarily. In some cases, prosecutors will allow a defendant to plead to a lesser charge because simply it saves time and money. Trials are expensive and prosecutor time is valuable so sometime they just take the win on a lesser charge to put the trial to bed. In this case, there is no further comment from anyone about the details of the plea. This suggests that Pellegrino pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, said she was sorry, and the court let her off with something that isn’t even a slap on the wrist.

        Jenna Ellis also took a plea deal in this case. However, in the reporting on that deal, it specifically says that she will cooperate with the prosecution.

        In exchange for dropping nine felony counts against her, Ellis agreed to “provide truthful information” to the Attorney General’s Office and “testify completely and truthfully” in the case, per the terms of Ellis’ cooperation agreement with the AG’s Office.

        All they are saying about Pellegrino is that there is no further comment on the plea in this article. Axios has slightly more. They say she’s getting three years unsupervised probation (The Guardian article left out the length of the sentence) and adds this:

        The attorney general’s office wouldn’t comment on whether Pellegrino will be required to testify or cooperate with the prosecution, saying the court has sealed the plea agreement.

        Why would they seal this plea agreement but not the Ellis agreement where she is required to fully cooperate? Why is Pellegrino getting such a sweetheart deal?

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      1 month ago

      Would not surprise me at all to hear she’s now a cooperating witness against some higher-up defendants.

  • Linktank@lemmy.today
    202·
    1 month ago

    Wow whoever is making these deals sucks at dealmaking. They could have kept her with 3 felonies and still taken away SIX felonies. What the hell.

    • hohoho@lemmy.world
      16·
      1 month ago

      The defendant struck a plea deal with the prosecution and will likely turn on someone higher up; quite possibly Trump himself and/or one of his direct associates. This will hopefully result in a better overall outcome of justice.

  • barsquid@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 month ago

    “Activist,” fucking wow, that headline is journalistic malpractice. Coddling insurrectionists.