A member of the Republican party in Arizona, Loraine Pellegrino, recently became the first person to be convicted in the state’s fraudulent elector case after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document. Pellegrino, a former president of Ahwatukee Republican Women, faced nine felony charges initially but was ultimately sentenced to unsupervised probation. Seventeen others were also charged in the case for falsely claiming Donald Trump had won Arizona in the 2020 election, despite President Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Among the charged individuals were 10 other Republicans who had signed a certificate posing as “duly elected and qualified” electors for Trump, despite Biden winning by 10,457 votes. Pellegrino’s attorney, Joshua Kolsrud, stated that his client took responsibility for her actions and opted to accept a plea deal to move on from the matter. Notably, Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for Trump’s campaign who collaborated with Rudy Giuliani, has entered into a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.
On December 14, 2020, Pellegrino and 10 others gathered in Phoenix to sign the false document, which was later shared on social media by the Arizona Republican Party. While Pellegrino’s document was forwarded to Congress and the National Archives, it was disregarded. Prosecutors in several other states, including Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, and Wisconsin, have also filed criminal charges linked to the fake electors scheme.
The Arizona case, which came to light in late April, saw charges brought against a total of 11 Republicans who submitted the fraudulent document declaring Trump the winner, along with five attorneys associated with the former president and two ex-Trump aides. Although Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case, he was mentioned as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment.