First guilty plea in AZ fake elector case comes from GOP activist Lorraine Pellegrino

The first of Arizona’s 11 fake electors has pleaded guilty of attempting to undermine the will of voters in the state in 2020 to keep former President Donald Trump in office, even though voters in Arizona — and nationwide — rejected him and instead chose Joe Biden. 

Conservative activist Lorraine Pellegrino, who previously served as the president of Ahwatukee Republican Women, entered a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false instrument, according to Richie Taylor, a spokesman for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. 

All of the defendants in the case, including the 11 fake electors, were charged with nine felonies, including fraud, conspiracy and forgery. In December of 2020, just a month after the election, Pellegrino was one of the group of Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming that Trump won the state. President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes. 

That false certificate was ignored, and Congress went on to certify Biden as the next president, using the votes cast by Arizona’s actual electors, during a ceremony that was delayed by the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

In April, Arizona AG Kris Mayes announced the indictment of 18 defendants involved in the Grand Canyon State’s fake electors case, including state lawmakers, lawyers connected to Trump, and two former Trump aides. Trump himself has not been indicted in the state, referred to instead in court documents as an “unindicted co-conspirator.” 

Some defendants in the case have since launched a lawsuit attempting to overturn their indictments by convincing a court that the case seeks to stifle political speech. But Mayes’ office, which directed the grand jury not to indict Trump, argues that not charging the former president proves it wasn’t a political act. 

Earlier this week, former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis cut a deal with prosecutors to drop the charges against her in exchange for cooperation in the case.  

Arizona isn’t the only state in which Trump sought to pressure elected officials and others to illegally declare victory on his behalf. Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges against their own fake electors.