Groundhog Day may be over for 2024, but the trial of former Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux has its own deja vu quality about it. The original alleged crime took place in 2018, but the former lawmaker, who is a lawyer, knows how to work a court system and delay a trial.
Monday, LeDoux has yet another scheduling and trial-prepping court date in the election fraud case that has dragged on since she was first charged by the FBI in March of 2020, and indicted by a grand jury in June of 2021, on multiple felony counts of voter misconduct in the first degree.
The charges stem from the investigation that started in 2018 against LeDoux, Lisa (Vaught) Simpson, and Caden Vaught after workers are the Division of Elections noticed irregularities in some of the absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots returned for the primary election for then-House District 15, a Muldoon neighborhood that has many immigrant Hmong residents. The Alaska State Troopers, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, conducted the investigation, the essence of which is that LeDoux and her functionaries were overly helpful in marking and returning ballots from immigrants living in at least one mobile home park in both the 2018 primary and general elections.
LeDoux and Lisa Simpson were each indicted on five counts of voter misconduct in the first degree and Caden Vaught was indicted on four counts of voter misconduct in the first degree. They all have entered pleas of not guilty to the charges.
Since then, justice has been delayed numerous times for a variety of reasons, the first few delays related to the Covid pandemic that was still creating scheduling problems in 2021.
Monday’s court appearance at 2:30 pm in the courtroom of Judge Kevin Saxby is supposed to be a trial-setting conference, not the actual trial.
But such court events have come and gone for LeDoux, who is now 75 years old. Even if she is convicted, LeDoux, who is a lawyer, is likely to appeal the charges and delays could continue for her until she reaches her late 70s. More likely than a conviction in this case is some kind of plea agreement with the state.
LeDoux was part of a caucus that called itself the Muskox Caucus. She broke ranks with Republicans and forged a Democrat majority in the House with then-Reps. Jim Colver, Paul Seaton, and Louise Stutes — all Republicans who broke off from the Republican caucus in 2016. The only Republican member of the Muskox Caucus that is still in office is Stutes.
