At a trial-setting conference on Monday, the Alaska Department of Law said will take its election fraud case against former Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux to trial once more.
In December, the 12 counts, including felonies, against LeDoux ended in a hung jury. Normally, prosecutors cannot retry a case unless they have new evidence because double jeopardy rules of the court prevent the accused from being tried again on the same (or even similar) charges. But in hung juries, the case may be tried again (edit).
LeDoux is charged with helping to register people as voters in her Muldoon-area state House district in 2018, when she was actively working her campaign in the Hmong community of Cambodian and Laotian immigrants.
LeDoux brought in a Laotian campaign worker from California, Charlie Chang, whom she paid $10,000 to register people to vote and help them get their ballots in. At one small mobile home, some 17 people were registered to vote at that address. Soon after the charges were filed against her, Chang died mysteriously in California and state investigator on the case, John Lehe, was t-boned in a car accident was brain-injured and could not continue.
LeDoux was initially charged in March of 2020, after an extensive investigation that included the Federal Bureau of Investigation. LeDoux’s accomplices have already pled guilty to certain related charges and have testified against her. But after years of delays, the trial ended with a hung jury in December.
LeDoux, who left office in January of 2021, had served in the Alaska Legislature from 2005-2008 and 2013-2021, when she lost to Rep. David Nelson.
The LeDoux saga continues into 2025, but a court date for the new trial has not been announced.
