The 12 jurors in the election misconduct trial of former Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux were not able to come to a decision on the 12 counts against her. The judge declared it a mistrial due to deadlock. Whether Department of Law prosecutors will try the case again is yet to be determined.
LeDoux, who moved from Kodiak to the Muldoon area so that she could then run for state House, was accused by the state of encouraging people to register and vote in her district when she knew they didn’t live in the district. The charges included five felony charges.
The case had many twists and turns, with one key witness and campaign employee, Charlie Chang of California, dying in 2018. He had been hired to bring in the vote of the Hmong community.
But two associated with the case did not die. One, then-legislative aide Lisa Simpson, pleaded guilty and testified against LeDoux, as did Caden Vaught, who is Simpson’s son who was apparently taken advantage of in the alleged scheme.
In her defense, LeDoux had testified that she never wanted her campaign to do anything illegal, arguing that she was misunderstood. But after a two-year investigation, which involved the FBI due to federal candidates being on the ballots during the timeframe of the elections, the State Department of Law concluded that there was actual election fraud taking place.
