Former Judge Found Dead After Losing Job Over Ethics Probe - But She Just Wanted to Protect Her Daughter
A former Nevada judge has died by her own hand after resigning following an ethics probe into her conduct, according to news reports.
Melanie Andress Tobiasson died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Friday, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The former Las Vegas justice of the peace stepped down from her position two years ago pursuant to an agreement with the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline.
Former Las Vegas judge Melanie Andress Tobiasson has died. She was 55. https://t.co/tb16VYtCOS
— Las Vegas Review-Journal (@reviewjournal) January 22, 2023
The state commission probed Tobiasson for her actions in urging Las Vegas law enforcement to investigate career criminal Shane Valentine in connection to the killings of two women, according to Fox News.
Tobiasson had accused Valentine of attempting to lure her own teenage daughter into prostitution.
The judge defended her actions in a statement at the time of her resignation, according to Fox.
“I have been vilified, lied about and accused of wrongdoing, when in fact what I did was appropriate and should be applauded,” the statement said, according to Fox.
“I’m resigning because they have terrorized and lied about me for three years.”
In the agreement that spurred her resignation, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline accused Tobiasson of allowing her family sympathies to compromise her impartiality as a judge, according to Fox.
Tobiasson asserted that she was wrongly targeted by both the judicial commission and by Las Vegas law enforcement in response to the inquiry, according to KLAS-TV.
Tobiasson went so far as to claim that the FBI had told her not to talk about a clothing store that she believed Valentine was using as a front for prostitution, according to the Baltimore Post-Examiner, a Maryland-based news site.
Tobiasson’s daughter worked for the store, Top Notch, at one point, according to KLAS.
The judge maintained that she was merely providing law enforcement with actionable information about criminal conduct.
The former judge made claims that the store, Top Knotch, was being used as a front for prostitution and her daughter Sarah was being recruited as a prostitute.
She accused the Las Vegas Metro Police Department for ignoring information she provided, 🧵 https://t.co/XyErV3JW3G
— Chaos In Vegas ➐ (@ChaoticVegasMan) January 22, 2023
Valentine — himself serving a prison sentence for an unrelated burglary and gun crimes — hasn’t been charged or convicted with the shootings that Tobiasson referred to Las Vegas vice detectives, although he was named a person of interest in these killings.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department declined to charge Tobiasson with crimes following their own investigation into the actions that led to her resignation.
Her death came two weeks after the judge’s divorce from her husband, Murray Tobiasson, was finalized weeks, according to Fox.
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