This story was originally published in the Alaska Beacon.
The judge presiding over the trial of former state Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux over alleged violations of state elections law declared a mistrial on Monday after the jury deadlocked.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby found that there was a hung jury in the trial, which began on Nov. 18 and saw jury deliberations begin after the Thanksgiving holiday.
“No additional instructions on the law will assist in breaking the impasse. Neither will deliberations. We have not — underlined — reached unanimity on any of the charges,” the jury found, according to a note read by Saxby.
Saxby said he understood that the jurors wouldn’t benefit from any more deliberations.
“I think that they’ve been — within bounds — hammering on each other for three hours or so — or more, at this point,” he said.
The trial focused on whether LeDoux had pressured people to vote in her district when they lived elsewhere. Prosecutors said she applied the pressure to Lisa M. Simpson, a friend and former aide, and Simpson’s son Caden Vaught.
LeDoux’s attorney argued that LeDoux was not responsible for mistakes Simpson and Vaught made, and that LeDoux asked them to follow what she understood the law to be.
LeDoux, an Anchorage Republican, was charged in 2020 with voter misconduct and unlawful interference with voting during the 2018 primary and general election campaigns. She faced five felony counts and seven misdemeanor counts.
LeDoux declined to comment on the outcome after Saxby’s finding.
The trial had been delayed four times since charges were filed against LeDoux in 2020. The most recent delay was in July, when the prosecution disclosed additional evidence shortly before the scheduled trial.
LeDoux was a House member from 2005 to 2009, when she lived in and represented Kodiak, and from 2013 to 2021, when she represented an Anchorage district that included portions of both the Muldoon neighborhood and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. She previously was a practicing attorney, with a focus on personal injury cases related to maritime law.
This story is republished from the Alaska Beacon under Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter.
