A judge in Nevada tossed an indictment against six Republicans accused in a fake electors scheme falsely claiming that Donald Trump won the state in the 2020 presidential election, according to a report.
Clark County District Judge Mary Kay Holthus said state prosecutors filed the case in Las Vegas, the wrong jurisdiction.
Defense lawyers claimed that Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford should have filed the case closer to where the alleged crime occurred instead of in Clark County.
"We disagree with the judge's decision and will be appealing immediately," said John Sadler, a spokesperson for the Nevada attorney general's office, the Hill reported.
But defense attorneys declared the case "done" because prosecutors trying to bring it to another grand jury would violate the three-year statute of limitations on filing charges, which expired in December.
Holthus called off the trial scheduled to begin in January.
The six charged are: Michael McDonald, Jesse Law, Jim DeGraffenreid, Durward James Hindle III, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice.
They faced felony charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument. If convicted, each one could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison.
The fake electors scheme was supposed to begin with former Vice President Mike Pence refusing to certify Joe Biden's presidential election victory during a joint-session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump supporters and Republicans in battleground states like Nevada and Michigan would then put forward a new roster of electors who would vote for Trump over then-President-Elect Joe Biden, allowing the former president to overturn his loss.
Other "fake electors" cases are underway in a number of states, inlcuding Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.
