Election fraud sentencing delayed again for former SLO County supervisor candidate. Why?
The sentencing hearing for the former San Luis Obispo County Supervisor candidate found guilty of election fraud was rescheduled for a second time on Thursday.
Michelle Morrow, 55, ran for the District 3 Board of Supervisors seat in the March primary, losing to current sitting Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg.
Later finding that she had actually lived in District 4 during her campaign, the District Attorney’s Office filed charges against her in September, allegeing election and voter fraud.
At her second arraignment in November, Morrow was convicted of filing a false declaration of candidacy and fraudulent attempts to vote — both felonies — after pleading no contest to the charges.
Two other felony charges against her — perjury by declaration and a voter registration violation — were dropped.
Instead of receiving her sentence as scheduled on Thursday, the hearing was pushed off by more than a month — and not for the first time.
Morrow’s sentencing, originally scheduled for Jan. 6, was first pushed to Feb. 13 to allow her lawyer Jim Murphy “additional time to provide critical information to the court that it does not yet have,” he told the Tribune at the time.
Then on Feb. 7, days before her expected sentencing, Murphy filed a motion to delay the sentence hearing again to April 7 and to place Morrow’s sentencing statement under seal so that “confidential information regarding the medical history of defendant does not become a matter of public record, nor the subject of newspaper articles to her embarrassment and detriment.”
The Tribune immediately made a pending request to the judge to unseal Morrow’s statement with any sensitive medical information redacted.
Morrow’s sentencing — and final court appearance, according to the judge — is now scheduled for April 7.
This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 12:16 PM.
