SLO County candidate accused of election fraud to get lawyer — but not how she wanted
Following a turbulent hearing earlier this month, a San Luis Obispo County candidate accused of felony election fraud decided she no longer wants to represent herself as her own lawyer.
Gaea Powell, who previously ran for mayor of Arroyo Grande twice and is currently vying for the SLO County Clerk-Recorder seat, was charged with nine counts of election and voter fraud by the SLO County District Attorney’s Office in June.
Beside defending herself in her criminal proceedings and campaigning to be the county’s top elections official, she is also suing the county and her political opponent, sitting Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano.
Powell opted to forgo legal representation by public or private counsel in September, instead acting as her own defense attorney despite her lack of any formal legal education. At the time, she requested her public defender Andrew Jennings be dismissed and told The Tribune she had “no confidence” in anyone else’s ability to represent her in what she sees as a “politically motivated” and “bogus” case.
Since then, Powell has been using AI tools like ChatGPT to help her learn about the law, she previously told The Tribune.
She said she’s found the experience educational and “very interesting” — but at her preliminary hearing on April 3 and 4, she frequently strayed from the courtroom procedure, eliciting visible frustration from the prosecution and instruction of proper legal etiquette from the judge.
Now, Powell said she is once again seeking counsel.
Powell made a motion to appoint conflict counsel in lieu of a public defender during her pre-trial arraignment on Monday, where she again pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Conflict counsel is an independent court-appointed attorney assigned to represent a party when their original public defender has a conflict of interest that prevents them from continuing with the case. It is not a request to retain private counsel.
In her motion, Powell argued that the public defender’s office “operates within the same local legal ecosystem” as the local government entities and officials who are related to her case — namely, the District Attorney’s Office, the Clerk-Recorder’s Office and the city of Arroyo Grande.
Powell’s motion said this could pose a conflict of interest given “the number of local agencies involved, the likelihood of witness overlap, the potential for testimony from public officials,” and “the possibility of related or subsequent civil proceedings arising from the same facts.”
But SLO County Superior Court Judge Timothy Covello said the motion was not within the court’s ability nor its jurisdiction — not only because Powell filed it late.
He explained that Powell could not declare a conflict for any attorney — especially not pre-emptively. Instead, that is a concern that could only be brought forward by the attorney themselves, which would then trigger another separate hearing to consider the issue.
He also said even if Powell did have legal grounds to bring forward the motion, he found no factual grounds for it.
“You are simply saying that there are all these different agencies and all these different people that somehow that creates a conflict,” he said Monday. “There is no basis for that.”
Covello denied Powell’s motion for independent counsel, but said he would appoint her a public defender if she wanted one.
“You can’t choose your lawyer,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Powell denied representation for her arraignment, but afterward told The Tribune that she plans to file a motion for a public defender.
Powell is expected to appear next in court on May 18 for a pre-trial readiness conference.
Candidate charged with election fraud is suing local government entities
Powell’s motion also mentioned that she is “currently engaged in related civil and federal litigation involving some of the same local agencies and officials, further increasing the potential for conflict and reinforcing the need for independent counsel.”
In addition to her federal lawsuit against Cano and the county, Powell also has two open civil suits against the county and the city of Arroyo Grande over the release of public records.
From the county, Powell requested records of communications between the Clerk-Recorder’s Office and the DA’s Office about her or her mayoral election campaign, but the county denied the request on the basis that the records were exempt due to an ongoing law enforcement investigation, a denial letter from the county in court records show.
She requested the same thing from the clerk of Arroyo Grande, and it was denied for the same reason. A denial letter from the city included in court records notes that the requested records were sealed by the court to maintain the integrity of an investigation.
Powell said the records could inform both her defense in her criminal case, as well as her federal civil rights claim against the Clerk-Recorder’s Office, but that more broadly “this is a public transparency issue.”
“The Public Records Act exists to allow the public to understand how decisions are made within government — particularly when those decisions lead to criminal prosecution,” she told The Tribune in an email.
Her civil lawsuits seek review of the records by a judge to determine whether they should be disclosed.
“Transparency in government decision-making is especially important when those decisions result in criminal charges,” Powell said.
This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 9:00 AM.
