Trial set for woman accused of throwing shoe at Clinton
LAS VEGAS >> A Phoenix woman who was accused of throwing a shoe at Hillary Clinton while the former U.S. secretary of state addressed a Las Vegas audience in April pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing, but not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violence against a person in a restricted building.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said Thursday that 36-year-old Alison Michelle Ernst is due for a jury trial Oct. 29 in U.S. District Court on the violence charge.
U.S. District Magistrate Judge George Foley Jr. on Monday ruled Ernst fit for trial after reviewing results of a psychological exam sought by her lawyer, William Carrico, an assistant federal public defender.
Carrico was out of the office Thursday and unavailable for comment.
Clinton, a former first lady and Democratic senator from New York, was speaking on stage at the Mandalay Bay resort to a recycling industry conference when Ernst threw a soccer shoe past her.
Clinton flinched and ducked but wasn’t struck. She continued her speech.
Ernst surrendered to security guards who escorted her out of the ballroom to a sofa in a hallway where she told an Associated Press reporter she threw a shoe and dropped some papers. Ernst didn’t identify herself or explain her action before security officers ushered reporters and photographers away.
Authorities said Ernst wasn’t a credentialed conference attendee and wasn’t supposed to have been in the ballroom, which had more than 1,000 people.
The shoe-throwing incident reminded some of former President George W. Bush dodging shoes thrown by an Iraqi journalist during a Baghdad news conference in December 2008. Shoe-throwing is considered an insult in Arab cultures.