Woman accused of throwing shoe at Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas now faces federal charges

Federal authorities filed a criminal complaint over the weekend against the woman accused of throwing a shoe at Hillary Clinton while she was speaking on stage at a metal recycling conference at Mandalay Bay.

Alison Michelle Ernst was charged with two misdemeanor counts — trespassing on a restricted building or grounds and violence against a person in a restricted building or grounds, according to a copy of the complaint filed by the U.S. Secret Service.

Agents were seeking to arrest Ernst and there was no word Monday on when she would be in federal court to enter a plea to the charges.

Ernst, 36, of Phoenix, was charged by Las Vegas police on Friday with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and later released.

She is alleged to have hurled the black and orange Puma cleat at the former U.S. secretary of state from 60 feet away last Thursday. The shoe missed Clinton, and she made light of the interruption during her speech.

District Attorney Steve Wolfson said Monday he likely will drop the local case against Ernst now that she faces federal charges.

In the federal complaint, Secret Service Agent Edward Autelli said Ernst threw the “soccer shoe” and some papers at Clinton in an area cordoned off by agents.

Ernst did not have a ticket to get into the restricted area and “somehow got past” the people checking tickets, Autelli wrote.

A secret Service agent saw Ernst approaching the stage but could not get to her before she threw the shoe and papers at Clinton. The shoe passed near Clinton’s head, causing her to “flinch and duck,” according to Autelli.

A police officer involved in the arrest said Ernst “appeared to be in an agitated state but aware of what she had just done,” an arrest report said.

The federal complaint did not say whether the woman arrested Thursday was the same Alison Michelle Ernst who in 2012 caused a scene at a court hearing for James Holmes, the man accused of killing 12 people and wounding dozens in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting.

After being escorted from the courtroom, the woman identified herself to reporters as Ernst and said, “I tried to deliver information vital to the defense of James Holmes to the public defender,” according to media reports at the time.

At the Mandalay Bay last week, Clinton, a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2016, gracefully acknowledged the interruption by making jokes.

“My goodness, I didn’t know that solid waste management was so controversial,” she said after it happened, referring to her lecture topic. “Thank goodness she didn’t play softball like I did.”

Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, is protected by the Secret Service. She plans to return to Las Vegas in September to deliver a keynote address at a national renewable energy conference.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Find him on Twitter @JGermanRJ.