Mia Christman speaks during an interview in April 2024 before she was ordered sent back to prison following her sentence being vacated by a controversial judge (YouTube screengrab via KLAS).
Mia Christman, 30, of Clark County, Nevada, has been ordered by the state’s highest court to complete the remainder of a 10-year prison sentence for armed robbery after a judge who vacated the sentence — Judge Erika Ballou — was removed from the case.
Christman must report to prison Wednesday. She has already served six years. During the 2013 armed robbery, a co-defendant pistol whipped a senior citizen and Christman led police on a chase that led to one person being injured.
The Nevada Supreme Court’s decision to imprison Christman comes after fraught, years long fighting in the courts.
When Christman first pleaded guilty to two felony robbery charges a little more than a decade ago, her defense attorneys stressed that her actions as a young adult were largely the byproduct of intense trauma and abuse she endured from being sex trafficked as a young woman. That abuse continued at the hands of her alleged pimp Michael Saunders, who, according to Las Vegas ABC affiliate KLAS, was 34 when she was just 18 and the duo committed the armed robbery.
Saunders ended up being her co-defendant in that case, and at trial, prosecutors regularly worked to cast doubt on whether the two were in a pimp-and-prostitute arrangement or something else. Christman’s attorneys, however, said there was no question: Saunders abused her.
Ultimately, Christman was sentenced to 10 years by Clark County District Court Judge Stefanie Miley.
An appeal followed, court records show, and it was Judge Erika Ballou who agreed to vacate the sentence and in doing so, highlighted Christman’s long history of extreme psychological and physical abuse from the time she was a child. Christman had miscarried twins as a young woman, her attorney told the court, and when she was trafficked as a teenager in California, one of her pimps put her in a dog cage.
All of this had a far reaching impact on her overall mental health and well being, they said.
For Ballou, these details had not been properly weighed when the case was before Miley. Ballou also felt Christman’s original defense attorneys offered her “lackluster” representation.
Miley, transcripts show, only disagreed in part with Ballou’s assessment.
While she acknowledged learning about Christman’s abuse in-depth “could have” changed her sentencing decisions, ultimately, she was not swayed. Even if a detailed psychiatrist’s report had been included in the initial sentencing memorandum from prosecutors, it would not have changed her mind, a partial transcript of Miley’s testimony found in a 2021 state petition notes.
What sympathy Miley had for Christman led her to keep the young woman out of custody ahead of her final sentencing.
But Miley also told Ballou that it times, it felt like Christman may have been “gaming the system,” a transcript shows.
To that end, both Miley and Steve Wolfson, one of the district attorneys prosecuting Christman’s case, argued the young woman took advantage of the court, by, for example, claiming she would give prosecutors and investigators valuable information about her co-conspirators and then failing or refusing to do so.
The Nevada high court reversed Ballou’s order in 2022 but Ballou did not comply and did not instruct Christman to go to prison.
Last year, Ballou was told again to enforce the order and once again, Ballou did not, a May 3 court order notes.
In an interview with KLAS this April, Christman said since she was released from prison, she has kept her life on the straight and narrow. She’s working as a barber’s apprentice and found housing in California through an assistance program. She even had a baby that, despite her efforts, was “conceived with protection and birth control,” she said.
She cried through much of a recent interview before being ordered to return to prison and expressed the deep remorse she still has for the victims of her now decade-old crime. The person she injured in a car crash has also forgiven her, saying they think Christman deserves to be free after serving her time already.
Prosecutors contend Christman’s pleas are a red herring.
Her attorney did not immediately respond to request for comment on Wednesday.
Christman’s attempt for a pardon was rejected by the Nevada Pardons Board this March. Meanwhile, her alleged pimp is reportedly serving a prison sentence for a separate crime involving charges of voluntary manslaughter. He did eight years for the 2013 armed robbery.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Ballou was hit with two charges by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline this January. She is accused of violating a number of ethical rules including posting inappropriate social media posts. One such post was a photo uploaded to Instagram by the judge where she appeared in a hot tub with two public defenders. She and the other woman in the hot tub wore bikinis. The man was bare-chested. Ballou said the man was “surrounded by great t—.”
Left: Clark County District Court Judge Erika Ballou, left, appears in an image with two public defenders; Right: Ballou appears in a selfie (Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline)
Ballou’s current term is slated to end in 2027.
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