A Las Vegas judge committed suicide a year after she accused a clothes store of being a front for prostitution and sex trafficking.
Melanie Andress-Tobiasson, 53, stepped down as a Justice of the Peace in the wake of an ethics probe last year.
Nevada’s Judicial Discipline Commission was investigating Tobiasson after she asked police to investigate a clothing store where her daughter worked, which she claimed was a human trafficking hub.
The mother-of-three was found dead on Friday, 8NewsNow reported.
The former judge claimed the store, Top Knotch, was being used as a front for human trafficking and prostitution after the store allegedly tried to recruit her daughter as a prostitute.
Tobiasson accused the Las Vegas Metro Police Department of ignoring information she gave them, claiming she was trying to save her daughter from sex trafficking.
READ MORE: AZ State Senator Accuses Dept of Child Safety of Global Sex Trafficking
Tobiasson said the store was an unlicensed, underage nightclub and a front for prostitution.
The judge was eventually forced to turn to the FBI with the information after the local police failed to act.
She claimed pimps were ‘targeting the daughters of judges and law enforcement’ to get them involved in prostitution.
According to a complaint against Tobiasson, she failed to comply with and uphold the law, allowing family interests and relations to influence her conduct.
According to the Daily Mail, she also asked officers to investigate Valentine but claims they failed to do so, with the suspect being linked to a shooting where a couple was found dead.
Police did not officially link him to the killings of Sydney Land, 21, and Nehemiah ‘Neo’ Kauffman, 20, until months later.
However, according to the complaint, Tobiasson reached out to Land’s mother and “began to personally investigate the case” because she thought Valentine was responsible.
It added that she used ‘burner phones’ to communicate with Land’s mother and sent messages to a woman she thought was involved in the murder.
As The Mail reports:
The commission alleges that Tobiasson stated publicly that she reached out to Valentine’s lawyer at the time and ‘told him to tell Valentine that if he called her daughter again, she would ‘take care of it herself’ and that on one occasion, she ‘went to Shane Valentine’s house and kicked in the door.’
According to the charges, detectives learned of Tobiasson’s activity and launched an investigation into the judge, going as far as tracking her phone records.
They also alleged that she had links to a man called ‘Anthony Danna’ who was a ‘known and documented organized crime figure.’
The commission decided against suspending Tobiasson and Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Amy Chelini after a hearing about concerns over profanity used off the bench and administrative complaints involving court clerks.
However, as part of a deal, her resignation resulted in her ethics trial being stopped when she stepped down from her role.
Tobiasson was a graduate of Bishop Gorman High School and won re-election multiple times.
She worked for the Clark County District Attorney’s Office before taking the bench in 1999.
