Harry Reid is not a popular guy. He’s not popular with the residents of Left Blogistan and he’s not popular with residents of Nevada, either.

As a matter of fact, his approval ratings are so low that the GOP has felt very confident about running someone against him in 2010. However, Harry Reid tonight is probably feeling very very good.

“Nevada Republicans suffered a serious blow Wednesday when their first announced challenger to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was indicted on four counts of misappropriation and falsification of public records.

The charges, handed down by a Clark County grand jury, accuse Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki of committing the crimes when he he was state treasurer. Krolicki’s then-chief of staff, Kathryn Besser, was also indicted in the case.

Krolicki could face a maximum of 16 years in prison on the counts, which revolve around the Treasurer’s office bypassing budget controls on a statewide college savings program, according to an audit conducted last year.”
Krolicki Indictment

Ok..so who is this Brian Krolicki person and supposedly what did he do to merit being indicted by the State Attorney General, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto?

“Krolicki, elected lieutenant governor in 2006, has been under investigation by the attorney general and Nevada Division of Investigation since early last year. The investigation was sparked by a legislative audit that found Krolicki had failed to deposit in the state treasury about $6 million in fees generated by the Nevada College Savings Plan, which he managed.
Instead, he spent the money on legal and marketing fees associated with the plan, including television commercials that featured him promoting the program.

Treasurer Kate Marshall, a Democrat elected in 2006, was the first to raise questions about irregularities in the plan’s management. She also said Krolicki or his staff shredded documents and erased computer files before she took office."
Krolicki

Now, what I find fascinating about this story is not just that Krolicki supposedly took money and used it for basically promoting himself(nice trick there, Brian) but that he took the state’s 529 plan FEES to do it with.

If you are not familiar with 529 College Savings plans, these are the IRA-like creatures which have been promoted up the wazoo to families all over the country as savings vehicles for their kids. They are stock-based programs, so a lot of parents right now who are using them either to save or (if they have current students) pay for college, have now found magically, that the kids’ nest-egg…is…poof!

The other thing is that parents are allowed to put their kids’ college money into any state vehicle, even if it is not their state of residence(this is not true of all of them; for example, my sister has one for her daughter in Virginia; they live in Virginia and their program was an interesting ‘pay up front a certain amount of money and we guarantee that your kid will have enough money for four years of tuition at a VA state institution – for the state of VA, I’m sure things are getting pretty interesting right about now).

So, what Mr. Krolicki allegedly did was to take money, not only from Nevada residents, but possibly from residents of other states as well – so there might a federal component to his case (throwing a red flag out there for any lawyers in the readership).

In any case, Harry Reid is probably heaving a sigh of relief that the wolf nipping at his heels is ‘occupied’ for the moment and for the definite near term and that the Nevada GOP will have to start working their Roladexes for a warm body to put up against him.