A new political ad in Nebraska is revisiting a controversial pardon from Pete Ricketts’ time as governor — this time through the woman who survived the crime. She recounts being tied up and raped inside her home in 1993 and describes learning years later that John Arias, the man convicted of sexually assaulting her, had been pardoned without her being contacted. Ricketts and then-Attorney General Doug Peterson voted in 2022 to grant Arias’ pardon over the objection of then-Secretary of State Bob Evnen, the third member of Nebraska’s Board of Pardons. The pardon restored Arias’ gun rights and allowed him to be removed from the state’s sex offender registry. The ad was released by Nebraska Values PAC.
