Detective told to quit or be fired

Ferry County’s only sheriff’s detective has been told he must resign by the end of the month to avoid dismissal.

Detective Carroll Sharp Jr. has been on paid administrative leave since Feb. 28 while the FBI has investigated allegations about his personal associations with several troubled boys.

Sheriff Pete Warner said an FBI official notified him this week that a second boy has accused Sharp of sexual improprieties, but the official gave him no details. Warner said he was told the FBI hasn’t decided whether to pursue the case federally or turn it over to the state attorney general’s office.

“It’s still ongoing, so we can’t say anything,” said David Gomez, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle office.

Sharp couldn’t be reached for comment, but he denied any wrongdoing in an interview at the time he was placed on leave. And a union representative said Friday that Sharp continues to assert his innocence.

“It’s like he’s been inappropriately tried without any formal charges being brought forward through the various agencies,” said Don Boxford, Wenatchee-based staff representative for the Washington State Council of County and City Employees.

Warner said an internal affairs investigation conducted by the county’s insurance company resulted in a recommendation to fire Sharp if he doesn’t resign.

“It was just a culmination of so many different things, not just one single thing,” Warner said. “When you add it all up, it was just too many things to turn a blind eye to.”

The sheriff declined to elaborate but said the issues were basically those that were outlined in a March 2 Spokesman-Review article. The story cited community concerns based on the fact that Sharp – a 36-year-old bachelor – had befriended several teenage boys and had allowed two of them to move into his home at different times.

The concerns became public in February when Ferry County Memorial Hospital Administrator Ron O’Halloran approached county commissioners about the concerns of a group of public officials, who included social workers, educators and other law enforcement officers.

Members of the group were troubled in part because Sharp was the county’s only trained sex-crime investigator and had a teenage boy living with him even after another troubled boy had accused Sharp of sexual impropriety.

That allegation was investigated by Washington State Patrol detectives, who determined in 2003 that Sharp’s 15-year-old accuser lacked credibility. Even the boy’s friends said they didn’t believe him.

The boy said Sharp touched him improperly in the course of frequent, informal wrestling sessions during the several months he lived with Sharp while on Juvenile Court probation.

While discounting the sexual allegations, the investigation revealed that Sharp gave the boy beer.

Also, Sharp acknowledged to detectives that the boy who accused him, as well as a 13-year-old boy, had slept in his bed on several occasions in late 2002. Sharp and the 13-year-old told a WSP detective nothing improper happened.

The 15-year-old said he felt uncomfortable, but Sharp made no sexual advances. Improper touching while wrestling was the only misconduct the boy alleged.