Prosecutor won’t file charges against tax commissioner

BOISE – Ada County Prosecutor Greg Bower’s office announced Friday it won’t prosecute the former chairman of the Idaho State Tax Commission, saying a statute of limitations expired on one complaint despite evidence of wrongdoing and that admissible evidence of illegal activity in other complaints was insufficient.

Former Chairman Royce Chigbrow was investigated over several months by an Ada County Sheriff’s Office detective on suspicion of failing to appropriately deposit checks from a taxpayer in 2010, providing confidential information to a friend and allegedly receiving stolen checks totaling more than $30,000.

Chigbrow resigned in January as agency employees’ complaints about these issues became public.

“There is no direct evidence of such a release, and while such an inference could possibly be drawn from other evidence, that inference is insufficiently compelling to support prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt,” wrote Jonathan Medema, the deputy prosecuting attorney who reviewed the sheriff’s investigation.

“I didn’t expect them to reach any other conclusion,” Chigbrow said Friday, before referring additional questions to his attorney.