Sweetser Fires Two Prosecutors

Newly elected Spokane County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser fired a top supervisor and a deputy prosecutor Tuesday after ruling them out as “team players.”

The move was sudden and veiled in secrecy, but not unexpected.

Prior to taking office, Sweetser vowed to clean house of anyone who didn’t share his vision for the office.

But the fired deputies, Jennifer Boharski and Michelle Solinsky, complained they never had a chance to join the team.

“I’m shocked,” Solinsky said, hours after cleaning out her desk. “Nobody ever talked to me. It came as a complete surprise.”

Boharski and Solinsky are the two highest-ranking casualties of the Sweetser administration.

Solinsky is a five-year deputy assigned to felony drug cases.

A prosecutor for 10 years, Boharski supervised a combined drug-fraud-burglary unit, the biggest in the office. Both have been outspoken in their opposition to a 2-year-old deputy prosecutors’ union, which Sweetser supports.

They also backed Sweetser’s opponent in the election, former Deputy Prosecutor Steve Matthews.

Reports of other deputies losing their jobs in the shake-up could not be immediately confirmed.

Sweetser refused to discuss the firings, except to issue a brief written statement.

The one-page press release says employees being fired weren’t “team members” and didn’t work well with others.

Fired employees are being given two weeks’ severance pay and compensation for unused vacation time.

Sweetser and his chief civil deputy, Jim Emacio, refused to name deputies who have lost their jobs or reveal how many have been axed.

“We don’t have any further information. These are personnel matters,” Emacio said.

In his statement, Sweetser said his “new management approach” will boost office morale and efficiency.

When Sweetser was elected in November, replacing retiring Prosecutor Don Brockett, he immediately pledged to carry out campaign promises of an office overhaul.

Fearing for their jobs, Boharski and Solinsky last month sought protection by joining the union.

Both wanted to continue working under Sweetser but weren’t given the chance, according to their attorneys, Carl Maxey and Dennis Cronin.

“We’re not standing for it,” Cronin said.

Cronin and Maxey intend to challenge the firings at the union level and, if necessary, appeal to the state Public Employment Relations Commission.

“If Sweetser was true to his campaign promise that he’d only fire people due to good cause, he couldn’t have found good cause to fire these people,” Cronin said.

“He didn’t give them any chance to prove themselves. It’s the third day of the new year.”

But Emacio said Sweetser has the legal right as Brockett’s successor to decide which deputies remain on the payroll and which do not.

Sweetser is expected to sit down with union representatives later this week to begin hammering out an initial contract.

Ironically, he may agree to the union’s chief demand: protections against on-the-spot firings.

In addition to the personnel changes, Sweetser also has begun reorganizing the office.

Sweetser is expected to discuss his plans with deputies during a closeddoor meeting at noon today.

On the campaign trail, Sweetser said he would disband Boharski’s socalled “super unit” in favor of smaller, more specialized units, including those devoted to gangrelated crimes and domestic violence.

Attempts to reach Boharski on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Solinsky said she got the bad news shortly after 9 a.m. with a pink phone-message slip requesting her presence in Emacio’s office.

There, she said Emacio told her she was being terminated. Sweetser was present but didn’t say a word, she said.

“I enjoyed being a prosecutor and I enjoyed working for Mr. Brockett. I found the job very rewarding,” Solinsky said.

“I’m sorry it came to this.”