City Fires Worker With Aryan Ties Treatment Plant Supervisor Was Jailed For Skipping Jeep Payments

Richard Masker, a city worker who had ties to the Aryan Nations, has been fired after his anti-government beliefs landed him in jail.

“I can’t comment on why he was terminated because it is a personnel matter, but he is not employed by the city of Sandpoint anymore,” Mayor David Sawyer said Tuesday.

Masker was Sandpoint’s water treatment plant supervisor and formerly lived at the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake.

He was arrested at City Hall on Oct. 31 for failing to appear in court in Coeur d’Alene.

Masker had refused to pay a $30,000 loan for a Jeep, saying the U.S. banking system was corrupt. He hid the vehicle from the bank so it could not repossess the Jeep, according to the bank’s attorney. He even denied he was Richard Masker in court.

Masker spent seven days in jail and the city fired him before he was released Nov. 7.

“The termination had absolutely nothing to do with his beliefs, or the fact he was arrested,” said Wes Somerton, the city’s attorney. Somerton declined to discuss any other details about Masker’s firing.

Other city sources, however, said Masker was fired because he failed to show up for work. While he was in jail Masker missed more than four days of work and never called the city to explain why he was absent, sources said.

Masker did not return telephone calls to his home Tuesday. He ran the city water plant for six years and earned $31,200 annually.

In 1992, Masker was given a verbal reprimand by the mayor of Sandpoint. Masker wrote a letter with racist overtones to a water association and included his city business card in the letter.

Before coming to Sandpoint Masker was fired from a similar job in Corvallis, Ore. He was terminated after he mailed Hitler birthday cards to instructors at Oregon State University.

Masker was released from jail Thursday after several unnamed friends of his returned the vehicle that the bank wanted to repossess.

Tom Cooke, the attorney who filed the complaint against Masker, said he received several anonymous calls at his office after Masker’s arrest and went through a bizarre scenario to get the vehicle.

The caller wanted a deal that involved bringing Masker’s Jeep to the Kootenai County Jail in exchange for Masker’s release. Cooke agreed and met the anonymous caller at the jail. The vehicle was there and checked for booby traps or bombs, Cooke said. Masker was then let out of jail.

The bank still is pressing charges against Masker to retrieve court costs, Cooke said.

Masker bought the Jeep about a year ago. He made several payments on it but then stopped. According to court records, he began writing letters to the loan company saying he does not believe in the banking system and refused to pay the loan. Masker later wrote anti-government and conspiracy theory letters to Cooke. He also filed his own lawsuits against Judge John Luster, Cooke and the bank.

Masker touts himself as a conspiratologist, or someone who studies secret societies and shadow governments. He does not believe the Jewish Holocaust occurred and in 1992 tried to get license plates that read “ARYAN 88” to express his white pride. In neo-Nazi circles 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet and means Heil Hitler. The state declined to issue Masker the license plates.

, DataTimes