Candidate Has Rights Restored Prosecutor To Review Case And Decide Whether To Try To Bump Plumb From November Ballot

Sat., Aug. 8, 1998

By Bill Morlin billm@spokesman.com

An attorney who cheated the welfare system out of $7,096 and now wants to be a judge got his civil rights partially restored Friday.

Brad Plumb, convicted of welfare fraud in 1993, is now eligible to hold public office and vote, but not own a gun, under the order signed by Superior Court Judge Jim Murphy.

The order restores Plumb’s civil rights effective Friday, which presumably means he was without those rights on July 31 when he filed to become a District Court judge.

Plumb says he thought he had his civil rights when he paid the $960 filing fee on July 31 for the $96,000-a-year judge’s position.

Plumb said he wasn’t aware the order was signed Friday by the judge at the request of Richard Lasater, a community corrections officer for the Department of Corrections.

Plumb said he spoke with Lasater on Thursday about the issue. “I’m still investigating what went wrong,” the 42-year-old Spokane Valley attorney said.

He filed to run in the Nov. 3 general election against incumbent Mike Padden, who’s declined comment about being challenged at the ballot box by a felon.

Prosecutor Jim Sweetser said his staff has until Sept. 28 to review the legal issues and decide whether to attempt to bump Plumb from the ballot.

“There still is the issue of whether he legally qualified to run for judge at the time he filled out his declaration of candidacy,” Sweetser said.

Plumb could return to court and ask for restoration of his civil rights, retroactive to 1996. That would mean they were in place when he filed for office in July.

“There are some very sensitive legal issues involved, and they are complicated,” Plumb said.

“The judges will be thoroughly briefed when this gets fully aired in court.

“Right now, I have no intention of withdrawing my candidacy.”

He said his civil rights should have been restored in 1996 when he was discharged from his felony conviction. He was suspended from practicing law for three years because of the conviction.

“I have received hundreds of phone calls from people who support my position and are outraged that this kind of thing would happen in the first place,” Plumb said.

Possible actions The county prosecutor could decide to ask that Plumb’s name be removed from the ballot. Plumb could seek a retroactive restoration of his civil rights, meaning he would have been a legal candidate at the time of filing in July.

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