FBI seizes West’s home computers

FBI agents have searched the home of Spokane Mayor Jim West, seizing his computers and related files as part of a public corruption investigation, according to U.S. District Court documents filed Friday.

The FBI obtained the federal warrant to search West’s home after convincing a federal judge there is probable cause to believe a federal crime has been committed.

At this point, the mayor has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing. It could be months before evidence gathered in the FBI investigation is presented to a federal grand jury, which would consider returning a criminal indictment.

The search was carried out July 27, a day after the warrant was signed by Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno, but remained secret until Friday when related legal papers were returned to the court and made a matter of public record.

There is sufficient evidence to believe the mayor was involved “in a scheme to entice others to engage in sexual activity with him through offers and grants of City of Spokane jobs, internships or appointments,” the documents state. “As a result, there is probable cause to believe that West defrauded the public of his honest services using interstate wire communication” in violation of federal public corruption laws.

The court records disclose for the first time that a team of FBI agents interviewed four men who claim they were offered City Hall positions in 2004 by West, and that he propositioned them for sex.

The federal search warrant says the FBI investigation is largely based on a series of investigative stories published in The Spokesman-Review, beginning May 5.

The federal documents appear to raise the investigation to a more significant level. But on Friday, West – speaking through his attorneys – seemed to dismiss the significance of the FBI search of his home.

“Absolutely none of this information is either new or unexpected,” West’s attorneys, Bill Etter and Carl Oreskovich, said in a prepared statement.

“We have been aware of rumors for some time and have been waiting for the sources to declare themselves.” the statement said.

“The mayor has readily admitted online chatting on his own personal time and personal computer, but has previously denied and continues to deny that in his over 25 years of public service and hundreds of internships, that he’s ever offered any public position for personal gain,” West’s statement said.

It continued: “We expected the FBI to fully investigate the allegations involving Mayor West including a normal and customary search of the mayor’s personal computer. We are actively cooperating with and assisting the FBI in their investigation and look forward to the ultimate exoneration of the mayor after a full determination of the facts.”

In making its case for a search warrant to the federal judge, the FBI affidavit includes lengthy portions of sexually explicit chats this spring between West and a person whom he thought was an 18-year-old high-schooler.

But the student, using the name “Moto-Brock,” was actually a forensic computer consultant hired by the newspaper in an attempt to confirm an earlier report by a real 18-year-old who said he met West online and engaged in a sex act with him while on a date in June 2004.

The four men who subsequently were interviewed by the FBI said they met West online and were offered City Hall positions in much the same way the fictional high school student, “Moto-Brock,” was solicited.

The search warrant affidavit, signed by FBI special agent Frank Harrill, said the federal investigation suggested West’s solicitation of sex for city jobs was performed on a personal computer located at his home at 639 W. Persimmon Lane.

The affidavit also reveals the FBI obtained West’s private Internet account information on June 15 from Comcast Cable. “West has several e-mail addresses registered to this account,” the documents state.

The July 27 search was carried out while West and Oreskovich were present, according to the documents.

West’s neighbors, questioned Friday by a Spokesman-Review reporter, said they had no idea a team of FBI agents had searched the mayor’s home in the Persimmon Woods development, just off the Pullman highway.

Among the items seized were three computers from the master bedroom and about 60 computer disks, Zip disks and “thumb drives.”

Agents also seized three computer printouts from a trash can, including one from Gay.com, the Web site where West used the screen names “Cobra82nd” and “RightBi-Guy” in an attempt to meet young men.

In meetings with various religious leaders and others in the community, West has said he turned his life around since newspaper reports about his conduct first appeared in May and has stopped visiting the gay Web site.

The FBI affidavit also refers to a June 28 public statement in which West said “chatting online about sex with a person I believed to be 18 years old was wrong. Although it was a private conversation conducted on my personal computer in my home, I’m ashamed of it and embarrassed by it.”

The FBI case agent said that in this statement, “West again makes clear that he used a personal computer in his residence to extend an offer of a City of Spokane internship for clearly personal reasons.”

After the first series of newspaper stories were published, Ryan Oelrich and another man came forward and said they were offered City Hall positions by West, who then attempted to develop sexual relationships with them.

Oelrich told FBI agents that during the fall and winter of 2003 he had online chats at Gay.com with “Cobra82nd” and “RightBi-Guy,” but had no idea the person behind those screen names was West.

In April 2004, after Oelrich’s name was forwarded to the mayor’s office by another individual, West offered the young, openly gay Oelrich a position as chairman of the city’s Human Rights Commission.

Shortly thereafter, the FBI affidavit says, Oelrich learned it was West whom he had been chatting with at Gay.com. Oelrich also “was alarmed that West had sought out and surveyed” Oelrich’s home.

Oelrich told the FBI that after he was appointed to the Human Rights Commission by the mayor, West’s comments to Oelrich “became more sexually direct than before.” Oelrich resigned from the commission in January.

The affidavit states that the FBI located and questioned three other men whose names aren’t revealed in the court documents. One of those men was interviewed in early May by The Spokesman-Review and said he was offered an $80,000-a-year job as the city’s human resources director if he would engage in a sexual relationship with West.

The two other men interviewed by the FBI are Spokane Valley roommates who said they met West on Gay.com and were offered city jobs in exchange for sex.

On Friday, Oelrich said he “is encouraged the FBI is proceeding forward and taking this seriously.” He said he was told his name was in the FBI’s affidavit for the search warrant. “I’ve been very impressed by their conduct. They’ve been very professional to me.”