In his words: Robert J. Galliher”s letter to psychologist

The following is a letter Robert J. Galliher wrote in January 2004 and sent to Mic Hunter, a St. Paul, Minn., psychologist and author of “Abused Boys,” a book on sex abuse. Galliher said he was looking for help from Hunter when he wrote the letter, which accuses Jim West of sexual abuse.

“

When I was young, eight years old, my brothers had a morning paper route. One morning while they were delivering papers, they had a run-in with some other boys, who were also delivering papers. The other boys’ mother tried running my brothers over with her car. My mother ended up calling the police and a Deputy Dave Hahn showed up to help. The matter was resolved and Deputy Hahn befriended our family. My father was a long-haul truck driver and rarely home, maybe one or two days a month.

I/we had no father figure in our lives and Deputy David Hahn quickly took advantage of this opportunity to take us places and do things with us. My mother was a very good mother when we were growing up, and since this man was a police officer (and) she was basically raising three boys and a younger girl by herself, she thought this was a good idea, Deputy Hahn taking an interest in our lives.

My oldest brother, who would have been around 14 years old at the time, didn’t want much to do with Deputy Hahn, he had a girlfriend and was going into high school and Deputy Hahn didn’t show much interest in him either. Deputy Hahn did, however, take a special interest in me and my brother who at the time was 10 or 11, three years older than me when we met Deputy Hahn.

Deputy Hahn would never take me and my brother at the same time, and me and my brother still to this day have never talked to each other about what Deputy Hahn did to us in detail when we were with him.

I missed my father a lot when I was growing up, even though when he was home he was usually drinking and abusive, not to me but to my brothers. I still craved an adult male in my life, so I was always willing to go with Deputy Hahn when he came to get one of us. From the start, Deputy Hahn sexually molested/assaulted me almost every time he picked me up. Sometimes not as bad as others, including oral penetration, anal penetration, fondling. He would pick me up in his new yellow 280ZX sports car with a car phone, back then very few people had car phones. I remember he had to call an operator to have the calls connected. I thought he was cool being a cop with a nice car and car phone.

He would take me to his apartment which had a pool and we would swim, and after that he would want to rub me down with baby oil and sexually assault me.

He would also pick me up in his police car and go park somewhere, where he would molest me. He used to tell me if I said anything he would put my brothers in jail, also put me and my mother in jail and there would be no one left to take care of my little sister. He would also threaten me with his gun. He used to put his handcuffs on me and point his gun at me. Sometimes when I would cry he would laugh and say he was just kidding. For the next two or so years, this went on, him picking me up at home. He would also pick me up on the way home from school. I would take a different way home but always seemed to find me when he wanted to. During this time, he spent time with my brother also. Just as much time, but we never talked about what was happening on these outings with Deputy Hahn. And I never let my mother know what was going on.

I try to understand why I never told anyone, but when I look now at a seven or eight year old, and how small they are. I was so small and young compared to Deputy Hahn, not to mention not having a father around to do things with me. Deputy Hahn was also involved in the Boy Scouts and I would sometimes see him at Boy Scout events. He also took me to a Boy Scout camp that had a small private lake at it. We went there a few times when no one else was there and he molested me each of those times. On a few different occasions, he left me with a friend of his who was also someone he worked with and a Boy Scout leader I would see at some Boy Scout (functions) like the pinewood derby. This man also sexually assaulted me on a few different occasions. He didn’t try to be friendly or nice like Deputy Hahn, but threatened me in the same way as Deputy Hahn did. This man also gave me on a couple occasions a pipe full of marijuana and some beer. I was still between the ages of eight to 10 years old at this time.

Around this time, I started having frequent stays in the hospital due to stomach problems. The doctors never could figure out what was wrong with me. I remember spending a Halloween and a Christmas in the Spokane Valley Hospital, and many other weeks at different times with no diagnosis. Now that I look back I think I know what the problem was, I didn’t or wouldn’t eat, and this gave me stomach problems. Around this same time, I started having trouble in school. I ended up switching schools for the last half of the sixth grade. And for a little while everything was OK.

We had a fort/playhouse that my father had built in our backyard, and my brother had moved his room out to it for the summer. One night Deputy Hahn came by in the middle of the night and started molesting my brother while he was asleep in the playhouse. Deputy Hahn had his police car parked out front and he was in our backyard molesting my brother. My brother ended up waking up and being very upset and yelling at Deputy Hahn and running inside. Deputy Hahn left but I guess my brother had finally had enough. He told my mother what had happened. The next day my mother went and tried to file a police report, but was told she was lying and that Deputy Hahn was a respectable police officer and my brother was lying. She was told she was a drunk, because of the things she was accusing Deputy Hahn of. A police report was made, but no action was taken against Deputy Hahn. The city did, however, send my brother to counseling/therapy and pay for it. Before this, my brother was interrogated like the perpetrator instead of a victim and called a liar for accusing one of their officers of doing something like this.

My mother still didn’t know I had been being molested by Deputy Hahn and his friend at this time. Deputy Hahn never came by the house again. And I think everyone was relieved it was over. But for me, it wasn’t over. There was a bowling alley that as kids we used to be on a league, it was called East Bowl. At night, kids would hang out and play video games. It wasn’t long before Deputy Hahn started coming by the bowling alley looking for me. And with the same threats, would still pick me up and molest me. Nothing ever came of the police report and I don’t remember Deputy Hahn mentioning it. Sometime around 1980, the end of the sixth grade, we moved. Not far, just a couple of miles, closer to the bowling alley that we used to hang out at. So, the abuse continued. I’d switched schools and moved on to the seventh grade and Deputy Hahn would still on occasion pick me up as I walked home. The fall or summer of ‘81, I got into trouble with some older boys and ended up in juvenile for a second degree robbery. My friend stole a lady’s purse. I was smoking pot regularly, that’s why he/we stole the purse, so we could get money to buy pot. I ended up doing a couple of months in juvenile getting out every morning to go to school and returning to juvenile after school. Deputy Hahn picked me up one day in the summer of ‘81. It was August 28th and took me to his apartment. We didn’t swim anymore. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t need to use that to get me into the position so he could molest me, or if he didn’t want to be seen around me. I guess there had been some more reports filed against Deputy Hahn accusing him of child molestation. For on this day, when he picked me up, he was acting different than he usually did. He didn’t say much and I could tell something was wrong. He took me to his apartment and molested me, he was a little rougher than usual with me and I was upset when he was done. He had a couple phone calls while I was there and he wasn’t saying much to me. We were in his bedroom and he pulled out his gun, I thought he was going to threaten me with it again or shoot me, I was scared. I closed my eyes when he pointed the gun at me, and I remember hearing the shot. Deputy Hahn shot himself.

I was scared, I didn’t know what to do after the way the police department had treated my mother and my brother. I got out of the apartment and ran. I stayed out all that night and went home the next day. I’ve never told anyone what happened that day.

Soon after that I dropped out of school, got my GED and started working. I missed going to high school and growing up as a kid, doing things kids did. Hiding most of my life, I have lived with this for 25 years. All of those years I’ve been on drugs, pot, crack, meth, coke and tried to quit and wondered why I couldn’t. I didn’t have any trouble with the law again until 1996 when I was in a dysfunctional relationship and had a couple of domestic violence charges, my girlfriend and mother of my two children drank heavily and I was usually the victim, not the perpetrator. I lost my business due to drugs, a $100,000 a year marble and tile installation company that I owned for five years. I stole materials off job sites and ended up doing 54 months in prison. I told myself daily in prison I would never use again. I fought to get into every program the prison system had to offer. But the day I was released I went back to drugs.

In the fall of 2002, a man was arrested in Spokane after running from the police. When asked why he ran, he told them he had been raped and sexually assaulted by Deputy Hahn years before as a boy. I also run from the police every time I see them. If I am walking, I hide when I see a police car. If I can’t hide, I break out in a sweat and get sick to my stomach. This other man hired an attorney and thought about a lawsuit against the city for letting Deputy Hahn continue to work after two or three police reports/complaints had been made against him for child molestation. The city let Deputy Hahn work for two years after the first report had been made against him and then tried to cover it up. Destroying documents and files, until too many people had complained and they gave Deputy Hahn the ultimatum of quitting the department or forcing criminal prosecution.

The day they gave him this ultimatum is the last day he molested me, and then took his life with me watching. Me and my brother and a few others have contacted attorneys and thought about lawsuits.

What the Spokane Police Department has done to me since they found out about a possible lawsuit and exposure of this matter is almost unbelievable. Until you know who all the people involved are, the head sheriff at the time, the man who covered this up is a man named Larry Erickson, he now lives at the State Capitol and is the Executive Director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. In the fall of 2002, I was involved with some drug dealers. I was just a user, but I knew some pretty big dealers. An informant who set up one of these dealers and caused him to lose $85,000 in cash was being hunted down and going to be killed. I knew someone who knew where this man was, and knew these dealers were going to get this man the next day. I went to the police and told them about this situation and instead of warning this informant, a detective (name redacted) warned the dealers that I had contacted him. I talked my way out of it with the dealers, who I’ve known for years. That’s just one of a long list of things the police have done to me recently to keep me quiet. On March 3, 2003, I was leaving my girlfriend’s house when a police car came from behind a store across the street and started following me. I could of and should have pulled over. I had no legal reason to run. I had a flashback and took off. I was in a high speed chase and finally surrendered in a parking lot where I was beaten unconscious. I received hospitalization, 60 months in prison and a $10,000 hospital bill for attempt to elude. I should have never run in the first place.

I could go on and on about how the police department has treated or mistreated me since this newspaper article came out. About the abuse of Deputy Hahn and the cover up by the Spokane Police Department. I was beaten so bad in the Spokane Jail over the newspaper article in front of dozens of witnesses by Spokane jailers. A Sgt. (name redacted) had me dragged to the hole, beating me the whole way saying she wasn’t going to let me disgrace her police department like this. I was beaten until my eyes were swollen shut. I had blood in my urine from bruised kidneys and I was denied medical attention and left in the hole for two weeks. This prompted an FBI investigation with witnesses being questioned that went all the way to Washington D.C. to the Justice Dept.

I’m not trying to minimize what I’ve done. I am now serving a 60 month prison sentence with 14 months left to serve on the eluding charge. If I had taken it to trial they were threatening 90 some months if I lost and I did attempt to elude so I took their plea. I am also in on some trumped up charges by the same detective (name redacted). I am safe in here, as much as I don’t lie it, at least I am safe. My girlfriend was also targeted and harassed, her brother was also beaten for no reason when he was arrested with me. And she was arrested numerous times on bad warrants.

When I was younger I used to like cartoons like every kid, but I always hated a cartoon called Johnny Quest because it reminded me of the other man that used to molest me with Deputy Hahn, the man who started me on drugs to cover the pain he inflicted on me. Not long after Deputy Hahn killed himself, this man left Spokane and became a senator, eventually becoming the State Senate Majority Leader. Last October while I was waiting in a jail facility to go to prison, this man contacted the jail and threatened to file criminal charges against me if I said anything about him. I was called to the office and threatened by the director, a Mike Pannek, not to say anything to him or about him. This man also came to the facility himself and threatened me to keep quiet. He is no longer the State Senate Majority Leader. In October or November of 2003, he was elected Mayor of Spokane. Now with everything from my past, I have to live with this man who molested me, started me on drugs, being the Mayor of the city I’ve lived in most my life.

I’m not writing this for your sympathy. I’m writing about what I live with every day to ask you for help in dealing with this on a therapeutic level. Now I’m in a year-long intensive drug treatment program in prison that I have needed for some time. I should be out in early 2005, and that’s what I’m scared of, getting out. I have a very supportive family but what I’ve been living with and will have to live with for the rest of my life scares me. When I get out I don’t ever want to come back here. What I am looking for is some kind of counseling or therapy that the city of Spokane should be helping me with but won’t. I’ve been diagnosed with severe PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I don’t know what, if anything, is going to happen with this lawsuit. And I don’t care a whole lot about money. I’d just like to be happy or feel normal for once in my life.

I’m hoping this is something you can help me with or if not, point me in the right direction of someone who can.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I would appreciate any advice or help you can give me.

Again, thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Robert Galliher

1/15/2004