West accessed sex sites on trips

A day before Spokane Mayor Jim West left on a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored business trip to Washington, D.C., public records show he used his city-owned computer to examine online profiles – some of them sexually explicit – of dozens of young gay men living there.

Traveling on to Philadelphia as part of the same trip this spring, the 54-year-old West used his city computer again to check out 82 more profiles of gay men, most of whom were in their 20s, computer records reveal.

It is not known whether West – now the focus of an FBI public corruption investigation – met any of the men during his weeklong East Coast trip.

The Internet addresses leading to the profiles of the gay men are contained on a compact disc that was released to The Spokesman-Review on Thursday by City Hall attorneys. West and his private attorneys did not object to the release of the CD, which contains only a portion of the material from the mayor’s city-owned computer, seized in early May.

But West, facing a recall election on Dec. 6, is pressing a court fight to keep a second CD, which West’s lawyers have said contains offensive material, from being released.

On Friday, the newspaper reported that West used his city computer to view Internet information about a gay man in Fresno, Calif., while he was there on April 15 for a government-paid trip.

Further review of the CD shows West also used his laptop to access Gay.com at 11:49 a.m. PDT on April 25 while he was in Denver, en route to Washington, D.C., and at 11:57 a.m. PDT on May 2, while he was in Philadelphia.

The history of his computer use, contained in Java files buried deep within the CD, contradicts West’s repeated claims that he didn’t access gay Web sites during workdays.

His trip to Washington, D.C., was sponsored by the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce. Chamber President Rich Hadley couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. The chamber has called for West’s resignation.

While in the nation’s capital, West met with Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Wash.

After leaving Washington, D.C., West traveled to Philadelphia to participate in a technology conference. It couldn’t be immediately determined if taxpayers paid for that trip.

West returned to Spokane on May 3, two days before The Spokesman-Review published reports about his online offers of jobs and appointments to gay men he met online and solicited for sexual favors.

West’s attorneys issued a brief statement Friday afternoon.

“Mayor West has been up front from the very beginning,” said the e-mail statement released by attorneys Bill Etter and Susan Troppmann.

“On May 5, 2005, the mayor stated he visited Web sites but not on city time or at City Hall,” the statement said. “Mayor West was told, which is consistent with city policy, that he could use the city computer for personal uses when he traveled.”

The city’s Internet access policy allows employees “limited use” of the Internet, but says it should not be used to access or transmit obscene, profane, pornographic, abusive, harassing, discriminatory or threatening information, pictures or representations.

The statement by West’s attorneys confirmed he was in Washington, D.C., on March 22 and April 5 and in Philadelphia on May 2. “The Web site visits identified are after regular business hours, Eastern Standard Time,” the statement said.

In a court hearing Wednesday, Etter and Troppmann told Superior Court Judge Richard Miller that material on the other CD should be kept from the public because it contains “highly offensive” information, including the identities and photos of hundreds to thousands of men, whose privacy West wants to protect.

Miller said it would be later this month before he rules on whether the CD should be released under the state’s public records law.

Duane Swinton, an attorney for The Spokesman-Review, said the CD that West is trying to protect should also be made public.

The Web addresses on the CD released to the newspaper “may be accessed by anybody who has a computer with Internet access and not just persons who pay a monthly fee to Gay.com.

“In other words, these profiles and the access by the mayor to them are clearly in the public domain,” Swinton said.

“As a result, we believe that the public release by the city and the mayor of these contacts also renders public what is apparently similar contact information contained on the other CD, which was the subject of Wednesday’s court hearing,” the newspaper’s attorney said.

City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers, one of West’s harshest critics, said evidence from the mayor’s computer confirmed “outrageous conduct.”

“Anyone in most jobs who used their business computer for such conduct would be fired immediately,” Rodgers said.

“I’ve had people from Chevron, Hollister-Stier and other places tell me they would have been fired in a heartbeat if they did this on their computers at work,” she said. “No exceptions, no excuses, period.”

The new evidence recovered from West’s computer makes it clear, Rodgers said, that a private investigator hired by the Spokane City Council “will have to conclude” the mayor violated city computer-use policies.

“He was using City Hall equipment, and he was doing some of it on City Hall time,” Rodgers said. “For people who have been sitting on the fence, wanting to see more solid evidence, this is it.”

Computer data also show that West visited another Web site, Manhunt.net, on March 22 while on an earlier trip to Washington, D.C., to visit the office of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Manhunt.net is an Internet site where men browse for sex with other men.

West accessed the site Tuesday, March 22, at 6:17 p.m. EST. His schedule showed he was in Washington, D.C., that day to meet with Air Force officials and Murray’s chief of staff.

Between 10:58 p.m. PST on May 2 and 12:46 a.m. PST on May 3, while on city business in Philadelphia, West used Gay.com on his computer to open at least 82 windows containing profiles of gay men in Philadelphia, southern New Jersey and the Spokane area.

In late July, the FBI obtained a search warrant from a federal magistrate judge to search West’s home. Agents seized three of West’s personal computers and an assortment of files. The FBI investigation is ongoing.