Doug Clark: On-the-job lewdness? Sounds like Spokane

Now we know what passes for interoffice computer correspondence among certain Kootenai County law enforcers:

An obese nude woman having sex on a boat deck with somebody in a shark costume.

The video, a news story reported, was e-mailed from a sheriff’s sergeant’s cyber account to a former victim’s advocate who then forwarded it to the Kootenai County’s No. 2 prosecutor, Rick Baughman.

Which raises some serious questions:

Question 1: Wasn’t the naked woman worried about splinters?

Question 2: Could this be part of a new Lake City waterfront “fun and frolic” tourism campaign?

We’ll probably have to wait a while for answers. That’s because this Shark Tail is but one of many graphic e-mails that were exchanged between prosecutor’s office and Sheriff’s Department employees who obviously don’t have enough crime to fight.

It’s a sordid scandal, all right.

To which we who dwell over here on the west side of the Idaho/Washington border say:

Thank you, North Idaho. And Merry Christmas!

Why should Spokane always play the role of the Lilac laughingstock?

We’ve put up with a cop buying pot cookies and a cop subletting his basement to a pervert. We’ve had a federal judge accused of disrobing in Riverfront Park and serving himself a subpoena.

We’ve endured a firehouse photographic sex romp.

Two words: Jim West.

What I’m saying is that we’ve had a bellyful of being the region’s bemusement park.

It’s Kootenai County’s turn.

This is not the proper venue for rehashing all the facts in this case.

This is more a place for bayoneting the wounded.

But it is important to note that Baughman, according to news stories, fired off sexually explicit images and e-mails to two former co-workers who have accused him of sexual harassment. One of the former co-workers, Laura Bonneville, e-mailed naughty stuff to Baughman.

We know this because of a bundle of e-mails that were released last week thanks to a public records request from this fine newspaper.

Baughman has been placed on paid leave pending an investigation. It had to be done. It’s only a matter of time before all this started disrupting the ebb and flow of jurisprudence.

Hypothetical courtroom cross-examination:

BAUGHMAN: And where were you the night of the murder?

DEFENDANT: Hey, aren’t you that prosecutor dude with the video of the naked chick doing the jiggle with Jaws?

Baughman has reacted to this scandal by following rule one of The Public Official’s Playbook:

When cornered, blame the press.

In a Thursday story the prosecutor tried to prosecute us for the “sensationalizing of people being human beings or friends.”

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but a prosecutor shouldn’t be using a photograph of a half-clothed toddler whose privates are hanging over the edge of a cereal bowl as correspondence.

No kidding. Baughman, as stated in a news story, e-mailed the toddler photo to his aforementioned accusers and two other women who work in the prosecutor’s office.

That same story also mentioned another video that was e-mailed by a female county probation officer to Bonneville, who forwarded it to Baughman. The video showed, and I quote, “a man with his pants down being chased by a donkey. When the man falls face first to the ground, the donkey mounts him.”

I thought this kind of thing only happened in Enumclaw.

All this Internet insanity has Kootenai County officials vowing to pull the plug on lewd e-mails. Bravo to them.

Maybe they can also find a way to get rid of the horoscopes, stock offers, lame jokes, scam letters and inspirational claptrap that keep clogging up my computer day after day after day.

Hey, I have an idea. Let’s all go back to typewriters.