No federal charges

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI announced Thursday that there is insufficient proof to charge former Spokane Mayor Jim West under a “very narrow” federal public corruption law, but that doesn’t mean wrongdoing didn’t occur.

“Our probe determined federal criminal charges were not warranted,” said Special Counsel Mark Bartlett. “But our investigation did not address whether Jim West’s activities were ethical, moral or appropriate.”

West still could be charged with violating state laws, which an independent investigator hired by the City Council concluded did occur when West offered young gay men City Hall jobs and appointments, hoping to develop sexual relationships with them.

Attorney General Rob McKenna and Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker talked on Thursday about the possibility of pursuing state charges against West, said Greg Lane, McKenna’s communications director.

Any decision to prosecute West for a violation of state law would have to come from Tucker, Lane said.

The state attorney general’s office can only get involved if asked by the county prosecutor, Lane said. “We are a couple of steps away from that decision,” he said.

Tucker did not return telephone calls to his office on Thursday.

Bartlett, the senior criminal attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle, said he wanted “to emphasize the limited role this (federal) investigation focused on.”

“We did not attempt to determine whether Jim West should be the mayor of Spokane,” he said. “We did not attempt to judge whether his actions over the past several years were moral or correct.”

“In fact we did not attempt to examine whether he might have violated state or local laws,” Bartlett said. “Instead we had one question to ask: Did Jim West commit acts which violated federal criminal laws that warranted prosecution in federal District Court?”

Bartlett said the FBI “did not seek to determine whether there was wrongdoing. That is not what we were looking at. As a matter of fact, if you look at Mr. West’s own statements to the press, he admitted that there were improper actions that he took.”

The FBI located and interviewed five young men who said they had sexual discussions online with West, who also talked about the possibility of them getting City Hall jobs or appointments, Bartlett said.

But the prosecutor said the mayor’s conduct didn’t rise to the level of the “quid pro quo” legal test needed to convince a federal jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a federal crime had been committed.

Bartlett would not say if the question whether to charge West was presented to a federal grand jury or simply made by Justice Department officials. He also wouldn’t discuss the specifics of the investigation or what the FBI found on computers seized from West’s office and home.

Congress passed a federal law that says the public has a right to “honest services” from elected officials, and it was under that statute that the FBI probe was conducted.

In his Nov. 18 special report for the City Council, Mark R. Busto concluded that West broke state law by using his office to secure an appointment for Ryan Oelrich “for the purpose of furthering his personal interest in an intimate relationship.”

Reached for comment, Busto said the decision not to prosecute West under federal laws “no doubt reflects the high burden of proof under the criminal law and the narrow grounds of the applicable federal statutes.”

“It says nothing about whether Mayor West violated state law, as I concluded in the investigation I conducted,” said Busto, a Bellevue attorney. “That said, I hope that the FBI’s decision can bring some closure to this issue and enable the city and its citizens to move on.”

Carl Oreskovich, West’s lawyer, said Thursday he didn’t expect any state charges to be filed against West because the state had already deferred to the FBI when that agency launched its eight-month investigation last year.

David Bray, who headed a citizens’ campaign that recalled West from office with 65 percent of the vote in December, said the Justice Department’s decision not to charge the former mayor “doesn’t excuse his predatory sexual activities.”

“The recall wasn’t based on any criminal charges, but on his admitted and proven, unacceptable sexual behavior,” Bray said. “The voters made the final decision and that decision was that we don’t want a person with Jim West’s sexual proclivities and poor judgment running our city. Period.”

Shannon Sullivan, the woman who filed the recall petition against West and successfully defended it before the Washington State Supreme Court, attended Bartlett’s press conference. She said she was surprised at the decision not to prosecute West but felt she’d already accomplished her goal.

“The recall was successful and Spokane has spoken that his behavior was unethical, immoral and inappropriate,” Sullivan said.

Within two hours of the announcement, West called his own press conference, saying the Justice Department decision vindicates him and underscores his previous statements that he didn’t break the law.

The FBI investigation began last May after a series of reports in The Spokesman-Review detailed allegations surrounding West, dating to his days as a sheriff’s deputy and Boy Scout leader. The series also examined West’s anti-gay voting record as a legislator and claims of young men who said they were offered City Hall jobs and appointments after meeting West online in a gay Internet chat room.

After those reports were published on May 5, other young men came forward and said they, too, had been offered city jobs and appointments by West as he was attempting to lure them into gay relationships.

Oelrich said he was appointed to the city’s Human Rights Commission and later offered city jobs by West as he attempted to develop a sexual relationship with Oelrich. At one point, Oelrich said, he was offered $300 to swim naked with the mayor.

Oelrich said Thursday the FBI announcement didn’t surprise him. He was one of the young men the FBI interviewed who said they were offered jobs, appointments and other favors by West.

Some were interviewed by the media while others have spoken only with investigators, Bartlett said at Thursday’s press conference.

“While I was not privy to all the information regarding West’s conduct with other individuals, I knew from my experiences with the former mayor that his behavior was grossly inappropriate and unethical, but that unethical doesn’t always translate into illegal – especially on the federal level,” Oelrich said.

West is wrong to say the federal decision vindicates him, Oelrich added.

Oelrich said he disagrees with the federal prosecutor’s analysis because after West appointed him to the Spokane Human Rights Commission in 2004, the mayor pestered him for months for dates and sex and also offered other city jobs.

“That issue needs to be re-examined,” Oelrich said. “In this case, no money was exchanged, but I know the mayor’s intentions towards me were very inappropriate. He repeated that with several others he hoped would be his boyfriends, and that is a form of political corruption.”

Oelrich said he became uncomfortable with West’s attention and resigned his Human Rights Commission job in January 2005 and filed a human rights complaint with the city. It concluded that Oelrich hadn’t been discriminated against but said West violated community mores in his behavior toward him.

A friend of Oelrich’s, referred to as “Witness Number 2” in the city investigation, was among the young men interviewed by the FBI. He sometimes served as an intermediary between Oelrich and West, the city’s report says.

He graduated from Gonzaga University in 2003 and is working on a graduate degree at Washington State University. In November 2004, he sent West his resume, according to e-mail and other documents the newspaper obtained under a public records request to City Hall.

West offered him an $80,000 job as the city’s human resources director and told him that he could be hired. “The mayor has to like you,” Busto’s report says West told the young man.

Witness No. 2’s resume shows he has been a leader in the Gay Youth Association of Spokane and has had several paid positions with the Boy Scouts, including the Inland Northwest Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

West was forced to resign from the Boy Scouts board on May 5, when the newspaper stories about his online conduct were published.

The newspaper has agreed not to identify Witness No. 2 because his parents do not know he is gay.