Clash between Lincoln County DA and commissioners over detective position fueled by mistrust, social media posts and allegations over most everything

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

NEWPORT – A nasty dispute between the Lincoln County district attorney and county commissioners and its staff over hiring a DA’s detective may resolve itself in two weeks, but not without unprecedented public allegations of lying and abuse of power, retaliation, threats of prosecution and lawsuits, and at least one outside investigation.

The fight that moved into the public’s eye the past two weeks nominally involved the move of longtime sheriff’s employee, detective Abby Dorsey, into a vacant investigator/detective position in the district attorney’s office.

But it brought out issues in the district attorney’s office, the widespread use of social media by new district attorney Lanee Danforth, mistrust of her by commissioners, and the county’s mishandling of help for a contracted, local medical examiner during a turnover of staff last summer and fall.

A potential solution – after two more fiery statements – came Wednesday during the county commissioner’s first in-person meeting in two years.

Commissioners didn’t object to Dorsey’s move to the district attorney’s office, but expressed concerns over a line in the job description that allowed the detective to conduct background investigations of new county employees, or conduct special internal investigations of county employees or those of other governmental agencies.

“I don’t see how we have authority to go randomly investigating other government agencies,” said commission chair Claire Hall.

She said the sheriff’s office, the county lawyers or its personnel office – when appropriate — do that work. The county can also hire an outside firm to conduct internal investigations and that other jurisdictions in the county have their own procedures and resources.

Although that language had been in the job description for years, former investigator Ron Benson, who retired in December, and former district attorneys apparently did not use it. Without directly saying so, the commissioners’ discussion indicated they did not trust the current district attorney’s office to have that latitude.

The commissioners voted unanimously to have Danforth, county counsel Kristin Yuille and human resources director David Collier meet and come back in two weeks with acceptable wording in the job description.

But given Danforth’s public accusations against Collier and Yuille, commissioner Kaety Jacobson wondered aloud if the three could do that without some help from others. “Current relations and personalities are not conducive to that,” she said.

Danforth outlines disagreements

For weeks Danforth has taken to social media and her office’s web page to outline issues she has had with Collier, Yuille and county commissioners in getting Dorsey transferred to the district attorney’s office. She used those communications to say they were lying, and to make allegations of bullying and retaliation, and to push back on the county placing her chief deputy, Lynn Howard, on administrative leave after a dispute over her putting another deputy district attorney on leave.

In a 4-page letter to commissioners on March 31, Danforth accused them of not supporting the district attorney’s office and threatened them with prosecution for what she claimed was exceeding their authority. She also said Dorsey would start working for her April 1 and that Howard would return to her administrative duties, despite the county’s actions.

Danforth took office 15 months ago after defeating gubernatorial appointee Jonathan Cable in the May 2020 primary. She started in the Lincoln County district attorney’s office in 2018 after shorts stints in DA offices in Coos Bay and Clark County, Nev.

On Wednesday, Danforth delivered a long statement outlining details of Dorsey’s move from the sheriff’s office, learning that the move was put on hold in a Feb. 8 email, disagreements with Collier – including an alleged shouting match – and disagreements over what Yuille was telling her and giving to commissioners.

Danforth said there were dozens of attempts – emails or calls by herself or the Oregon Attorney General’s Office — to try to resolve the issue between Feb. 18 and March 31 that were rebuffed.

In replies supplied only by Danforth, Collier had concerns whether the position was unionized or not, the different pay scales between the sheriff’s and DA’s offices, and the timing of any transfer. Yuille expressed concerns over potential legal conflicts with a detective position in the DA’s office and the scope of that person’s duties.

In her social media posts, Danforth asked the public to show up to Wednesday’s meeting to show support. Twenty or so did, along with some members of her staff, and applauded when she challenged commissioners to set her budget and let her determine how it was spent.

“What has been clearly demonstrated is that HR, county counsel and the commissioners have no idea what we do in the DA’s office, what my responsibilities are, how those responsibilities are carried out,” Danforth said in a statement to commissioners Wednesday. “That’s why they should support and rely on the elected DA to make those decisions that are within the budget. The overreaching, interference and micromanaging need to stop.

“You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to agree with the decisions of the voters, you don’t have to be nice to me,” she said. “All I am asking is that you allow me to do my job and staff my office appropriately as every other DA before me has done.”

After an introduction Wednesday by Hall to outline background and issues in the public handling of a personnel matter, Danforth called it “spin control” and “a lie.”

Hall calls out Danforth’s behavior

During their discussion, commissioner Doug Hunt focused on duplicating detective services and the requirement to bargain with the employees union over making it a non-union position. Both Hunt and Jacobson were concerned about unfettered ability to conduct investigations of county and other government employees.

Hunt defended the county’s concerns, saying he had not encountered such animosity from another public official in his 10 years on the board. Commissioners “do not have it out for this individual,” he said.

That drew the second of two outbursts from Danforth’s supporters and staff, and a warning from Hall that she would clear the room if people didn’t respect speakers.

Filling the position drew support from Sheriff Curtis Landers, who termed it “very valuable for public safety in the county.”

“It may be duplicative, but it doesn’t mean it’s unnecessary,” Landers said, explaining how the DA’s investigator in the past has helped with criminal cases and unattended deaths. “It’s another resources to help conduct criminal investigations in the county.”

Danforth later said she was OK with removing the position’s ability to investigate county or other employees. Collier said he could work with Danforth and Yuille to bring back a refined job description in two weeks.

Which led to Hall reading a statement blasting Danforth for “the almost daily onslaught of public challenges” of commissioners and attacks of county staff on her social media posts. Hall called it “unprecedented in my 35 years at this courthouse …”

“In one of her daily social media posts, the district attorney says she will not be silenced,” Hall said. “I find that an ironic statement given her ongoing social media onslaught and two front page articles in the Newport News-Times are proof that no one can silence an elected official, and no one has attempted to do so. Similarly, I will not be silenced by daily attacks, innuendoes and rumors, or by threats of criminal prosecution.”

Wednesday night, on a Newport-area Facebook page, Hall wrote that she believed the issue involved more than “legitimate questions and concerns” over duties of the detective in the district attorney’s office.

“I believe there’s a larger issue here: an attempt to pull our criminal justice in Lincoln County back to the “lock ’em up and throw away the key” mentality that has proven again and again not to work,” Hall’s post said. “We also have a district attorney who has personal ambitions and helped to recruit a candidate (Mark Watkins, who is running against Kaety Jacobson) for county commission that she believes will hew more to her mindset.”

Other issues

Other issues that have surfaced during the few weeks, include:

• Danforth and Howard placed longtime deputy district attorney Kenneth “Rusty” Park on administrative leave in January because of questions over evidence in a 2018 drug trial that resulted in a conviction and asked for an outside investigation. The county human resources and counsel’s office did their own investigation, determined there was not an issue and ordered Park reinstated. Danforth and Howard refused, asked for an outside investigation and put Park on administrative leave again.
• Collier put Howard on administrative leave immediately after that decision, but allowed her to handle a manslaughter trial. In her Facebook posts Danforth said she and Howard complained to commissioners that they had been harassed, retaliated against and bullied by Collier during that process. In a Feb. 8 email to Danforth, Hall denied that occurred, said Danforth was acting unprofessionally, and that if Howard disregards being placed on administrative leave it could be grounds for discipline or dismissal.
• Park has filed a notice of tort claim with the county, required when someone intends to sue a governmental entity. The county has not yet responded to a public records request by YachatsNews for that notice.
• In January, the county hired a Portland law firm to investigate Danforth and Howard for retaliation and creating a hostile work environment.
• Portland attorney Bear Wilner-Nugent on Wednesday filed an ethics complaint with the Oregon State Bar alleging that Danforth may have violated professional conduct rules in her March 31 letter threatening commissioners with prosecution for misconduct.

 

• Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com