Lake County investigations in legislative spotlight

HELENA — Allegations of corruption and cover-ups within the Lake County Sheriff’s Office have caught the attention of Montana attorney general hopeful Jim Shockley, who is using his clout in the state Legislature to bring light to what is and isn’t being done to investigate.

Shockley, as a state senator and chairman of the Interim Law and Justice Committee, has scheduled a session on “Lake County Law Enforcement Issues” on April 20.

The Helena hearing is designed to hear from representatives of the Public Safety Officer Standards and Training (POST) Council, the Office of the Attorney General, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Lake County Attorney’s Office.

According to letters sent on behalf of Shockley to those organizations, the committee hopes to learn more about the accusations of inadequate or falsified certification, poaching, and other potential criminal activity as well as investigations into those accusations, which were apparently turned over to Lake County Attorney Mitch Young when brought to the attention of the attorney general’s office.

The agenda item says the committee will address the “adequacy of the current statutes” for handling an accusation of public wrongdoing such as exists in Lake County.

Shockley, R-Victor, said he has known about the alleged situation in Lake County for a long time, since several officers visited him about a year ago to talk about it. At the time, POST Executive Director Wayne Ternes was just beginning his organization’s investigation into the Sheriff’s Office.

“When these allegations were made, we had an obligation not to do an investigation of what’s going on in Lake County, but to see if the agency itself is processing it right,” Shockley said. “So our concern was not what Sheriff [Jay] Doyle was or wasn’t doing or what County Attorney Mitch Young was or wasn’t doing, it was how the attorney general was handling the complaint because the people were interested.”

He said he also was getting numerous calls and emails discussing the issue or asking what was going on. Due to that contact and the then-ongoing investigation, Shockley set the April hearing. At that hearing, anybody who wants to testify will have that opportunity.

“The real concern of the committee is just how the attorney general handled this, and we don’t know until they come in and testify,” Shockley said. “And there’s no indication that they aren’t going to come in and make their case.”

However, Shockley has run into problems with Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which initially had been very cooperative.

About a week ago, he heard rumors that no one from the organization was going to show up, so he contacted Director Joe Maurier. At the time, Maurier told Shockley that he was not familiar with the issue, so the senator gave Maurier a few days and called him back.

“He [Maurier] said, ‘We see no reason for [our representatives] to come,’” Shockley said. “I said, ‘You don’t understand, we’re supposed to be overseeing things and we ask people to come and look into it, and we make that determination’” of what is reasonable.

Shockley asked Maurier to talk to the agency’s lawyer and he would call him back. Maurier called him first.

“He said they weren’t going to show, said once again we don’t think it’s necessary and you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Shockley said.

“I said, ‘Well the public knows about the tree, and if we’re barking up the wrong tree, the public wants to know it.’ The issue isn’t that we’re barking up the wrong tree, the issue is that there’s a tree.”

On Wednesday, Shockley left a message with Gov. Brian Schweitzer to talk to him about Maurier’s comments and his attempt to have a Fish, Wildlife and Parks representative at the hearing. He has not yet heard back from the governor.

An investigation by a Fish, Wildlife and Parks warden is one of the key elements of the allegations involving Lake County law enforcement.

Part of the problem, Shockley said, is that he has no power to subpoena the organization to provide a representative.

Due to the ambiguity and wording of the law, he only has that power as chairman of the Judiciary Committee while the Legislature is in session, not as head of the interim committee in between sessions.

Even with that distinction, the refusal to appear is the first of its kind Shockley has seen.

“I have never, ever had an agency not produce somebody,” he said. “I’ve been in seven sessions and I have never seen an agency fail to show.”

Shockley sees the refusal as a direct affront to the Legislature.

“This was going to blow through, we were going to look at what the attorney general’s procedures were. We weren’t going to pass on whether or not anybody had done anything wrong, we were just going to look at the procedure,” Shockley said.

“But now, you’ve escalated this, you’ve challenged the Legislature by refusing to produce somebody we ask, and you make it appear as though you’ve done something wrong when nobody had thought that before.”

It is yet unknown whether the issue will be resolved before the hearing or whether Fish, Wildlife and Parks will fulfill its promise not to send a representative.

The committee will consider Lake County law enforcement issues at 1:30 p.m. April 20 in Room 172 at the Montana Capitol building. It’s part of two days of meetings involving the Interim Law and Justice Committee.