In August of 2007 District Attorney Joshua Marquis wrote to Steve Briggs of the Department of Justice (DOJ) asking that Briggs’ Criminal Justice Division investigate and determine whether the actions of Richard Lee, then a county commissioner, constituted criminal misconduct.
In the letter Marquis stated he had resisted acting on continued reports that Lee was pressuring county employees to benefit his private financial endeavors because his wife ran against Lee and he thought an investigation by his office would be “inappropriate”. He goes on state that now that it had “escalated” to four employees of the county having a complaint against Lee he does not believe it is right “to simply ignore” the “continuing reports”.
The problem with the letter is that is that two of the four had been investigated and Marquis had complete access to the reports on the completed investigations and knew the allegations for what they were. The complainants admitted that they were not pressured to make rulings in Lee’s favor.
In the letter to the DOJ Marquis states that Sirpa Duoos stated her concerns to Sheriff Bergin. In NCO’s interview with Bergin, he says that Duoos’ stated her concerns to him and one week later recanted her story, saying that upon reflection it was just Lee’s nature and she wasn’t actually being pressured to do anything.
When Sirpa Duoos was contacted she was not pleased that her name had been used in a complaint to a government agency. At first she declined to comment. Duoos then decided to issue a statement after she was told that Sheriff Bergin said she had recanted her original concern that she had supposedly stated to him. Duoos wrote:
District Attorney Marquis’ August 10, 2007 letter to the Department of Justice claims that I expressed concerns to Sheriff Bergin about Richard Lee pressuring me for his own gain.
I never expressed any concerns to Sheriff Bergin that Richard Lee or his wife intimidated or pressured me in any way. I worked with the Lees in my capacity as a compliance officer for Clatsop County, and had a good working relationship with the Lees. If we disagreed on an issue it was professional, and I never felt threatened or intimidated. If the Lees had ever pressured or intimidated me, I would not report to Sheriff Bergin, but instead would follow the county government’s procedures to report these concerns.
In January of this year, I shared this information with attorney Jill Goldsmith, but was never interviewed by anyone with the Oregon Department of Justice.
Sirpa Duoos
In the Public Information Request (PIR) to the county NCO asked for all interviews that Goldsmith submitted to the county. County replied that all that Goldsmith had submitted to county had already been released in the Goldsmith Report. Duoos’ interview relating her working relationship with the Lees was not detailed in the Goldsmith Report.
In NCO’s original Public Information Request to the DOJ all information pertaining to Commissioner Richard Lee was asked for, with no restrictions relating to years. The Department of Justice also included several pages of hand written notes. None of the notes contained any mention of Sirpa Duoos being on the list to be interviewed.
District Attorney Marquis’ letter goes on to state, “… just most recently an employee of the Building and Grounds department who brought his concerns to a local gunsmith named Sky Olson.” Olson, himself, has been unable to give a comment to NCO because of an ongoing personal family issue. However, he did indicate that no county employee contacted him with concerns. Others who know the story said that while out canvassing for signatures for the 4-123 ballot measure petition, Olson was given a letter that a county employee was considering submitting to the Daily Astorian. Olson asked Marquis what to do with the letter and Marquis said he didn’t want anything to do with it. The location of the letter and the identity of the county employee is unknown, at this time.
According to the information released by the DOJ, neither an investigation nor an inquiry occurred between August 2007 and the end of that year. It was not until January 2008 that an inquiry was started, soon after county employee Jennifer Bunch made her complaint and Jill Goldsmith was hired to investigate it.
Based on Sheriff Bergin’s insistence that multiple investigations or inquiries have been conducted on Lee over the past two years by the Department of Justice NCO sent an additional Public Information Request to the state department again asking for all documents that the DOJ has regarding Richard Lee and asking for the disposition of any complaints on Richard Lee. The PIR was sent on April 11. In a letter dated April 17, 2008, the Department of Justice replied that they believed they had documents that NCO was requesting and would provide them, “within a reasonable length of time.” NCO still has not received these additional documents.
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