Rep. Court Boice - Should a sheriff keep county donations?

A Southern Oregon sheriff is facing questions after donations reportedly intended for the sheriff's office ended up titled in his own name or stored on his personal property. Where should the line be drawn between public service and personal benefit? Oregon State Representative Court Boice joins the show to discuss the allegations, the ongoing investigation, and why accountability matters for public officials. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey, welcome back to the Lawrence Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you. So there's a real mystery going on in Curry County, which is on the South Oregon coast. And there are few people I know who know more about Curry County than uh Representative Court Boyce, uh, because Court's family uh has been in law enforcement uh down in Curry County uh over time. And I thought I'd go to court and say, can you straighten this out? Representative Boyce, welcome back to the program. Court? Are you there? Oh heck. Okay, Joel, can you find out what happened to Court? Because he was on the phone line just a second ago, but uh disappeared from the line. We had tried to connect with him earlier this hour. Uh he was not available, and now we'll see if we can get it back on the line. Here's the bottom line, and I'll give full and lavish credit to the Oregon Roundup Foundation, which does some reporting on this subject. They say Curry County's sheriff, John Ward, is now embroiled in an FBI investigation, first reported back in May. Apparently, uh, let's see, Represent Boyce, are you there this time? I have no idea what happened.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Thanks for having me on the welcome, Mars. Hey, in 2010, when you called into my dad's memorial, you have no idea how wonderful that impact was. My grandfather, in the 30s and 40s, longest serving Curry County Commissioner of all time, 18 years. If they were on the planet right now, they would be on the fight as well as being heartsick.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Do you have any idea what's going on when we see reported that the Curdy County Sheriff John Ward is being investigated by the FBI because a nonprofit gave hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff, including a jet ski, an ATV, a boat, a trailer, and apparently a number of other things, a travel trailer, all this stuff donated to the sheriff's office, and it ends up listed as the personal property of the Curry County Sheriff, John Ward. Is was he was he uh was he taking things he shouldn't have been taking?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Well, it's your bad look, and uh, I can tell you this in 2016 and when I ran for Commissioner Lars, he sent a glowing letter of support. And we had a honeymoon period for about a year in my six years of commission, but the five years following, we didn't uh do very well. And I was asked a lot of probing questions, and you know, he follows his predecessor that went on to be the Oregon State Sheriff's Association leader, and uh boy, did he get in a lot of trouble. So I I suspect uh I mean we have to be real careful what we say. I'm grateful for the investigations and supporting those fully. Um, but yeah, there was a recall attempt on me because I was asking tough questions in uh 2021, Lars. I asked the Department of Justice from Oregon to come in and take a look, and that didn't go anywhere. Yeah. Uh but this this current board of commissioners is absolutely stellar. They are they've been threatened with recalls because they're uh see, I didn't have any support in my six years commissioner. I was always in a minority position. Commissioners that ran as conservatives and then uh didn't show up for work. But anyway, this is three commissioners that are really taking the heat to do the right thing. And uh I don't know where the investigations are gonna end up, but uh I gotta support them and I'm I'm proud that they are really digging deep and uh they want to bring the trust back to the citizens.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

You know, the funny thing is, Court, when it comes to owning property, I mean, if you've got the title to a jet ski and you say, Where'd you get it? Well, it was given to me by this nonprofit foundation. Then you ask the nonprofit foundation, what'd you do with that jet ski? We donated it to Curry County Sheriff's Search and Rescue. You say, okay, that makes sense that a nonprofit would donate a jet ski to search and rescue because on the rivers you have to quickly be, especially a river that you've worked in jet boats forever, uh, that that if you got to get to somebody who's in trouble on that river, you can't use most conventional boats. So you scoot up there in a jet ski and you get somebody out of the water and you save their life. Why would it make sense that that would end up titled to Sheriff John Ward? If there were an easy explanation, you'd think he'd say, Yeah, I got these from a buddy. Well, no, you got them from a private nonprofit foundation that thought it was giving all this stuff to the sheriff's office. How did it end up with your name on it? Does he have any kind of explanation?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Uh, you know, he's bulldogging right now. The judge, uh, the county sued him so that he would come in and uh go before the the three commissioners and just talk about budgets, everything so we can uh again get the trust back. And and the judge ruled you need to come in and provide the information. You also need to pay the attorney fees to the county that they lost, because I'm ruling against you, Sheriff. He's defied that. So I can't imagine that any of the other 35 uh sheriffs within Oregon Lars have property listed in their name. Maybe there's an explanation. I'm trying not to interfere with the investigation, obviously, and I don't want to jump to conclusions.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

I know there's a history here. There's a hit. No, I'm not saying you are, but there's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

No, I no, but I mean, Court, I can imagine small stuff like if you're in a sheriff's department, you've worked there for 30 years, and at the end when you retire, they say, hey, why don't you take your service revolver with you? It's worth a few hundred bucks, but you know, maybe we'll do the paperwork. You know, I could see small stuff like that, but a 27-foot travel trailer, an ATV, a boat, and a boat trailer, all of this stuff, that's not the small stuff that maybe you get to keep at the end of a long law enforcement career. It just that this one stinks.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah, you know, I I can't imagine if any one of the commissioners, or even myself, or David Brock Smith, I mean, we spent 60 years between the two of us trying to send a good reputation out for Oregon uh throughout our state. And uh yeah, this is this is unreal. But if any of us had anything listed in our personal names, we should be absolutely coming forthright. I mean, well, we wouldn't have, first of all. Uh and it's um yeah, it it's it's bad for it's bad for the county. I think we're gonna get to the bottom of it, and we're just just hopeful. I I believe that the people that are close to the sheriff need to fully cooperate, and I'm encouraging them because there's some good people that work for this county.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

But you think they're sticking close to him because he's a friend and they're saying we don't want to abandon our friend. If your friend did something wrong, then admit it, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Well, that's why there was a recall attempt on two of the commissioners that are that are doing the hardest work and making the toughest decisions to just say, hey, we just want to get to the bottom of this. And so apparently the FBI thinks that there's something really worth taking a look into. And so uh it's a bittersweet thing if we get to the truth, but also the damage that's done and will do.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Well, because court, I mean, like I said, when it comes to things like titles and property and and all that, you you say, who owns it? Well, whose name is on the registration with the state of Oregon? That tells you who owns it, how'd they get it, where'd they get it from? Did the folks who gave it thought thinking were giving this to the Sheriff's Department, did they know it was going to be treated as the personal property of John Ward? And by the way, Court, I'll I'll open it up. Any day that Curry County Sheriff John Ward wants to come on this program and say, I got all these things. The boat, the trailer, the travel trailer, the jet ski, I got all of them legitimately. They were given to me fair and square, they're in my name for a reason. I'd be glad to let him come on the air and explain all of that. And if he can't explain it relatively easily, I suspect he doesn't have an explanation for it. That is Oregon Representative Cord Boyce, he represents Oregon District One in the state legislature. You're listening to the Laris Larson show and the Radio Northwest Network.