West tied to sex abuse in '70s, using office to lure young men (Rep. Mayor of Spokane)

For a quarter century, the man who is now Spokane's mayor has used positions of public trust – as a sheriff's deputy, Boy Scout leader and powerful politician – to develop sexual relationships with boys and young men.

One man, Robert J. Galliher, claims in a court deposition that Jim West molested him in the mid-1970s when he was a boy and West was a Spokane County sheriff's deputy and Boy Scout leader.

A second man, Michael G. Grant Jr., also accuses West of sexual abuse during the same era, including an incident at Camp Cowles, a Boy Scout camp on Diamond Lake.

In addition, an investigation by The Spokesman-Review has revealed that 17 months after leaving the state Legislature, West has used the trappings of the mayor's office to entice and influence young men he met on a gay Web site.

On one recent occasion, West offered a man he believed to be an 18-year-old – whom he met online at Gay.com – gifts, favors and a City Hall internship, Internet dialogues retained by the newspaper reveal. The 18-year-old was actually a forensic computer expert working for the newspaper.

Last June, West went on a dinner date with another 18-year-old he met in the same gay chat room. The young man, initially unaware of his date's identity, paid for dinner, and then was allowed to drive West's blue Lexus convertible. The evening ended with consensual sex, the 18-year-old told the newspaper.

Rob Galliher has accused Jim West and David D. Hahn, who were Spokane County sheriff's deputies at the time, of child molestation in the 1970s.

West, interviewed Wednesday evening at the newspaper, called the allegations leveled at him by Galliher and Grant "flat lies," but he admitted having private online relationships in the past year through Gay.com.

Editor & Publisher printed a great story about how the Spokeman traced all of the email chats to West personally. (See below.)

Mayor West claims he didn't use a work computer, that his (only) accusers are two felons, and that he has done nothing improper.

Like him or not, Mayor West's rebuttal ignores several important facts:

1. Mayor West used city computers to solicit sex, including a boy of 17, which is the legal age in Washington State;

2. Mayor West offered a city internship in his bid to woo the 17 year old boy to have sex with him;

3. While serving in the Washington Legislature, Mayor West led efforts to criminalize sex with children under the age of 18, bar homosexuals from state jobs, and eliminate hate-crime status for "gay bashing";

4. Deputy David Hahn was Mayor West's partner (the work kind) in law enforcement, not a mere co-worker;

5. Mayor West's Boy Scout troupe was called the "Naked Apes" according to the transcript of the Spokesman Review's interview. Mayor West refused to explain what the name meant;

6. In the chat transcripts, Mayor West admits to using women, including his ex-wife Ginger, in order to make him appear heterosexual;

7. In the full chat transcripts, Mayor West flaunts his relationships with various celebrities, business people, and politicians in order to woo the 17-year-old boy to have sex with him;

8. In the same transcripts, Mayor West also muses about marrying U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris in order to help project a heterosexual image. (This poor woman was also hotly pursued by another man, a prominent, but rumored-to-be-gay Republican journalist, while serving in the state legislature.)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?W5833280B

After 3-Year Probe, Spokane Paper Alleges Sex Abuse by Mayor

By E&P Staff

Published: May 05, 2005 12:35 PM ET

NEW YORK After three years of investigation, the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., today presented a package of stories that include allegations of sexual misconduct by the city's mayor, Jim West.

The probe grew out of the paper's reporting on a sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in 2002. Rumors circulated then that West had sexually molested young boys when he served as a Boy Scout leader (and a sheriff's deputy) in the late 1970s. Two of his closest friends then, one a sheriff's deputy and the other a Scout leader, committed suicide after those earlier allegations of sex abuse were raised.

Today, the newspaper revealed that Robert J. Galliher claimed in a court deposition that West molested him in the mid-1970s, when he was a boy. A second man, Michael G. Grant Jr., also accused West of sexual abuse during the same period at a Boy Scout.

Stories by the newspaper in 2003 generated tips about West that staff reporters Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele then spent two years investigating, using public records, court documents, interviews, and forensic evidence.

It led them to conclude, as the paper's editor, Steven A. Smith, described it, "that West has led a secret life for more than 25 years. Beyond the serious allegations of sexual abuse, West had been using his position in the Legislature to block gay-rights legislation. And he has been trolling the Internet for young lovers while serving as mayor of Spokane, offering gifts and favors."

West, a Republican legislator who was elected mayor in 2003, defeating a local investigative journalist named Tom Grant, has denied the most serious allegations while acknowledging his Internet activity, Smith wrote. The two men accusing him of molestation have both spent time in prison.

The paper presented a large package online, including excerpts from interviews with the two accusers, a full assessment of West's career and anti-gay public stance, and a detailed timeline.

An article by Steele opened this way: "In an Internet chat room last New Year’s Eve where he discussed his recent date with an 18-year-old man, Spokane Mayor Jim West criticized the 'sex Nazis' who try to regulate private sexual behavior. For years, that’s exactly what West tried to do in Olympia [the state capital[]."

Editor Smith wrote, "This is not a story about sexual orientation. This is a story about alleged sexual abuse of children and misuse of power and authority. Using the trappings of office to lure and groom young sex partners, barely of legal age, is the public's business whether those potential partners are men or women."

E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T2731380B

Spokane Paper Hired Expert to Monitor Mayor Online
By Graham Webster

Published: May 05, 2005 2:00 PM ET

NEW YORK Near the end of the three-year investigation that led to a front-page story today alleging sexual misconduct by the mayor of Spokane, Wash., the Spokesman-Review there took an unusual step -- hiring a "forensic computer expert" to verify Mayor Jim West's online activities by posing as a young man.

"We had allegations of Internet relationships on the record, one real-life individual, and we were in pursuit of other real-life individuals," Editor Steven A. Smith told E&P Thursday afternoon. "We did not feel that, on the basis of their accounts only, we could publish that assertion. We felt strongly that we needed independent, irrefutable confirmation."

The paper's package of stories focused both on charges that West molested two boys many years ago and that he allegedly abused his position today in dealings with young men he met on the Web. (See earlier E&P story.)

From a technical standpoint, Smith said, no one on the Spokesman-Review staff had the expertise to record conversations and track IP addresses, so they hired the expert, a former U.S. Customs Service agent. Shortly after the professional joined the investigation, it became clear that they would have to create a fictional scenario, where the expert would pose as a young man who would be appealing to the mayor.

"Clearly this is, from an ethical standpoint, a step we would take with great reluctance," Smith said. But the fact that the paper was dealing with the potential misuse of a public office and allegations involving actions that could put young people at risk led Smith to go forward with the plan. "On that basis we believed that extraordinary step was justifiable," he said.

"We personally discussed it with other folks in our business. I talked with friends and colleagues in our business. I discussed it with an academic. We even consulted, late in the process, journalism ethicists," Smith told E&P. Noting that some might disagree, Smith said everyone consulted "believed that in the balancing act we had asked the right questions and had reached the right conclusions."

Even as the reporting team moved forward, Smith said the paper kept open the possibility that they would not use the product of the fictional scenario. Meanwhile, the number of people aware of the investigation was kept to six, including two reporters and a photographer. "If information that was not confirmed had leaked out and done damage, that would have been unconscionable," Smith said.

To keep the secret, Bill Morlin, the paper's lead investigative reporter, and Karen Dorn Steele, another investigative reporter assigned to the story, were given private offices outside the newsroom.

The paper broke its secrecy Tuesday, when it contacted West for comment. In a similar case last year, the Willamette Week in Portland, Ore., almost lost its scoop when it informed former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt of its plans to release a story on his sexual misconduct in the 1970s. The weekly gave Goldschmidt one week to comment, and he went straight to the Oregonian and confessed. The Week ultimately won a Pulitzer Prize this year for its reporting.

Smith was aware of the Oregon incident when they gave West two days' notice. "We made the determination here that we were not going to be stampeded into publication by competition, and not going to be stampeded into publication by the mayor," Smith noted.

The paper had interviewed West in 2003 as part of its initial probe into a related abuse story, so the current scandal "was not nearly as out of the blue as, say, the Goldschmidt story was in Portland."

Smith said the paper had already heard today from about 100 people by phone or e-mail, and 6 had cancelled their subscriptions in protest. Smith, whose paper endorsed West repeatedly over the years, said he has been a good mayor: "After many, many years of local political chaos, Jim West as a politician and as mayor brought order, civility, and an effective management style to city hall that has been extremely effective."

Graham Webster (reporter@editorandpublisher.com) is a reporter for E&P.

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