Douglas Fair, a member of the Edmonds School Board, a pro-tem judge and former Snohomish County deputy prosecutor, has been named to replace Jim White as Edmonds Municipal Court judge.
Fair, 46, was nominated for the post by Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson, who said Fair was on vacation in Canada when he offered him the position. Edmonds City Council confirmed the nomination Tuesday night.
On Friday, White, 49, of Edmonds pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Seattle to a single count of felony money laundering. He resigned his post as Edmonds judge effective that day.
Fair, also an Edmonds resident, is a graduate of the University of Oregon School of Law, former president of the Snohomish County Bar Association, and worked in the Snohomish County prosecutor’s office until 1997.
Fair has worked part-time as a pro-tem judge in South County District Court and Edmonds and Lynnwood municipal courts, and as a hearing examiner in Snohomish County.
Fair also has served on the Snohomish County Children’s Commission and the Edmonds Community College Foundation board, and was an adviser for Citizens for Schools, a nonprofit group that helps pass bonds and levies for Edmonds schools.
He was elected to the Edmonds School Board in 2003. He told Haakenson he would resign the post to assume the Edmonds judgeship.
Fair will serve out White’s current term, which expires at the end of the year, Haakenson said. He said the city is considering restructuring the judge position, either dissolving the court and sending its cases to South District Court, or making the position an elected one.
White, under a plea agreement, admitted that a man he knew was involved in a drug-trafficking conspiracy gave him a backpack filled with $100,000, which White hid in his home.
The former judge admitted he used $20,000 of the cash to hire A. Mark Vanderveen, 45, of Lake Forest Park to represent one of the drug traffickers, who was then under investigation by federal agents. Vanderveen on Friday pleaded guilty to a financial felony for hiding the transaction.
In his plea agreement, White admitted that he paid Vanderveen $10,000 during a meeting in a parking lot and gave him another $10,000 in a brown paper bag left at the Edmonds courthouse. Vanderveen worked with White as a pro-tem judge in Edmonds.
As part of their pleas, both attorneys agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, who have been investigating what they have described in documents as “a very substantial drug-trafficking organization with active ties to Mexico and Canada.”
The investigation became public in February when a bankrupt Portland, Ore., businessman, Douglas Bryan Spink, 34, was caught as he drove along U.S. 2 in Monroe with 372 pounds of cocaine stuffed in suitcases. Spink had been living in Chilliwack, B.C.
White could face up to 20 years in prison for his crime, while Vanderveen could be sentenced to up to five years. It is unlikely that either man will face punishment that severe.
The standard sentence for somebody with White’s history is two years to 21/2 years in prison. Vanderveen, meanwhile, likely faces six months or less in prison.
Herald reporter Scott North contributed to this report.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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