PORTLAND — The top criminal lawyer in Oregon’s justice department has been accused in a state bar complaint of lying to intimidate targets of investigations.
Sean Riddell, the department’s chief criminal counsel, allegedly violated at least four bar ethics rules during a probe of an Energy D
epartment contract awarded to a company co-owned by Cylvia Hayes, the companion of then-gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber.
The complaint was filed with the Oregon State Bar on Friday by two influential lawyers, Bill Gary and Dave Frohnmayer, who represent Mark Long, the former energy department interim director, according to The Oregonian.
“Mr. Riddell repeatedly and unequivocally lied to witnesses and coerced and intimidated them in order to deceive those witnesses into making statements that Mr. Riddell could then use to make unfounded charges against the targets of his investigation,” the lawyers wrote in the complaint.
The bar complaint also alleged that Riddell’s actions wasted hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and damaged the credibility and the integrity of the criminal justice system.
No charges were ever filed in the investigation.
Justice Department spokesman Tony Green said in an email that the agency will conduct a review of the allegations and will cooperate with the bar inquiry.
The department launched the probe last August into the $60,000 Energy Department contract, looking into whether staffers gave preferential treatment to Hayes and violated state-contracting laws.
R.W. Beck of Seattle received the highest evaluation by the department, but state staffers convinced Beck officials to carve out a subcontract for Hayes’ company.
Long has maintained he only wanted to ensure that at least a piece of the contract went to an Oregon company: Hayes’ company was the only bidder based in the state.
The Oregonian earlier reported that Riddell reduced two of the suspects to tears during the investigation. After a session with Riddell, one Energy Department employee, Shelli Honeywell, was rattled enough to cut an immunity deal with the state. She subsequently agreed to make a secretly taped phone call to Long.
While interviewing Honeywell and another Energy Department employee, Joan Fraser, Riddell said repeatedly that Beck officials felt they had been coerced by the state to hire Hayes’ company.
Both Honeywell and Fraser protested they had only asked Beck officials whether they would be willing to do so.
Riddell’s “statement was an outright lie,” said Gary, a former lawyer with the Justice Department, and Frohnmayer, former Attorney General. “The RW Beck officials … consistently, repeatedly and unanimously said the exact opposite: that (the Energy Department) did not pressure them.”
Long, Honeywell, Fraser and a fourth employee, Paul Seesing, remain on paid administrative leave.
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