Sherman pleads innocent

Brent Sherman, 46, has pleaded not guilty to charges of possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) and allegations that he tried to extort $10,000 from his former lawyer in Bend by threatening him with a baseball bat.

As a result of the charges, Sherman was returned in 1995 to federal prison in Lompoc, California from which he had been paroled after serving about 10 years for a California bank robbery.

Sherman once operated Cascade Aircraft Salvage out of offices in Sisters. The Oregon State Police raided Sherman's offices in 1994 looking for evidence of racketeering, arson, income tax evasion, criminal conspiracy, forgery, theft by deception and theft.

According to OSP, that investigation continues. Sherman has offered documents he claims clears him of charges related to tax evasion.

After the raid in Sisters, Sherman opened Erotic Entertainment, an agency of exotic dancers, out of an office across from the courthouse in Bend.

Sherman had given a former attorney, Jonathan Basham, a painting as collateral on legal bills. Basham determined that the ownership of the painting was in dispute.

After Sherman brought a baseball bat into Basham's office and demanded that Basham return $10,000 Sherman claimed he paid the lawyer, Bend Police were notified by Basham that the painting may have been stolen.

Sherman's current lawyer, Jonathan G. Ash, said police used that information to obtain their search warrant, but the warrant was "over-broad" and that police went overboard in seizing evidence in their raids.

"You are supposed to have probable cause for each location (to be searched) and take only the items listed (in the search warrant)," Ash said.

"The paintings they were looking for were hanging in his (Sherman's) office in plain sight. But the police went to his residence first and spent 3 1/2 hours there and left with two boxes of avionics," Ash said.

Those avionics had been returned to Sherman by the FBI after the raid in Sisters, Ash said.

When police went to Sherman's offices, they found a small vial of methamphetamine that Sherman has maintained must have belonged to one of the employees of the erotic dancer business.

Ash indicated that Bend Police, who knew of Sherman's criminal history and the OSP raid on Sherman's offices in Sisters in 1994, may have had an agenda that was not supported in their search warrants.

On March 28, lawyer Ash filed a motion to set a side the indictment and a "demand for discovery" in which he asked for everything that led police to request the search warrant.

A hearing was scheduled for April 2 for rulings on the motion to dismiss and either set a compliance date or a hearing date on the discovery motion.