District Attorney Dugan wins contempt case

Even though police did not immediately return files and aircraft radios seized from Brent Steven Sherman when ordered to do so by the court, Sherman failed to prove that Deschutes County District Attorney Mike Dugan "willfully failed to obey the Court's directive."

So ruled Circuit Court Judge Stephen Tiktin in a decision signed on November 19, finding that Dugan was not in contempt of court.

Sherman said he will ask the judge to reverse the ruling, and, failing that, will appeal to a higher court.

The files and avionics were seized from Sherman in raids on his offices in Sisters and Bend in 1994 and 1995. At the time, Sherman was on parole after serving time for a bank robbery in California.

In the 1994 raid, police were investigating whether Sherman was dealing in stolen avionics and other criminal activity. In 1995, police were investigating allegations of robbery and menacing following an incident in which Sherman took a baseball bat into a meeting with his former attorney, Jonathan Basham, in a dispute over legal fees.

In the 1995 search, police seized a small amount of methamphetamine. Sherman was charged with possession of a controlled substance, although he claimed the drug belonged to an employee who had been fired for her drug use.

Eventually, all charges were either dropped or thrown out. Prosecutors said that Sherman, who had gained considerable legal experience, had simply made it too expensive to continue pursing what were fairly minor crimes.

Sherman says the charges were dropped because the police raids were bogus, and that he was close to proving in court that detectives from the Oregon State police and Bend Police Department lied to obtain their search warrants. Sherman further alleged that Dugan conspired with the detectives in covering up those lies by failing to return his property, which Sherman claims would have proven his innocence.

However, federal authorities revoked Sherman's parole and he is currently lodged in the federal correctional facility in Sheridan.

Sherman has filed suit against police, filed a complaint against Dugan with the Oregon State Bar, and had asked that Tiktin find Dugan in contempt of an August, 19, 1996 order to return to Sherman the items seized in the two raids.

Sherman said he received nothing until April, 1997, and that he has still not received all of his files.

On November 19, Tiktin wrote that Sherman "must prove by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Dugan (as chief law enforcement officer in Deschutes County) willfully failed to obey the Court's directive," in not making certain the judge's order was carried out.

"Mr. Sherman's theory is that (the detectives who obtained the search warrants) were involved in criminal misconduct related to their applications for search warrants, that evidence of this misconduct is found in the seized documents, and that Mr. Dugan conspired with the officers to conceal evidence of this alleged misconduct by obstructing the release of document copies to Mr. Sherman," Tiktin wrote.

The judge ruled that "the evidence does not establish that Mr. Dugan had any motive to resist the release of photocopies of seized documents, nor that he in fact did so. The delay in releasing copies, or the original papers, to Mr. Sherman was not the result of any willful behavior by Mr. DuganMr. Dugan is not in contempt of court."

Sherman said that he was disappointed in the ruling, but that he would continue to press in federal court his claims against Dugan and the detectives who served the warrants.