REGION
THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2022
Conduct unbecoming
By BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Abigail
Mobley, the former Grant
County sheriff ’s deputy at
the heart of the “sex talk”
scandal, committed no
fewer than eight violations
of the department’s code of
conduct ranging from abuse
of her position to conduct
unbecoming an offi cer and
neglect of duty, according
to public records recently
unsealed by a judge after
the ex-deputy sued to keep
them secret.
For those transgressions,
Mobley was given a 30-day
unpaid suspension starting
on Nov. 26, 2020, the
records reveal. On Dec. 26,
the day after the suspension
ended, Mobley resigned
from the Grant County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
The disciplinary action
was the culmination of a
21-month investigation into
Mobley’s inappropriate
relationship with an inmate
at the Grant County Jail,
where she worked as a cor-
rections deputy. During
the probe, Mobley was on
paid administrative leave
from her job at a cost to
Grant County taxpayers
of well over $100,000 in
salary and benefi ts.
The documents con-
taining this information
were among a trove of
public records requested by
the Blue Mountain Eagle in
October 2020 as part of a
follow-up to a story on the
“sex talk” scandal published
the month before. After
some delay, county offi cials
were preparing to release
the information, but on
March 9, 2021, Mobley fi led
a motion in Grant County
Circuit Court for an injunc-
tion to block the release of
the records.
The case concluded on
Feb. 3, 2022, when Judge
Thomas B. Powers issued
a judgment of dismissal in
which he ruled that most,
but not all, of the requested
records should be released.
The documents that
were released contain addi-
tional revelations about alle-
gations of misconduct by
Mobley and other Grant
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce
employees during the tenure
of Sheriff Glenn Palmer.
Palmer left offi ce at the end
of 2020 after losing the elec-
tion to current Sheriff Todd
McKinley.
At the same time, how-
ever, some questions still
remain unanswered.
Scope of the
investigation
In early 2019, after a
number of allegations had
been raised about possible
misconduct by members
of his staff , Palmer, fol-
lowing standard procedure
for such situations, turned
to an outside law enforce-
ment agency to investigate
the claims.
In March 2019, investi-
gators from the Deschutes
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce met
with Grant County District
Attorney Jim Carpenter,
acting in the role of county
counsel, in Carpenter’s
Canyon City offi ce.
In their report, which
was among the documents
ordered released by the
judge, the investigators
summarize the allegations
they were asked to look into.
Most of the complaints
revolved around Mobley and
her husband, Undersheriff
Zach Mobley, who remains
second in command of
the Grant County Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce. The complaints
included allegations that:
• Abigail Mobley had
been having a relation-
ship with Grant County
Jail inmate Darren Mor-
timore, who was serving
four consecutive six-month
sentences after pleading
guilty to charges of stran-
gulation, fourth-degree
assault and menacing.
• Abigail Mobley had
sexually harassed Deputy
Brandon Hutchison by con-
tacting him via Facetime
and making inappropriate
sexual comments.
• Zach Mobley, after
being notifi ed by a jail
employee that Abigail
Mobley had been overheard
having a recorded phone
conversation with Morti-
more, retaliated against the
employee by ordering him
to take two days of vaca-
tion time. Furthermore, it
was alleged that Mortimore
had been transferred from
the Grant County Jail to a
facility in California, where
he was wanted for a parole
violation, before he had
served his full sentence in
order to get him away from
Abigail Mobley.
• Zach Mobley,
after being informed
by Hutchison that Abi-
gail Mobley had sexually
harassed him, responded
by asking “Did you get a
bang out of it?” and took no
action on the sexual harass-
ment complaint.
• Zach Mobley trans-
ferred his wife out of her
corrections deputy assign-
ment in the jail and created
a new position for her as a
training coordinator in the
Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
On April 22, 2019,
less than a month after
launching its investigation,
the Deschutes County Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce notifi ed Palmer it
was suspending the inquiry
because it had become a
criminal matter. Investiga-
tors believed it was “prob-
able” that Abigail Mobley
had committed the crime of
custodial sexual misconduct
with Mortimore.
Eight days later, Car-
penter referred possible
criminal charges against
Abigail Mobley to the
Oregon Department of Jus-
tice for investigation.
Under the Oregon
Revised Statutes, the crime
of custodial sexual mis-
conduct defi nes off enses
against prisoners by those
in authority over them.
First-degree custodial
sexual misconduct is a
Class C felony. Second-de-
gree custodial misconduct,
which seems the more likely
charge in the circumstances,
is a Class A misdemeanor
punishable by up to a year
in jail.
After an 11-month inves-
tigation, however, DOJ
declined to prosecute. The
state agency sent a letter to
Carpenter stating that Abi-
gail Mobley had engaged
in multiple sexual conver-
sations with Mortimore
while he was in custody at
the Grant County Jail, but
there was “not a reason-
able likelihood” the state
could prove she had com-
mitted the crime of custo-
dial sexual misconduct.
At that point, Palmer
decided to resume an
Newly released documents disclose discipline against
ex-Grant County deputy for relationship with jail inmate
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
The disciplinary action of Abigail Mobley was the culmination of a
21-month investigation into Mobley’s inappropriate relationship
with an inmate at the Grant County Jail, where she worked as
a corrections deputy. During the probe, Mobley was on paid
administrative leave from her job at a cost to Grant County taxpayers
of well over $100,000 in salary and benefi ts.
ijuana-related charges in
Idaho (which were later dis-
missed). The Idaho State
Police had extracted data
from Olson’s phone and had
reportedly found “inter-
esting information” about
Smith and Olson. The report
does not specify what sort
of information that may
have been.
The Deschutes County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce did not
investigate Tyler Smith
because the Grant County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce had not
yet evaluated the data
dump from Olson’s phone
to determine if Smith had
committed any serious
policy violations.
On Aug. 9, 2019, how-
ever, Smith was placed on
administrative leave “for
issues related to the per-
formance of his duties as a
sheriff ’s deputy.”
A month later he was
arrested on charges of
attempted rape and other
alleged crimes involving
his estranged wife; he has
pleaded not guilty to the
charges against him and is
awaiting trial.
On Dec. 17, 2019, Smith
was fi red from the Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce for reasons that
county offi cials have refused
to divulge.
Since then, a fl urry of
lawsuits have been fi led
that make a multitude of
claims and counterclaims
about possible wrongdoing
within the Grant County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
In August 2020, Haley
Olson fi led a federal law-
suit against Grant County,
Palmer and Carpenter
for civil rights violations
related to the data dump
from her phone following
her Idaho arrest. The suit
claims that Carpenter, at
Palmer’s request, accessed
her phone records without
a warrant and without sus-
picion of criminal activity
and that the two then shared
those phone records, which
included nude and sexually
explicit images of Olson,
with others. Some of the
nude photos, the suit claims,
were taken when Olson was
a minor.
Palmer countersued in
Grant County Court on
Oct. 8, 2020, claiming that
Olson had made false and
defamatory statements
that damaged his reputa-
tion. Palmer’s suit, which
seeks $100,000 in damages,
claims that Olson’s alle-
gations were “made with
actual malice and timed to
have maximum eff ect on
the November 2020 elec-
tion in which (Palmer) is
a candidate.”
On Dec. 21, 2020, Smith
fi led suit in U.S. District
Court in Pendleton seeking
monetary damages for
wrongful discharge, whis-
tleblower retaliation and
violation of his constitu-
tional rights. The suit names
Grant County, Palmer, Car-
penter, and the Mobleys.
Smith’s lawsuit claims
the Mobleys and Palmer
orchestrated a plan to get
him arrested and removed
from the Sheriff ’s Offi ce in
retaliation for allegations
against Abigail Mobley that
he reported to the Oregon
Department of Justice in
July 2019. The allegations
were that Abigail Mobley,
while she was still employed
as a deputy, had used illegal
drugs and was having a
sexual relationship with an
inmate.
Meanwhile, a hearing in
Smith’s criminal trial was
scheduled for Wednesday,
April 13, on a motion to
have the charges against
him dismissed on the
basis of his claims that the
charges are false and were
made as part of the alleged
plot to get him fi red.
That hearing was can-
celed and was to be resched-
uled at a later date.
Asked for a comment,
McKinley noted the events
in question took place
before he became sheriff
and added that he hopes
the department can now
move on.
“I look forward to get-
ting past this chapter of our
history and writing a new
one. That is why I chose to
run for this offi ce (in 2020),”
McKinley said.
“We are working hard
here to change the face of
this offi ce, and I believe we
have made a good start in
the last year.”
inmate under her authority
investigation into possible
has been thoroughly inves-
policy violations within his
tigated, she was disciplined
department. But Deschutes
by former Sheriff Palmer
County no longer had per-
for her policy violations and
sonnel available for the job,
she is no longer with the
so the probe was handed
over to the Umatilla County department.
But a number of unre-
Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
solved allegations
For reasons that
about possible mis-
are not explained
conduct by employees
in the documents
of the Grant County
released by Judge
Sheriff ’s Offi ce during
Powers, Umatilla
Palmer’s tenure con-
County did not look
tinue to hang over the
into any claims of
Mobley
department.
misconduct by Zach
For instance, it
Mobley but focused
has never been pub-
exclusively on the
licly disclosed whether
actions of Abigail
the claims that Zach
Mobley.
Mobley retaliated
On Oct. 7, 2020,
against a jail employee
the Umatilla County
for reporting his wife’s
Sheriff ’s Offi ce con-
phone calls with Mor-
cluded its investi-
Palmer
timore and failed to
gation with a nine-
act on Hutchison’s claim
page report.
of sexual harassment were
The agency determined
that Abigail Mobley violated investigated and, if so, if he
was ever disciplined.
the Grant County Sheriff ’s
Nor has there ever been a
Offi ce policy in regard to
public explanation for Mor-
the Prison Rape Elimina-
timore’s transfer out of the
tion Act, or PREA, by sex-
Grant County Jail before his
ually harassing Mortimore
sentence was complete or
while he was an inmate in
the creation of a new posi-
the Grant County Jail.
tion in the Sheriff ’s Offi ce
Sgt. Abel Zamudio, who
for Abigail Mobley.
led the investigation, wrote
In addition, when Palmer
in his report that “Deputy
asked the Deschutes County
Mobley made repeated
verbal comments of a sexual Sheriff ’s Offi ce in March
2019 to investigate allega-
nature to Inmate Morti-
tions of possible miscon-
more” in recorded phone
duct by the Mobleys, he
calls that Mortimore made
also asked them to look
to her from the jail.
into a situation involving
She also acknowledged
Tyler Smith, who was then
that the two had phys-
a patrol deputy with the
ical contact on one occa-
Sheriff ’s Offi ce. Smith’s
sion, in the doorway to
girlfriend, Haley Olson,
the dry storage area of the
had been arrested on mar-
jail kitchen, according to
the report.
“I asked what kind of
physical contact was that,”
Zamudio wrote in the
report. “Deputy Mobley
said, ‘He grabbed the back
of my head and kissed me.’”
When asked if she made
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sexual comments to Mor-
timore during the phone
calls, “Deputy Mobley
stated that once she started
talking to Mortimore on
the phone she was drinking
all the time and does not
remember anything about
the conversations, but she
Union County Senior Center
heard that she did talk sex-
1504 N. Albany Street
ually,” the report states.
Adventure Awaits
Margaret Davidson
Friday, April 22, 2022 at 3 pm
La Grande, OR 97850
Unanswered questions
For the most part, the
newly released public
records appear to bring the
“sex talk” scandal to a close.
Abigail Mobley’s improper
relationship with a jail
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