A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Conduct
Continued from Page A1
• Zach Mobley transferred his wife
out of her corrections deputy assign-
ment in the jail and created a new posi-
tion 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 Sheriff ’s Offi ce noti-
fi ed Palmer it was suspending the inquiry
because it had become a criminal matter.
Investigators believed it was “probable”
that Abigail Mobley had committed the
crime of custodial sexual misconduct
with Mortimore.
Eight days later, Carpenter referred
possible criminal charges against Abi-
gail Mobley to the Oregon Department
of Justice for investigation.
Under the Oregon Revised Stat-
utes, the crime of custodial sexual mis-
conduct defi nes off enses against pris-
oners by those in authority over them.
First-degree custodial sexual miscon-
duct is a Class C felony. Second-degree
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 investigation,
however, DOJ declined to prosecute.
The state agency sent a letter to Car-
penter stating that Abigail Mobley had
engaged in multiple sexual conversa-
tions with Mortimore while he was in
custody at the Grant County Jail, but
there was “not a reasonable likelihood”
the state could prove she had com-
mitted the crime of custodial sexual
misconduct.
At that point, Palmer decided to
resume an investigation into possible
policy violations within his department.
But Deschutes County no longer had
personnel available for the job, so the
probe was handed over to the Umatilla
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
For reasons that are not explained
in the documents released by Judge
Powers, Umatilla County did not look
into any claims of misconduct by Zach
Mobley but focused exclusively on the
actions of Abigail Mobley.
On Oct. 7, 2020, the Umatilla
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce concluded its
investigation with a nine-page report.
The agency determined that Abi-
gail Mobley violated the Grant County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce policy in regard to the
Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA,
by sexually harassing Mortimore while
he was an inmate in the Grant County
Jail.
Sgt. Abel Zamudio, who led the
investigation, wrote in his report that
“Deputy Mobley made repeated verbal
comments of a sexual nature to Inmate
Mortimore” in recorded phone calls that
Mortimore made to her from the jail.
She also acknowledged that the two
had physical contact on one occasion, in
the doorway to the dry storage area of
the 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 sexual com-
ments to Mortimore 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 heard that she did
talk sexually,” the report states.
In addition, Zamudio determined
Mobley committed the following vio-
lations of the Grant County Sheriff ’s
Offi ce code of conduct:
• Section 2.1: Conformance to law:
Mobley was arrested for driving under
the infl uence on Feb. 8, 2020, in Unity
by the Oregon State Police. Her blood
alcohol content reportedly measured
0.27%, more than three times the legal
limit. She pleaded guilty and entered a
diversion agreement.
• Section 2.3: Unbecoming con-
duct: This policy violation also is
related to Mobley’s drunk driving
arrest, which refl ected poorly on the
Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
• Section 2.10: Abuse of position:
Mobley improperly used the intercom
system at the Grant County Jail to have
conversations “of a personal nature”
with Mortimore.
• Section 2.13: Prohibited associ-
ations: Mobley’s personal relationship
with Mortimore, a convicted felon who
was on supervised probation, violated
this policy.
• Section 2.16: Neglect of duty:
Investigators determined Mobley vio-
lated this provision in a number of
ways, including her violations of the
prohibited association, abuse of posi-
tion and PREA policies listed above.
• Section 13: Conduct unbecom-
ing an offi cer: Mobley’s DUII arrest
and conviction was a failure to abide by
the law that refl ected badly on the Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce.
• Section 15: Ethics: Mobley’s
DUII arrest, her relationship with a
jail inmate who was a convicted felon
on supervised probation, her use of the
jail intercom system and jail phone sys-
tem to communicate with him, and the
fact that she continued to communicate
with him after his release from custody
were all violations of the ethics policy,
according to the report.
Unanswered questions
For the most part, the newly released
public records appear to bring the “sex
talk” scandal to a close. Abigail Mob-
ley’s improper relationship with a jail
inmate under her authority has been
thoroughly investigated, she was disci-
plined by former Sheriff Palmer for her
policy violations and she is no longer
with the department.
But a number of unresolved alle-
gations about possible misconduct by
employees of the Grant County Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce during Palmer’s tenure con-
tinue to hang over the department.
For instance, it has never been pub-
licly disclosed whether the claims that
Zach Mobley retaliated against a jail
employee for reporting his wife’s phone
calls with Mortimore and failed to act
on Hutchison’s claim of sexual harass-
ment were investigated and, if so, if he
was ever disciplined.
Nor has there ever been a public
explanation for Mortimore’s transfer
out of the Grant County Jail before his
sentence was complete or the creation
of a new position in the Sheriff ’s Offi ce
for Abigail Mobley.
In addition, when Palmer asked the
Deschutes County Sheriff ’s Offi ce in
March 2019 to investigate allegations
of possible misconduct by the Mobleys,
he also asked them to look into a situ-
ation involving Tyler Smith, who was
then a patrol deputy with the Sheriff ’s
Offi ce. Smith’s girlfriend, Haley Olson,
had been arrested on marijuana-related
charges in Idaho (which were later dis-
missed). The Idaho State Police had
extracted data from Olson’s phone and
had reportedly found “interesting infor-
mation” 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 pol-
icy violations.
On Aug. 9, 2019, however, Smith
was placed on administrative leave “for
issues related to the performance 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 Sheriff ’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 pos-
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
sible wrongdoing within the Grant
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
In August of 2020, Haley Olson fi led
a federal lawsuit 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 Palm-
er’s request, accessed her phone records
without a warrant and without suspicion
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, claim-
ing that Olson had made false and
defamatory statements that damaged
his reputation. Palmer’s suit, which
seeks $100,000 in damages, claims
that Olson’s allegations were “made
with actual malice and timed to have
maximum eff ect on the November
2020 election in which (Palmer) is a
candidate.”
Palmer won his suit, but Olson is
appealing that decision.
On Dec. 21, 2020, Smith fi led suit
in U.S. District Court in Pendleton
seeking monetary damages for wrong-
ful discharge, whistleblower retalia-
tion and violation of his constitutional
rights. The suit names Grant County,
Palmer, Carpenter, and the Mobleys.
Smith’s lawsuit claims the Mob-
leys and Palmer orchestrated a plan to
get him arrested and removed from the
Sheriff ’s Offi ce in retaliation for alle-
gations 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 dis-
missed 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 canceled and was
to be rescheduled 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 getting 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.”
Seniors
Continued from Page A1
And he noted that
other in-person activities
that have been curtailed
for two years by COVID-
19 precautions are also
starting to come back.
One example: funerals.
“We’re able to have
(funerals) again for peo-
ple,” Labhart said. “So
it’s kind of nice to be
able to celebrate people’s
lives.”
Labhart said the com-
munity lost quite a few
seniors over the last two
years to the pandemic.
Some, he said, did not
attend all of the senior
center activities, but oth-
ers did.
“Now they feel com-
fortable enough at the
senior center to say, ‘Hey,
I know you can’t cele-
brate my wife or hus-
band’s life, but when we
open back up again, I’d
sure like to hold a service
at the senior center,’”
Labhart said.
He said later on this
year the senior center
will begin holding those
services.
While the state has
eased
indoor
mask
requirements,
Grant
County Health Adminis-
trator Kimberly Lindsay
said senior citizens and
those with compromised
immune systems should
still be mindful of their
risks.
As the county moves
into a different phase of
COVID-19, Lindsay said,
it is important to consider
that the virus can have
more severe impacts on
vulnerable populations.
Thus, she added, people
in those categories need
to take precautions others
may not have to take.
“Those that are in
high-risk categories may
choose to wear a mask
or may choose to not go
to certain places out of
necessity,” she said. “And
society needs to be OK
with that.”
After
95 Years,
Boyer's
Cash
Store
is Up For
Sale.
J. Dempsey Boyer
John Stanley "Bub" Boyer
Jerry Boyer
Jeremy Boyer
...wish a heartfelt thanks
to all our customers and
friends for supporting our
family for 95 years
God Bless
