Sunday, November 22, 2009

A SPOKESMAN-REVIEW INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

Interview with Jim West

Transcript from May 4, 2005

May 5, 2005

© The Spokesman-Review 2005

The following is a transcript of an interview between Mayor Jim West and Spokesman-Review reporters Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele, which took place at The Spokesman-Review building the evening of May 4, 2005. Spokesman-Review photojournalist Brian Plonka was also present during the interview.

Q: Do we have your permission to tape record this?
A: That's fine. I should have brought my tape recorder. You'll give me a copy of the tape?

Q: We could do that. My tape recorder hasn't been working well lately.

Q: First of all, I want to tell you in the most direct, simplist of terms is what we're going to talk to you about here today is nothing personal. It's something Karen and I and the editors here are doing as part of our job as journalists. It's nothing personal. I know you're probably going to try and simplify it into that, but I want to tell you at the outset, this is nothing personal. I'm merely doing my job. In doing that job, we need to give you a chance to fully respond to some of the issues that have been brought to our attention. Do you understand that?
A: Yes, go ahead.

Q: As I told you on the phone, what we're talking about is an outgrowth of the story we published in 2003. You remember that story?
A: Yeah.

Q: I called you and quoted you in that story. Right? Did I accurately quote you in that story?
A: I'd have to look at the story. I don't think I had any objections.

Q: I asked you about your former friend and fellow deputy David Hahn.
A: That's right.

Q: You were scout leaders together and deputies together.
A: Right

Q: His life ended rather tragically in August of 81 and that story focused on some allegations of sexual abuse that were brought to the forefront by three young men who we identified on the record. Do you recall that?
A: Yeah. I don't know those young men, but yeah. You told me their names. I couldn't tell you today what they are.

Q: Their names were Brett and Rob Galliher, Douglas Chicklinsky, and a fourth man came forward after that story was published who says he was also abused by your former friend, the late deputy Hahn. That resulted in a lawsuit that's preceeding against Spokane County.
A: I understand.

Q: Are you aware of that lawsuit?
A: I am

Q: Have you been briefed about the ramifications of that lawsuit?
A: Nope

Q: Do you know that you are on a witness list for that lawsuit?
A: I was told that, yeah.

Q: Told that by whom?
A: I don't recall

Q: Terry Lackie?
A: I don't know

Q: Phil Harris?
A: No, I know it wasn't Phil

Q: Who told you that?
A: I don't know, Bill.

Q: A city attorney
A: No

Q: That's a pretty important trial …. How and when was it you became aware that you could be a witness in that trial
A: I'm guessing two and a half months ago or so

Q: Earlier this year?
A: I'm guessing, yeah. I don't remember the exact time frame.

Q: Was it a phone call, an e-mail?
A: It wasn't an e-mail, so it must have been a phone call. I don't recall.

Q: You don't remember who it was from?
A: No

Q: Generally what were you told by whomever passed this message onto to you
A: My name was on a witness list. It wasn't on the county's witness list, so it must have been on the other side

Q: Yeah, it is. Which is a matter of public record, by the way. If you went to the court file, which we did, you'll see that your name is on that list.
A: So anybody could have told me, I guess, who could have seen that list.

Q: Right
A: I don't recall who….

Q: You don't remember who it is. I presume, have you talked to a counsel about the prospect of you testifying in that trial or being subpoenaed as a witness?
A: Nope

Q: You have not?
A: Nope

Q: Either a private attorney or city attorneys?
A: Nope, why would I?

Q: Does it concern you that you are on that list
A: No, I don't know why I'm on the list, but it doesn't concern me.

Q: Let's go there next. A story, actually a story I wrote back in November 1978, there's a young Jim West, even younger Al Teeples, and a Larry Erickson.
A: Actually I have that story in a scrapbook

Q: In that story, look at the yellow highlighted portions of that story, it talks about you and another deputy taking some troubled youth to a camp, I think it's at Diamond Lake. Elaborate on what that says. First of all, is that an accurate representation?
A: It is. We had a federal grant to do it. We worked with a group at the time, I think it was called YES. … you're talking 25 years ago.

Q: Your memory is pretty sharp
A: I wrote a proposal, we called it PIP, Positive Advantage Program, and the proposal was to take troubled youth on a camping experience with deputies, law enforcement so that the kids could relate to cops on a real term, real well. The idea was to take 8-10, 12 kids. People who participated in that from the deputy side were Dave Hahn was one of them. At the time I think we were doing a Scout program. Jerry Hendron, who is the son of Wayne Hendron, former police chief who was a deputy sheriff, and I don't recall the other deputies who participated.

Q: This was in 1977? This story is in 1978 and it references last summer.
A: OK

Q: So would it be in 77?
A: I guess. If it says 78.

Q: Is this talking about the same thing that you're talking about
A: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Q: [ INAUDIBLE ] … towards youth alternative program or something?
A: We called it PIP, Positive Image Program, I wrote the paper on it.

Q: You wrote the paper for whom?
A: For the sheriffs to get the federal grant

Q: It was an LEAA grant?
A: God, I don't know who it is, federal government

Q: Who submitted the grant
A: A local agency in the county. The office was in the Flour Mill. [ INAUDIBLE ] … hard to be their executive director after I lost this election when they were searching for an executive director. I don't remember the name of the agency.

Q: What was the amount of the grant?
A: It was pretty miniscule, a couple thousand bucks maybe

Q: Oh is that all? What did it pay for?
A: It paid for these kids to go to camp.

Q: Paid for their food up there? Did you and Deputy Hahn or the others involved draw a salary out of it?
A: No

Q: So you're donating your time?
A: Totally, took vacation.

Q: Who were the kids?
A: I don't remember who the kids were. It turned out that they ended up only being four, four kids. We had signed up what was expected to be 8 to 12, and we had grant money for I think 12, and we ended up with I think just four kids. I remember we picked them up in the Valley, took them up to Diamond Lake.

Q: Took them up how?
A: Personal vehicles. I had a yellow pickup at the time. I remember throwing all their packs in the back and hauling them up there. We must have had more than one personal vehicle, because Dave had a 280Z car.

Q: Did you have one of those too by the way?
A: No

Q: You didn't have one?
A: I had a pickup, I had a 150 Ford pickup truck, yellow, we called it, excuse me Karen, baby shit yellow. It was a pretty ugly truck

Q: Did it have a shell on the back of it or a camper?
A: Nope

Q: So you're saying there were only four kids up there?
A: That's my recollection. We did have a scout who went with us because we figured we needed a kid that was closer to these kids' age and his name was Aaron Voshell.

Q: Who was your partner in Down Under Divers.
A: He was. And also worked for me in the Senate for a session

Q: He was a scout at the time
A: Yep

Q: Was he there dressed as a boy scout?
A: uh huh, I think so.

Q: This was at Camp Cowles?
A: Camp Cowles

Q: It was summer time?
A: Uh huh

Q: How did you work this in between the other activities that routinely go on there in terms of the boy scout camp? This was not a boy scout function
A: No, we were allowed to operate somewhere to a troop, but sort of like an ad hock troop. We could pick and choose the things we went to, rifle range, water front, nature walks, those kinds of things. But the kids didn't enter into merit badge classes or earn any merit badges or any of that kind of stuff.

Q: So was it a scout activity, a sheriff's department activity, what ?
A: I don't think it was any of that. We got a federal grant. We weren't a 501C3. The money didn't go, I don't think, to the Sheriffs department. It just paid for the kids expenses. We paid the scout camp to allow us to come up there.

Q: Did you have to get permission from some superiors of the sheriff's department to do that.
A: We submitted a proposal, probably to either (Sheriff Larry) Erickson or Reilly.

Q: If this was in 77, Reilly was still there
A: And Erickson would have been the undersheriff

Q: So you believed that you would have cleared, gotten the necessary permission
A: From one of those two, sure. I submitted a written document.

Q: Were you doing any of this in uniform up there?
A: Up at camp?

Q: Right
A: I don't know if Dave or I had uniforms, but some of the other officers might have come up in their off duty, after work kind of thing. I don't know.

Q: Did you wear Boy scout uniforms? Were you there as a boy scout leader or as a cop or as a civilian I'm just trying to figure out the parameters of this.
A: I don't think we wore scout uniforms. You're talking about 1977. Damn near 30 years ago and I don't remember. I don't think we had scout uniforms because these kids weren't in scouts. In fact, they probably wouldn't have wanted to be scouts. I'm thinking a couple of them probably ridiculed the scouts. We ate with the scouts in the dining hall.

Q: So the scouts were there at the same time?
A: yeah, it was a summer camp. It was right in the middle of summer camp

Q: They were sort of mingled in with the other kids that were there
A: Yeah. We weren't a registered scout unit.

Q: The reason I ask when I talked to Jerry Hendren about that, he said he was invited up as a speaker. He said this encampment lasted the better part of a week.
A: It was a week

Q: A week long?
A: Yeah

Q: He said he just came up for a day, he was invited as a former
A: Several deputies came up for a day

Q: He was a former athlete, he was talking about being an athlete, and a good citizen
A: positive image program

Q: He said he spoke to about 30 kids, which is different than four kids
A: If he spoke to 30 kids, we may have invited Scouts to sit in with us, but there were only four kids enrolled in this program that I recall

Q: Do you remember their names
A: Nope

Q: You don't remember any of them
A: Nope

[ REDACTED ]

Q: Was any audit ever done of how successful or not successful this was?
A: If I dug through my files, I bet you I could find a copy of the report I wrote

Q: We'd like to see it. Was this a one-year deal, one year, one time deal?
A: One time

Q: You didn't do it the next summer?
A: No

Q: No more grant money?
A: One, I wasn't a deputy next year.

Q: Right, you left sometime in 78 to run.
A: I left in May

Q: In your capacity, you still stayed though as scout leader at Hamblen School
A: Right

Q: You were scout leader at Hamblen School clear up to the time Dave Hahn died. Is that right? That's what you told me in our last interview
A: I'm thinking …. Dave died in 81 you said?

Q: August of 81
A: I probably was, because I was scout leader until I …..

Q: So you were scout leader when you were on the city council
A: When Dave died, we then brought in another guy volunteered to the assistant scout master

Q: Who's that
A: I don't remember, I turned the troop over to him and the troop folded a year later

Q: You turned the troop over to Rich Robinson. After you and Hahn left, Rich Robinson, whose a former
A: City prosecutor. So you took notes. There was somebody else, the other guy lived on 16th and Buttercup? Is that street? It's one street off, you know where the neighborhood is in the Valley, it's off of Carnahan hill, you take 16th straight east and you run into a busy street there until a, not a busy street, but a [ INAUDIBLE ] neighborhood. It's one street short of that in the Valley. And he lived right there on the corner, I remember that.

Q: So he took over the troop?
A: He came on as my asst scout master before I got elected to the legislature

Q: That's not Tim Carlson is it
A: No. Tim lived with me when I got elected city council. He was a roommate of mine.

Q: Which is the same time frame though. 81 you got elected to the council
A: I got elected to the council in 79.

Q: You're on the council until 82?
A: Yeah

Q: so what time frame was Tim Carlson. Wasn't he involved with some of your scout activities?
A: No. Tim wasn't involved in our trip. He had worked summer camp. I met him at the Scout office I think. I had a house on Congress.

Q: Do you know Tim Carlson was sexually abused by George Robey, another scout leader
A: I did not know that

Q: I'm the first one telling you that?
A: You're the first one telling me that

Q: Did you know he was sexually abused by anyone?
A: No

Q: Did you know when he lived with you that he had been sexually abused by George Robey?
A: I did not

Q: How well did you know George Robey?
A: Not hardly at all

Q: You ran Hamblen, he's at Hutton. Our information is that your troop and Robey's troop went on several outings together and you're telling me
A: Nope

Q: Not true?
A: not true

Q: What about the hike around Mt. Rainier?
A: Two of the kids from that troop went on it.

Q: So some members of that troop did
A: But it wasn't through an association with Robey, or through that troop. I taught a program at Camp Cowles called the Brown Sea, which is the Junior League of training. Two young men who participated in that program, my troop was going on a hike around Mt. Rainier and we invited them to go. One was Fred Holling's son and the other was John Gillickson.

Q: Do you know what John Gillickson does now for a living
A: Yeah, he's presidential protection with secret service

Q: That's right. Have you talked to him recently
A: Not in the last three years. Well, I saw him when the president was in town this last summer. I didn't get a chance to really visit with him

Q: So that was the only occasion boys from Troop 353 joined the boys from your Troop 345 on an outing? Is that what you're telling me?A: Yep

Q: One time and one time only
A: Yep

Q: They never did anything else together?
A: Nope, now later, this would have been 86 I'm guessing, when I had my scuba store, I taught scuba diving for kids from that troop, but Robey was long dead. When did Robey kill himself?

Q: 82, eight months after David Hahn.
A: Really?

Q: Uh huh
A: I thought he killed himself before Hahn, interesting. Well then Carlson didn't live with me until after Robey killed himself.

Q: My information is he lived with you before then, but I may be mistaken
A: I may be mistaken. I just thought he lived with me

Q: How long was it he lived with you?
A: I bought the house on Congress in 81, so I'm thinking probably 80 to guessing to 83. He went away to WSU to go back to school. No, he didn't. He moved in with his sister? Must have been sister and brother-in-law. Then he went to WSU sometime in that time frame

Q: Are you aware what subsequently happened to Tim Carlson?
A: I heard, I never talked to him since he left or since what ever this was that happened. Actually I heard that he had abused one of his nephews and that he had gone to prison I guess. I head that from Gillickson. Gillickson was a lobbyist for Safeco.

Q: John Gillickson?
A: Yeah

Q: Cause there's several Gillicksons.
A: No, John. John was a lobbyist for Safeco and we were on a car trip one time, I'm thinking, and he mentioned it, and we didn't talk about it. It wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to talk about.

Q: In fact, he's twice convicted. He's now a registered sex offender. He's been twice convicted of molesting young boys.
A: I haven't made contact with him since he left.

Q: Let's shift gears briefly and talk about some of your legislative stuff and I think Karen wants to ask you some questions in that regard

Q: I was curious some of the positions you've taken as you were ascending in power and you get high marks obviously for your legislative skills from people I've talked to, but in terms how do you align yourself on some of the more conservative issues having to do with your parting on like gay rights and abortion rights and that famous teen sex bill back in 86 that you would have sponsored the teen aid abstinence bill.
A: That was actually a bill deeming with that teen aid wanted the age of statutory rape to be in line with Oregon and California. Right now the state of Washington is 16. This would have made it 18. And one line in that bill I didn't see said something about , I don't remember what it said.

Q: It would have made a misdemeanor for any kind of sexual contact for kids under 18.
A: That's what it was. It was statutory rape.

Q: You say you didn't see that part of the bill?
A: I sponsored the bill, whatever was in was my favor. That was picked up I think as a…. I remember the story in the Seattle Times, West would outlaw teen kissing. It's simply a bill about statutory rape, well it wasn't. It was about absence in education in statutory rape.

Q: It got significant negative press on it, National Lampoon
A: I got invited to be on the Geraldo show.

Q: Did you go
A: Hell no

Q: I was just wondering if you think in your career in the legislature you're aligned with the Christian right or the more real conservative elements of your party on some of these bills that would have regulated sexual behaviors.
A: Why

Q: Were you or weren't you?
A: On pro life

Q: What about on gay rights issues? You pretty much consistently oppose any expansion of legislation that extends civil rights protections to gays.
A: I don't think we need to get into my philosophical reasons for all that, but ….

Q: I'd be somewhat interested
A: When you take into consideration, I recognize some gays are attacked, I didn't think it was right when we pass legislation you couldn't assault a bus driver. Because I go back to basic principal. You can't assault anybody. We shouldn't be carving out special classes of people says that's a person that if you hit is worse than if you hit that person. You shouldn't hit anybody. You shouldn't discriminate against anybody. Every time you carve out a class, you're implying that anybody who is not specifically game it's fair game on . I just think that the assault laws are out there, the penalties for that is out there, and just leave it at that.

Q: In troop 345, one of the tips that came out of the story we wrote a couple of years ago, was there a group within that troop when you were at its helm with Deputy Hahn, was a group within that boy scout troop. When you were the scout master with Dave Hahn. That's true you were the scout master with Dave Hahn, right? That's what the records show.
A: Dave was recruited by the committee to be the scout master. He came to me because he'd never been in scouting. He knew I had a troop in Medical Lake.

Q: He came to you via the Sheriff's dept.
A: The sheriff's dept. He knew my experience in Medical Lake and asked if I would be the scout master, he would be the assistant.

Q: Who was it that recruited David Hahn, was it Dick Bond?
A: Pat Bond was the chairman of the troop at the time. Voshell's parents, Milo and …

Q: What's Pat Bond's relationship to Dick Bond?
A: Married, that's his wife.

Q: Do you know Dave?
A: I know Dave through Pat and Dick. And Andy Vaughn was an active member of the troop when I was a scout master.

Q: One of the tips that came to us after that story, Mr. Mayor, is it within Troop 345 when you and David Hahn were its leaders was a group called the Naked Apes. Who were the Naked Apes? And why did they get that name? There's a partial smile I see on your face
A: I'm just thinking of boy scouts and young boys and everything. When I was a boy scout we had a patrol that we called The Guys and we adopted a Playboy bunny as our shoulder patch

Q: On a boy scout uniform?
A: We were kinda rowdy. We went to Grant School. If it was, it wasn't sanctioned. I don't remember. I could see where it could have been.

Q: So you don't remember who called the Naked Apes? If I got an email from 2 or 3 people saying you need to ask Jim West and anyone else who had something to do with that about why was there a group in Troop 345 that called themselves the Naked Apes, what would your response be? What are you saying? You don't remember it? It didn't exist?
A: I don't. I don't know if it existed or not.

Q: You don't remember it.
A: I don't remember it. It certainly wasn't anything sanctioned. It wasn't a patrol name. We didn't have a patrol name I believe.

Q: As scout master, if a group within your troop called themselves the Naked Apes, isn't something you might kind of remember and/or ask how did they originate that name? What was the origin of that name?
A: I have no idea. I take the kids on a 50 mile hike to the Bob Marshall Wilderness area and it wasn't but about 15 years later that I found out they set a fire on that trip and had a bottle of booze with them.

Q: You found out how many years later
A: About 10 or 15. One of the kids was an adult and kind of laughing about it saying how they pulled the wool over our eyes.

Q: Was this just a campfire or a fire that got out of control?
A: They had a lighter and an aerosol can and they set a tree on fire.

Q: That reminds me. Another group within Troop 345 called themselves, they had a pyro kind of a name, Pyromaniacs or something like that.
A: Not sanctioned names. Not anything that I recall.

Q: Was this a group of boys from Troop 345 that you took into Bob Marshall.
A: The kids that we hiked out there? Yeah.

Q: So if a group of them is calling themselves the Pyromaniacs, and I don't have the notes in front of me, but it's something like that, that there were these other groups. The point that some people were making were these names were sort of in jest but there had to be some logical extension of why they called themselves that. If you start a forest fire, you might call yourselves the Pyromaniacs, if you call yourselves the Naked Apes, there might be a reason you're calling yourself the Naked Apes.
A: I don't think so Bill, I think you're making more out of it than you ….

Q: I'm just asking you, you were the scout master.
A: I don't think there's anything more to it, if there was anything at all

Q: I want to go back to Robert Galliher. Does that name mean anything to you?
A: Not except for the fact that you brought it up in the interview last year or two years ago

Q: Who were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the county in which you're listed as a witness?
A: I don't know. All I know is there is a lawsuit filed with the county and I was named as a witness. I don't know who brought the lawsuit or what it's about.

Q: It's against Spokane County.
A: I assume it's about. I'm assuming it's about

Q: Hahn
A: OK:

Q: Right. The plaintiffs are actually identified by their initials in what's public record. But doing reporting on this, we've identified all four of them. They are Doug Chicklinsky, Brett Galliher, Rob Galliher and a man from Oklahoma whose name doesn't immediately come to me. He's the man who came forward after that story and said the same thing had happened to him. Do you recall ever meeting Rob Galliher? Is that a no?
A: Yeah I'm sorry, I don't recall.

Q: You could have?
A: I don't know.

Q: You don't know him?
A: You know I've met thousands of kids over the years.

Q: What about Brett Galliher?
A: I don't know

Q: You don't remember?
A: I don't remember

Q: The reason I'm asking you that is in the course of the litigation against Spokane County, and it's against Spokane County, it's not against you, but you are listed as a potential witness
A: So no one has charged me with anything.

Q: You're not even a defendant in the lawsuit, but you could be deposed and asked some of these same sorts of questions I suppose. One of the people that has been deposed in that lawsuit is Robert Galliher. Are you aware that he has been deposed?
A: No

Q: Do you know who deposed him?
A: I have no clue

Q: Do you know who's representing the county in that lawsuit
A: How would I know who deposed him if I don't know he was deposed?

Q: I just gotta ask these questions. Do you know who's representing the county in that case? You don't?
A: No

Q: The firm of Evans, Craven, Lackie is representing Spokane County.
A: That's why you asked me if Lackie is one

Q: Do you know Terry Lackie? Is that a no?
A: That's a no

Q: Have you talked to Terry about this lawsuit?
A: I don't think so.

Q: Have you talked to anyone about this lawsuit?
A: I told you somebody told me that I was on the witness list.

Q: That's the extent of your conversation?
A: That's it

Q: I'm setting that as a preliminary stage because Rob Galliher was one of those people that was deposed. He was deposed about a week ago, excuse me about a month ago in Seattle by Terry Lackie.
A: OK

Q: Prior to the deposition, Rob Galliher
A: What did he say?

Q: Well, we're going to get there. Rob Galliher turned over to the county a letter that he'd written from a jail cell. Are you aware of what letter he's written from the jail cell?
A: Did he write it to me?

Q: You're not aware of any letter?
A: No, why would I get a letter that wasn't addressed to me?

Q: In that letter, he wrote it from jail and he actually wrote it from a state prison institution. But before he went to the prison institution, he was out at Geiger. He'd been rearrested after our story appeared and his brother appeared I think maybe on a TV show or at a rally here, one of the Catholic priest rallies. At any rate, did there come a time when you went to Geiger or sent a message to Geiger to tell Rob Galliher to keep his mouth shut and not talk about you or implicate you in that lawsuit?
A: During my campaign for Senate, I told you this last week, which would have been 02, we got a phone call from somebody who said you better go talk to, maybe it was Galliher, you better go talk to Galliher and that was the extent of the phone call. He called 2 or 3 times.

Q: Anonymously?
A: Anonymously

Q: Man or woman?
A: I only got the call once. My staff got it the other times. Frankly, I remember I publish my cell phone number, so it must have been during the Mayor's race. I thought it was during the Senate race. I was at a hockey game. I got a call on my cell phone saying you better out to see, and know that you mention, it's Gallagher

Q: It's Galliher (morlin spells out). Somebody calls you and tells you you better go talk to him? Who was that somebody?
A: I don't know, it was anonymous.

Q: Why did they tell you you should go talk to Galliher?
A: They made similar calls. What they said was, or there'll be big trouble, something to that extent, or there'll be big trouble. And what I told them when they got ahold of me on the cell phone, was that they better stop harassing me and it sounded like they were trying to, I don't know, something.

Q: Are you saying extortion?
A: That's a good word.

Q: Is that your word, I don't want to lead you?
A: Well, I told them they should stop harassing me and they were probably verging on something.

Q: By telling you to go see Galliher, how was that harassing you?
A: Or there would be big trouble

Q: Big trouble for whom?
A: The implication was me, I guess.

Q: Did they say that?
A: I got the phone call after they called 2 or 3 times to my staff. Nobody was specific about why to go see this person. It's just you better go see this person.

Q: What were you going to see him about?
A: Exactly.

Q: What were you going to see him about?
A: Exactly.

Q: I don't understand
A: Well, neither did I. I'm getting a phone call, anonymously, from a perfect stranger saying I should go see somebody I don't know at a prison. I'm not going to deal with that. So I called the prison, said you got somebody by the name this Gallagher, do you have somebody by this name, and would you please ask him to tell their friends to stop harassing me. End of story.

Q: Did you speak directly to Mr. Rob Galliher?A.: No

Q: Did you go out to Geiger and talk to Rob Galliher?
A: No. I thought he was in Airway Heights, was he at Geiger?

Q: He was at Geiger.
A: Oh, I thought he was a Airway Heights

Q: Did you talk to Mike Pannick who was the director out there to tell Rob Galliher to shut his mouth or be quiet?
A: Just stop harassing me

Q: When did that happen?
A: Would have been shortly after getting the last phone call

Q: Timeframe wise, when did that happen?
A: I don't know

Q: Rob Galliher says that happened about sometime after June of 03 when we published our story
A: No, I told you about this.

Q: No you didn't. You haven't told me about it.
A: I told you I got harassing phone calls during that campaign.

Q: During which campaign?
A: Well, I thought they were the Senate campaign. I recall the phone call on the cell phone. I don't know if they got my cell phone number from some place else. I do remember that I published my cell phone number during the Mayor's campaign. I don't remember if I did it in the Senate campaign or not.

Q: We checked with Geiger. They say yes in fact the message came out there from you and it was during the summer of 2003.
A: OK

Q: Are you disputing that?
A: No, I don't recall.

Q: You don't recall when it was, but if that's what they're telling us when it was, and in fact that's the time it also squares when was Rob Galliher at Geiger. He wasn't there when you were running for Senate. He was there in the summer 2003. So if he's telling us and Robin Butcher, who was his parole officer, said she was ordered by Mike Pannek to go to Mr. Galliher and tell him to cease and desist and not make any references to you, you're not disputing that version?
A: I don't know what Pannek said. I know I didn't need Mr. Galliher's people harassing me or my people.

Q: How were they harassing you?
A: By these repetitive phone calls saying you should go see this guy. I'm not in the habit. As a senator, I get letters from prisoners and letters from spouses of prisoners all the time saying you will do this or you will do that or this and that. I'm not in the habit of just getting in a car and driving out to prison and sit down and talking to these people. [ INAUDIBLE ] if I don't know him.

Q: I still don't see how that arises to the level of harassment. I'm having difficulty ….
A: Multiple times, phone calls, anonymous, never leaving a name, never telling anybody what they're calling about, what the subject matter might be, what this is about. That's harassment

Q: How many of those phone calls are you saying you had regarding this Galliher issue?
A: I don't know. I had the one on my cell phone. And staff told me several. I don't know what several meant to them.

Q: Do your cell phone records reflect where that call came from? Or shouldn't they?
A: I don't know.

Q: Did you look at your cell phone records to see where the call came from?
A: Actually I didn't. That's a good idea, but I didn't.

Q: Would you make those records available to us so we can see where it may have come from?
A: I don't even have those records

Q: You don't have those records anymore, OK.
A: I don't even have that phone anymore.

Q: So if Galliher and the people at Geiger say that you sent the message out there in 2003 after this story was published …
A: When was the story published?

Q: June 2003. When did you formerly announce for Mayor?
A: In July.

Q: So this is before you formerly announce for mayor, the story is published. The time frame is while you are running for Mayor is when they say you showed up out there. You are a mayoral candidate.
A: But I didn't announce my candidacy until the last week in July.

Q: The filing period, right.
A: uh huh

Q: Is it your recollection that you were going to announce candidate for Mayor when you went out there?
A: I didn't go out there

Q: Oh, phoned out there then
A: No

Q: When did it happen then, if you remember?
A: Bill, you're telling me it happened in June. If that's when it happened, it happened, I don't remember.

Q: I'm only reconstructing this based on the records that we know when Galliher was there.
A: Although, again I thought they said Airway Heights. I didn't think they said Geiger. But they must have if I talked to Pannek.

Q: Yes, you talked to Pannek.
A: I thought I was at a hockey game. I thought I was at the Arena when I got the call. I might have been there for something else, but I don't go to the Arena that often.

Q: So you're not disputing that that happened? You're saying you did that because you were getting harassing phone calls?
A: Right

Q: Did you talk to him at all about the story in which he was alleging
A: Who?

Q: Mr. Galliher
A: I never talked to him

Q: Never met him? If he told us you had shown up there late at night for a face to face encounter with him, your response to that would be?
A: Flat lie, absolutely

Q: You never met Mr. Galliher
A: Not to my knowledge and certainly not during that time frame of the phone calls.

Q: Did not go out and see him.
A: No

Q: But you acknowledge that you sent the message to Panneck.
A: To tell him to stop, to tell this prisoner. First of all, I didn't understand how a prisoner could do that and he wasn't making the calls. Somebody else was because they weren't saying this is so and so, come see me. They were saying you better go see so and so. I said who is this, who is this? They wouldn't tell me, hung up and that was it.

Q: What is your opinion as to why they wanted to see you?
A: I have no idea. They didn't tell us. They wouldn't tell us. Again, in my tenure in the Senate, I was getting appeals from prisoners all the time to do things for them, and contact and do whatever. And we never did.

Q: It was not very common for you to call those prisons and tell this prisoner to quit harassing me, is it? How many times did you do that?
A: Never, because none of them ever called me. They'd send letters.

Q: So it's the only time you ever went to those extremes then because you were getting these phone calls.
A: Repetitive phone calls, just like stop it.

Q: But you had no idea what the harassment was about?
A: No, just the fact that they kept calling and saying go see this guy and I had no intention to do this.

Q: Let's move this on. After Galliher goes to prison he then brings a lawsuit against Spokane County that we previously talked about.
A: Let's back up. You said he said I came out and saw him.

Q: That's what he said.
A: Flat lie.

Q: Alright. I think you're truthful, I'm just merely telling you… this is what I told you on the phone. People tell us things, we need to hear what you have to say. You said it's a flat lie, that's what you want to say, that's what you want to say.
A: It's not what I want to say, it's the truth.

Q: That's fine. That's what we're here to talk to you about. Let's move this forward. Galliher, Rob Galliher goes to prison, he gets out of prison, and while he's in prison, he and these other men bring the lawsuit against the county in 2004. It's now set for trial in November this year, the same trial you're listed on as a witness, the one against Spokane County. Again, you're not a defendant, nobody's accusing you of criminal arguing
A: Nobody's asked me for a deposition

Q: But they have taken the deposition of Robert Galliher and I eluded earlier to a letter. Before they took his deposition, he wrote a letter from prison and in that letter he said that not only had he been sexually abused by David Hahn, but he had been sexually abused by Jim West.
A: Let him bring a lawsuit or file a claim, it's not true.

Q: I'm just telling you what the letter says.
A: It's absolutely not true

Q: He actually wrote the letter to an author who's a psychologist and the letter had to be turned over to the county attorneys at the discovery in this trial proceeded. Are you aware of that letter?
A: No.

Q: Have you seen the letter?
A: You already asked me that.

Q: I'm asking you again
A: No, I have not seen the letter, I'm not aware of the letter. It's the first I ever heard of the letter is when you told me about it.

Q: Do you know your name is mentioned in that letter and the serious allegations
A: You just told me that my name was on it, I've never seen the letter, how can I respond to it?

Q: I don't actually have a copy of it with me, because I didn't quite prepare for this.
A: Whatever

Q: We have the letter
A: You have a convicted felon, who is making allegations, it's a flat lie. I'm not responsible for Dave Hahn. I don't know what Dave Hahn did. I know what I didn't do, and what he's saying, I didn't do. I don't even know the guy.

Q: In the letter, he says he was introduced to you by Dave Hahn at Dave Hahn's apartment on South Regal. Again, I need an audible response.
A: No recollection of that whatsoever.

Q: Did you ever go to Dave Hahn's apartment on South Regal"
A: Yeah, I have occasionally.

Q: Were you ever roommates with Dave Hahn?
A: Never

Q: Did you live close to him?
A: I was three blocks away

Q: At that time, on Regal also?
A: On Regal

Q: But didn't live together?
A: No

Q: So people from your sheriff's days who tell me West and Hahn used to live together, that's not true
A: That's not true

Q: Never did?
A: Never

Q: He says that Hahn introduced you to him, Rob Galliher, at Hahn's apartment. You don't recall such a meeting?
A: I don't recall and I don't believe it.

Q: He also says you sexually abused him at Hahn's apartment.
A: Absolutely false.

Q: Didn't happen?
A: Didn't happen. I didn't know Dave Hahn was abusing kids until many, many years later. They wouldn't tell me why he killed himself.

Q: Who's "they?"
A: The sheriff's dept. I wasn't on the sheriff's dept. at the time and they wouldn't tell me why he killed himself. I didn't know. It was later that people started talking and there were rumors out there. That's the first I had any knowledge;

Q: What were the rumors?
A: That he killed himself because he abused kids.

Q: Who did you hear those rumors from?
A: Former work colleagues, former deputies. I was a former deputy.

Q: Who were some of the former deputies?
A: I don't recall.

Q: This is a man you were close friends on the sheriff's dept.
A: We were friends.

Q: Is that an exaggeration to say you were close friends, you spent a lot of time together, you're both kind of poster boys for the sheriff's dept. as the way it was described to me. They were proud of the image that both of you portrayed to that sherriff's dept. Is that an exaggeration?
A: Yeah, probably so. Look, I ran for sheriff and didn't win. If I was a poster boy, you'd think I would have had a better shot

Q: Well you must have some confidence in yourself though to run for sheriff. In fact, Dave Hahn was actually given the co detail because Larry Erickson wanted a big strapping handsome guy in a sheriff's uniform to be on camera.
A: News to me

Q: You left the department by then. At any rate, back to the Hahn issue. The first time you became aware of these allegations that Galliher is raising is in this conversation right now?
A: About me?

Q: Yes.
A: Yeah.

Q: You've not heard about them before now?
A: No

Q: Haven't heard about them from anyone?
A: No

Q: Beyond that letter, that letter by the way was turned over to the county's attorneys as part of discovery, and they are then allowed to brief their clients who are Todd Mielke, Phil Harris and Mark Richard. You haven't heard from any of them that you're named in this letter?
A: No

Q: Because he accuses you of some serious things in this letter and it's now basically part of the record of the discovery and the public record associated with this lawsuit. You understand that?
A: You're telling me that. I don't understand anything.

Q: You haven't gotten any wind of this from your friends? Todd Mielke and Phil Harris and close, longtime allies or political confidants of yours. A.: Todd was a high school when I met him. He was the first high school intern I had in the legislature, 1983. He worked for me, he was my campaign manager the first time I ran for the senate.

Q: So he's close to you?
A: Very close

Q: So if he had gotten wind of the fact his former friend and mentor had been accused of sexual wrongdoing, wouldn't it logical for him to reach out and tell you, "Hey, Jim, there's trouble brewing. This guy's accusing you of all this." You're saying that hasn't happened?
A: Hasn't happened. Call Todd, ask him. He probably has responsibilities as a county commissioner cautioned not to say anything.

Q: What about Phil Harris who is the number two guy in the boy scouts when some of this happened.
A: Phil and I go back a long ways when I got out of the Army in 1975 is when I first met him. Cub scout thing up at my scout, up at my old troop when I was a kid, up at Grant School. That's the first time I met Phil. We go back to 75.

Q: What was his connection with that troop?
A: Nothing, he was the district commission at the time.

Q: He was the number two guy here at the scout office.
A: That was years later.

Q: At that time he was the guy who was responsible for all the scouting programs on the South Hill

Q: The reason I'm asking is I know how the political system works and you have two close friends and allies in the county courthouse who are being sued and this allegation about you has surfaced, and it just seems to me logically that word would have come back to you through your former friends over there. Are they letting you down? Or what?
A: No, they're probably not believing it anymore than anyone else would.

Q: Beyond the letter, Mr. Galliher was deposed under oath and he was asked about this letter by the county's attorneys and be basically related the same information in the deposition. The specifics of it are he basically says there were four occasions where you sexually molested him.
A: Flat lie

Q: Was there even one occasion when you ….
A: Flat lie

Q: Never touched him
A: I don't even know the kid. No, I never touched him. Even if I knew him, even if I didn't know him, I never touched him. I don't know the kid.

Q: I'm not raising these allegations, he raised them in a deposition, under oath, in a lawsuit against Spokane County.
A: You're fine, Bill, I'm not mad at you.

Q: So you understand where I'm coming from? I'm merely the messenger here. I didn't write the letter, I didn't say those words at the deposition. You're saying it's all untrue and you haven't heard about any of it -- that you're hearing about it for the first time tonight here in our office here in the newspaper?
A: I will tell you that some of my former Boy Scouts called me up and said Bill Morlin is calling up asking a lot of questions. But, that was a couple of months ago.

Q: Tell me about that. What did they tell you?
A: Nothing that you were just calling up asking a bunch of questions.

Q: Questions about what? Thought you said you didn't know what we were working on?
A: No, I didn't know what you thought you had

Q: I still don't know. Reporters are sort of like open ended asking questions. There aren't any specifics. I think we've probably pretty well covered the waterfront theory regarding that. You're saying it's all untrue and it's the first you've heard about it for the first time now. Is that an accurate summation?
A: It's an accurate summation

Q: Let's move the clock ahead now to the time when you become mayor. Last year as we were pursuing some of these leads, by the way I was doing it at the direction of my editors, it's not something I just decided on my own. I'm following orders from Steve Smith, Carla Savalli and a whole battery of folks down on the other floor. There came a time when a young man, we identified a young man through the various leads that these stories produced and his first name for this discussion I'm going to call him Danny. Do you know any young men named Danny
A: Yeah

Q: Who do you know by that name?
A: Kid I appointed to the Human Rights Commission.?

Q: Wrong [ NAME REDACTED ]. This was Dannyboy [ NAME REDACTED ] that met you on a website called gay.com
A: Dannyboy [ NAME REDACTED ]?

Q: We'll get to his last name if that's important. Do you recall meeting a man named Dannyboy? [ NAME REDACTED ]. Do you belong to the website gay.com?
A: I've visited it.

Q: What names have you used at gay.com?
A: I don't think I'll answer that

Q: Well, if I told you that we know that you've used the names Cobra82nd and Rightbi-Guy, what would your response be? Are you going to deny that?
A: I'm just not going to answer.

Q: Well I think on this next line of questioning that we get into here, I think it's really important, if you want my advice, I think it's important instead of not answering, that you answer the questions truthfully and explain your version of events here. That's certainly your option. You're free to get up and walk out of here, I'm not a cop or a police officer, not a prosecutor, I'm just listening to you as a public official and you're a highly-placed public official, and what you do in your private life, I couldn't care less. In fact, you're talking to probably some of the more liberal members of our staff. What you do in your private life is no concern of mine. What you do in your capacity as mayor, however, I have a substantial interest in, and a vested interest in.
A: So what have I done in my capacity as mayor?

Q: We're going to get there. When did you first become a member or subscriber to Gay.com?
A: Cut to the chase.

Q: We're getting there. I want you to understand, I want to understand, when did you become a subscriber to gay.com?
A: Let's cut to the chase

Q: We're cutting to the chase. The line of questioning you need to follow, I need to understand these basic questions before we get there. Believe me, I'm going to get there. When did you become a member of gay.com?
A: I'm not going to answer the question

Q: Use the names Rightbi-Guy and Cobra82nd?
A: I'm not going to answer the question

Q: Last year, one of the men that we interviewed is a young man named Danny. I'm going to call him that. Do you remember talking to dannyboy [ NAME REDACTED ] at gay.com
A: I'm not going to answer

Q: You're not going to answer that question? Why is it you choose not to answer?
A: Because I don't want to. Because I think my private life is my private life.

Q: That's fine. At any rate, we located and interviewed several times, dannyboy (true screen name redated) and have a tape-recorded statement from him. He tells us in June of last year after chatting on line several times, that you and he went out on a date at the Red Robin.
A: We had dinner.

Q: So you did go on a date with him?
A: I wouldn't call it a date.

Q: This is a young man that you met. Are you disagreeing with the terms you met him on gay.com? How is it if you don't want to talk about it?
A: How's that in fact what I do is my own …..

Q: I'm gonna get there, I just want to understand …..Did you meet him on gay.com?
A: Let's move on.

Q: You don't want to answer that question?
A: Let's move on

Q: [ INAUDIBLE ] …. You drove and picked him up at a country club and you were driving your Lexus convertible? Is it true or not true?
A: That's my personal life

Q: I just got to give you a chance to respond. Just like when Rob Galliher said you had come to the prison, you said you didn't. Now if this other young man says you picked
A: I did not

Q: That you did not. This guy says you picked him up in your blue Lexus. If that didn't happen, I want to give you chance to say it didn't happen. If it did happen, and this guy's lying, I don't know if this guy's lying to me, Jim. I'm here to ask ……. He says that that evening concluded and you kissed him. That's what he says, that the evening ended with consensual sex. And your response to that is…. Is he lying to us or is that true?
A: Let's move on to the question. What's this got to do with gay men?

Q: I don't go around believing 18-year-old kids. They could make stuff up. You're an important figure in our community, you've been here, you're now the mayor, the most powerful Republican in the state legislature. That is a pretty serious charge to be labeling someone with your portfolio. And we didn't, and it's an important point I want to make with you, we didn't rush that story into print. We haven't even printed anything about the kid. We didn't believe him. I'm still not sure if I believe him. That's why I'm sort of painstakingly going through this to determine if he's lying to us ….
A: [ NAME REDACTED ] Dannyboy's a nice kid and I'm not going to do anything to potentially hurt him.

Q: I understand. He's a kid who's questioning his own being, his own place in life, and whatever he does, that's his business. But, what he was telling us was implicating you, a public figure. Understand that?
A: Uh huh

Q: We're not being mean-spirited by doing this. You understand?
A: I gotcha.

Q: As to what happened on that date, is it fair and accurate for me to summarize that it is something you choose not to talk about.
A: Whatever

Q: Was that fair and accurate? That you choose not to talk about?
A: Yes. It's my private life.

Q: After that concluded and I interviewed him, I asked him to capture, he said he had met you as cobra82nd, you've gone on a date, and I said if you talk to him again in the chat room, would you capture some conversations? At my direction, he did that. By then, you had changed your identity to rightbi-guy and you had conversations with him in November and December that we have copies of. Do you care to see them?
A: Sure, I don't care, Whatever. I don't care one way or the other.

Q: I just want to make you know that indeed we have them. You talked to him in November and New Year's Eve …..
A: What's this got to do with me being Mayor?

Q: First of all, I'd like to ask you, did you have any of these chats from City Hall?
A: No

Q: Did you have any chats with, where were you at?
A: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Q: They didn't occur in the City Hall office?
A: No.

Q: The computer records would show no reference when you logged on to the City Hall computer that you'd gone to gay.com?
A: Yeah

Q: It'll show that?
A: Yeah

Q: If you visited that website, you've done it on your own time, in your own home on your own computer? Is that what you're telling us?
A: Uh huh

Q: Because we didn't really understand or appreciate, I don't go to chat rooms, I'm not much on computers
A: It's a curiosity thing, by the way, but go ahead.

Q: What is a curiosity thing?
A: Going on chat rooms and on computers.

Q: Tell me about that. Don't you look at a computer all day at work and you go home and want to look at another computer. I just don't understand it. My eyes are like, I don't want to look at a computer.
A: Let's just cut to the, you ask the questions. No I did not.

Q: No, you did not use city equipment, OK. Initially, we had trouble comprehending this and we don't have the ability to, I can't go log in to Gay.com [ INAUDIBLE ] we employ …… Who is rightbi-guy? Who is cobra82nd? Who are his profiles? Is it in fact Mayor Jim West? Are the things that this young man is telling us, are those things true.
A: Um hmm

Q: You're not telling us that's not true. That you've not used those names? Is that right? You said it's none of my business. [ INAUDIBLE ] Who's Moto-Brock, Jim?
A: He's interesting. He's supposedly an 18-year-old student at Ferris.

Q: So you've chatted with Moto-Brock? And in fact offered him a job
A: No, but I have lots of interns, internships, I mentor people.

Q: We have the transcripts here offering him a city hall job.
A: It's not a job, it's an internship. Paid internship. Come down, get the application.

Q: In those conversations that you've had with Moto-Brock, and suffice it to say I've got them all here, I've read every one of them, repeatedly. You're not only offering him an internship, you're also offering him an autographed Seahawks football and some other sports memorabilia.
A: [ INAUDIBLE ] that was contest

Q: For an 18- yo kid, an autographed Seahawks football is a pretty big prize. Now, an internship, sports paraphernalia, an introduction to Bill Gates, help getting into college, you can make a phone call and get him into pre-med at WSU or UW you talk about, you talk about trips to Washington DC. All those are trappings and enticements that come with your job as mayor of the city of Spokane.

Audio Clip 7: Listen « prev | next »

A: I know those people because of where I've been, but that's not because I'm mayor of Spokane. All of that stuff, yeah..

Q: All that stuff what?
A: Well, I think…..

Q: Jim, why don't you come clean with this and tell us what's happened here? You've offered this young man the trappings of your office ….
A: Bill, I haven't offered this young man, or whoever this supposedly young man is the trappings of my office.

Q: What do you call it then? Sports memorabilia, trips to Washington, come to me in the press box, Warren Moon autograph, they're all just collecting dust you're telling me? An 18yo kid is impressed with sports memorabilia is going to be enticed with a relationship with an older man by those kinds of offers it would seem to me. And they all come to you as virtue to the fact that you are the most powerful man in this city. What do you have to say to that?
A: That's not the way it should have been taken. That's not the way it was intended to be taken. You've talked to a lot of the kids that have known me over the years, the opportunities that I've given them and the things they have done. Internship [ INAUDIBLE ] that's something that I offer to lots of folks, lots of kids. We have a [ INAUDIBLE ] internship program to day, I had one in the legislature. I'll continue to have one. Just today we were talking about a mentorship, I was talking our youth department and Ben Cabildo about the fact that we should be creating a program like Take Your Daughter to Work where City Hall Employees and employers in this community instead of Take Your Daughter to Work , looking for opportunities in East Central, West Central and Northeast where we bring kids into City Hall, seventh and eighth grade.

Q: I'm just going to tell you how this is going to wash with the general public. There going to say here's a 54, 55yo mayor and he's engaged in lengthy chats and what psychologists might call grooming on line with who he thought was a 17yo, 18yo Ferris High School student. He's offered him these perks, whether they mean anything to you is beside the point, you've offered him a job in the most important office in the city, and people
A: There are several kids this past year who have had that same opportunity and they have come into City Hall and I've taken that coming through any number of channels.

Q: Have you met kids on gay.com?
A: No, why would I [ INAUDIBLE ]

Q: My question is, obviously in these transcripts, you talked about your fondness for young men. And you talked about your gayness. Which I again, concede as a personal issue. But again, you're talking to him in the capacity. You sent this young man your photo.
A: Did I ask this man if he was 18?

Q: You did, and initially he lied and said he was 18 to get on the website.
A: Later he said he was 17 and he had a birthday coming up.

Q: And that's when you offered him the sports memorabilia. That's all correct. But the point is he is of legal age of consent. There's no question about that.
A: The sports memorabilia, did he ever get it?

Q: No, because he never met you. You went to Indian Canyon that Sunday morning in your blue Lexus, about two buckets of golf balls, and you were looking for Moto-Brock, but he never showed up. But our photographer did and so did some other witnesses to verify …..
A: so I' standing out there hitting golf balls in Indian Canyon with Gary Linebry, doing what I've done before, which I do, is go out and hit range balls.

Q: But the fact is you told Moto-Brock to meet me tomorrow at 10 o'clock. That's in the transcript. You were hoping to meet this young man.
A: If he wanted to come by and hit golf balls with me, he expressed an interest in learning how to play golf.

Q: But you were also interested in him for other reasons, weren't you?
A: Bill ….

Q: In this book are two sessions of online sex. You're not going to talk about it? Why don't you just come clean and tell me that it happened and that is part of who you are?
A: Because that's my personal life and the kid was 18.

Q: You don't want to talk about it
A: No

Q: In fact, if you were a little more open about this, I think people would show a lot more compassion and understanding about where you're coming from. No one is picking on you because of your likes or preferences. That's not the issue here. The issue is you using your office as mayor reaching out to people and trying to entice or lure them. Either if it's a dinner date with your blue Lexus or if it's jobs at City Hall with pay or not, or whether it's trips to Washington DC with you. You talk to him repeatedly about going to Washington. For a young kid, it's a big enticement.
A: It wasn't for the purpose you think.

Q: What was it for then? What did you hope to become of it?
A: To help somebody who is reaching out?

Q: Who is doing the reaching out?
A: Go back and read your transcripts

Q: I've read them. First conversation, less than 100 words into it, the word sex appears. It was raised by you, not him. The issue of "do you get hard when you look at boys in the shower" was raised by you, not him. The issue of basically masturbating online before you went to be the MC at the Met Theatre. Again, it was initiated it seemed to me by you. Are you disputing that?
A: You have a better memory than I do.

Q: Would you like to see it?
A: No

Q: I'm just trying to understand the issue here again. If you were Jim West, truck driver, and you were on AOL…, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You're the mayor of our city and you were offering lures to a teenage boy. How is that going to rest with your conservative, republican constituents?
A: To an adult

Q: How does that square with the JimWest that we see in the legislature, who is trying to outlaw teenage sex?
A: Was he a teenager?

Q: He's 18, he's a teenager
A: And was the bill to raise the statutory age to 18?

Q: The point is, how does this activity of your's that we've documented very thoroughly over the painstakingly, I might add, over the last eight months, how does that square with your persona as a legislature who is almost homophobic who opposed …
A: I'm not, that's bullshit

Q: Karen, ask him some questions in that regard

Q: All the gay rights legislation that has been advanced, you've opposed.
A: And that makes me homophobic?

Q: I didn't use the word. You've opposed and you've introduced a bill, I can't remember the date right now, but with Steve Furman and a couple of the other conservative legislators in this area, that would ban gays from any state job and would have required interviews of gay people to confess their sexual orientation before they were hired for a state job. It never went anywhere, but why would you do that. Isn't that hypocrisy?
A: I don't recall signing the bill, I won't deny that I signed it.

Q: You didn't sign it, it didn't pass. You proposed it when you sponsored it.
A: That's what I'm saying. I wasn't the sponsor. Steve Furman was the sponsor. My name was on it. Legislators bring things around and ask you to sign all the time. And you do it out of courtesy, not friendship.

Q: If you're gay or bisexual, why would you do that?
A: I don't even recall the bill. You've got to be talking about something probably about 1983 or whatever.

Q: It was in the 1980s
A: You know more about the bill than I do, or did

Q: Alright that's one of them, then there's been the whole series of gay rights bills that Cal Anderson and Rep. Ed Murray tried to expand our anti-discrimination to cover gay people. If you are gay or bisexual why would you pose that?
A: I don't think you should discriminate against anybody.

Q: By supporting that bill, you are discriminating, aren't you?
A: No you're not.

Q: You don't think that's hypocritical to be privately gay and yet take positions in public that might hurt?
A: I have never been outspoken against gays, I have never discriminated against gays. It's dicey to vote for those bills I consider an extension of a benefit that didn't exist, need to exist. As I stated way early, nobody should be discriminated against for any purpose, assaults, it's illegal to assault a bus driver, it's illegal to assault this person or that person, creating special classes of people you shouldn't assault, I think is flat wrong. I think it's a matter of your circumstances are. Plain and simple.

Q: Gay community says your [ INAUDIBLE ]
A: That's because they think they have an agenda that is political. [ INAUDIBLE ] reality

Q: I know that in some of the transcripts I read you talked on one occasion about not liking out, people who are out, because they were liberal, because they had a liberal agenda. Is that part of what's going on?
A: An extreme liberal agenda. A liberal agenda that goes way beyond reality.

Q: [ INAUDIBLE ] passed, lots of people supported it. Was that for the same reason? You don't think gays should be allowed to marry?
A: I think there are other ways to accommodate the thing without assaulting the marriage and there's widely different opinions there.

Q: Do you support civil unions for gays?
A: I don't know.

Q: What we're trying to understand here, we're students of this and we're sympathetic with you Jim, we're not picking on you. I know you probably think otherwise. What you do in your private life is so starkly different from what Karen has seen and what I've seen in your political life and we're just trying to wrestle with why is that? Why is there such a big difference between Jim West the politician and Jim West the private citizen who goes on gay.com?

Audio Clip 8: Listen « prev | next »

A: The gay.com thing, I can't recall, but it hasn't been very long. I don't know why I go there to tell you the truth.

Q: That's your business, I agree with you. Help us understand that gap. That schism between Jim West the career politician and Jim West at night at home talking to Moto-Brock or [ NAME REDACTED ] or to [ NAME REDACTED ] or to any of your hot picks or to any of the others that we know about. Explain that gap.
A: Again, I don't see it necessarily as a gap and you'll find, I suspect, just from readings I've done, there are conservative gay [ INAUDIBLE ] liberal agenda. And they don't need it.

Q: I've talked to various people for this story and several of them said, well people in Spokane believe this is a family values town. You don't think your [ INAUDIBLE ] undermines that at all?
A: Aren't you arguing against the whole [ INAUDIBLE ] that that's not family [ INAUDIBLE ]

Q: Don't you think you're [ INAUDIBLE ] mayor and enticing young men who are barely of legal age, enticing whatever you want to call it, offering them internships, might undercut that image here in Spokane?
A: If the kid was having trouble and wanted help getting into college and guidance in the world.

Q: That's true, but you also saw in there a potential sex partner, in fact, you did have sex online with him. So it's somebody that you…..
A: I've never had sex online, you have words on paper.

Q: Which is commonly called online sex.
A: Whatever

Q: Were again wrestling with, you're saying that the issue that you can't be gay and be a conservative. Is that what you're trying to tell us?
A: No. Did I say that?

Q: Well I'm asking you. Back to the question about Jim West the politician vs. Jim West the private individual. Why the apparent hypocrisy then?:
A: Why is that hypocritical if I don't believe in some of these issues that the gay political community is pressing?

Q: That's fine. We're here to understand you. It's a fascinating issue, but you seem to be saying you can't be conservative and be a republican and be openly gay. Is that what you're saying? Do you have to be a Liberal Democrat to be gay?
A: First of all, I wouldn't characterize me as gay. And I don't want to go into the whole issue, but I wouldn't characterize me as gay.

Q: You use the name rightbi-guy. And in fact, you've dated women, you talk on there about dating women. In fact you talk about your marriage and how during your marriage you couldn't help thinking about men or boys. Young men. Does it go back to your scout days?
A: Men, not boys. And no it doesn't go back to my scout days. It doesn't go back frankly during my marriage or before my marriage.

Q: Were you ever sexually abused yourself?
A: Not that I know of

Q: As a boy? As a teenager?
A: Don't think so.

Q: You don't know?
A: Well, they talk about repressed memories. I was not. There's nothing I recall that would give me any indication that I was sexually abused as a child at all. Ever.

Q: The one other person I want to ask about real quickly and that is Michael Grant. Do you know who Michael Grant is?
A: No.

Q: He is a young man who's come forward and he says you abused him also and apparently it was in your capacity of one of these trips to [ INAUDIBLE ] He said he was introduced to you like Galliher, through Hahn, and that you sexually abused him. Including one time at Camp Cowles. Michael George Grant Jr. Your response is?
A: I don't know Michael George Grant. [ INAUDIBLE ]

Q: [ INAUDIBLE ] …. Whom are felons, who say that you sexually abused them. In a sentence or two, your response is.
A: I didn't abuse them. I don't know these people and I didn't abuse them. I didn't abuse anybody. I didn't have sex with anybody under 18, ever. Woman or man.

Q: For those people who say if the allegations of these young men are true, going back to your days as a deputy.
A: They're not true, so we won't speculate.

Q: [ INAUDIBLE ] are you [ INAUDIBLE ] that there's appearances that you may have misused the public trust that was extended to you a boy scout leader, a sheriff's deputy, a politician and now mayor to develop sexual relationships with young men?
A: No, never.

Q: Explain that to me.
A: What do you mean explain that to you? What needs explaining? It didn't happen.

Q: You never misused the public trust you have through being a boy scout, a sheriff's deputy, a politician or mayor to develop sexual relationships with young men?
A: Never.

Q: Well, what about Moto-Brock, and what about [ NAME REDACTED ]?
A: I don't, first of all. Moto-Brock and [ NAME REDACTED ] were both adults.

Q: But you were in public office when you developed a relationship with them.
A: And I was in a public office when I dated women in this community. So, what's your point?

Q: Did you offer those women jobs in your office?
A: An internship is not a job.

Q: Well it's pretty impressive for a senior at Ferris High School to get an internship in the ….
A: You know what? Greg Tripp's daughter was an intern for me, a senior at Lewis and Clark High School for all of last year just about.

Q: You don't get paid a dime?
A: You don't get paid a dime.

Q: But it looks good on a resume.
A: Whatever. Of course it does. And also it's good training.

Q: In a sentence then …..
A: If any kid in this time walked in my office and filled out an application and to come to work dressed properly and clean, could be an intern in my office. Any kid in this town.

Q: So as to the people who say that you used the trappings of your public office to lure or develop relationships with young men, your response would be?
A: Not true.

Q: Not true why?
A: Because I haven't.

Q: Ever?
A: No.

Q: As to Moto-Brock and [ NAME REDACTED ], you're not using your trappings of your office there?
A: Look, I took a woman out on a date three weeks ago

Q: I'm not asking about
A: No, no, no. I took a woman out on a date three weeks ago to an event [ INAUDIBLE ] OK? Was that using the trappings of my office to entice her to go out with me?

Q: No, we're not saying that.
A: Is that using the trappings of my office? I asked another woman to travel with me to Washington DC. Is that using the trappings of my office?

Q: It might be.
A: I don't think so.

Q: Who was she?
A: First of all, you're not going there.

[ INAUDIBLE ]

Q: [ INAUDIBLE ] …..in his rookie?
A: Edgar Martinez was [ INAUDIBLE ] 500 people

Q: [ INAUDIBLE ] …..teenager, don't you see how people are going to [ INAUDIBLE ]
A: I don't know, no.

Q: What is it then?
A: I'm not answering, I don't know. You keep pushing, you're trying to get something to something. I'm just going to stop right there.

Q: I just want to make it clear because there are people who will say, including our lawyer, it's our belief when you offer these trappings of a public office to a young person that they could be viewed fairly and objectively as enticements or inducements to become your buddy, to become my special buddy. Maybe for golf, become my buddy. Go for a ride in my Lexus. And if you're saying they're not enticements, that's your option. I just want you to be able to say to that.
A: [ INAUDIBLE ] what I said.

Q: What else do you want to say about the subject matter we've covered here today.
A: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Q: Do you have anything else you want to say, that we haven't talked about?
A: No.

Q: I just want to ask you one of the other things people have said, you can call them cynics if you want, from your opponents on the Democratic side, that every time that [ INAUDIBLE ] ran for office, he had a woman on his arm, but he dumped them afterward. Is that true?
A: I don't think it's true, but I've heard them say that.

Q: Who have you heard say that?
A: Just some campaign kind of stuff. And people say stuff, so, whatever.

Q: What have you heard people say regarding your fondness for young men?
A: Nothing.

Q: They've never confronted you about that?
A: No

Q: This is the first time someone's looked you in the eye ball and asked these questions?
A: Yeah.

Q: Are you surprised that we are?
A: Yeah

Q: Is there anything else?

Q: Just to reiterate because you talk to people, I talk to people like Bill Tallmadge who has the highest respects for your legislative skills and he said yeah, the rumors are out there about Jim being gay while we were in the legislature. Most of the things he worked on, [ INAUDIBLE ] on gay people. I just want, one more time, why, why? You don't have to be a liberal, but is it not possible to be a gay man and be out? Why did you feel, bisexual or whatever you want to call yourself, why was it necessary to keep this quiet, to yourself for so many years?

Audio Clip 9: Listen « prev | next »

A: My private life is my private life and always has been and there's been a strong wall between my public life and my private life. You don't hear me in my public life talking much about my family, which I care deeply about. I go home to my shelter, which is out of the public, there's a high wall between those two.

Q: Between your public life and your private life?
A: Because it I had 24 hours a day, anyone of us had to do that, that could be a cracking point.

Q: Do you feel like you've hurt your stance?
A: No, not at all.

Q: Is there something else that we haven't given you an opportunity to say here …
A: What would you like me to say Bill?

Q: I don't want to put words in your mouth. If there's something, we've covered the waterfront as far as we're concerned. Is there something you want to revisit or add to, I just want to give you that opportunity.
A: I don't know.

Q: Do you think it's unfair for us to be asking these questions?
A: I'm not going to get into my opinion about that. What's that got to do with the story?

Q: You're entitled to your opinion. That's what is has to do with the story.

Q: Just beyond the people, the specific people making allegations about you, the Gallihers and Mr. Grant, just to broaden that out, when you are a boy scout leader and you had associations with probably thousands of young boys, did you ever do anything inappropriate with those boys?
A: Never. Absolutely not. You know I ran a scout camp for five years and 1,300 kids that I was in charge. I was the waterfront director at the scout camp for another of years and taught lots of kids to swim. I bump into them all the time. They tell me they remember me teaching them to swim. You interviewed the kids in my scout troop. Did any of them say that I done anything?

Q: Not specifically. But they did say you would have audiences with them at your house, have pizza, and then select some of them to go out on one-on-one dates at a later occasion.
A: Dates?

Q: Well, you would go out to dinner..
A: One on one?

Q: Yes, you would invite them to your house for pizza or beer, and you would make alcohol available to underage kids. I had several of them tell me that.
A: That's not true.

Q: And that then some of them you would ask out for one on one's to go to a movie and a dinner at some later date. I'm not implying by telling you that I think there's anything wrong with that, I'm just telling you what I've been told. Did that happen?
A: Not to my knowledge. No, no. I would have kids over for dinner as groups and stuff. We'd go someplace from time to time with a couple of kids, but I don't remember ever taking a kid by himself.

Q: So people who said yeah I went out on, we met through the cub scouts, or got involved in his campaign, and then later have us over to his house for pizza and sodas or whatever, and then later he would ask one or two of us to go out exclusively to go to a show with him.

Q: Jim your profile that Carla Johnson, one of my reporters did when you were running for mayor, I was struck by one quote where you said that "life was short, and you were going to do what you wanted to do" in [ INAUDIBLE ], that was context. Is that part of the reason you're on gay.com now, you said it was recent.
A: I don't know. I really don't know.

Q: You don't know why you've gone there?
A: Yeah. I said earlier, curiosity. Whatever, I don't know.

Q: We appreciate you coming in. This isn't personal. We're doing our jobs.
A: It will be personal.

Q: Not personal on end, we're just doing our job. Thanks for your time.