The Curry County Sheriff’s Office used nearly $390,000 in private donations to purchase vehicles for the sheriff and his predecessor, a boat and a grill, and to pay for a retirement party complete with a DJ, county leaders said Monday.
The county Board of Commissioners said in a statement that its review of years of federal tax records revealed a series of expenditures from 2009 through 2023 paid for with donations from the John G. Atkins Foundation.
The southern Oregon foundation was started more than two decades ago by a local philanthropist; it makes financial contributions to institutions in the cash-strapped county, including police and schools, according to its Oregon Secretary of State filings.
In a statement, the county board outlined suspected financial irregularities under Sheriff John Ward and his predecessor, John Bishop. Bishop left office more than a decade ago. The board of commissioners appointed Ward in 2014 and he has been elected three times since.
The county board said it had referred the matter to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.
The board said it had identified “a clear pattern and practice of using public funds for personal gain.” It said it had repeatedly sought lists of county assets from the sheriff — requests that “have gone unanswered for years.”
Ward did not respond to a voicemail and email Monday. Bishop did not respond to a text message and voicemail.
Jay Trost, chair of the Board of Commissioners, characterized the conduct of both men as “corruption,” saying, “we are dedicated to rooting it out.”
In an interview Monday, Trost said the FBI is investigating the sheriff’s office’s use of the donations. The FBI did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The revelations follow an investigation earlier this year into the purchase and subsequent sale of an estimated $10,000 in ammunition in 2020.
Trost told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the county bought the ammunition, which was scarce at the time given the pandemic, from a vendor who offered a steep discount for law enforcement agencies. Trost said the ammunition was then put up for sale. Most of the 17 buyers were associated with the sheriff’s office, but one was a private citizen, he said. He said Ward was among those who purchased the ammunition for his own use.
Earlier this year, Ward told Jim Ferraris, an outside consultant the county hired to investigate the transactions, that he had done nothing wrong and questioned the timing of the inquiry into a years-old purchase.
Ward said an agency captain organized the purchase and that it was intended to help deputies buy their own ammunition to supplement their training. The sheriff chalked up the inquiry to politics.
“Their goal is to push me out and I’ve been here for 35 years,” he told Ferraris, according to a transcript of the interview. “I’ve never seen or had to deal with this kind of crookedness.”
The county referred the matter to the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, which certifies law enforcement officers. A spokesperson confirmed Monday that the agency had received a complaint about Ward and referred it to the sheriff “for mitigation or rebuttal.” Sam Tenney said the law enforcement certification agency does not have jurisdiction over public safety agencies’ business operations.
Depending on the sheriff’s response, the matter may be presented to a policy committee for review, Tenney said.
Regarding the foundation donations to the sheriff’s office, county rules require such transactions to be recorded and deposited into “restricted accounts” that “ensure appropriate legal use” of the funds, then disbursed through the budget county process, the commission said in its statement. The commission said it found the sheriff’s office circumvented those rules for years.
The county board identified more than $125,000 in purchases under Ward, including a metal shop with a concrete foundation built on property he owned in Gold Beach. County officials said the project increased Ward’s property value by an estimated $75,000.
In 2019, Ward signed a declaration about the Atkins Foundation paying for the building on his property, records show. He said the foundation bought a metal building for the agency to store equipment and a trailer used in search and rescue operations. He wrote that the agency had no place to put the building so he “allowed it to be erected on my property,” the statement reads.
The board also identified other expenditures paid for with foundation funds, including a 31-foot travel trailer titled to Ward with an estimated price tag of nearly $30,000.
A jet ski that cost about $11,200 and a trailer and off-road vehicle bought for more than $30,000 aren’t titled but are in Ward’s possession, according to Trost.
In 2023, Ward asked the foundation administrator, Rory Smith, for an all-terrain vehicle ($27,000) and a trailer for hauling it, records show. Smith forwarded the request to the two board members and urged approval, saying “the sheriff needs one of these” for search and rescue. The request was approved.
The board said it could not account for more than $90,000 in foundation funds spent by the sheriff’s office.
It found about $75,000 was spent during Bishop’s tenure, including $28,000 on a 22-foot jet boat and $18,000 on an off-road vehicle. About $15,000 was spent on Bishop’s retirement party, the commission said.
Bishop went on to serve as the executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association and in 2019 was convicted of stealing from the organization. The association represents Oregon’s 36 elected sheriffs and lobbies the Legislature on their behalf.
According to its latest available federal tax forms, the Atkins Foundation holds an estimated $1 million in assets and is managed by Smith, an accountant.
Records show the foundation was started in 2005 by Atkins’ daughter, Jayne Gibney, a longtime Brookings resident. She was politically active, according to her obituary, and lobbied for U.S. Coast Guard air rescue stations on the Oregon coastline. She also wrote “There Were No Birds,” a memoir that detailed a historic 1972 storm off the Oregon coast.
When Gibney died in 2007 at 79, her will earmarked $1 million in shares of the shipping company UPS for the foundation, court records show. Probate records list Smith, the foundation’s president, as Gibney’s friend. Smith did not respond to an email or text message seeking comment.
Emails obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive show conversations between Ward and Smith about various purchases for the sheriff’s office over the years.
In 2020, Ward and Smith exchanged emails about buying a K-9 cage for a patrol car and what the sheriff described as “advanced combat helmets” for deputies and detectives in the rural county. Smith and other board members approved the request.
In 2021, Smith sent an email to two other members of the foundation board detailing a request from Ward for a $28,000 marksmanship training program.
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