Franklin leader says he was cleared of all ‘wrongdoing’ in criminal probe. Was he though?
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Franklin County elected officials legal troubles
Several elected leaders in Franklin County, Wash. are facing criminal investigations.
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A Franklin County commissioner took a victory lap this week claiming he was cleared of any wrongdoing by a special prosecutor’s decision, but that’s not exactly what the report said.
Snohomish County’s Chief Deputy Prosecutor Elise Deschenes recently issued notices declining to prosecute Franklin County Auditor Matt Beaton and Commission Chairman Rocky Mullen in the investigation over a disputed HAPO Center payment.
In both notices, Deschenes wrote that their behavior was “irregular,” but there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a sufficient doubt that a crime occurred.
For one of the three charges recommended by the sheriff’s investigation for Mullen, she wrote that “(h)owever, due to the lack of State resources, we are unable to charge this gross misdemeanor at this time.”
Despite that, Mullen claimed during this week’s county commission meeting that he has been cleared. While he is not facing criminal charges, the reports did not suggest no misconduct happened.
In her report, Deschenes also described Mullen and Beaton’s behavior as “concerning,” “irregular,” and “odd.”
“As a commissioner I strongly believe that no one is above the law,” Mullen said this week. “While frivolous allegations can always be made, I take pride that the correct conclusion was reached, the process worked and my name and others were cleared by a finding that no wrongdoing occurred.”
“I’m glad to have that put behind us. I’ve tried to stay out of it as much as possible, but it was not very pleasant and we should not be out making false accusations against anyone,” he continued.
“We have a lot of hard working people in the courthouse, that do a fabulous job and there is no reason we should be falsely accusing them of anything that’s happening here,” he said.
He added that the company involved in the HAPO Center payment dispute — Simmons Venue Management — is a “pillar of the community.“ However, later in the same meeting, he voted along with the other two commissioners to order a forensic audit of the bills that company asked the county to pay.
Mullen and County Commissioner Clint Didier often clashed with former Commissioner Brad Peck over SVM getting the HAPO contract, including Mullen telling investigators that Peck had somehow installed the company without the consent of the other commissioners.
However, records show that Didier and Mullen voted to approve the emergency contract with SVM after all of the center’s management quit within a month in 2022.
Also this week, the commissioners voted to order the prosecutor’s office to go after Peck on another issue that was frequently a point of contention when Peck was still on the board. It’s a matter they asked the Washington state Attorney General’s Office to review and have yet to receive an opinion about.
Didier and Mullen believe it was unconstitutional for Peck to use the county’s VEBA benefit program, which is still in place. Didier has been pushing for the county to force Peck to pay back nearly $50,000 in payments to a medical use account he received instead of county health insurance.
The county allows money that would normally be put toward paying for health insurance to be put into a restricted use account for medical needs. It is an option still available for county employees and elected officials.
Peck used this option because he already had insurance after retiring from the Air Force. The program was approved before Mullen and Didier were elected.
Peck resigned from the county at the end of 2023 claiming he was fed up with the toxicity and workplace bullying. Earlier this year he told the Herald that Didier, Mullen and Beaton were engaging in a juvenile grudge against him.
After this week’s vote to go after Peck to pay back the VEBA money, county prosecutors told the Herald in an email that they are not taking legal action against Peck.
‘Irregular’ behavior
The special prosecutor considered three possible charges for Mullen and Beaton — tampering with a witness, official misconduct and making a false or misleading statement to a public servant.
The investigation centered on a dispute over whether to pay the HAPO Center’s former management group SVM for the month of the transition to the Harris White Leasure group in October 2023.
The county still has not paid the $12,500 bill, according to comments at this week’s meeting.
In a secretly recorded previous meeting, Mullen and Beaton complained about SVM becoming the center’s contractor and Peck’s relationship with the Simmons family. Beaton made unspecified claims that they needed to be audited.
Despite Mullen deriding Peck and the company in interviews with sheriff’s investigators, he claimed this week during the open commission meeting he has never disparaged SVM.
However, in a taped interview with sheriff’s investigators, Mullen said: “There’s a contract with SVM, tell me how a contract gets written up over the weekend to put them in place with no discussion whatsoever. Somebody put SVM in there because they were, I don’t know if you want to say buddy, buddy or friends. That’s bullshit.”
Former County Administrator Mike Gonzalez recorded the meeting clandestinely because a criminal investigation already had been opened and he was concerned the elected officials were going to ask him to commit a crime after they’d been told by both the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor’s office not to talk to Gonzalez about the matter.
In that meeting, Mullen and Beaton asked Gonzalez to write a letter claiming that there had just been a misunderstanding about the back and forth over the payment. Beaton said in the meeting that he had, at the direction of Didier, asked the HAPO Center’s new management group to process the payment after being told not to.
He claimed later in that meeting this wasn’t meant to make Gonzalez look bad though.
“I said, ‘If he approves it, the commissioners may learn more about him than they want to know, but I don’t believe they will,’” Beaton said in the recording.
Afterward, Mullen followed up through text messages and Gonzalez reiterated that he was not going to change his statements to investigators.
Mullen later told investigators that Didier’s name did not come up at all, despite being mentioned more than a dozen times and Beaton directly saying that he was acting at Didier’s direction.
Special prosecutor’s findings
When it came to potentially charging Mullen for making a false statement to a public servant, the Snohomish County deputy prosecutor wrote that he appeared to make a number of statements that weren’t consistent with what happened in that meeting and would be hard to attribute to simply misremembering, however the state lacked the resources to charge him at this time.
The other findings largely express that it would be difficult for a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed.
Deschenes summarized the findings for both elected officials by saying, “While the suspect’s behavior is irregular, there is insufficient evidence to prove criminal behavior beyond a reasonable doubt.”
That was underscored throughout the reports in details about their actions being concerning or unusual, but likely not enough for a jury to convict.
As for Beaton’s push for Gonzalez to write the letter, she wrote, “While, again, the suspect’s motivations in making the request are concerning, what he is actually requesting is not clear enough for the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the charge of Tampering with a Witness.”
Deschenes also wrote that Mullen’s role in that request seemed to be coming from a place of wanting to show they could all work together. She said that a jury would have a hard time finding whether the requested letter was meant to be sent to investigators or just county employees.
“Again, while the request is odd, the motivation seems to be more political and an effort to show they all get along rather than interfering with a criminal investigation,” Deschenes wrote.
She did not send out a “decline to prosecute” notice about Didier.
While investigators have said he also was under investigation, he did not agree to an interview with detectives and was not present at the secretly recorded meeting. It’s unclear if Deschenes was ever asked to formally consider charges against him.
Audits and lawsuits
Earlier this week, Didier asked for an item to be placed on the meeting’s agenda regarding “unconstitutional pay increases.”
Didier said they had waited long enough for the Attorney General’s Office to issue an opinion over a dispute in which he’s previously insisted Peck should have to pay back close to $50,000. That amount came from payments to the VEBA health account since 2016.
“We’ve been very reasonable on this, we’ve been waiting for the AG’s opinion for over a year now and I believe it’s our civic duty, these are taxpayers monies and we need to make sure that we do what we are instructed to do, and that is to protect taxpayer money,” Didier said.
“I think that we should give it to a judge and let him decide,” he continued. “That’s ultimately where it’s going to go anyways, is to a judge. I would like to have my other other commissioners approval to make a motion to direct our prosecuting attorney to move to recover these funds.”
It’s unclear whether they were asking the prosecutor’s office to file criminal charges or a civil lawsuit.
Later in the meeting the commissioners also wanted to order an audit of SVM’s finances during their tenure at the HAPO Center.
The county’s legal advisor, Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Briggs, told the commissioners they should wait for the State Auditor’s Office to wrap up an ongoing look at the finances of the HAPO Center. He said the results of that audit could render another audit unnecessary.
When it came to the vote to go after Peck, Briggs told the Herald in an email that the question at hand is complex, which is why the Attorney General’s Office has yet to issue an opinion on it.
Briggs said that the prosecutors office is bound by law and ethics rules to exercise independent professional judgment in deciding whether to initiate a lawsuit or criminal proceeding, so they will not be taking formal action at this time due to the lack of an AG opinion, the complexity of the issue and limited staff resources.
Commissioners Mullen and Didier believe Peck’s vote to approve that plan was unconstitutional and “enriched” him.
Didier and Mullen have been trying to make major changes to the structure to reduce county costs, but so far have been unable to eliminate the VEBA contributions benefit for elected officials.
In a letter sent to commissioners earlier this year over late payments, SVM told the county they were happy to go along with any proposed audit in order to clear the air. It’s unclear why the county has not previously audited the HAPO Center’s finances.
A Herald public record request for all audits performed on the HAPO Center finances by the county showed there was one audit in 2014.
