As he told the News Journal, former commissioner’s aide Jonathan Owens is facing an ethics complaint regarding Commissioner Jeff Bergosh’s text messages.
- Owens refused to give a statement to ethics investigators. He chose not to tell them that he didn’t receive the files on a thumb drive mysteriously left on his desk. Owens didn’t admit IT director Bart Siders gave them to him in the county’s parking garage.
- Ethics Commission agreed that there was probable cause: “In sum, Respondent (Owens) was a public employee when he gained information by reason of his official position, the information was not available to members of the general public, and such information was disclosed or used with an intent to secure a personal gain or benefit for Respondent (Owens) and/or Dr. Edler and her attorneys.” Read 5_23231 Complaint.
At the probable cause hearing in March, Owens’ attorney, Dennis Green, spoke on his belief. Green also didn’t mention the Siders’ covert hand-off to Owens.
- Green argued that there was no evidence of how his client obtained Bergosh’s files other than that he “simply came to work” and found them on his desk, which, according to Siders’s sworn statement to the state attorney’s office, we now know was a false statement.
“In this report, not one single analysis was done on how he obtained the data through his official position as a commissioner’s aide. He didn’t work in the IT department. He wasn’t entrusted with it. He was not a custodian of the documents, anything like that. He simply came to work. I don’t know how they can overcome that hurdle, but certainly, they’re drawing a lot of conclusions here,” Green told the ethics commission.
“His job duties didn’t have anything to do with Commissioner Bergosh’s cell data. His access that he had at the county didn’t even give him access to the county server, so he couldn’t even log on to a computer to go and get this information. This statute right here involves primarily procurement. Hey, you’re working at the county, there’s a request for proposal goes out for, we’re going to have a paving job, and you get these sealed bids in. You call your brother-in-law up and go, ‘Hey, guess what? Here’s where your bid needs to be, and you can get this job.’ That’s what this statute’s for.
“Here there’s nothing to support that Mr. Owens used his official position to acquire the data. As a matter of fact, I would direct you to page four down the bottom and read what it says. The county’s Office of Compliance and Ethics Investigation was unable to provide any conclusive findings out to how respondent the cell phone data. She says it right there in her own report.”
Why couldn’t the Office of Compliance and Ethics Investigation couldn’t find any conclusive findings?
- BECAUSE OWENS AND SIDERS LIED.
Thanks to Studio 850, we found the March probable cause hearing and transcribed Dennis Green’s testimony. I’m sure that Studio 850 has seen the discrepancy and will report on it soon.
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash