Friday, November 20, 2009

A SPOKESMAN-REVIEW INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

Two accuse West of offering jobs

Bill Morlin / Staff writer

May 9, 2005

© The Spokesman-Review 2005

High-salaried City Hall jobs and a position on a city policy-making board were offered to two young men after they met Mayor Jim West in an Internet chat room, both men told The Spokesman-Review on Monday.

Ryan M. Oelrich, a 24-year-old openly gay man, said he was appointed by West to the city Human Rights Commission in April 2004, but didn't know at the time that West was the same man he'd met earlier in Gay.com using the screen aliases "Cobra82nd" and "RightBi-Guy."

Sometime after the appointment, Oelrich said he realized the mayor was the same person he'd been talking to online beginning in 2003. While on the commission, Oelrich said he rebuffed a series of sexually explicit online advances from West.

Ryan M. Oelrich, 24, says he rebuffed sexual advances from Mayor Jim West. (Brian Plonka/The Spokesman-Review)

After appointing Oelrich to the policy-making Human Rights Commission, West "offered me $300 cash if I'd swim naked with him in my swimming pool," Oelrich said.

He declined West's offer as "being totally inappropriate,'' said the 2004 graduate of Gonzaga University.

Another man, who is 24 and has a business degree, provided his name to the newspaper but asked that he not be publicly identified because his family doesn't know he is gay.

The unidentified man said West offered him a job as the city's human resources, or personnel, director.

"When I told him I wasn't qualified for that job, he told me I would be qualified if I was a friend of the mayor's,'' the young man said on condition of anonymity.

When he rejected the job offer, he said West offered him a job as "aquatics director," overseeing operations at the city's swimming pools.

The man, who doesn't currently live in Spokane, and his friend, Oelrich, both said they met "Cobra82nd" on the Gay.com Web site before changing to AOL 'instant messaging" with the man who later identified himself as the mayor of Spokane.

A computer program allowed the young men to save some of the "instant messages" with West, who used the screen name "JMSElton." West's middle name is Elton.

Oelrich and his friend said their online conversations with West substantially paralleled conversations West had between February and April with "Moto-Brock,'' a fictional Ferris High School student created by a forensic computer expert hired by the newspaper. The two men said they read the "Moto-Brock" transcripts in the newspaper.

The expert was hired by the newspaper late last year in an attempt to confirm the claims of an anonymous 18-year-old man who said he met West online. The 18-year-old told the newspaper West was using the screen names "Cobra82nd" and "RightBi-Guy." The 18-year-old said he and West had consensual sex last June.

West on Wednesday acknowledged that he visited Gay.com and developed relationships with various men including the 18-year-old who talked to the newspaper.

West was interviewed the day before The Spokesman-Review published a series of stories stating he has abused positions of public trust _ as a sheriff's deputy, Boy Scout leader and politician _ to develop sexual relationship with boys and young men.

Oelrich said he quietly resigned from the city's Human Rights Commission in January after West "hounded me for months, telling me I was cute and asking me out on dates."

"I refused all his advances,'' Oelrich said. "He was totally inappropriate."

Oelrich said he wasn't going to come forward publicly after news reports of West's conduct were first reported last Thursday in the newspaper.

"I was actually hoping that the mayor would resign, and because he still hasn't I felt it was important that this information did come out,'' Oelrich said.

He turned to the media, he said, after talking with his friends and not being able to find a governmental agency where he could file a complaint about West's conduct.

Oelrich was interviewed just a few hours before West told the City Council that he is taking a vacation and said he was being "persecuted" by The Spokesman-Review.

His announcement came the same day that a Spokane woman said she is organizing a petition drive to recall the mayor.