Battling a whisper campaign

The qualifications of John Weaver, one of three candidates for Flathead County sheriff/coroner, have been questioned in an apparent letter-writing campaign and he'd like to clear the air, he said.

In Montana, there are no legal requirements for a sheriff to be a certified law-enforcement officer or have experience as an officer.

Weaver, though, has said he does have that experience - an assertion that some people challenge.

A number of anonymous letters have been sent to Weaver's supporters, questioning his law-enforcement background and integrity. The Daily Inter Lake also has received several unsigned letters attacking Weaver and Undersheriff Mike Meehan, another candidate in the race. Sheriff's detective Cmdr. Bruce Parish is the third candidate. The newspaper does not print anonymous letters to the editor.

"There's nothing in my past to hide," Weaver said. He challenged the newspaper to find out otherwise.

Edd Blackler of Bigfork, who supports Weaver and is himself a candidate for Montana House District 9, said he received an anonymous letter describing a bankruptcy filing by Weaver and saying that Weaver "greatly embellished" his work history.

"It was kind of an affront to me," Blackler said. "I'm a reasonably fair judge of character."

On his Web site, www.weaverforsheriff2006.com, Weaver lists in his biography, "Became a rural Sheriff's Deputy involved in communications, detention, and patrol units."

A call to Johnson County (Missouri) Human Resource Office confirmed that Weaver worked for the Sheriff's Office from April 1981 to March 1982 as a dispatcher "and in the Sheriff's Office," according to Lisa Shore, personnel manager.

Her records don't indicate whether Weaver was a commissioned officer. Commissioned officers have the power to arrest.

"I believe he was commissioned," Shore said. "If I had to flip a coin and guess, I would say he was commissioned."

However, she said, "There is nothing to confirm or not confirm that" in the county records.

There is no registry of commission in Missouri, she said. Each law-enforcement agency has the authority to independently commission officers, she said.

Weaver's career has been wide-ranging.

With a bachelor's degree in criminal-justice administration from Central Missouri State, he worked for the Department of Justice's Federal Bureau of Prisons, eventually as a unit manager at a penitentiary in Allenwood, Pa. His resume also includes working for the U.S. Parole Commission in Philadelphia, the prisons bureau in Washington, D.C., and the New York State Department of Corrections.

He says he performed patrol and traffic functions with the police department in Warrensburg, Mo., as well as in his work with Johnson County.

Weaver moved to Montana in 1994, where he says he operated a "small family business."

The former Old West Adventures horse concession on Big Mountain is the focus of two criticisms leveled at Weaver.

One is that he used a different name - Garth Weaver - in its operation. He used the same name in operating an auction service he ran called Old West Auctions.

The name, Weaver said, was simply to provide western-sounding flair over the "boring" name of John. That was at the advice of veterinarian Doug Hamill, from whom Weaver bought the business.

"He said you've gotta come up with a catchier name," Weaver said. "My middle name is Garth. That has more of a flavor of the Old West."

The other criticism is that the business went bankrupt, leaving some creditors unpaid.

"It took us down personally, too," Weaver said of his family.

"I'm not lily white," Weaver said. "I've had some failures. I've stood up and addressed them," he said.

Finally, questions have been raised about the circumstances under which Weaver left his position as president and chief executive officer of Hope Ranch, a residential treatment center for girls near Whitefish.

That question was raised anonymously in some of the letters circulating about the campaign. It was raised publicly at a candidate forum in Whitefish where a former employee at the ranch asked Weaver to explain why he left its employment.

At the forum, Weaver said: "There should have been some people arrested" at the facility, but he did not explain the circumstances further. He said he left Hope Ranch "for the integrity of the program and the ministry" after lifting the program out of a deficit.

Gary Miller, chairman of the Hope Ranch board, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Weaver's experience at the ranch led a Missoula weekly newspaper last week to ask for an investigative file at the Sheriff's Office.

Allegations were made in 2002 that Weaver used physical force with two girls at the ranch. One was said to be out of control, beneath a table, and another supposedly intervened in the contact between Weaver and the first girl.

An investigation by the Sheriff's Office was forwarded to the County Attorney's Office with no recommendation on whether charges should be filed, and County Attorney Ed Corrigan did not file any criminal charges in the matter.

"There's nothing there," Weaver said of the allegations.

The file is considered to be confidential criminal-justice information, according to a document filed by Deputy County Attorney John Smith. He has asked a judge to decide whether the document should be released, perhaps with some names excised.

For Weaver, that caps off what he has deemed a smear campaign in this election, which he blames on fellow candidate Meehan.

Meehan said he has engaged in no such dirty campaigning.

"I did not sent out any packages" of anonymous allegations, he said. He said he vowed from the beginning to run a gentlemanly campaign, and he has.

Meehan said he does have doubts about Weaver's credentials to run a sheriff's office - primarily whether he has never worked as a full-time paid officer.

"I asked him flat-out, has he ever been through an entry-level basic law-enforcement academy anywhere in the United States. He said, 'I never said I did.' I took that as a no," Meehan said.

That training and experience is vital for someone who expects to relate to and lead his staff, Meehan said.

"If he spins the truth, I'm going to call him on it," Meehan said. "This campaign is about the chief law-enforcement officer in this county providing safety in this county.

"When you have skeletons in your closet … I'm not responsible. He's got to put the blame someplace. He's got to justify it."

As part of his evidence of a smear campaign, Weaver points to an ad that ran in the Mountain Trader. The ad asks anyone who sold items in 1996 and 1997 through Old West Auction Trading Post or Garth Weaver Associates to call a phone number.

"I have nothing to do with that and that has nothing to do with my campaign," Meehan said.

The ad was placed by Mickey Lapp, Meehan's campaign chairwoman, who also runs an auction business.

"Names of auction patrons were solicited with Weaver's consent as a result of a meeting with clergy, called at Weaver's request, and was recorded," according to a faxed statement by Lapp.

She and Weaver attend the same church.

"The ad is specific to auction patrons who may be entitled to restitution - an offer made by Weaver. It makes no reference to the name John Weaver or the office of sheriff. It is strictly a matter of restitution and separate from any campaign," Lapp said.

Meehan said he was unaware that Lapp had placed the ad. She confirmed that that is true.

"I expected a certain amount of integrity and decorum" in the campaign, Weaver said.

He said he has no complaints about Parish's conduct.

"Bruce Parish has been a gentleman and a professional throughout this whole thing," Weaver said.

Parish said he's not interested in Weaver's past.

"I'm interested in what kind of job he can do" now for the sheriff's office and for the community, Parish said.

The three-way race will be decided in the Republican primary on June 6. The winner of that election will be the likely replacement of Sheriff Jim Dupont in November because there is no Democratic candidate. Only a write-in campaign in the general election could change the outcome.

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com