The Giusto Report

[October 31st, 2007]

This week, state officials released a 318-page draft report of their investigation into Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto’s fitness to continue serve as a law enforcement officer.

The Department of Public Safety Standards and Training released the report only when compelled to by a public records request from The Oregonian . (Ironically, as noted below, the report provides some historical perspective on The Oregonian’ s now-dogged pursuit of the truth).

While Giusto’s integrity is the specific question at issue in the report, the meta-question underlying the story is who knew what about former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt’s sexual abuse of a teenage girl that began in 1975 when he was Portland’s mayor and she was 14. The abuse continued at least through 1978.

The DPSST wanted to know when Giusto, who as a member of the Oregon State Police served in the late 1980s as Goldschmidt’s driver for two years, found out about the sex abuse and whether his previous statements about the situation were truthful. The agency also wants to know whether Giusto lied about other situations in which his official duties and personal life collided.

In its draft report, the agency’s investigators conclude that Giusto probably lied: “Staff concludes there is sufficient cause to refer Allegations 5, 12 and 17 to the Police Policy Committee for review to determine if Bernard Giusto has fallen below the established standards for Oregon public safety officers,” the report states.

If the agency’s board makes such a determination at its February meeting, Giusto could lose his badge.

But in the meantime, here are some conclusions from the nuggets DPSST investigators mined:

1. Fred Leonhardt, who served as Gov. Goldschmidt’s speechwriter, is credible: Leonhardt first tried to blow the whistle on his former boss in November 2003.

Here’s how investigators summarized the sequence of events at that time:

“When Leonhardt learned that Ted Kulongoski was appointing [Neil Goldschmidt] to the State Board of Higher Ed, he did go to [The Oregonian ] with his story.

Leonhardt stated that the Oregonian did not run the story, but as soon as the Willamette Week ran the story, the Oregonian became re-interested in his story. Leonhardt believed that the Willamette Week had gotten their information from a completely different source.

Leonhardt speculated on why the Oregonian had not printed the story, and that the information on Neil Goldschmidt was available, thereby creating “huge red flags.”

Leonhardt stated that the week that the story did break he had breakfast with Ginny Burdick who wanted him to meet a contact of hers, Brian Gard.

Leonhardt stated that when he told Ginny Burdick that he had learned information about Neil Goldschmidt that kept him away, Ginny Burdick first asked, “What information” and then stated, “I think I know. . . underage girl?” Apparently someone from the media had just contacted her to see if she knew anything because she had been Neil Goldschmidt’s press secretary during the 1986 campaign. Leonhardt stated that it was Gard and Gerber [a public relations firm] that was writing Neil Goldschmidt’s “confession” and they decided to go to the Oregonian, rather than to the Willamette Week because they would get “better treatment.” It was after this conversation with Burdick that Leonhardt emailed Oregonian reporter Jeff Mapes about the Willamette Week story and it was then that the Oregonian showed interest in the story.”

Leonhardt is also the first person to publicly say that Giusto knew about the sexual abuse. He gave investigators a six-page affadavit and passed a polygraph regarding its content. As WW did earlier, DPSST investigators confirmed Leonhardt’s version of events with a number of Goldschmidt insiders, including former Goldschmidt press secretary and current NW Natural President Gregg Kantor; state Sen. Ginny Burdick; former Brand Oregon director Debbie Kennedy, and perhaps most damagingly, with Goldschmidt’s former wife, Margie, with whom Giusto had a long-term affair, beginning when the Goldschmidts were still married.

2. Gov. Ted Kulongoski has a problem: Just about everybody interviewed confirmed Leonhardt’s version of events. The notable exception is Kulongoski, a Goldschmidt protégé, who provided investigators with a five-page written response to questions. “Kulongoski denied Leonhardt shared any information about Goldschmidt having sexual relations with a minor female,” investigators wrote in a summary of those denials. There is, of course, no documentary evidence to the contrary.

But the fact that many others confirmed Leonhardt’s version of events throws some doubt on the governor’s denial. Kulongoski—who on two previous occasions floundered when asked what he knew and when—continued his pattern of raising additional questions by the form of his response.

Investigators noted that Kulongoski, who is a former Oregon Attorney General and Oregon Supreme Court Justice, failed to answer questions in the manner requested: “On September 5, 2007, DPSST received Kulongoski’s 5-page response which was not in the form of a notarized affidavit, nor signed by Kulongoski.” (On Tuesday, Kulongoski supplanted his initial response with a signed, sworn statement.)

3. Bernie Giusto is masterful at not quite answering questions:

Here are a couple of examples: “When asked if Giusto recalled a conversation between him and Leonhardt involving a discussion about Goldschmidt engaging in misconduct with a minor female, Giusto stated, “not . . .not as a single topic.”

And, “I didn’t say that I never heard about this [sexual abuse] issue, I said I don’t have any specific knowledge.”

4. Bernie Giusto also has, according to women who knew him well, some interesting characteristics:

Here’s what Debbie Kennedy, formerly the state’s director of tourism, told investigators:

“Kennedy stated Giusto was a bad man and a ‘very gifted liar,’ and she was scared of him.”

Here’s what Margie Goldschmidt, the former governor’s former wife, said about him:

“When asked about Leonhardt’s assertion that he and his wife socialized with Margie Goldschmidt and Giusto and Ted Kulongoski and his wife Mary, she stated that they did. Margie Goldschmidt then stated that those are the kind of things that Giusto doesn’t necessarily remember because he has a “male brain.”

5. The report is incomplete: While investigators note that former Gov. Goldschmidt declined to answer questions, the response of another key player in his administration, Ruth Ann Dodson, is unclear.

Dodson was a top Goldschmidt aide both when he was Portland mayor and Oregon governor, and the wife of NW Natural CEO Mark Dodson, a longtime Goldschmidt associate. Here is how investigators described her relevance:

“Dodson worked closely with Neil Goldschmidt in his administration as governor and prior to this. There is some indication that Dodson knew about Goldschmidt’s crime and communicated with the victim and or her mother on Goldschmidt’s behalf.”

Left unsaid is whether Dodson has or will reply to the 23 questions investigators prepared for her.