Wash. Mayor Denies
Molesting Boys in '70s
By AP from the
NYTimes on the Web, May 5, 2005
SPOKANE, Wash. -- Mayor James
E. West, a Republican foe of gay rights, was accused in a newspaper story
Thursday of molesting two boys decades ago and was caught by the paper using the
trappings of his office to try to court a young man on a gay Web site.
West on Thursday denied the molestation allegations, but acknowledged he ''had
relations with adult men.''
He admitted offering autographed sports memorabilia and a possible City Hall
internship to what he thought was an 18-year-old man on the Web site Gay.com.
The man was actually a private computer expert hired by The Spokesman-Review as
part of a journalism sting operation.
West, 54, a former Boy Scout leader and Army paratrooper who was married briefly
in the 1990s, denied that the online offers constituted abuse of his office, and
he said he would serve out the more than three years remaining in his term.
''I am a law-abiding citizen,'' West said during a brief news conference.
He took no questions.
The Spokesman-Review ran interviews Thursday with two men who allege West
molested them decades ago when they were Boy Scouts and the mayor was a troop
leader and sheriff's deputy. Both men have criminal records because of
drug problems.
''I categorically deny allegations about incidents that supposedly occurred 24
years ago as alleged by two convicted felons and about which I have no
knowledge,'' West said.
No criminal investigations are under way, according to sheriff and police
departments, which said the statute of limitations for any charges has run out.
West, a conservative with an abrasive style and a fierce temper, rose to become
majority leader of the state Senate during a two-decade legislative career.
He consistently opposed efforts to expand civil rights protections for gays and
voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, a ban on gay marriage, in 1998. During a
1990 hearing on AIDS education, West proposed that teen sex be criminalized.
In 1990, he proposed marriage from the floor of the Senate to Ginger Marshall
while she was visiting the Capitol. Their marriage ended five years later.
The newspaper said its investigation of West arose out of tips received in 2002
during its investigations of sexual abuse of children by priests.
The newspaper hired a computer expert to create a fictitious identity as an
18-year-old boy to chat with West, who used the online aliases ''Cobra82nd'' and
''RightBi-Guy'' to chat on the Web site. West was in the Army's 82nd
Airborne.
West said he would not characterize himself as gay. As for his visits to
the Gay.com Web site, he told the newspaper: ''I can't tell you why I go
there, to tell you the truth ... curiosity, confused, whatever, I don't know.''
The molestation accusations came in a deposition for a lawsuit against Spokane
County by Robert J. Galliher, 36, of Seattle, and other men who claim they were
molested by another sheriff's deputy at the time, David Hahn. West was not named
as a defendant and said he was unaware of the deposition.
In interviews with the newspaper, Galliher and a second man, Michael G. Grant
Jr., 31, said they were introduced to West by Hahn in the late 1970s or early
'80s, when the two sheriff's deputies were close friends and leaders of a Boy
Scout troop.
Hahn committed suicide in 1981 after being publicly accused of molesting boys.
Steve Smith, editor of The Spokesman-Review, told The Associated Press that the
newspaper was reluctant to hire the computer expert but felt it was necessary
because of West's possible abuse of office and the potential for harm to young
people.
The expert was hired to corroborate accounts from several individuals who said
they had had online relationships with West, including at least one teen who
said the contact led to consensual sex, the newspaper said.
Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a think tank for
journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., said the newspaper's decision appeared to
be appropriate.
''The issue is deception,'' said McBride, a former Spokesman-Review reporter.
''As a reporter, you don't pretend to be somebody else. Where this gets
really fuzzy is on the Internet, where everybody uses anonymity. I don't
believe reporters should refrain from going into anonymous communities.''
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