Sheriff’s office cleared in corruption complaint

By Cameron Rasmusson
Reader Staff

The Idaho Attorney General’s Office announced last week that the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office broke no laws in concealing murder investigation records from the public.

In a letter to Betsy Russell, president of the Idaho Press Club, Deputy Attorney General Paul Panther said that while Sheriff Daryl Wheeler ordered public records detailing the investigation to be removed from a website, he did not destroy the original records, which would violate the law. The letter arrived in response to a public corruption complaint filed by the Idaho Press Club earlier this year.

The Bonner County Daily Bee broke the story of the removed records in April after finding the records intact in a cached version of the website. Wheeler has since demanded the removal of the reporter who broke the story and attacked him personally on the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.