Ex-Oregon official faces charges in Utah

By Steven P. Jackson

The Statesman Journal – August 16, 1990

 

A former Oregon assistant at­torney general had no valid reason to check out two child pornogra­phy films from a Multnomah County court in 1980, according to the Portland defense lawyer in­volved in that case. More than 10 years after the case closed, Scott McAlister is scheduled to appear Friday in a Utah court to face a second-degree felony child pornography charge for giving the two films to a woman there. McAlister worked almost 17 years for the Oregon Justice De­partment, mostly representing the Department of Corrections in legal matters. He left Oregon in January 1989 and became the in­spector general for the Utah De­partment of Corrections.

 

McAlister's lawyer, Brad Rich, contends that McAlister checked out the films in 1980 as part of his job representing the state of Ore­gon against Charles P. Grabill in a post-conviction appeal in U.S. District Court. McAlister then forgot that he had the films and unwittingly gave them to the female acquaintance along with about 30 adult films, Rich said. But Bradford Shiley, who was Grabill's lawyer, said Wednesday that the films no longer mattered to the case after the original 1978 trial. His contentions are backed up by Oregon court records.

 

In 1978, Grabill was found guilty of distributing obscene pho­tographs and a magazine involving children in a Multnomah County case. But he was found not guilty regarding the films because the jury ruled that a police officer had entrapped him into locating and giving them to him.

 

Grabill was sentenced to 30 days in the Multnomah County jail. Subsequently, he lost an appeal to the Oregon Court of Appeals, and then the Oregon Supreme Court denied a request to have the court reconsider the case. Shiley said he then made a post-conviction appeal in 1980 to a fed­eral district court to argue the case on constitutional grounds. But his arguments involved only whether the still photographs and the mag­azine were obscene and whether a witness should have been granted immunity to testify in the case. Therefore, the films had no bearing on the case, Shiley said. The case was dismissed on sum­mary judgment.

McAlister needed the movies as evidence, Rich said. But McAlister did not check out the photographs or magazine, which were central to the case. "Now that's real weird," said Shiley. He said he was never told that the films had been checked out as evidence, as is the common practice. He doesn't remember McAlister being involved in the case. Rich said McAlister's "non-criminal" explanation for keeping the films was that he forgot that he had them in his collection. The movies were turned over to FBI agents in January by Linda Dreitzler, one of McAlister's for­mer secretaries. She contended that he was using his position to coerce her and others into sex. She recently filed a civil lawsuit against McAlister, who has denied her charges and who has left the Utah job.     

 

McAlister left his Oregon job Jan. 6, 1989, complaining in a resignation letter to Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer that he could no longer work for the Department of Corrections after management changes there. Department Director Michael Francke was stabbed to death 11 days later. Francke had taken over the department in May 1987. McAlister has been questioned about possible involvement in the killing, which he denied. Dale Penn, the Marion County district attorney, has said there is no evi­dence that officials, including McAlister, were involved. But defense lawyers for Frank E. Gable, who has been indicted in Francke's killing, recently at­tacked the prosecution's case, say­ing that the foreman of the grand jury that handed up the indict­ment had professional and friend­ship ties to McAlister.

 

Jury foreman Thomas H. Denney is an assistant attorney gener­al. The defense lawyers, who will argue their point in court Aug. 28, contend that Denney may have had an incentive to insulate McA­lister from an in-depth investiga­tion by the grand jury. Bob Abel, one of the lawyers, contends that Denney's incentive was to protect his boss, Frohn­mayer. Frohnmayer is the Repub­lican candidate for governor. Frohnmayer called Abel's con­tentions preposterous.

 

Maria Rae, a spokesman for Frohnmayer, said Justice Depart­ment officials had not attempted to look into the reasons that McA­lister had the child pornography films. But the department turned over all requested material regard­ing McAlister to the FBI.