Francke testimony questions raised
By Steven P. Jackson
The Statesman Journal – May 16, 1990
Legislators
looking into charges of crime and corruption at the Oregon Corrections
Department reacted with concern Tuesday to felony charges against the department's
former lawyer. Scott McAlister, who left his job as legal representative for
the Oregon Department of Corrections after 17 years to take a job in Utah, was
charged Tuesday in Salt Lake City with sexual exploitation of a minor.
McAlister,
who served in Oregon as an assistant attorney general, testified at a hearing
before an Oregon legislative committee looking at the Department of Corrections
in January, just weeks before the FBI raided his Salt Lake City home and
confiscated pornographic material.
He told
the committee members that he was unaware of any corruption or criminal
activities within the department. "I think this pretty much destroys his
credibility as far as what he knew and what he may have participated in,"
state Rep. Peter Courtney, a Salem Democrat and committee member, said Tuesday.
"You
might as well take his testimony and throw it in the trash can." The
legislators also have expressed concern that Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer
took no action to investigate charges of corruption made against the department
both in 1986 and currently. McAlister worked for Frohnmayer.
Phil Lemman, a spokesman for Frohnmayer, said that the
attorney general's office was working under legal and resource constraints
imposed by the legislature, and officials saw no reason to duplicate the
efforts of state police investigators. "They've been saying for quite a
while that Dave didn't do enough," Lemman said. "What we have
repeatedly said is we believe that one agency should be working on this at a
time."
Lemman said that the Utah charges did not appear to be
linked to McAlister's work in Oregon. When he left his Oregon position in
January 1989, McAlister complained in his letter of resignation to Frohnmayer
"following the recent management change in the Department of Corrections,
I no longer enjoy performing legal service for that agency."
McAlister's abrupt departure less than two weeks before
Corrections Director Michael Francke was stabbed to death Jan. 17, 1989;
outside his office building on state hospital grounds brought him to the
attention of investigators. Last year, McAlister submitted to a lie-detector
test in which he denied any involvement in Francke's killing. Dale Penn, the
Marion County district attorney, said McAlister passed the test.