Presumption of innocence and benefit of the doubt are related concepts. The former is a cherished part of our criminal justice system; the latter, a protection of our less formal but still popular court of public opinion.
State Auditor Troy Kelley, whose home was raided and Olympia office records seized by the FBI last month, has not been tried or as yet charged with any crime, nor has the FBI provided many details about its investigation. The probe appears to involve allegations of unpaid taxes from an escrow services business and also may involve a former business partner of Kelley’s who was recently employed part-time by the auditor’s office.
The presumption of innocence remains for Kelley. But any benefit of the doubt Kelley enjoyed is quickly vanishing as details elsewhere have trickled out about his past financial dealings with the escrow service business he owned prior to his election to the Auditor’s Office in 2012.
The Seattle Weekly, a Sound Publishing newspaper, reported Kelley had claimed records sought by a former business partner, Old Republic Title, as part of a lawsuit were lost in a fire that destroyed the Stewart Title Co. building in Everett in 2008.
In the lawsuit, Old Republic claimed that Kelley, who was then a state representative from Pierce County, pocketed $1.2 million in fees collected from escrow customers who had paid off their mortgages. Old Republic claimed the fees should have been returned to clients. Kelley said the records from his business, Post Closing Department, could have proved he had done nothing wrong, but were lost in the 2008 fire.
But, the Seattle Weekly reported, Kelley’s explanation of what happened to the records is more convoluted. Scott Smith, attorney for Old Republic, said Kelley’s office was adjacent to, and not in, the Stewart Title building. Kelley admitted under oath in a 2010 deposition that his office suffered only smoke damage and that he couldn’t explain why electronic records, copies of which should have been kept outside the office, weren’t available. Kelley, in the deposition, said he had given his office computer to Goodwill, and had deleted emails and cleared records from a website, saying he wasn’t much of a record-keeper.
That’s an odd and troubling admission for someone who heads a state agency that holds municipal and county governments and state agencies accountable for their use of state resources, and publicly criticizes those whose record-keeping practices are found lacking. Such audits often make the point that lax record-keeping obscures the transparency that assures the public that money and resources are being properly managed.
Kelley, as the elected steward of the state Auditor’s Office, should at the very least step aside while the investigation continues so that the office is not tarnished by the doubts now following him.
