EUGENE – Former Deschutes County Sheriff Greg Brown – a career lawman and Oregon Sheriff of the Year in 2000 – pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to embezzling more than $575,000.

The taxpayer money he stole over six years came from Deschutes County and the Sisters-Camp Sherman Rural Fire Protection District, where he was a board member and budget officer.

Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Brown, 49, faces a prison sentence of between 30 and 37 months.

He also agreed to repay $561,567 by the time of his sentencing, which is scheduled for February.

The felony charges of federal program fraud, money laundering and interstate transfer of stolen property each carried a potential penalty of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Ray, the government’s lead prosecutor, said he is satisfied with the result of what was a year-long investigation by the FBI and Oregon Attorney General’s Office. Ray will recommend Brown receive a sentence at the ”upper end” of the available range, which would be about three years.

”I hope this sends a message that public corruption will not be tolerated in Oregon,” Ray said.

The case came under federal jurisdiction because the money involved came from agencies that receive federal funds and that money was moved across state lines.

Under the plea agreement, Brown will not face additional civil or state charges, but state agencies including the police licensing board still may take administrative action.

He is not allowed to contest any effort by the state to revoke his certification as a police officer.

The Oregon government ethics commission also could open a case, said investigator Don Crabtree, who attended Wednesday’s hearing.

He said the case likely ranks among the state’s biggest incidents of corruption by a public official, although there are no official records to check.

”Nobody can remember an amount this big,” he said.

Brown started to steal money from the fire district in 1995 and from the sheriff’s department within a month of taking office in 1996, according to a statement of facts he signed Tuesday and which was made public Wednesday.

Brown came under investigation after Deschutes County Sheriff Les Stiles discovered that Brown had returned three satellite phones to Motorola and received a $5,800 refund.

Stiles said no record could be found of the refund’s deposit. The sheriff’s office requested a copy of the check from Motorola and found that the canceled check had been deposited in an unrecognized account.

Stiles said they researched the account and found Brown had closed out the $12,000 account just weeks before he left office.

Transactions from the account then led investigators to several other accounts and money taken from Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District.

The bilked funds came from a variety of sources – totaling $171,189 from the county and at least $403,431 from the fire district – and was funneled to personal banking accounts in Oregon and Delaware and to his Sisters-based business, Sabbatical Air.

It was used for living expenses and to repay debt, to help cover mortgage payments for an Oregon Coast condominium, to buy a new Ford pickup, to open an Internet stock trading account and to help fund his failed bid for re-election in 2000, according to the statement of facts.

Brown, who stood between his two attorneys during a 30-minute hearing before U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan, did not speak about his case in court other than to answer questions.

Afterward, he deferred to his attorneys.

Jon Springer of Bend said Brown apologizes for his behavior, takes full responsibility and will repay every penny to the county and fire district.

He also hopes that the crimes do not hurt the public perception of the sheriff’s office, Springer said.

”In spite of his actions, Greg Brown is a good man who devoted a good portion of his life to serve the citizens of Deschutes County,” he said. ”So not only is this a sad day for Greg Brown, it is also a sad day for them.”

Eugene Attorney Mark Sabitt, who also represents Brown, said the parties labored to find out exactly how much money was taken because Brown wanted to make sure he repaid all of it. ”He came to us to make this right,” he said.

In the back row of the courtroom, Gary Aldred of Redmond shook his head as the charges were read.

A retired sergeant from the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office who worked with Brown for 15 years, Aldred said he was stunned by the deceit of his former colleague.

”A lot of us who supported him for years couldn’t believe that he would do something like this,” he said. ”It gives not only the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office a black eye, but all law enforcement in general.”

Brown left his post at the county in January 2001, and incoming Sheriff Les Stiles, who had heard records had been shredded and hard drives erased, asked the state attorney general to investigate.

Oregon Attorney General’s Office spokesman Kevin Neely said his department called in FBI agents because it appeared some financial impropriety had occurred.

The state agreed that a single settlement was the best way to deal with the case, Neely said, even though it meant no subsequent charges will be filed in connection with destruction of public records, a misdemeanor.

”We determined that would be the optimal resolution and would certainly hold Mr. Brown responsible for the most egregious of the crimes of which he had been accused,” he said.

The county’s previous auditor said he told officials he was uneasy about the lack of oversight for accounts at the sheriff’s office and put those concerns in writing in December 2000.

Deschutes County commissioners did not launch any criminal inquiry, however, because there was no indication that anything improper had occurred, Deschutes County Treasurer Marty Wynne said in an earlier interview.

Brown was elected sheriff in 1996. Soon after, he began diverting checks payable to the sheriff’s office and the Deschutes County Treasurer and put them instead into a Deschutes County Sheriff Reserves Account.

The checks came from an asset seizure account, the city of Sisters for patrols, the city of Bend for inmate work crew labor, the state and Crook County for lodging inmates in the Deschutes County Jail and other sources.

”We are saddened by this case for reasons that go beyond the money and aggravation of the past 22 months,” Stiles said at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon. ”The trust of good and dedicated public servants has been violated, family members will be devastated. Most importantly, the faith, confidence and trust of the public invested in an elected official has been betrayed.”

The bulk of the embezzlement of county funds – $150,583 – occurred during the final six months of Brown’s term, a time when he was campaigning unsuccessfully to keep his job.

He paid $108,353 to Triad Advertising Inc. of Bend, which managed his campaign, and also used stolen money to help pay for postage and signs.

Ironically, he also was named the state sheriff of the year in December 2000 at the annual conference of the Oregon State Sheriff’s Association. The association cited his work helping to lobby legislators on law enforcement-related causes.

For almost two decades, Brown was a member of the Sisters-Camp Sherman fire district board of directors and from 1995 to 2001 he handled the majority of the financial affairs for the district.

In that capacity, he diverted payments to four district bank accounts and also wrote checks from those accounts for his personal benefit.

To conceal the embezzlement, Brown wrote checks to entities that might not appear suspicious and entered false identities in the district’s vendor list.

In addition, he admitted destroying some checks after he cashed them and substituting them with fakes. For instance, on April 30, 1997, he generated a check for $3,000 for his personal account at MBNA America Bank in Delaware. But when the fire district received its copy of the check, he changed the payee to ”Deschutes County 9-1-1” before putting the check in the fire district archives.

”I used the same above method to change numerous checks to conceal the true payee for funds I embezzled for my personal use and benefit out of the fire district bank account,” according to the statement of facts Brown signed.

In October 2001, Brown resigned his fire district post. At the time, the district board gave Chief Don Rowe permission to close bank accounts, change account passwords and reconstruct financial records. At a 6:30 a.m. meeting Wednesday, board members reacted with surprise to the amount stolen by Brown – while also maintaining that Brown had done good things for the district over his tenure on the board.

Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire Chief Don Rowe, and Brown’s friend for 30 years, said the news was shocking.

”We did not want to believe it, but as the year wore on, we started to,” Rowe said. ”It’s a relief to see that there will be some closure now.”

James Sinks can be

reached at 503-566-2839 or

at jamess@cyberis.net