Pondera County sheriff's deputy fired after certification revocation

Seaborn Larson , Seaborn Larson | Great Falls Tribune

A Pondera County sheriff's deputy has been terminated from the force following a state council's decision to revoke his peace officer certification for a list of charges discovered by the council. The now-former deputy is seeking to overturn the revocation and running for sheriff.

Ross Drishinski's peace officer and coroner certificates were revoked on May 17 by the Montana Public Safety Officer Standards and Training Council. Pondera County Sheriff Carl Suta terminated Drishinski's employment the next day.

According to the council documents, charges that led to his revocation include sexual misconduct resulting in his Utah certifications being revoked, committing a criminal offense in Arizona, lying on his job application for the Pondera County deputy sheriff job, lying to the council about the criminal offense in Arizona and lying about an Arizona officer's report of the criminal offense.

"The Montana public expects and deserves more from their peace officers than Mr. Drishinski demonstrated through his actions when he engaged in sexual misconduct resulting in the revocation of his Utah POST certification; committed and was convicted of a crime involving unlawful sexual conduct, and when he lied on his job application in Montana," wrote POST Executive Director Perry Johnson in the revocation order.

Drishinski, however, will challenge the revocation before an administrative law judge. That hearing is set for Nov. 7.

"I made a mistake, and I paid for my mistake," Drishinski told the Tribune. "To be punished for the same mistake 13 years after it happens seems kind of odd to me."

"Given the fact that in 13 years of Montana law enforcement, with nothing against me as far as never being written up, never been in trouble, I would say that the sheriff who hired me knew what he was doing and that I was of good moral character."

THE CHARGES

The POST council in 2014 became aware that Drishinski's certifications in Utah were revoked in 2006 due to misconduct while serving as a deputy sheriff in Iron County. Montana documents state Drishinski resigned from the Iron County Sheriff's Office on July 2, 2004, after he was caught having sex with a woman with whom he was having an affair in his patrol car while on duty. This led to his certification revocation in Utah.

About three years later, Drishinski and his girlfriend were cited with public sexual indecency, a criminal offense, for having sex in their vehicle in Arizona. His girlfriend was convicted of the charge at trial, while Drishinski took a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to the charged offense and paid a reduced fine. Drishinski's final action in the matter was Aug. 8, 2007.

On Sept. 6, 2007, less than a month later, Drishinski filled out an application for Pondera County sheriff's deputy. He had previously worked as a police officer in Sidney in 1995 and Helena in 1997, before he spent time in Utah and Arizona. In his application for the Pondera County job, Drishinski did not write in the criminal offense from Arizona in response to a question about previous criminal convictions.

"Mr. Drishinski admitted, in court and under oath during a plea colloquy, that he had committed the offense of public sexual indecency — intercourse, and provided a factual basis for the plea," Johnson wrote in the council's documents. "To violate this (code of ethics), Mr. Drishinski need only have committed an offense involving unlawful sexual conduct, not convicted of that offense."

Sheriff Suta said for the 10 years Drishinski was at the Pondera County Sheriff's Office, Suta never saw any outlying problems.

"No," he said when asked if Drishinski was ever a trouble to the department. "You know, there's complaints but there's complaints on every officer; that's just the nature of the beast. He was doing well for me."

The Pondera County Sheriff's Office now has nine sworn deputies on staff enforcing the law in a county of 1,640 square miles. He said having an officer in the department with a questionable past could create issues for county prosecutors down the road.

"Having an officer that isn't legal, potentially say we have an officer who sits on a homicide," Suta said. "Defense attorneys easily have investigators that will find anything that could create benefit of the doubt, and we could lose some cases because of that."

But Drishinski is mounting a defense in the case and already has hired an attorney to represent him at the challenge hearing. If he wins, he doesn't expect to return to the Pondera County Sheriff's Office as deputy but will instead run for sheriff in 2018.

"I don't believe they can hire me back," he said. "But my intent is to run for sheriff."

THE DEFENSE

At the hearing in November, Drishinski plans to argue that the Montana code of ethics he violated shouldn't apply to his conduct as a citizen, and that Suta knew of his past issues when he was hired in 2007.

"To be hired, you have to be of good moral character," Drishinski said. "That is to be determined by the sheriff that hires you."

According to the documents, the council did not take action against Drishinski when it learned of his conduct in January 2014 because revocation in another state did not warrant revocation in Montana at the time. In December that same year, the council amended its administrative rules to make out-of-state revocations a qualifier for revocation in Montana. In April 2016, the council again was made aware of Drishinski's Utah revocation and proceedings began that eventually led to his Montana revocation last month.

Drishinski plans to argue against this charge that the amended administrative rules should not have retroactively applied to his Montana certification.

"My (Montana) certification was still good; they did not care about other states' dealings with me and their certifications in other states," Drishinski said. "So I plan to argue that as I should be grandfathered in."

Drishinski also said he previously believed the public sexual indecency charge to which he pleaded guilty was a misdemeanor, so he did not write it in to the application question inquiring if he had been convicted of a criminal offense. Against this charge, Drishinski said he will argue to the judge that this should be an internal department issue, not something that the council should be involved in.

"He (the sheriff at the time) did a background criminal history check on me," Drishinski said. "So obviously he did know about it and obviously it wasn't a big deal at the time."

Drishinski added that he revealed all his past conduct during the hiring process to the interview board, of which he said Suta was a part, although Suta was not sheriff at the time.

Suta, who provided the council information on Drishinski's misconduct issues in 2016, said he doesn't remember if he was on the board that hired Drishinski in 2007.

"I don't remember, that was a long time ago," he said. "I could very well have been but we weren't privy to the background. It was an interview board is what it was and we would read the interview. I was on the board so I very well could have been (on the hiring board)."

When asked what kind of background checks are completed during the hiring process for sheriff's office deputies, Suta said "We ran a criminal background check, looked for any past convictions and make sure there's none on there that would be illegal as far as to be for POST. Naturally a speeding ticket wouldn't count. It's a felony or any criminal charges."

But Drishinski was charged and convicted of a criminal charge.

"Yeah, and I wasn't sheriff at the time," Suta said. "There's a lot to keep track of here as sheriff. And I'll tell you what, it could be easily missed. We do have a human resources person now to help with some of it, but there's a lot of specifics to being in law enforcement, jailer or officer, in a small department. It's quite a challenge."

"I can understand completely how that could have..." Suta did not complete the sentence.

Tom Kuka, the sheriff at the time of Drishinski's hiring, is now a Pondera County Commissioner. He said Drishinski did make the department aware of the Utah revocation, and Kuka reached out to the Utah police department and the Montana POST council about the situation.

"I knew everything that went on in Utah," Kuka said. "It was nothing criminal there, and we discussed it and came to an understanding."

Because out-of-state revocations didn't warrant a Montana revocation, it wasn't an issue in Kuka's mind. Plus, Kuka said, it's hard enough drawing officers to rural departments and keeping them around.

"It looked like a great fit as well; he had family here," Kuka said. "He would be willing to stay around. That's the hardest part, is not only finding some who wants to live in these rural communities, you'd like 'em to stick around."

FEW REVOCATIONS OVERTURNED

Katrina Bolger, a paralegal and investigator for the the council, said there are currently 50 cases in which the state office is investigating Montana law enforcement officials for possible misconduct warranting revocation.

"It can be anything from ethical misconduct to crimes," she told the Tribune. "It just depends. Each case is different."

The Montana POST Council website contains a running list of misconduct by Montana police and sheriffs deputies, most recently building a 60-officer tally that began in 2013. The latest officer added to the list was caught engaging in "inappropriate sexual contact with another officer in public while in attendance at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy." The officer initially lied about the incident, then admitted to it and was given a 30-day suspension and a five-year suspension period.

Bolger said the letter of Drishinski's misconduct was first sent to the Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which forwarded the complaint to the council.

Anyone whose peace officer certification has been revoked has the opportunity to challenge the council's decision, as Drishinski will do on Nov. 7.

Bolger said in her three years as a paralegal and investigator for the POST council, she's seen just two officers overturn their revocation. In one, the judge's conclusion turned the council decision into a 15-year suspension, instead. In the other case, the council entered into an agreement with the officer to return to duty with sanctions included on his employment.

In whole, the council primarily approves the basic academy training officers attend, certify officers with advanced training and approve their credit for training hours. Although about 30 or 40 revocation cases are opened in a typical year, revoking certifications is not the majority of the work done by the council, Bolger said.

"This is just a small piece of what we do," Bolger said.

However, Bolger said the council has also received allegations against Sheriff Suta, although the council has not yet opened a case in the matter. She said the allegations were submitted to the council on May 29, after Drishinski's revocation, by a private citizen. Bolger declined to comment on the nature of the allegations before an investigation has been opened.

LOOKING AHEAD

Drishinski said he'll wait for the outcome of his challenge hearing before the administrative judge to either follow through or scrap his plans to run for sheriff.

"The plan is to wait and see what happens with the POST certification," he said. "Then I'll decide."

While Drishinski's former deputy position is now vacant, Suta is not in a hurry to fill the position. He said he will wait another 30 days or so to monitor Drishinski's case, but in the meantime the county has a handful of reserve officers to fill the position.

"We're going to go onward," Suta said. "Every decision I make, I'm making for the voters and all the people. We've got to make decisions that are best for the county and the bulk of the county."