Last week our local skewspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press, ran an online comment which its writer and the skewspaper’s website attributed to “Todd Tondee.”  Some of us in Kootenai County, Idaho, recognized that as the name of one of our elected Board of County Commissioners.   The comment, eventually deleted by the Press, contained language which offended some county residents.  The Press’s pseudonymous censor, “Moderator 99”, sufficiently explained that the comments had not been made by Commissioner Todd Tondee but by an impostor who had assumed his name.

That probably could and should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t.

According to an online Press article dated June 22, 2013, and headlined The real Tondee files a complaint, Commissioner Todd Tondee submitted a formal criminal complaint alleging false personation to the Coeur d’Alene Police Department.  A Coeur d’Alene Police Department sergeant has assured him the complaint would be investigated.  The article also goes on to say, “Coeur d’Alene Press Managing Editor Mike Patrick and Mike Alexander, who manages Coeur d’Alene Press online division, have discussed the issue and will fully cooperate with the investigation.”

Unfortunately, there’s more to this story.

Tondee (the real one, not the purported personator) may have a valid criminal complaint, but OpenCdA questions the wisdom of his actions and words.   He might better have first consulted with his private personal attorney to discuss his options for legal action.

Apparently after yelling “Sic ’em!” at the top of his lungs to the Coeur d’Alene Police Department,  Tondee had second thoughts.  The Saturday skewspaper article went on to say this:

Tondee told The Press Friday that he isn’t sure he wants his impersonator to end up in jail, but he does want the person to step forward. He said he would probably be satisfied if the person takes full responsibility and makes a $500 donation to a local charity.

Well, that sounds darned charitable of good ol’ Commissioner Todd Tondee, doesn’t it?  Let’s consider one reasonable inference we can draw from those lines from the Press article.

Rather than engaging an attorney out of his own pocket to determine his best course of action, County Commissioner Todd Tondee apparently wants the police to spend your tax dollars to investigate an alleged crime that he (Tondee) isn’t really sure is worth prosecuting.  Instead, once the police have identified the alleged personator at our expense, Tondee may be “satisfied” if the person owns up and makes a $500 donation to a local charity.  That implies Tondee would do what?  Drop the complaint and presumably refuse to be a witness if the person agrees to donate a few hundred bucks to a third party, a local charity?

Here’s another statute Commissioner Todd Tondee might want to consider:  Idaho Code §18-2403(1) and (2)(e)4.  It’s a lengthy statute, but taken together, the cited sections and subsections say this about extortion:

18-2403. Theft. (1) A person steals property and commits theft when, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property from an owner thereof.

(2)  Theft includes a wrongful taking, obtaining or withholding of another’s property, with the intent prescribed in subsection (1) of this section, committed in any of the following ways:  (e)  By extortion. A person obtains property by extortion when he compels or induces another person to deliver such property to himself or to a third person by means of instilling in him a fear that, if the property is not so delivered, the actor or another will: 4.  Accuse some person of a crime or cause criminal charges to be instituted against him;

OpenCdA hopes that the Coeur d’Alene Police Department Investigations Division Captain Ron Clark and Police Chief Wayne Longo look long and hard at the merits of and motives behind Tondee’s complaint.  Is Commissioner Tondee using the investigative resources and statutory authority of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department to identify an alleged offender whom he (Tondee) may then refuse to cooperate in prosecuting if the alleged offender coughs up $500 to a local charity?

The Coeur d’Alene Police Department is not Kootenai County Commissioner Todd Tondee’s private investigative agency.  Tondee does not get to be privy to the investigation and then decide what judgment might be fitting as a penalty for the alleged offender’s actions.  Tondee is a County Commissioner, not a District Court Judge.  This is not fictional Hazzard County, Georgia.  Todd Tondee is not Jefferson Davis “Boss” Hogg, and the Coeur d’Alene Police Department is not Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane.   A criminal investigation by any law enforcement agency is not to be used as a bludgeon against an alleged offender.

As for “Coeur d’Alene Press Managing Editor Mike Patrick and Mike Alexander, who manages Coeur d’Alene Press online division, have discussed the issue and will fully cooperate with the investigation?”  OpenCdA agrees that the Press should cooperate with the criminal investigation, but only if one is to be pursued and then presented to a prosecutor for a charging decision.  Neither the Press nor the Coeur d’Alene Police Department should become a party to extralegally extracting a forcible charitable donation in lieu of criminal prosecution.

Think this through, folks.