City-Owned Computer Returned To Spokane Mayor

SPOKANE, Wash. -- A city computer seized from Mayor Jim West in a failed investigation into whether he used it in a City Hall sex scandal has been returned to him.
The computer was seized by former City Attorney Mike Connelly a day after The Spokesman-Review began a series of reports accusing West of offering jobs and other perks to young men he met in a gay Internet chat room.
It was not immediately known when the computer was returned to the mayor's office, but it was sometime prior to the City Council's vote last week to spend $15,000 to investigate whether West had violated city computer and e-mail policies, the newspaper reported Tuesday.
Assistant City Attorney Milt Rowland did not say why West's computer was returned to him or who ordered that action.
West, 54, is the subject of a recall petition drive on an accusation that he abused his office by offering a City Hall internship to someone he thought was an 18-year-old man he met online in a gay chat room. The federal Department of Justice also is conducting a separate public corruption investigation.
No charges have been filed against West, who has denied doing anything illegal.
A lawyer the council hired for the investigation said he wants an expert to examine the mayor's computer hard drive in an attempt to determine if city computer-use policies were violated.
City Council President Dennis Hession was surprised when told West's city-owned computer had been returned to him.
"I thought it was locked up in a cabinet in the city attorney's office," Hession said.
The FBI seized and copied information from the mayor's city computer after it launched a public corruption investigation, and the city has asked for a copy for its investigation.
The FBI also searched the mayor's home July 27 and confiscated three personal computers he owns.
The city's policy on computers and e-mail states that City Hall computers are for public uses only.
"Electronic data are the property of the City and may be accessed by members of the public under various state or federal laws," the city's personnel policy states. "Such data should be considered information available to the public."
The Spokesman-Review filed a public records request in early May, seeking a copy of the hard drives of any publicly owned computer used by West.
from Seattle Post-Intelligencer