Lewis County Sirens.com

Updated at 11:25 a.m.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Police have asked prosecutors to charge a 43-year-old Chehalis man with multiple counts of forgery and theft in connection with W.F. West High School’s senior class fund.

Detectives have been investigating a complaint from students’ parents the account had less money in it than they thought there ought to be, according to the Chehalis Police Department.

The fund comes from a tradition of parents collectively starting fundraising during their children’s freshman year to pay for graduation-related activities. The school is not involved in the account.

Detective Sgt. Gary Wilson this morning issued a news release stating police discovered the husband of a woman in charge of the money signed 14 checks from the account totaling $8,200. The wife replaced the money back into the account after she learned of the losses, according to Wilson.

An independent audit will be conducted, according to Wilson.

Wilson states that Robert N. Downs Jr., a Chehalis resident, wrote checks from the account between last June and September in amounts ranging from $275 to $950. He wrote them out to himself and signed his wife’s name, WIlson said.

Police are asking the Lewis County Prosecutors Office to consider 14 counts of forgery and 14 counts of theft, according to Wilson.

Tonya Burk, a Chehalis woman whose son is a senior, said parents were surprised a few months ago to learn there was less than $8,000 saved up, when they thought it would be closer to $16,000.

Burk said she conducted an audit which she turned over to police. She said the account wasn’t set up with a requirement of having two signers for withdrawals, which she called a mistake.

Parents began more aggressively fundraising in January, and now have more than $14,000, according to Burk.

Police said their investigation began Jan. 22. The account was closed and a new account opened, according to Wilson.

•••

For background read “High school senior class fund in Chehalis under scrutiny” from Tuesday March 19, 2013 at 9:45 p.m., here

Updated at 3:31 p.m.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

One shot was fired when a masked man was discovered inside Salewsky’s Jewelry shop in downtown Centralia this morning.

Police are looking for two cars that fled the scene heading north.

Officers called about 7 a.m. don’t know if the intruder was injured, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Police say a relative of the owner was asleep upstairs and confronted a subject who was attempting to steal jewelry from a showcase, ordering the intruder to stop and firing one round.

The intruder escaped by crawling through an opening cut into the wall from an empty neighboring business, according to police.

Two males were seen running from the area, both wearing ski-type masks, according to police.

Salewsky’s is on the 200 block of North Tower Avenue.

It’s not known yet if anything was actually taken from the business, according to Sgt. Stacy Denham. Detectives are at the scene this morning, he said. Inventory is being taken, but it seems as though the burglars had just begun, and dropped some or much of the loot, according to police.

It occurred about 6:30 a.m. The man who lives upstairs and awoke to noises called the owner first, who responded to the shop and then police were notified, according to Denham.

The two males ran to a parking lot east of the store about a block away and got into two cars, each of which had a female driver waiting, according to police.

A passerby smoking a cigarette as he waited for a ride thought it was odd because both were wearing ski masks, according to police.

The cars are described as: possibly a red newer model Mercedes CLK with no front license plate but a rear plate in which some of the figures were something like AK77, according to police.

The other vehicle was possibly a silver newer Toyota Scion FRS, two-door coupe – or a Subaru BRZ – with no license plates visible. Both cars had tinted windows, according to the witness.

Police are asking anyone who sees the vehicles to call 911 and report their location.

Denham said the burglars got into Salewsky’s by somehow entering a vacant adjacent business to the north and breaking through the wall that separates the two businesses. A hole cut in the sheetrock  with unknown tools was just large enough for a small person to crawl through, he said.

The intruder who was confronted was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt and a dark stocking mask, police said. Police don’t know if the bullet hit him.

The relative who fired the gun was not injured, according to police.

One of the subjects whose face was exposed to the passerby was described by police as a white male who appeared to be 20 to 30 years old.

•

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Chehalis police are investigating the possible theft of money from an account meant to cover expenses for the W.F. West High School class of 2013’s all-night party after commencement.

Tonya Burk, a Chehalis woman whose son is a senior, said some of the other parents recently asked her to audit the group’s records.

Burk said parents were surprised a few months ago to learn there was less than $8,000 saved up, when they thought it would be closer to $16,000.

A big red flag was raised when Security State Bank closed the account and contacted one of the parents in January, she said. Police were contacted shortly after that, she said.

Chehalis Police Department detective Sgt. Gary Wilson declined to offer much detail: “It’s an ongoing investigation,” Wilson said this morning.

Chehalis School District Superintendent Ed Rothlin said the school is not involved in the finances; it’s a privately held account that comes from a tradition of parents who collectively begin fundraising during their children’s freshman year to pay for graduation-related activities.

Burk said the efforts for her son’s class began when he was in eighth grade. Some parents paid “dues” each year, and they also held car washes and spaghetti feeds, conducted flower sales, put on haunted houses and did fireworks sales, she said.

She admitted it was somewhat of a loose-knit group, until recently. Since January, parents have pulled together and raised $7,000, she said.

“We don’t have enough totally, but we’re coming close, which is phenomenal,” Burk said.

The money this year is expected to pay for a mother-father barbecue, the baccalaureate gathering and the senior trip.

There are almost 270 seniors this year, according to Burk.

After graduation on June 8, the plan is to put them on charter busses and take them to a place called Bullwinkle’s near Portland, a venue with indoor laser tag, bowling, music and an arcade, she said.

Then they’ll travel to a trampoline park and return in the morning to a breakfast at the school, according to Burk.

“This is supposed to be a fun, safe trip where they can act like kids one last time,” she said.

Burk said the account wasn’t set up with a requirement of having two signers for withdrawals, which she called a mistake.

A one-time local volunteer of the year will be trying to work with school officials to find ways to pass along guidelines to the parents of future graduating classes, in hopes of preventing reoccurrences, she said.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

An elderly driver accidentally rammed a building three times yesterday before the front end of his Cadillac broke through an exterior wall scattering shoppers at the VF Factory Outlet in Centralia.

Nobody was injured, even though it was a fairly busy day, according to Centralia Police Department Sgt. Carl Buster.

The Longview man, 90, and his wife were still sitting in the vehicle when police arrived, with the nose of the sedan inside the store, according to police.

“It was fortunate, not a single person got hurt,” Buster said.

Police were called about 2:15 p.m. to the 100 block of High Street, just east of Interstate 5.

The couple had finished shopping and were exiting a parking spot in front of the store, Buster said.

Witnesses outside told police the car backed up, struck a vehicle behind it, shoving it into a second vehicle and then the man put his car in drive and went forward, jumping over the curb and hitting the building, according to Buster.

Witnesses said the engine was revved up really high, Buster said.

“One witness said the guy backed up four or five feet and then hits the building a second time,” Buster said. “He backs up for a third time, and this time he goes through the wall like two feet into the store.”

People inside the store were crying, saying they had no idea what was happening, Buster said.

Sarah Cain said it seemed as though an angry customer had decided to ram the building on purpose, and she watched as items tumbled off a nearby shelf.

It sounded like a bomb going off, Cain said. She estimated there were about 50 customers inside.

“By the third time, people were running out of the building screaming,” she said.

The damage to the Cadillac was surprisingly minimal, but it left a hole in the stucco wall about the size of the hood of a car, Buster said.

The car was towed though, because it lost some fluids, he said.

Officers decided not to ticket the man because it was on private property and there was no criminality involved.

“He said, ‘That car is so quiet and sound proof; I couldn’t hear the engine revving’,” Buster said. “He thought he was pushing the brake.”

 

Updated

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Deborah Sue Knapp said very little today when she admitted stealing thousands of dollars from the Lewis County Historical Museum while she worked as its executive director.

Today’s hearing in a Chehalis courtroom was brief.

Knapp, 53, pleaded guilty pursuant to a deal in which she will pay restitution in exchange for a recommendation to the judge she serve 12 months in jail, which she could do on work release if she’s able to find a job.

What her actual sentence will be, will be up to a judge when Knapp returns to Lewis County Superior Court on the afternoon of May 3.

How much she stole and the amount she could be ordered to repay has not yet been agreed upon by attorneys on the two sides.

Knapp was arrested at the end of 2011 after revelations the non-profit’s endowment fund of more than $460,000 was gone and its other accounts were in the red by about $14,000

The four officers on the 13-member museum board were replaced and the new board president said at the time the books hadn’t been in balance since 2008. Knapp was hired as the director in July 2006.

Knapp’s lawyer said it’s hard to assess exactly how much his client is responsible for, but that it is much less than originally alleged.

“She did not steal all of it, or even most of it,” Chehalis attorney Ken Johnson said.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead said he believes he could prove it was at least $137,000.

Part of the plea agreement required that Knapp pay $20,000 of the restitution by today, and that was done. The money was a loan from extended family of Knapp’s and was deposited with the county clerk’s office, Johnson said.

Johnson said his client moved to Clark County shortly after the case was filed. She and her husband are living in a mobile home and scraping by, he said.

The hope is she can find employment before her sentencing date, so she can serve her time with the Clark County Jail on work release, according to Johnson.

“She’s doing the best she can, she’s also had health problems,” he said.

Halstead said this is one of those cases in which the defendant needs to go to jail, but his office also wants to help the museum.

“If she goes to prison for a year or two, she’s not going to be making restitution payments,” Halstead said. “And after she got out, she would be paying back $25 a month.”

Prosecutors allege Knapp basically doubled her salary for a period of time, obtaining “draws” that weren’t subsequently accounted for, writing her own payroll draw checks without anyone else’s knowledge and many times listing them in the check register as voided.

Her salary was $43,000 per year. Her responsibilities included overseeing the day-to-day operations of the museum in downtown Chehalis and supervising three part time employees and the volunteers.

She used the museum’s debit card to pay personal expenses, including her power bill on Fineview Road for at least two years, according to prosecutors.

Among the odd debit card purchases were items for her daughter’s wedding and flowers for former prosecutor Michael Golden’s campaign, according to Halstead.

“It’s heart breaking, the breach of trust,” said Julie Zander, a museum board member for one year after the scandal came to light.

Zander, former museum board member Edna Fund and its new board president Peter Lahmann were among almost a dozen spectators who sat behind the prosecutor in the Chehalis courtroom this afternoon.

In the benches on the defense side, were just a small handful of women.

The modified charges state that Knapp wrongfully obtained more than $5,000 in each of four years, ending with 2011.

Judge Nelson Hunt read aloud Knapp’s brief statement admitting to four counts of first-degree theft and asked for her plea on each count.

Four times, Knapp simply answered “guilty”.

Although authorities had said they would continue delving into financial records going back to when Knapp was hired, that wasn’t done, leaving any misappropriations during 2006 and 2007 unknown, according to Halstead.

Lahmann, the apprenticeship coordinator for the Laborers Union, took time off work to be in court. He started in the position of museum board president in January.

“What can I say, it is what it is,” Lahmann said. “There’s no joy here, it’s just the legal system in action.

“Hopefully we can get the museum back on track. We have a good board, good volunteers, a good director. It’s a small organization.”

The museum, which resides in a former rail station on Northwest Front Way, remains open, although it did close its doors for a period in late 2011.

Lahmann said he thinks there are 10 or 12 individuals on the board now, but they are in the midst of rewriting the bylaws.

Marie Panesko, whose husband John Panesko sat as board president during the year following Knapp’s arrest, pointed out the current museum board has both new and old members.

“So there’s continuity, but a lot of new blood,” she said. “That’s important for the community to know.”

While prosecutors initially charged Knapp with 10 counts of first-degree theft and amended down the charges to four counts, the dollar loss they attribute to the former museum chief hasn’t changed.

Halstead still indicates roughly $45,000 in theft through her paychecks and $92,000 from personal use of the organization’s debit card.

His approximations of where the endowment fund went are $137,000 from Knapp’s theft, $150,000 spent to benefit the museum and $100,000 in losses to the account from a downturn in the market and penalties assessed for early withdrawals. The rest is unaccounted for, he said.

The endowment was a fund meant to be left untouched, so it could generate interest which could be spent. In January 2008, it contained $460,516. By Oct. 15, 2010, it had a zero balance.

Defense attorney Johnson said he pored through the records and could only find one withdrawal from the endowment that was properly board-authorized; it was a paving project, he said.

Johnson noted that sometimes with large thefts of money, one sees spending on big trips, new cars and such.

“That’s not what we have here,” he said, indicating Knapp wasn’t all that good with her own finances.

The two attorneys hope to come to a consensus about the amount Knapp should repay the museum by her sentencing date. If they don’t, and it goes to a hearing, the judge has the option of tripling whatever amount is determined, according to Halstead.

What’s problematic, is figuring out the debit card expenditures, according to Johnson, since there were multiple people with access to the museum debit cards.

“It’s hard to believe an organization like this would use debit cards,” he said. “How do you keep track of how much you’re spending?”

Johnson called the museum obviously poorly run and negligent in not following its own rules.

The bylaws said a committee should be organized to manage the endowment, he said. They had no committee, he said. It was supposed to take the authorization of two board members to withdraw funds from it, he said.

Johnson said his client took a certain amount of money that didn’t belong to her, and that’s what the criminal case is about, but the broader lesson is they were all operating with someone else’s money.

“They have a fiduciary responsibility to manage that money,” he said.

They didn’t have a budget, according to Johnson.

“Here’s an organization that had a paid bookkeeper and a paid (board) treasurer,” he said. “And they couldn’t seem to keep track of it.”

Johnson’s assessment is much of the endowment was used to make ends meet for the museum, which was living beyond its means.

Newly elected Lewis County Commissioner Fund is one person who was a museum board member from shortly after Knapp was hired and until this past December.

How the board was in the dark about museum finances is easier to see now, according to Fund.

The board treasurer did give reports to the board, Fund said.

“This is one of the curiosities, and I hate to dredge this up,” she said. “But the treasurer is like 80 or 78 years old.

“She would say, ‘what’s the balance Debbie? And (Debbie) would give it to her.”

Board approval was required for withdrawals from the endowment, but the requests were not made, according to Fund.

“Debbie controlled the information that went to the (board) treasurer, who was also the (museum) bookkeeper,” Fund said. “In hindsight, it was probably not a good idea to have that be the same person.”

Board meetings were held quarterly, and sometimes cancelled by the board officers, she said.

“When this all started, I thought, lessons learned,” Fund said.

Among those lessons, according to Fund, is she should have resigned from the board when she wasn’t able to be an active participant.

Fund said she and board member Dennis Dawes, began to get suspicious, and tried to get the board to agree to obtain the bank records, an idea the majority of the board rejected in October 2011.

Another lesson, according to Fund.

“Do not allow your friendships to affect checks and balances,” she said. “This is probably one of the biggest travesties to many of us; Debbie was our friend.”

Nobody but Knapp has been implicated in the losses, criminally, according to Halstead.

“I haven’t been presented with anything that would indicate anyone else was involved with the missing money, or the taking of funds,” Halstead said.
•••

For background, read:

• “Prosecutor: Former museum director gave herself thousands of dollars in fraudulent payroll draws” from Friday December 30, 2011, here

• “Police asked to investigate finances of Lewis County Historical Museum” from Wednesday November 16  2011, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – It was an anonymous cell phone video of a baby supposedly taking a bong hit that drew police to a Centralia home where they arrested the parents on Friday.

Authorities say a number of people can be heard in the background laughing as the toddler approaches the marijuana smoking device which the mother is holding, and when his mouth gets close to its top, the little one rears back and coughs.

“At this point, the other people in the room begin laughing louder and the child looks at the camera taken aback, and the video ends,” prosecutors write in court documents.

The mother Rachelle L. Braaten, 24, went before a Lewis County Superior Court judge in Chehalis today where prosecutors asked for her to be held for up to 72 hours while they make a charging decision.

Her fiance has been released from the jail and isn’t expected to be charged anytime soon.

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke told the judge there is probable cause for the offense of delivery of a controlled substance by a person over 18 to a person under 18

Braaten, handcuffed and shackled at the waist, was represented by defense attorney Bob Schroeter this afternoon.

He pointed out how interesting it is that the home owner who was accused of a 40-plant marijuana grow is released yet his client is sitting in court.

One hand-held video, Schroeter said.

“Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it so,” Schroeter said.

Braaten is being held in lieu of $20,000 bail. She has no criminal history.

O’Rourke said he expects to decide about charges tomorrow and bring her back into court.

Centralia police on Friday evening announced they’d served a search warrant  and confiscated 40 marijuana plants and firearms from the house on the 1400 block of Delaware Avenue in north Centralia.

Braaten and her boy’s father Tyler J. Lee, 25, were arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail for manufacture of marijuana. Braaten was additionally booked for delivery of a controlled substance to a minor. Lee was additionally booked for three counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.

On Friday night, a police spokesperson said while there, officers were informed Braaten had been allowing the little one to literally inhale marijuana out of a bong.

However, O’Rourke’s court documents describe the anonymous video received earlier this month by a Centralia police officer as the primary reason for law enforcement’s visit to the home.

According to the documents, the call by officers upon the couple was cordial. Police obtained written consent to look around and were invited in, O’Rourke writes.

The two brothers, one 5 years old and the other, who turned 2 in early January, were taken into the custody of Child Protective Services.

In subsequent interviews, Braaten allegedly admitted it was her in the video and that she and a number of other people were passing around a bong.

She said it happened four or five months ago.

Braaten said she knew she shouldn’t be giving her son a hit off the bong, but the others “peer pressured” her into doing it, according to the documents.

There may very well be no charges of growing marijuana for either of the parents, according to O’Rourke.

It turns out there is evidence Lee is validly prescribed medical marijuana and there is a second person he is validly providing it for, O’Rourke said this afternoon.

The declaration of probable cause describes “approximately” 40 plants. O’Rourke said it’s a close call and he needs to see pictures, as it seems 30 plants for two individuals would be acceptable.

He noted he didn’t see charging Lee with manufacture of marijuana in the foreseeable future.

“It’s just not something I’m comfortable charging today,”O’Rourke said.

Lee won’t be charged with unlawful possession of a firearm either, according to O’Rourke. There were three or four guns in the house, he said.

He does not have a felony background preventing him from owning guns, although he does have a pending municipal court case for fourth-degree assault domestic violence in which a judge ordered him not to possess them, O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke told Judge James Lawler he expects to bring Braaten back to court at 4 p.m. tomorrow.
•••

For background, read “Police: Marijuana smoking toddler taken from Centralia parents” from Friday March 8, 2013, here

Kirotv.com posted raw video from the Centralia Police Department, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The mother of Koralynn Fister was informed yesterday she would be charged with a crime, following the court hearing for her former live-in boyfriend that led to his lengthy prison term in the death of the toddler.

James M. Reeder, 26, went before a Lewis County Superior Court judge yesterday morning where he was given a sentence of at least 37 and a half years and up to life for the rape, assault  and death of 2-year-old Koralynn last May at her Centralia home.

Becky Heupel was warned Reeder was an abuser and chose to put her relationship with him first, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said.

Meyer said Heupel wasn’t arrested, but informed she would be summonsed by mail to court to face a charge of second-degree criminal mistreatment. It’s a class C felony.

He, two of his deputy prosecutors and a law enforcement officer met with her after the 10:30 a.m. hearing, he said.

Meyer said the decision to charge Huepel wasn’t made until after Reeder pleaded guilty to the crimes in January.

Prosecutors wanted to make sure she was available as a witness in Reeder’s case, he said. Had she been charged and then called to testify against him, she could have invoked her fifth amendment right not to make statements that might incriminate her, according to Meyer.

The prosecutor said he also understands she is a grieving mother, and wanted to wait until she had a chance to make any statements yesterday at Reeder’s sentencing.

Prosecutors said yesterday Reeder moved into the household about 10 weeks before the child’s death, that the couple had not been together very long.

Meyer said she wasn’t warned Reeder was specifically a child abuser, but that they came to their conclusions after looking at all the evidence and talking with people.

“We believe she knew of the risk and chose to ignore it,” Meyer said this morning. “And obviously her inaction had tragic consequences.”

At the time of Koralynn’s highly publicized death, the state Department of Social and Health Services Children’s Administration issued a statement saying they had no record of history involving the child, nor any previous allegations of abuse or neglect against the mother, Heupel or her boyfriend.

However, Heupel’s 4-year-old daughter was taken out of the home as a protective measure, police said at the time.

Meyer said he doesn’t believe the Heupel has gotten the child back.

Koralynn’s father, David Fister, has described Heupel as always a loving mom, who would jump through hoops to do anything for her girls and never laid a finger on them.

•••
For background, read “Centralia man gets maximum prison term for sexual abuse, death of toddler” from Wednesday March 6, 2013 at 12:10 p.m., here

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Kirotv.com posted raw video of a jail interview with James Reeder. Watch it here