Sentence of Ex-Sheriff Fuels Anger

From doughnut shops to grocery stores, the talk of Inyo County this week is the former sheriff turned bad guy and the judge who gave him probation for seven felony convictions, including embezzlement of county funds.

“People aren’t over O.J. [Simpson],” said one man in this small Eastern Sierra community, “and now their own official has gotten off with a slap on the wrist.”

Don Dorsey, Inyo County sheriff from 1983 until his election defeat in 1990, was convicted in November of embezzlement, misappropriation of public funds and state tax violations. The local jury convicted Dorsey on eight charges, but the judge threw out a perjury count before sentencing.

The sentence: five years’ probation, community work service and a $1,600 restitution fine.

Now jurors are circulating petitions calling for a stiffer sentence, and citizens have been calling the county offices in Independence and asking why they should pay their taxes or serve on juries if justice won’t be done. The state attorney general’s office, which prosecuted the case, said it will seek appellate review of the sentence, hoping to have the case sent to a new judge for resentencing.

At the trial, Deputy Atty. Gen. Barry Carlton offered evidence that Dorsey spent money from the Sheriff’s Special Fund, an account that all California sheriffs can use for “law enforcement-related activities.” Carlton showed that about $200,000 was unaccounted for, though Dorsey’s attorney, Public Defender Frank Fowles, argued that the state code does not require specific accounting procedures.

“To my knowledge, no one has ever caught a sheriff taking this kind of money and engaging in this kind of wrongdoing,” Carlton said.

“Our position is that the sentence is totally inadequate. The $1,600 fine represents about what Don Dorsey would steal in a good week,” Carlton said. “I find it curious that this sentence was not as stiff as that for a first-time drunk driver.”

Retired Los Angeles County Judge Robert Olson handled the case on assignment. There are only two judges in Inyo County and, in the county of about 20,000 residents, both judges knew Dorsey. At the sentencing hearing, Olson said, “In the interest of justice, the public will be best served by giving Mr. Dorsey probation.”

Olson had earlier ruled to exclude evidence detailing trips by Dorsey to casinos and withdrawals of cash from the special fund. “Our evidence showed a continuing pattern of Dorsey going to casinos. It was not consistent with his official income as sheriff,” Carlton said.

Juror Joy Niewald of Bishop called the sentence a farce. “They took seven weeks of my life and wasted it. I feel a great deal of anger.” She is helping circulate a petition calling for a tougher sentence.

“The community is absolutely livid,” Niewald said. “I have been stopped in parking lots, motioned to pull over. Several have told me if they get jury summonses, they will write on it, ‘I won’t go because all you do is let crooks go.’ ”

Lone Pine doughnut shop owner Tom Miller is among the angry residents. “This is the worst failure of justice I have seen my 50 years here,” said Miller, who added that most of his patrons agree. “What faith they had in the system is gone.”

Inyo County Dist. Atty. Buck Gibbons and his deputies issued a statement that “many hard-working, taxpaying citizens of this county must wonder about the evenhandedness of the criminal justice system. Moreover, every current Inyo County jail inmate (and no doubt future inmates for months to come) will have questions about the fundamental fairness of the system.”

After his defeat in Inyo County, Dorsey moved to Crescent City to become undersheriff of Del Norte County. He still lives there and receives a disability pension.

“I was shocked when I heard the sentence,” said Del Norte County Dist. Atty. Bill Cornell. “It sends a terrible message not to punish people in public office when they commit crimes.”