{"id":120898,"date":"2014-04-17T23:13:21","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T05:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sheriff-candidate-faced-charges-in-california\/"},"modified":"2014-04-17T23:13:21","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T05:13:21","slug":"sheriff-candidate-faced-charges-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sheriff-candidate-faced-charges-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff candidate faced charges in California"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Steele\"
Steele<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Montezuma County sheriff\u2019s race heated up recently when Mike Steele announced he was throwing his hat into the ring.<\/p>\n

Steele made his intentions known via an April 8 email to The Cortez Journal, stating it would be an honor to serve Montezuma County as the next sheriff. He indicated he had more than two decades of law enforcement experience, having served in operational, leadership and training levels in patrol, jail, investigations, homicide, narcotics, tactical and street gang divisions.<\/p>\n

In the email, Steele failed to mention he had faced criminal charges in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Steele worked at a bail bond agency, and the charges involved business practices that were conducted in an unlawful manner,\u201d San Bernardino Deputy District Attorney William Lee told the Journal.<\/p>\n

A quick check by The Cortez Journal initially uncovered that Steele was charged, along with 19 others, by the San Bernardino County District Attorney\u2019s Office in connection to a bail-bond kickback scheme. According to media reports published in 2004, the scheme, which involved bail agents paying inmates for referrals while they were in jail, was disclosed after a two-year investigation.<\/p>\n

According to California Superior Court records, Steele was initially charged with a single felony count of unlawful solicitation of bail and two felony counts of conspiracy in connection to the case. The felony count of unlawful solicitation was reduced to a misdemeanor charge as the result of a plea deal, both counts of conspiracy were dismissed, and Steele was fined $3,000, court records reveal. Seven others were convicted in the case.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing to hide\u2019<\/p>\n

During an hourlong interview with the Cortez Journal earlier this week, Steele said he was never arrested, booked or fingerprinted in connection to the charges. He argued that he got \u201cwrapped up in the case\u201d because of a friend\u2019s betrayal, a co-defendant convicted in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was somebody else\u2019s problem that I got dragged into,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a skeleton in my closet,\u201d he added. \u201cSkeletons are things you try to hide. This is not a secret. I have nothing to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steele explained that he agreed to work under contract for his friend\u2019s California bail bond company starting in Feb. 2002. He said he had no idea the company was under investigation when he accepted employment with the same company in 2004, six weeks prior to search warrants being issued in the case. A cease and desist order was placed on the bail bond company, and Steele said he immediately terminated his association with the company the same day warrants were issued. Steele said he then agreed to work under contract for a separate insurance company responsible for the company\u2019s outstanding liabilities.<\/p>\n

Steele said a three-way phone call conversation, in which an attorney alleged Steele accepted money for referring a client, tied him to the case. According to Steele, the attorney later recanted, stating he\u2019d never met Steele.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last piece of any physical evidence of wrongdoing was dated 10 months prior to my employment with the bail bond company,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n

Steele said he had every intention of proving his innocence by a jury of his peers until his own attorney demanded an additional $75,000. Steele said he had previously paid his lawyer a total of $65,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cI entered the plea deal, but I didn\u2019t want to do it,\u201d Steele said. \u201cI simply couldn\u2019t afford the attorney fees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steele said prosecutors had dropped the charges twice before refiling the charges a third time based on a new law \u201cfabricated\u201d by California insurance authorities to avoid civil litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very humiliating part of my life,\u201d he concluded, \u201cbut at no time during this mess did I ever feel that I did anything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Write-in campaign<\/p>\n

Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder Carol Tullis said Steele had filed an affidavit of intent to campaign as a write-in candidate in the Nov. 4 general election. An unaffiliated candidate, Steele\u2019s name will not appear on the June 24 Republican primary ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cA write-in campaign is certainly not the easiest or preferred method, but it allows the people of Montezuma County a real choice in selecting a candidate for sheriff whose allegiance is not subject to political whim or avarice,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n

According to Steele, \u201cpowerful members\u201d of the community approached and encouraged him to seek the sheriff\u2019s seat, but he initially declined the offer. Because of their persistence and his own research, Steele eventually agreed, despite revelations about his past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still going to run,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n

Steele\u2019s credentials<\/p>\n

Steele\u2019s law enforcement career included stints with the Inyo County Sheriff\u2019s Department, located between Fresno and Las Vegas and similar in size to the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, and the San Bernardino County Sheriff\u2019s Department, a much larger and more rough and tumble agency east of Los Angeles. He worked with both agencies from 1974 to 1995.<\/p>\n

In his initial campaign announcement, Steele said he also had nearly 20 years of successful private business experience, including all phases of budget, planning and profit and loss assessment. He owned and operated a national fugitive apprehension agency in Oklahoma for 10 years before moving to Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience in the business world and law enforcement would provide training and oversight that will prove invaluable in minimizing the county\u2019s exposure to frequent liability lawsuits pertaining to the sheriff department\u2019s performance and the operation of the jail,\u201d Steele wrote in his announcement.<\/p>\n

Steele said a pressing priority would be to return the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office to a \u201ccommunity-based policing model rather than the totally failed paramilitary law enforcement paradigm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under his leadership, Steele vowed advancement and supervisory positions within the department would be assigned according to a clearly stated policy encompassing continued training and adherence to well-defined procedures and protocols as opposed to cronyism and nepotism.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll future employees and candidates for promotion would be subjected to a very thorough background check and evaluation which would protect the citizens of Montezuma County from depredations such as those which have been well publicized during the past year,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n

Born in Alabama and raised in Lone Pine, Calif., the 56-year-old and his wife, Laurie, moved to Southwest Colorado in 2000. The couple resided in Montezuma County for a year before relocating to Dolores County to be closer to their business. The family relocated back to Montezuma County earlier this year, Steele said.<\/p>\n

Steele faces GOP incumbent Sheriff Dennis Spruell and GOP challenger Steve Nowlin.<\/p>\n

According to the Colorado Secretary of State, Steele filed as a sheriff\u2019s candidate on April 10.<\/p>\n

The Cortez Journal has requested Steele to respond to a sheriff\u2019s candidate questionnaire. He is expected to return the survey on Monday, April 21, at which time it will be posted in its entirety at cortezjournal.com.<\/p>\n

tbaker@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steele says he has powerful backers, has \u2018nothing to hide\u2019 about case<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,52,308,60],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-120898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-law-enforcement","tag-local-elections","tag-montezuma-county"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120898"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=120898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}