The embattled chief counsel of the Oregon Department of Justice's Criminal Justice Division is being demoted, Attorney General John Kroger announced Friday.
Sean Riddell is resigning his management position and going on leave until August, Kroger said in a prepared statement.
When Riddell returns, he will come back as an assistant attorney general with a new assignment.
Riddell currently faces an ethics complaint before the Oregon State Bar in his handling of a criminal investigation regarding contracting practices at the Oregon Department of Energy.
Four employees faced accusations that they had improperly steered a $60,000 contract to a firm owned by Cylvia Hayes, Gov. John Kitzhaber's companion. The employees, suspended as a result of the investigation, were cleared of wrongdoing earlier this month and reinstated to their jobs.
Riddell has been accused of lying to witnesses during the investigation in an attempt to coerce or intimidate them.
Kroger's statement did not mention the Department of Energy investigation directly, referring only to "mistakes in a small number of high-profile cases."
Instead, Kroger tied Riddell's demotion to an apparent clerical error.
"This week I learned that in addition to these errors, Chief Counsel Riddell had deleted a large number of government emails under the mistaken belief that they had been backed up on computer tape," Kroger wrote.
"Although we were able to recover many of the deleted emails, an unknown number have been lost permanently. The Department of Justice must scrupulously uphold its obligation to preserve government records."
Assistant Attorney General Darin Tweedt will serve as Interim Chief Counsel, Kroger said.
The Justice Department launched its criminal probe in August but never filed charges and shut down its investigation late last year.
One of the employees suspended in the investigation was Mark Long, the former interim director of the Department of Energy. One of Long's attorneys responded to Friday's announcement.
"I would say that it is a good decision to remove Mr. Riddell," said Eugene lawyer Sharon Rudnick. "He's been wielding the state's prosecutorial powers in his position, and he's hurt a lot of people, including Mark. It's good that it's going to stop."
The ethics complaint against Riddell has not progressed far with the Oregon State Bar.
"It has not moved past the initial screening investigation," Bar spokeswoman Kateri Walsh said Friday.
Deputy Attorney General Mary Williams announced Riddell's demotion to staff in an email shortly before 3 p.m. Friday, about 10 minutes before Kroger released his statement.
"You may hear different things about why this change is occurring," Williams said. "I ask that you respect the fact that we often will not discuss why changes happen for a variety of reasons. But I will tell you that the Attorney General and I have the greatest respect for Sean."
Kroger also praised Riddell as a dedicated public servant and a veteran who, as a Marine, served two tours of duty in Iraq.
dmthomps@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6719 or on Twitter @DMThompsonJr
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