Former King County Elections superintendent arrested
SEATTLE -- Former King County Elections Superintendent Julie Ann Kempf has been arrested for investigation of forgery, theft, criminal impersonation and assault.
Kempf, 40, who was fired in 2002 for what officials called a "pattern of dishonesty," was booked into the King County Jail just after 5 p.m. Tuesday and released less than an hour later, jail records show. The arrest was first reported in the Seattle Weekly on Wednesday.
Sgt. John Urquhart, a King County sheriff's spokesman, did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment Wednesday, and Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the county prosecutor's office, said the investigation was being handled by the state Attorney General's Office.
Janelle Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, confirmed the case had been referred there, but said she could not comment further.
The Weekly, citing confidential sources, reported that Kempf allegedly sent current King County Elections Director Dean Logan an e-mail pretending to be someone else; inserted false documents into a file of public records while she was reviewing them, constituting forgery; stopped payment on a check that she had used to pay for the documents and, during an investigative interview attempt last week, tried to hit a sheriff's detective with her car.
"When we tried to interview her on July 11, she was in a car at her residence," Urquhart told the Weekly, though he refused to identify the defendant by name. "The detective had his ID out, showed his badge, and she drove off. He had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit by the vehicle. We have no doubt she saw him."
Kempf, who has no published phone number and could not be reached for comment Wednesday, was fired as King County's superintendent of elections in 2002. County officials determined she lied about why absentee ballots were mailed late for the November 2002 election, and was accused of backdating documents and delaying the public release of completed ballot counts, temporarily omitting 1,500 votes in one election.
She blamed the problems on faulty computers and imperfect vote-counting procedures - contentions that were partly supported by Secretary of State Sam Reed during a 2003 review. Kempf initially challenged her dismissal, but then dropped it.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA Elections Arrest
SEATTLE -- Former King County Elections Superintendent Julie Ann Kempf has been arrested for investigation of forgery, theft, criminal impersonation and assault.
Kempf, 40, who was fired in 2002 for what officials called a "pattern of dishonesty," was booked into the King County Jail just after 5 p.m. Tuesday and released less than an hour later, jail records show. The arrest was first reported in the Seattle Weekly on Wednesday.
Sgt. John Urquhart, a King County sheriff's spokesman, did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment Wednesday, and Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the county prosecutor's office, said the investigation was being handled by the state Attorney General's Office.
Janelle Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, confirmed the case had been referred there, but said she could not comment further.
The Weekly, citing confidential sources, reported that Kempf allegedly sent current King County Elections Director Dean Logan an e-mail pretending to be someone else; inserted false documents into a file of public records while she was reviewing them, constituting forgery; stopped payment on a check that she had used to pay for the documents and, during an investigative interview attempt last week, tried to hit a sheriff's detective with her car.
"When we tried to interview her on July 11, she was in a car at her residence," Urquhart told the Weekly, though he refused to identify the defendant by name. "The detective had his ID out, showed his badge, and she drove off. He had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit by the vehicle. We have no doubt she saw him."
Kempf, who has no published phone number and could not be reached for comment Wednesday, was fired as King County's superintendent of elections in 2002. County officials determined she lied about why absentee ballots were mailed late for the November 2002 election, and was accused of backdating documents and delaying the public release of completed ballot counts, temporarily omitting 1,500 votes in one election.
She blamed the problems on faulty computers and imperfect vote-counting procedures - contentions that were partly supported by Secretary of State Sam Reed during a 2003 review. Kempf initially challenged her dismissal, but then dropped it.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA Elections Arrest
