SEATTLE – King County prosecutors announced they will not seek charges against former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, former Police Chief Carmen Best and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins for allegedly deleting text messages during the 2020 racial justice protests.
In a memorandum obtained by FOX 13 News, King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion wrote “there is no legal basis to file criminal charges in this case.”
Texts from nine city officials, including the mayor, fire chief and police chief, were not retained from periods overlapping with June 2020, when police used tear gas and abandoned their East Precinct, and when the first of two fatal shootings occurred in a zone on Capitol Hill temporarily ceded to protesters.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Handling of Mayor Durkan’s missing texts brings $5M claims against Seattle
The office of then-Mayor Jenny Durkan knew by Aug. 2020 that her texts were missing and the city attorney’s office hired Crypsis in Nov. 2020. But the information didn’t become public until May 2021, when the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission issued a whistleblower investigation report.
On July 28, 2022, the King County Prosecuting Attorney formally requested the sheriff’s office initiate an investigation into the missing texts, for the possibility of officials destroying public records.
According to the sheriff’s office findings:
“There was no single factor that led to the destruction of text messages belonging to the high-level city officials during this four-month period; rather, it was a perfect storm of training deliquincies, outdated and conflicting policies and procedures, and insufficient safeguards to prevent the loss of records that primarily contributed to the destruction of these text messages.”
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: OPA report released on whether former SPD chief violated policies during CHOP
Durkan’s phone was replaced in 2020, and at some point during the replacement to a new phone, the “Keep Messages: Forever” setting was reportedly changed “Keep Messages: 30 days.” Investigators do not know who changed this setting or why—and the change resulted in the loss of text messages from Oct. 2019–June 2020. Between June 22–26, the setting was changed back to “Keep Messages: Forever,” and when Durkan’s old phone was factory reset by a City of Seattle IT employee, the messages were permanently lost.
Carmen Best manually deleted thousands of text messages, testifying she routinely did so believing the city automatically archived texts in a ‘cloud.’ An IT employee confirmed this was only the case for city emails, which were backed up to a cloud. This was not the case for text messages on city-issued phones.
Harold Scoggins had been locked out of his city-issued phone in Oct. 2020 after forgetting his most recent password. He was unable to open a notification or get into his phone, so he went first to Seattle IT, then tried to search online for a solution, then finally took his phone to an Apple Store for help. An investigation found he authorized a “hard reset” of his work phone, as he needed immediate access to it in case of an emergency. There was no cloud backup as Scoggins “was not technologically proficient,” so the messages were lost.
The investigation found that at least five other high-ranking city employees were locked out of their phones due to changes in passcodes, and after a certain amount of password attempts the phone would lock and automatically reset, destroying any data.
Authorities were investigating possible charges of ‘injury to public record’—a Class C felony—or ‘injury and misappropriation of record’—a Class B felony. Investigators determined that city officials did not act in a “willful” and “unlawful” way, and did not exhibit “criminal intent” in the destruction of public records.
The City of Seattle agreed in May to pay $2.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by employees.
