McMaster v. Nelson et al. — Target (Pt. 2)
Before reading this article make sure to read part one “Fruit of a Poisoned Tree”
After analyzing Deron McMaster’s federal lawsuit against Sheriff Shane Nelson a question hangs tantalizingly in the air: Why did Shane Nelson target and ultimately eliminate McMaster? After all, McMaster was a 28 year veteran of the agency, a captain in good standing and an honest employee with no prior disciplinary history we know of.
We have a theory which we think is highly plausible and strongly supported by clear and compelling evidence. We present it below:
In July of 2020, Sergeant William Bailey was promoted to the rank of lieutenant.
Barely two years later, on August 1, 2022, Bailey was once more promoted, but this time to the rank of captain and commander over the patrol division
This is without question a truly meteoric rise.
Captain William Bailey, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office
On July 7, 2023 Sheriff Shane Nelson announced his retirement and at the same time endorsed Bailey’s election bid to become his successor saying:
“Captain Bailey has my full faith and support, and I look forward to supporting him and voting for him in the upcoming sheriff’s election.”
There is no way captain Bailey woke up that morning and thought to himself, “If Sheriff Nelson retires today I’m going to run for Sheriff”, so it only makes sense that this must have been in the works for quite a while.
In fact, on July 24 in an interview with Heather Roberts of KBND, Bailey said:
“… I have been working on this for many years if not more than five years making my intentions known to the current Sheriff…”
Furthermore, in a statement to KTVZ News in an article titled “‘The right time’: Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson to retire at end of term, backs Capt. William Bailey as successor”, captain Bailey was quoted as saying:
“The Office of Sheriff requires a strong and experienced person. I formed a PAC [political action committee] to be ready in the event Sheriff Nelson decided not to run for re-election.”
How fortuitous and timely for him to have formed a PAC just in case Nelson retired. Who would have guessed it? Keep both these statements from Bailey in mind as you continue reading.
Nelson’s endorsement of Bailey is not your typical endorsement and it’s not unfair to say Bailey and Nelson appear to be almost joined at the hip. for example, on September 14, Nelson went so far as to accompany Bailey to the Deschutes County Elections Office where Bailey registered as a candidate for Sheriff.
We find Nelson’s obsession and involvement with Bailey’s election aspirations to be quite odd and just a little bizarre. We have to wonder why he seems so desperate for Bailey to be elected Sheriff.
“This is all well and good, but what has it do with Deron McMaster?” We hear you ask. Let us tell you.
Recall, in part two of this story, the ball was started rolling with McMaster’s deposition during Crystal Jansen’s lawsuit against Sheriff Shane Nelson. When questioned during his deposition, McMaster insisted on being truthful and disclosing the details of Julie Lovrien’s discrimination complaint against Nelson. This despite being told not to do so by the Sheriff’s Office legal counsel.
McMaster’s actions most likely resulted in him failing the infamous “loyalty test” and he was therefore perceived as disloyal. This caused him to be removed from the circle of trust never to return. This will become important as we continue.
After examining the timeline and the facts at hand, we are convinced McMaster’s ouster from the Sheriff’s Office was because Sheriff Nelson needed a captain’s spot to be available into which he could promote then Lieutenant Bill Bailey.
in 2021, Bailey was still only a lieutenant, and to put him in the best position from which to win an election it was important he be promoted to the rank of captain.
This promotion would allow him to have a much more visible leadership role both at the Sheriff’s Office and within the community — Each of which would be vital in his election bid. Furthermore, it would allow him to boast of having experience as a senior manager being just one step below the Sheriff.
There are only three captain spots at the Sheriff’s Office: Corrections division commander, patrol division commander, and detectives division commander. Captains Paul Garrison and Michael Shults, two Nelson loyalists, occupied the patrol and correction spots respectively. This left captain Deron McMaster the odd man out, and he had to go.
Perhaps Nelson tasked his outside investigators, Moore and Ellington, with finding some dirt on McMaster. On the other hand, maybe the two investigators knew Nelson wanted McMaster gone and proactively found the “goods” on him during their investigation into DeMars. It is of course also possible the two stumbled across McMaster’s supposed policy violations during their investigation into DeMars and decided to present their findings to Nelson. In our opinion, this last option is a stretch at best.
Ultimately how McMaster came to be under internal investigation is not consequential. What is of consequence is that he was obviously targeted and unsurprisingly found guilty of dubious policy violations. Thus Sheriff Nelson had his excuse for pushing McMaster aside, and he used the investigation’s outcome to impose a grossly unfair and completely disproportionate sanction on McMaster: Demotion from captain to lieutenant.
We know for a fact that employees have received far less severe sanction for much worse transgressions. To illustrate this, we put forth sergeant Deke DeMars lenient treatment after his affair with his immediate subordinate Allie Lamb. Recall in that case DeMars was given a few mandatory days off and was allowed to keep his sergeant stripes despite an unarguably more egregious violation of Sheriff Office policy. This is just one example, and there are others we could additionally cite.
Then, of course, we must consider the phone call between McMaster’s Lawyer, Randy Harvey, and Sheriff’s Office outside counsel Bruce Bischof. During this call, Bischof tells Harvey that Nelson was planning on firing McMaster. By his reaction, this was obviously a surprise to Harvey. Bischof continued to tell Harvey that Nelson was willing to offer McMaster the opportunity to resign instead of being terminated.
If this doesn’t prove Nelson wanted McMaster gone, we don’t know what does.
Ultimately Nelson got his way. He demoted McMaster to lieutenant and McMaster, was constructively discharged by resigning from the Sheriff’s Office on September 21, 2021.
However, McMaster’s vacant position wasn’t immediately filled. In fact it wasn’t filled for almost eleven months with captain Paul Garrison, ever the loyalist, filling both the role of patrol division and detective division commander.
Why was this? The problem was Bailey couldn’t immediately be promoted because he had only recently been promoted to Lieutenant just over fourteen months prior. Promoting him to captain so quickly would be far too obvious. Therefore Garrison was task with covering both captain roles for almost eleven months before Bailey was finally appointed captain by Nelson.
We think It absolutely beggars belief that Shane Nelson couldn’t have promoted another more experienced lieutenant into the vacant captain role or even hired a candidate from outside the Sheriff’s Office instead of waiting nearly eleven months and keeping the seat warm for Bill Bailey.
Indeed there were qualified candidates within the Sheriff’s Office with far more experience and leadership skill than lieutenant Bailey. In fact, by the raw numbers, lieutenants Mike Biondi, Chad Davis, Joe DeLuca, Bryan Husband, Don Manning, Ty Rupert, and Mike Sundberg all had a good deal more time in grade and experience than Bailey did.
Our point here is not to claim all of the above lieutenants would make excellent captains — although a number of them most certainly would. Our point is each person on that list had more experience in management, operations, and administration by a country mile than William Bailey who was, without question, a very green and inexperienced lieutenant with less than two years in position; yet they were somehow all passed over by Sheriff Nelson in favor of Bailey.
So on August 1 2022, William Bailey was appointed to captain and commander of the patrol division by Shane Nelson. Paul Garrison was moved over to be commander over the detective division where he remains to this day.
For those with any remaining doubts, let us remind you Bill Bailey, in his own words, admitted he had been planning to run for Sheriff for over five years, had created a PAC prior to Nelson’s retirement, and had made Nelson aware of his intention to run for election.
We are convinced only in this context does Bailey’s promotion over other more senior, experienced and capable managers make any logical sense.
We wonder if the rank of captain is the last stop on Bailey’s rapid rise under Sheriff Nelson. Candidly, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if Nelson eventually promotes him to undersheriff. For those readers who don’t know, an undersheriff is second in command in a Sheriff’s Office and can be delegated the Sheriff’s power at the sheriff’s direction or in case of the sheriff’s incapacity.
Should this occur, it would be a coup for Bailey allowing him to advertise at least a veneer of “Sheriff level” experience by being second in command. Will this happen? Time will tell.
Ultimately out of this whole sordid affair was born Deron McMaster’s lawsuit against Shane Nelson and his codefendants Tim Moore and Mathew Ellington. But we have to ask: Does Nelson really care about being sued? Our opinion based on the history and the evidence suggests no.
Why is this so?
At the end of the day, Nelson’s personal exposure in this lawsuit is relatively low and ultimately for him its mission accomplished. Either way, Bailey is captain and McMaster is gone. Yes the County tax payers may have to fork out a massive seven figures in damages, but is that any skin off Nelson’s back?
This case then parallels both the Kozowski and Jansen lawsuits against Nelson. Together they cost Deschutes County over $1.5 million, not including over $1 million in outside attorney fees. However, at the end of the day Nelson got what he wanted: The removal of employees he no longer wanted working in his organization.
Are we finished with the story of “McMaster v. Nelson”? Not quite yet; we have one more loose end to tie up. Make sure to read part 3, “The Lawyers Talk”
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