BISMARCK, N.D. (KFGO) – North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley has released the final report from Montana investigators who he tasked with probing a significant cost overrun at a building leased by the Attorney General’s office after it was discovered last year.
In addition to the cost overrun, analysts and investigators from Montana’s Division of Criminal Investigation looked into the deletion of emails following former North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem’s death in January of 2022 and former Deputy AG Troy Seibel’s subsequent resignation.
Investigators submitted two reports as well as a timeline of events starting in January of 2017 and concluding on June 1 of this year. Both reports name Seibel and Stenehjem’s former executive assistant Liz Brocker as “suspects.”
The report mirrors many of the findings the North Dakota Auditor’s office reported in a September 2022 review of the building project at 1720 Burlington Avenue in Bismarck, a property owned in part by State Representative Jason Dockter. The state signed a lease for the building in April of 2020 and an extensive remodel of the building began, directed by Seibel.
Montana investigators found that Seibel managed the project with little to no input from other Attorney General’s office supervisors and financial professionals.
“Invoices, expenditures, payments, and records were not organized or professionally processed. The undetailed, ambiguous, and large monetary invoices that were requested lacked specific and necessary details,” the report concluded.
Investigators interviewed the Chief Financial Officer for the Attorney General, Becky Keller, about her involvement in the project. She told them the office was “left in the dark” about it.
“At the project’s onset, Seibel did not allow staff attorneys to assist. Seibel was adamant everything went through him. Keller informed Seibel invoices were immediately required to verify costs. Keller said she “hounded Troy” for invoices,” the report says.
Two days before the end of the biennium in June of 2021, Seibel instructed Keller to pay over $1.3 million of what was then thought to be a $1.7 million overrun, which was the first knowledge any other employee in AG’s office had of it, according to investigators. Keller told investigators she “almost choked” when she heard the amount.
In addition, the Montana report found Brocker played a key role in the lack of transparency and confusion about the overrun. Records show Brocker asked for Stenehjem’s email account to be deleted in an email to an information technology employee on Jan. 29, 2022 a day after Stenehjem died. She wrote that the deletion was approved by Seibel. State law says a public official cannot knowingly delete public records “without lawful authority.”
“Lack of policy, or failure to follow policy regarding electronic records and their deletion was significant. Authority, or perception of individuals with authority requesting deletion by IT raise a question of a clear understanding of the chain of command. These issues all contributed to confusion and ultimately played a role in the deletion of electronic communication of an elected and high-ranking public official,” the report says.
The Montana report says Brocker repeatedly refused to speak with investigators in the case. She hung up on an investigator when he reached her on the phone at her workplace in the Burleigh County State’s Attorney’s office. Later, the investigator went to the office and was told Brocker did not want to speak with him. In May, the investigator drove to Brocker’s home and encountered her in her driveway but she told him she didn’t want to speak with him and walked into her garage.
In the final paragraph of the report, the agent in charge of the investigation says that without access to an attorney, the Montana investigators were unable to serve warrants or subpoenas and were thus unable to conduct a complete inquiry. The investigator says someone in the Attorney General’s office told him they were unable to help due to a conflict. He said he then reached out to the Burleigh County State’s Attorney to try and seek legal assistance but that the State’s Attorney declined to speak with him, and that Brocker’s employment there created an additional conflict.
The Attorney General’s office says the probe by Montana investigators is now complete. Wrigley says he was not aware that Montana investigators had requested an attorney during the investigation. He says he has asked the Montana DCI to send a complete list of things that they required subpoena power and warrants for, and his office will turn that list and the file over to a yet-to-be-determined North Dakota State’s Attorney to complete the investigation and review the materials for possible prosecution.
Wrigley sent the reports to the state’s Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee (LAFRC) earlier this month.
The LAFRC chair is Republican Rep. Emily O’Brien of Grand Forks. She says she’s now studying the reports.
“I have requested more information that was referenced in the report to get a better understanding of the flow of the supporting documents and just trying to collect all my thoughts because there’s so much information that needs to be put together to make sense of everything,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien says she’s working on scheduling the next committee meeting to take up the reports and see if further actions are warranted.
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