Dakota Beacon

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 3, 2009 CONTACT: J.P. Duffy or Maria Donovan, (866) FRC-NEWS or Tom Freier, NDFA]

Washington, D.C. – North Dakota Family Alliance and Family Research Council released a new study today that comprehensively details the effects of pornography on marriages, children, communities and individual happiness.

The study, “The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community,” synthesizes all available research on the effects of pornography on families and communities.

Pornography distorts an individual’s concept of the nature of conjugal relations, which, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage, it is one of the major factors in undermining social stability.

“While pornography is destructive to individuals and the entire family, I am especially concerned about its impact on children”, states Tom Freier, Executive Director with the North Dakota Family Alliance. Pornography eliminates the warmth of an affectionate family, leads to stress and parental conflict, increases the risk of parental separation and divorce, and increases the risk of children becoming consumers of pornography.

Social scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography produces its powerful negative effects. Among the study’s findings:

• Men who view pornography regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression, and sexual promiscuity.

• Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives. Wives notice and are upset by the difference.

• Pornography engenders greater sexual permissiveness, which in turn leads to a greater risk of out-of-wedlock births and STDs, which in turn lead to still more weaknesses and debilities.

• The presence of sexually oriented businesses significantly harms the surrounding community, leading to increases in crime and decreases in property values.

• Child-sex offenders are more likely to view pornography regularly or to be involved in its distribution.

• Pornography eliminates the warmth of affectionate family life, which is the natural social nutrient for the growing child.

A study of 1300 eight-to-thirteen-year-old girls found that, among those who engaged in “cybersex”, 95% of the parents were completely unaware of their children’s involvement.  Compared to adolescents who do not search for pornography online, adolescents who search for pornography online are about three times more likely to have parents who do not monitor their behavior.

Keys to protecting against the harmful effects of pornography begin in the family.  “Most important is the relationship between the mom and dad, and then a loving relationship with the children, and of course in today’s technological society, limiting and monitoring children’s use of the internet”, states Tom Freier.

To view the entire study, go to www.ndfa.org, or for more information, call NDFA at 701-364-0676.

Copyright © 2009 North Dakota Family Alliance

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

Once Berry Dunn McNeil & Parker’s (BDMP) 2008 Performance Evaluation of Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI) was released publicly on October 8, 2008, it contained NO finding of illegality regarding the Firefighter’s Association grant. Instead, it clearly stated “BDMP’s evaluation did not include a legal review … This issue may warrant a legal evaluation to determine if any law, rules or regulations were violated.” Yet, even with the lack of any investigation, Feland --with the help of her partners at NDSAO-- made the grant a crime.

Even more startling, Burleigh County Assistant State’s Attorney Feland charged the grant against Blunt almost 18 months after the charges were originally filed --even though this item was clearly NEVER part of the 2006 Performance as claimed by Feland to the Judge Romanick. The reality is, this uninvestigated issue was released to the public just 27 days before Feland stood in front of a Judge in a Court of Law and promised him that it was part of her original April 18, 2006, case from the “get-go.”

Amazingly, like nearly all of her case, the firefighter’s grant was never even signed by Sandy Blunt. Even more fittingly for this complex and seemingly malicious prosecution, Blunt was on administrative leave from the original charges filed against him when the grant was signed and the funds in question were released. Yes, you did read it correctly, Feland had the audacity to criminally charge Blunt for funds that were legally executed and released not by Blunt and when Blunt was not even working at WSI.

So who signed the contract? The contract was legally and legitimately executed by John Halvorson, Acting CEO, and Anne Green, a SPECIAL ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL! So not only does Feland lie to the Judge to get the issue into the case, but she charges Blunt with a crime that was supposedly committed while he was on a well-documented and official leave from the agency!

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

Consider the following facts:

• North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) Report on Blunt’s case states, “State’s Attorney Riha agreed that there was no need to re-investigate what the North Dakota State Auditor’s Office had already done and agreed to review the audit information and request further investigation as needed.”

• Wahl was in the room and part of the April 17, 2007, meeting with BCSAO and law enforcement where it was decided and determined that Blunt was to be criminally charged.

• Wahl stated to BCI investigators, “that they (NDSAO) had conducted a thorough audit, conducted interviews, and gathered supporting documentation for all of their allegations and conclusions. Wahl stated that he felt their audit was thorough and could not think of any other information that needed to be gathered.”

• The BCI Report further states, “After receiving the audit information, S/A Dupree and S/A Rummel reviewed those items and concluded that it appeared the North Dakota State Auditor’s Office did a thorough audit and determined that the Burleigh County State’s Attorney’s Office should determine what specific areas of that audit needed further investigation to be conducted by NDBCI.”

• The BCI Report clearly states, “The only evidence being held by S/A Dupree in this case is the copy of the State Performance Audit done by North Dakota State Auditor…”

• On May 1, 2007, when transmitting his and two other resume summaries, Wahl stated in an email to Feland that: “the majority of the work done in the areas you are looking at were done by myself and/or Ron. Let me know if you have any questions.”

• Wahl’s transmitted resume states: “Jason Wahl, CPA - Performance Audit Senior, Over 11 years of performance auditing experience with the Office of the State Auditor, CPA for over 9 years, Numerous performance audits conducted which involved human resource and procurement/contracting areas, and Former President and Vice-President of the Central NoDak Chapter of The Institute of Internal Auditors.”

• Wahl advised WSI Board Audit Chair Evan Mandigo that “We (NDSAO personnel including Wahl) also routinely provide training to all auditors including performance audit training” in his argument to Mandigo that Wahl and the other auditors were the state’s auditing experts.

• E-mails sent from Wahl to Feland (just days after Blunt was charged) contain detailed directions from Wahl on exactly how and where to find audio cuts that Wahl believes support the charges: “If you start listening at the 31 minute mark, you will hear information related to the retroactive payments … Times you may want to listen to include starting at approximately the 7 minute mark through 15.50 (relates to expenditures) … please listen to the end of the recording (Sandy's has a number of comments near the end) ... etc.”

• Wahl –apparently at NDSAO’s time and expense-- had some of the audit tapes transcribed for Feland and proactively sends some other documents and explanations that he believes (like the audio) build the case against Blunt.

• Detailed phone records provided by the State of North Dakota document over fifty calls (a number of which were quite lengthy) between April 2007 and December 2008 from Wahl to BCSAO. (NOTE: Only outgoing calls from NDSAO are logged. Calls to NDSAO are not logged by the State of North Dakota so the volume and length of the calls from BCSAO to NDSAO are unknown.) These calls and multiple face-to-face meetings continued up to Blunt’s December 2008 trial.

Records show that the BCI investigators and BCSAO counted on Wahl and NDSAO to be their experts (as BCSAO had conducted no independent investigation and instead chose to base the entire case on Wahl’s/NDSAO’s audit work). From the facts above, it is clear that the case was built on and around Wahl’s/NDSAO’s audit work and statements to investigators.

Essentially, it appears that Feland could not make the case without Wahl’s/NDSAO’s active and crucial involvement. Also, instead of turning to BCI for “areas of that audit needed further investigation” it looks like Feland/BCSAO turned to Wahl and NDSAO. And it appears that Wahl willingly accepted Feland’s/BCSAO’s assignments and was actively involved in supporting the prosecution from charging to conviction. Regardless of the technical title “Investigator” not being assigned to Wahl/NDSAO, it certainly appears like Wahl was actively and willingly functioning as an investigator for Feland.

Now fast forward to the trial and Wahl is sitting on the witness stand under oath. Wahl has been actively involved in the case against Blunt for almost TWO YEARS since he first sat in the room and participated in the meeting to charge Blunt. I do not think it is a difficult leap to say that Wahl was (is) very familiar with the prosecution’s “evidence” against Blunt. However, when Hoffman begins asking Wahl questions about the clearly legal items outside the span of the audit, Wahl becomes somehow unsure of the skills, knowledge, and expertise which he pointed out to Feland in his resume summary. After a series of evasive answers by Wahl, Hoffman eventually asks (referring to a list of WSI Meeting Expenses that had been compiled by BCI Special Agent Quinn for the August 7, 2007, preliminary hearing), “When did you first see that list of these expenditures?” Wahl, after almost two years of evidently ACTIVE involvement in the prosecution of Blunt responds “Last week or the week before, I think I saw this list.”

So after nearly two years of active involvement in Blunt’s case Wahl testifies that he did not see the list of meeting expense items charged against Blunt until the week before the trial? Even if one did not know the facts above and believed that Wahl had only seen this part of the case against Blunt one week before the trial, how is it that Wahl as a noted ND purchasing expert who is very steeped in OMB policy knowledge is not able to QUICKLY and EASILY state if these basic items were legal or not? Based on Wahl’s extensive involvement in the case from charging to conviction and the fact that the list Hoffman is noting was created and used for Blunt’s August 2007 Preliminary Hearing, it appears hard to accept that this as a truthful statement by Wahl.

And why is it at the December 2008 trial that Wahl appears to be trying to make it look like he was a faraway, uninterested party in the case? Wahl knew he had extensive involvement with the case and that this involvement had afforded him a detailed knowledge of the case well more than a week before the trial. Wahl appears to have been too active and too willing to provide his expertise to be able to run away from the recorded facts and act unfamiliar with the details of the case. But yet he tried to do so. Why?

But the bigger question, though, is “was NDSAO’s proactively undertaking of such a supportive and investigative function within their stated legal functions or what they were appropriated tax dollars to do?” Even more concerning yet, can Wahl appear to be this deceptive in helping to potentially send an innocent man to prison and still be relied upon by the legislature and the citizens of North Dakota in future audits to be independent and unimpaired toward the next NDSAO target(s)?

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

Multiple open records requests to the North Dakota State Auditor's Office (NDSAO) for ALL records of contacts with Burleigh County State's Attorney's Office (BCSAO) yielded no documents (in any form) written by any Burleigh County prosecutor to any ND Auditor requesting formally or informally any specific information. Additionally, there was no documentation presented to this author of any information being transferred between the agencies during the period of January 1, 2006, through December 20, 2008. (The trial ended on December 19, 2008.) However, telephone records of calls made from NDSAO to BCSAO indicate auditors initiating dozens of contacts. Calls to NDSAO are not logged by the State of North Dakota so the volume and length of the calls from BCSAO to NDSAO are unknown.

While the Auditor’s Office could not (did not) produce any documents showing the transmission of any information from January 1, 2006, through December 20, 2008, information was nonetheless being transmitted to BCSAO. Proof of this statement is found in the existence of the North Dakota Firefighters’ Association grant in Feland’s September 23, 2008, State's Response to Defendant's Motion For Bill of Particulars. In this motion, Feland adds the grant as a “crime” weeks before the source document of the issue (WSI’s 2008 Performance Evaluation) is ever publicly released. And the evaluation is legally placed under the management and oversight of NDSAO and NDSAO only.  

This leads to the question of how key section(s) of the evaluation proactively ended up in the hands of the prosecutor weeks before its release? Even more curious, how would the BCSAO ever know to ask for something in the first place that did not exist publicly (or otherwise) unless the issue was proactively presented to them by NDSAO? There is no written request for a copy of the evaluation. If they were so concerned, didn’t the NDSAO have a legal obligation then to turn the issue over to the ND Attorney General the review its legality before ever consulting with BCSAO? Further yet, how is it that the prosecutor not only receives this issue in advance of public knowledge but also adds it as a criminal charge against Blunt before WSI and its Board of Directors ever had an opportunity to review and comment on the language first? Or, for that manner, before any –ANY-- investigation was ever conducted to determine the legality of the issue? 

There is no documentation or evidence that I can find that law enforcement conducted any investigation subsequent to (or as a result of) Feland announcing the addition of the grant as a newly charged item on September 23, 2008. Had Feland requested an investigation, she would have found, as Judge Romanick did when he removed the issue from the jury’s consideration, that this was in fact a legally established and legally executed grant. 

As with so many issues in this trial, it appears that yet again the NDSAO actively inserted itself into the case as an investigatory arm of BCSAO. In this instance, NDSAO was proactively passing on when they believed to “criminal’ information weeks before the performance evaluation was ever made publically available. From the start, Wahl and NDSAO made themselves as key feature of the case and appear to have acted as an investigative body for the prosecution. It can be established that Wahl was actively present at the meeting where it was decided to charge Blunt. The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation Report of Investigation on Case Number 070241 state:

“On April 17, 2007, S/A Dupree again met with the State’s Attorney Riha and his assistant, Feland. Also at that meeting was Trooper Henke and Assistant State Auditor Wahl. At that time, the cases were discussed and it was determined that charges were going to be filed against Chief Executive Officer BLUNT…”

What is auditor Jason Wahl (potentially a primary witness for the prosecution) doing at this meeting? As facts in this article demonstrate, NDSAO staff (clearly Wahl by name) played a significant and most likely inappropriate if not illegal role in this case from it’s charging to its conviction.

Records of communications obtained by this author evidence significant interest in the Blunt legal proceedings prior to the December 2008 trial by staff of NDSAO. Was the deception perpetrated by Wahl known of, or sanctioned by, other auditors or personnel of NDSAO? Was Auditor Bob Peterson aware and in support of Wahl’s and the other’s actions? If so are they all complicit in the deception? Have they become a party to perjury?

It should also be further pointed out that while the State Auditor badly wanted investigatory powers, NDSAO staff knew that they did not have investigatory powers and were not to perform investigatory function. The NDSAO had introduced 2007 Senate Bill 2054 on the very first day of the 60^th Legislative Assembly proactively seeking immediate investigatory powers? Specifically, the State Auditor asked to:

 “Be vested with the authority to investigate and report on allegations of fraud, waste, abuse, and violations of state or federal law at state agencies and political subdivisions subject to audit by the state auditor.”

The Senate Political Subdivisions Committee swiftly and unanimously rejected the Bill by the third day of the 60^th Legislative Assembly with a 5-0 Do Not Pass vote. The Bill was further roundly rejected on the Senate floor in a 45-2 Do Not Pass vote on the fourth day of the 60^th Legislative Assembly. Yet, even after being clearly told no, NDSAO continued to take a demonstrably active if not driving role in the prosecution of Blunt doing the exact activities that the defeated bill told them they could not and were not to engage in. This author does not think it too much of a logical extrapolation to conjecture that NDSAO knew that their apparent active investigatory functions for BCSAO were not appropriate, acceptable, or LEGAL but undertook them nevertheless.

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

There is no getting around the fact that that the perpetrated and collusive deception by Burleigh County State's Attorney's Office (BCSAO) prosecutors Feland and Suhr, and North Dakota State Auditor's Office auditor Jason Wahl regarding Spencer’s departure status did in fact impact the outcome rendered by the jury. The trial transcript shows that the only substantive question asked by the jury during their deliberations surrounded the issue of what is a voluntary versus an involuntary resignation:

THE COURT: All right. I have a question from the Jury. … “Is there a ruling/law/legal definition regarding the terminology that an “involuntary resignation” is the same as a “termination.”” Carol Beiswanger. And then it continues, “please define “involuntary resignation” “voluntary resignation”“termination” as applied in employment law.””

The response to this question was, “You currently have the law you will receive to decide this case.” This issue should never have been charged against Blunt and the jury should never have been put in a position where they had to figure out on their own what the facts were from the great wall of lies presented to them. Had true justice been the aim of the BCSAO, the jury would have had no need to even consider the semantics of employment law as employment law had nothing to do with non-crimes! 

Against Rule 16 of the North Dakota Rules of Criminal Procedure, Burleigh County State's Attorney's Office attorney Feland withheld from defendent Blunt and Hoffman investigative interviews and/or witness statements collected during the prosecution of the case. Rule 16 (f)(1)(B) delineates under “Demands for Production of … Statements of Witnesses” that “Upon a defendant's written request, the prosecution must furnish the defendant: (b) any statements made by the listed prosecution witnesses.”

From case documents, it can be established that AT A MINIMUM statements/documents associated with witnesses Jason Wahl, Jodi Bjornson, Billi Peltz, and Jim Long were never, NEVER, turned over to Blunt and Hoffman --even after Hoffman’s repeated written requests. Not only is this a clear violation of Rule 16, it is also appears to be a violation of the stated purpose of the Rule: “North Dakota's rule does not allow the government to assess whether a written record containing the substance of an oral statement, or the substance of an oral statement, is relevant. The written record containing the substance of any oral statement, or the substance of any oral statement, must be disclosed regardless of whether the prosecution considers the oral statement relevant, and regardless of whether the prosecution intends to use the oral statement.”

There is irrefutable evidence of Wahl’s EXTENSIVE involvement in Blunt’s case, yet unbelievably no statements by Wahl appear to have ever been provided by Feland to Blunt and Hoffman. Wahl’s recorded contact that I have (though FAR from complete) is extensive and logic dictates that there had to be at least one --just one-- document that qualified as a statement by witness Wahl and thus had to be turned over to Blunt and Hoffman. How is it that none, not one, of the dozens and dozens of meetings/calls/documents appeared to have EVER qualified as a statement? None of them? Really?

I have to wonder just how many other statements and/or documents like Wahl’s November 2007 memo are in BCSAO’s possession from Wahl and other witnesses that were never turned over as required? Under Richard Riha’s leadership is this how the BCSAO fulfills its judicial, ethical, and professional obligations to seek justice first?

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

There is no getting around the fact that that the perpetrated and collusive deception by Burleigh County State's Attorneys Feland and Suhr, and North Dakota State Auditor's Office auditor Wahl regarding David Spencer’s departure status did in fact impact the outcome rendered by the jury. The trial transcript shows that the only substantive question asked by the jury during their deliberations surrounded the issue of what is a voluntary versus an involuntary resignation:

THE COURT: All right. I have a question from the Jury. … “Is there a ruling/law/legal definition regarding the terminology that an “involuntary resignation” is the same as a “termination.”” Carol Beiswanger. And then it continues, “please define “involuntary resignation” “voluntary resignation” “termination” as applied in employment law.””

The response to this question was, “You currently have the law you will receive to decide this case.” This issue should never have been charged against Blunt and the jury should never have been put in a position where they had to figure out on their own what the facts were from the great wall of lies presented to them. Had true justice been the aim of the BCSAO, the jury would have had no need to even consider the semantics of employment law as employment law had nothing to do with non-crimes!

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

While having full knowledge that there was evidence to the contrary (as had already been extensively established), Burleigh County State's Attorneys Suhr and Feland still continued to forcefully present deceptive opening and closing statements that the Spencer issues were criminal and even questioned witnesses Jason Wahl, Cammie O’Conner, James Long, Jodi Bjornson, and Billi Peltz to establish and perpetrate this ruse. These repeated, knowingly-disingenuous actions undoubtedly mislead the judge and jury to believe that clearly-known, non-criminal offenses were criminal – in short, they lied to the Judge, jury, and citizens of North Dakota in order to secure a guilty verdict against Sandy Blunt.

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

Considering all that North Dakota State Auditor Wahl himself had documented, it is indisputable that Wahl knew that the charges regarding David Spencer were false and unfounded. Nevertheless, UNDER OATH, Wahl assisted Burleigh County State's Attorney (BCSAO) in the perpetration of a deceptive legal proceeding against Blunt by actively leading the jury to believe that Spencer’s letter of hire was still valid and thus required Blunt to collect 50% of Spencer’s moving expenses.

Keep in mind as you read the following two exchanges by Wahl under oath that Wahl knew without question that he had placed in writing to Feland that he consulted with the North Dakota Attroney General Office (NDAGO) and that the unanimous conclusion was that Spencer did not voluntarily resign so no moving expenses were owed to WSI. Also keep in mind that Wahl’s disclosure of this fact had NEVER been turned over to Blunt and Hoffman by BCSAO so Hoffman never had any way of knowing that Wahl had made such a declaration in writing and thus had no knowledge to directly question him about it at the trial. Finally, keep in mind that even though Wahl knew these facts, he never once attempted to disclose any of them on the stand; instead, Wahl intentionally and deceptively danced around the issue.

Hoffman: Mr. Wahl, when I ask you -- I want to ask you a question about Mr. David Spencer. If his leaving WSI was involuntary, then your opinion as a state auditor is that the recoupment of relocation or moving expenses would be a moot point. Correct?

Wahl: I guess, that would relate to a legal question, so we would present the information that we had available to us at the time and contact our legal counsel, which is the Office of the Attorney General.

Hoffman: Well, you have already given testimony regarding the meeting with Mr. Blunt and Ms. Jodi Bjornson October 24, 2006. Right?

Wahl: Correct.

Hoffman: I would ask you to look at the bottom of Page 7 going over to the top of Page 8. Does that accurately reflect statements that you made at that meeting?

Wahl: Yes. I believe those statements I made are accurate there and based on conversations we had with our legal representative prior to that meeting.

Hoffman: And you specifically state to Mr. Blunt and Ms. Bjornson that if Mr. Spencer's leaving WSI was involuntary, then the recoupment of relocation expenses becomes a moot point. Correct?

Wahl: Yes.

Hoffman obviously has no idea that Wahl has written a memo to Feland stating that all of the Spencer issues are of no import. And while Wahl may have been able to dance the issue with Hoffman, it appears that he chose to just flat out lie about it to Feland. Under questioning from Feland, Wahl completely ignores (lies about) his and Tolstad’s numerous documented statements of discussions with Blunt that led Wahl to the determination that the money could not be collected:

Feland: Okay. Did you talk to Mr. Blunt about the fact that this money should be paid back and that they should be trying to seek reimbursement of these public funds?

Wahl: Yes.

… 

Feland: Could he (Blunt) give you any conversations that he had with Mr. Spencer where the rules changed?

Wahl: No.

To this author, the trial transcript gives fairly plain and damning evidence that both Feland and Wahl could converse as they did in open court ONLY if they both knew that attorney Hoffman did not know of the November 8, 2007 memo. It smells like a collusion to conspire to commit legal fraud in open court. While admittedly being a legal layman, it seems to me that this behavior is the very essence of perjury; perjury actively induced and supported by Feland.

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

Once inappropriately added by the Burleigh County State's Attorney's Office (BCSAO), the sick leave and moving expense issues (which were known by the prosecutors to not be crimes) were used as a major subject basis to portray Blunt unfavorably with innuendo that could not be supported by facts. Prosecutor Lloyd Suhr’s opening statement illustrates the methodology employed over and over during the trial to portray Blunt as someone who believed (especially for his friends like Spencer) in “circumvention of the rules ... there is a proper way, and then there is Mr. Blunt's way.” Suhr begins with the “bonuses” to WSI employees and then focuses almost exclusively on the sick leave, moving expenses, and grant money before ever discussing the original case of gift certificates and meeting expenses. BCSAO’s witness questioning and trial topics continued to follow this same pattern.

Much of BCSAO’s presented case was built on and around Spencer’s leaving WSI and Blunt’s supposed unethical behaviors regarding Spencer. The word “Spencer” appears 249 times over 1,043 pages of trial transcript or an average once every 4.2 pages across the ENTIRE trial transcript. All of the primary witnesses for the prosecution began their testimony with an extensive discussion of Spencer’s circumstances upon leaving WSI. It is difficult to come up with an objective criteria to measure just how prominent the FAKE issues of Spencer were in the entire trial, but I believe it required between 30 to 40 percent. An awful lot for entirely bogus issues! Had Feland not lied and manipulated these items into the case as crimes, a significant portion of BCSAO’s argument, testimony, and opening/closing statements would have been absent. The effectiveness of portraying Blunt using this blatantly dishonest technique cannot of course be quantified, but I conjecture that it was quite pivotal in procuring an unjustified outcome.

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

Against North Dakota Rules of Criminal Procedure and the North Dakota Rules of Professional Conduct, Feland and Suhr withheld Wahl’s November 8, 2007, memo designated as the “ Wahl/Feland Memo”,from Blunt and his attorney Mike Hoffman. Feland and Suhr (to this day) have withheld this unmistakably exculpatory document from Blunt and Hoffman; a document that would have allowed Hoffman to argue at pre-trial that the sick leave and moving expenses had no probable cause to support them and therefore should not be added to the case against Blunt. Possession of the memo would have also allowed Hoffman to stop dead the primary assertion of the prosecutors regarding Sandy Blunt’s preferential treatment of WSI employees (which was a major prosecutorial theme in the trial).

In withholding this extremely significant and exculpatory document, Feland and Suhr knowingly violated “the constitutional imperative” under ND Rule 16 (Discovery And Inspection) “that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to the guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” Feland and Suhr also further violated their obligations under Rule 3.8 (Special Responsibilities of A Prosecutor) to "... refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause.” In this case, both Feland and Suhr without question KNEW this supposed crime was(is) “not supported by probable cause.” 

Rule 3.8 also goes on to strictly note: “A prosecutor has the responsibility of a minister of justice … This responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice and that guilt is decided upon the basis of sufficient evidence. This responsibility also obligates the prosecutor to promptly make available to the defense information which is known, material and favorable to the defendant's position. Discovery of such information by the prosecutor confers no property right in the same upon the prosecutor; rather, in the interest of seeing that the truth is ascertained and all proceedings justly determined, the defense should be accorded ready access to any such information.” 

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

Against North Dakota Rules of Professional Conduct (and all the facts that clearly demonstrated that the moving expenses were a legal act), Feland maliciously charged the moving expenses as a crime. She further compounds this malicious act by lying to the Judge that the issue was part the original performance audit and her case in order to avoid having to (properly) take the issue to a preliminary hearing where the issue would have been immediately rejected by the sitting Judge for lack of probable cause to continue to a trial. Without question, both Wahl and Feland knew this was NOT A CRIME yet –shockingly-- both Wahl and Feland go on (with Wahl under oath) to intentionally withhold the known and well-documented facts that this was not a crime.