Commissioners Look Into Forensic Audit Of Sheriff's Office

The Antelope County Commissioners were considering hiring an outside firm to investigate the sheriff’s office despite being told it wasn’t cost effective by the State of Nebraska.

Emails obtained by the Antelope County News (ACN) through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show commissioners had discussions about a forensic audit of the sheriff’s department in early January and continued talks in February, including the day after they were walked through the audit by Sheriff Bob Moore and his attorney, Martin Klein.

The findings of the auditor’s report came under fire in January after it alleged deficiencies in the sheriff’s department and county attorney’s office, including uncollected funds and the failure to foreclose on delinquent properties. At the Jan. 8 commissioners meeting, it was revealed that the majority of those deficiencies had been remedied — many of them the same day as the audit — or the official was not actually at fault.

Following more questions from commissioners during February meetings, the ACN requested all emails from commissioners that contained information about a county audit since January 1, 2019. Although the public records request was filed Feb. 26, most of the emails were not provided until last week.

While Commissioners Eli Jacob and Charlie Henery provided their emails within the time frame, Tom Borer, Allan Bentley and Dean Smith didn’t provide theirs until three weeks after their 30-day extension elapsed. Their emails were given to the county attorney on April 21, as verified by date stamp through the county attorney’s office. Joe Abler then reviewed those emails and provided them to the ACN on May 7.

​After reviewing the emails, it still remains unclear if the Antelope County Sheriff’s Office will be under further investigation by commissioners through a forensic audit.

Following the Jan. 8 meeting, Borer sent an email (dated Jan. 9) to Nebraska Assistant Deputy Auditor Deann Haeffner — cc’ing Bentley --  expressing disdain toward Moore on discussion of the audit.

“We were very disappointed in the sheriff’s reaction. I am boss hog how dare you question me on how I am running my office,” Borer wrote.

Further in the email, Borer wrote, “I am pretty sure we are going to want to do an investigative audit. I was sitting on the fence, on doing this. But after yesterday’s meeting they convinced me something is going on.”

Haeffer replied with an email less than 10 minutes later that encouraged Borer to not proceed with a forensic audit and said, “I’m not sure what more we can do as far as a forensic audit at this time. It really sounds like they need a little more time to work on the items noted in the report.”

She also wrote, “Not sure paying us to do more audit work would really be cost effective.”

During the commissioner’s Feb. 12 meeting, Sheriff Bob Moore and his attorney, Martin Klein walked commissioners through the county audit, explaining how procedure had or would be changing to remedy any deficiencies.

However, Borer asked about a forensic audit the next day, according to an email obtained through the public information request that referenced Borer’s email. On Feb. 25, Abler emailed Borer, “This is in response to your email dated February 13, 2019, in which you asked about a forensic audit and investigation of rebates issued to the Antelope County Sheriff’s Office (noted by the Nebraska State Auditor’s Office report).”

However, Borer did not provide either email — neither the Feb. 13 email Abler referenced nor Abler’s response informing Borer the discussion should be held in a public setting. Although cc’d to all commissioners, only Jacob and Henery provided the email that referenced the Feb. 13 email.

When asked about the emails, Abler stated that he sent what the commissioners provided to his office. “In the event you have reason to believe there may be additional emails, I can only suggest that you consider making another public records request,” Alber stated.

Borer, Bentley and Smith did, however, provide numerous other emails, including those to Nebraska Assistant Deputy Auditor Deann Haeffner, Nebraska Association of County Officials legal counsel Elaine Menzel and Woods & Aiken attorney Pamela Bourney.

Emails provided by the commissioners to the ACN included information on the procedure for removing county officials from office, recall procedure, rebate information, multiple local newspaper articles, a credit card number request and jail inspection information, among other items.