Voters Oust Prosecutor in Special Election After Underlings Question His Decisions, Work Ethic
Voters ousted a Nebraska county attorney in a special election on Tuesday after three employees in his office claimed he made inappropriate comments and questionable decisions.
About 86 percent of the voters supported the recall of York County Attorney Bill Sutter. The Omaha World Herald, the York News-Times and the Lincoln Journal Star reported on the unofficial returns.
The recall effort was initiated by county commissioners after Deputy County Attorney Candace Dick and two other office employees claimed Sutter was lenient in plea deals and unwilling to prosecute child pornography cases. They also claimed he goofed off in the office, made comments about his scrotum to a secretary, made an inappropriate remark about rape, and commented on an expert’s legs during a preliminary hearing.
Sutter declined to comment when contacted by the Lincoln Journal Star. He previously said he was dismayed by the allegations after he learned about them in the press. “Obviously some people in my office … all of them … don’t like me,” he said in a September interview with the York News-Times. “And that I can’t help. I’m not ashamed for anything I have either said or done with them.”
Sutter said he declined to file immediate charges in a child porn case because he was unfamiliar with the allegations, and he acquiesced when the Attorney General’s office offered to prosecute. “We get people convicted around here,” he had told the York News-Times. “We get them convicted fairly and we treat them fairly.”
Dick told the Journal Star the election results were “terrific” and she may be interested in the job of top prosecutor. “It was very, very difficult, almost excruciating the last four months,” she said. “It’s been a really strange situation, as you might imagine, to have everyone still there in the office.”
