Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto says the attempt to paint him as a liar may just be a ploy to also take down Oregon’s Governor by a disgruntled ex-state employee.

Documents released Thursday revealed the battle between Giusto and an accuser who claims he and Governor Ted Kulongoski conspired to mislead the public about former Governor Neil Goldschmidt’s sex abuse of an underage girl.

KGW photo

The state Department of Public Safety Standards and Training is investigating claims by former political staffer Fred Leonhardt he told Giusto and the Governor about Goldschmidt molesting a 14-year-old girl while he was Portland’s mayor.

Lawyers for the sheriff asked the department to dismiss three remaining allegations in the case.

Background: Giusto accused of misleading in Goldschmidt case

Kulongoski signed papers for the board saying he did not know about the case until it was made public in 2004. Leonhardt said he's passed a polygraph test proving he is telling the truth.

More: Read Giusto's response (PDF)

Giusto, who could lose his law enforcement certification, also lambastes some local media for cherry-picking and sensationalizing aspects of the case.

“Sheriff Giusto has every confidence that the members of the PPC and Board … judge his case based upon what is revealed in this record, and not upon what each member may have read or heard from a Portland media whose insatiable appetite for scandal is exceeded only by their corporate pecuniary interests driven by circulation numbers and viewer ratings,” the statement released Thursday said.

Giusto goes on to state that he is accused of misrepresentation, which he argues is not willful deception and is also not a criminal matter. The sheriff says it’s more about what he is alleged to have said to Leonhardt in 1989 rather than what he knew at the time.

Giusto told both investigators and a Senate committee that he never saw anything during his time serving Goldschmidt that led him to believe there was any ongoing criminal activity.

“Fred Leonhardt is an angry man who holds a grudge for years,” the report reads. “If Leonhardt’s ultimate goal is to take down the current governor, Sheriff Giusto is in the way.”

Leonhardt was a speechwriter for Goldschmidt.

The 3,000 page DPSST report on the investigation was also scheduled for release Thursday. But a decision was not expected until sometime next year.