Brusque, maybe. But a criminal?Friends grapple with the dark portrait of Kimball Mason emerging from the state's investigation
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By PAUL MENSER
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pmenser@postregister.com
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Disgraced Idaho Falls City Prosecutor Kimball Mason was sentenced Tuesday in connection with a case involving 51 guns missing from the IFPD evidence locker. The 1,508-page investigative file shows that clerks, police and judges placed too much trust in Mason, allowing him to steal from Idaho's residents. The 16 letters sent to Judge William Woodland before Kimball Mason's sentencing hearing Tuesday were lavish with praise: He is an involved dad, a supportive husband and a devout churchman who led his flock by example. Even courtroom adversaries and a federal judge called the former Idaho Falls prosecutor the kind of courthouse insider whose word could be trusted. A starkly different man is portrayed in the 1,508-page investigative report released last week by the Idaho Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted Mason for stealing guns from the police department's evidence room. It chronicles Mason's lies, how he exploited people's trust and manipulated a system he worked in for 20-plus years. In the tape transcripts, Mason is tough-guy cynical, sometimes foul-mouthed and repeatedly caught in half-truths and outright lies. And Friday's raid on his home has added to that list. Police found several guns Mason, who is now in jail in Boise, swore he destroyed. So which one is the real Kimball Mason? Like the rest of us, the good one and the bad one live in the same skin. But that hasn't made it easier for longtime colleagues to reconcile Mason the friend with Mason the criminal. "It's the breach of the public's trust that's the kicker here," said John Radin, who hired Mason to work in the Bonneville County Prosecutor's office in 1981, and later faced him in court as a defense attorney.
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Randy Hayes / Post Register - Kimball Mason looks around the courtroom prior to his sentencing hearing Tuesday. |
Some facts of Mason's life are indisputable. He grew up in Idaho Falls and attended Skyline High School, where he played linebacker on the football team, wrestled and a sang in the choir. He went to Brigham Young University, then University of Idaho's law school. He was admitted to the Idaho State Bar in 1981, and elected Bonneville County prosecutor the next year. As county prosecutor, Mason's highest-profile case was the 1988 murder trial of Paul Ezra Rhoades, which he co-prosecuted with Tom Moss, now Idaho's U.S. Attorney. U.S. Magistrate Larry Boyle, a local judge at that time, heard the case. Called by Mason's defense, Boyle testified at the sentencing hearing Tuesday that Mason was one of those lawyers Boyle felt he could trust. Gil Gardner, Mason's deputy for nine years, wrote to Judge Woodland urging leniency. Mason, he said, could come off as abrupt and abrasive to people who didn't know him, but added, "It's just his way of handling the job." Radin said he respected Mason's ability as a prosecutor.
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Post Register file photo - Kimball Mason talks to reporters after the verdict was announced in the 1988 Paul Rhoades murder case. |
"Kimball had good perspective," he said. "He'd heard every story there was. He knew who was dangerous and who maybe deserved a break." But in 1992 Mason's high profile decade ended. Dave Johnson beat him in the May 1992 Republican primary on the platform that Mason plea bargained too many cases. "He was not at all happy. He did not want to leave office," Gardner said. Several homicide cases were pending at the time, but Mason handed them over to Johnson. He bid on the city of Idaho Falls prosecutor's job, got it, and in January of 1993, switched from prosecuting high-profile murder and drug cases to handling misdemeanors: barking dogs, failure to yield and disturbing the peace. Mason's application for the city prosecutor's job extolled the close relationships he'd built with police as county prosecutor, down to knowing the individual strengths and weaknesses of officers. "These relationships impart a mutual trust and confidence that gives me an added advantage when an officer takes the witness stand. ... I know what he will say and what his testimony will be," he wrote. And it appears Mason continued to build friendships with officers. Mason was fond of riding with them, shooting at their pistol range and playing paintball with them. And they trusted him, which is clear in the state's report. Few questioned why a city prosecutor wanted so many guns and other items from the evidence room even when some of the documentation he provided was incomplete and amateur-looking at best. Interviews conducted by T. Michael Dillon, the former FBI agent who conducted the Attorney General's investigation of Mason, also reveal Mason's abiding fascination with guns. Mason often agreed to reduce defendants' charges if they gave up their guns. "(Guys) who misbehaved with firearms ... didn't need them back," Mason told Dillon. "I didn't think they should have them back." Radin, now a defense attorney, said he was happy to have his clients forfeit their weapons in exchange for a dismissal. "I assumed the guns were going to be destroyed," he said. Instead, Mason bartered the guns, distributed them as favors or kept them. He described himself repeatedly in policeman jargon during Dillon's investigation. He told investigators he ran training sessions for police with the items he stole and even gave a deputy Bonneville County prosecutor a "desk gun" because he insisted that all those in law enforcement should have one. It's unclear how long Mason exploited his position or his colleagues' trust. Because of the statute of limitations, investigators could only go back to 2001. Mason insisted the head of the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement contacted him in the mid-1990s about handling forfeitures. But when contacted by Dillon, both Dick Cade and his predecessor said they did no such thing. In his report, Dillon checked up on Mason's other claims, debunking many of them. Deputy Attorney General Jay Rosenthal, a former assistant U.S. Attorney, did not mince words at Tuesday's sentencing hearing. "His life has been a lie," Rosenthal said. "He misstated information to everyone he dealt with in our investigation." Still, several of those who wrote to the sentencing judge to urge leniency expressed disbelief that the man they so admired could be the same person depicted by Dillon and Rosenthal. "The Kimball I know would not steal anything from anybody at any time," wrote Madison County Prosecutor Sid Brown, whom Mason hired as a deputy in 1985. Others agreed. Many of Mason's friends said it was simply a case of bad judgment or that his many good deeds would far outweigh his crimes. "(Although) the man you will sentence obviously has exercised some very poor judgment, I do not believe that his conduct ... is indicative of the man I have known for several years," wrote Bryan D. Smith of Idaho Falls. After Friday's raid, police and prosecutors said they are considering new charges, which means another opportunity for friends, family and citizens to puzzle over the question. Just who is Kimball Mason?
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