Mason evidence still being examinedInvestigators don't know when the results of an evidence search for a state case on the former prosecutor will be ready.
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By PHIL DAVIDSON
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pdavidson@postregister.com
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Mason |
Investigators continue to sift through evidence in the Kimball Mason case. It's been nearly three months since the state attorney general's office launched a second investigation into Mason, the former Idaho Falls prosecutor who's in a minimum-security prison for stealing guns from the city's police department. Investigators recently said they expected to have some results by the end of August, but nothing is imminent, said Bob Cooper, the attorney general's spokesman. Cooper said he's reluctant to give a timetable because it doesn't serve his office any purpose. Mason's legal woes began in November, when Idaho Falls Police Chief J. Kent Livsey and City Attorney Dale Storer suspected he was taking the city's property and keeping it for himself. The attorney general's office launched its initial investigation shortly thereafter. It revealed that more than 50 guns had been taken from the Idaho Falls Police Department's evidence vault. Mason, 52, was charged in late March with grand theft for taking 18 of those guns. He struck a plea deal, though, and confessed to two counts of grand theft and one count of falsifying a public document. On May 30, retired 6th District Judge William Woodland sentenced Mason to one to five years in prison for the three charges, but he retained jurisdiction -- known as a "rider" -- and ordered Mason to serve 180 days at the North Idaho Correctional Institution at Cottonwood. Woodland is expected to decide by late November whether to put Mason on probation or order him to serve the remainder of his sentence. The state's second investigation began in early June after detectives from the Idaho Falls Police Department raided Mason's home and found at least seven guns he took from the evidence room but claimed he'd destroyed. Cooper said he couldn't attribute the length of the latest investigation to one specific area. Investigators are busy working on other cases, he said, and sometimes cases are subject to the normal ebb and flow of investigations. "We try to be thorough and accurate on every case we investigate," Cooper said.
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