Multnomah County Sheriff Cleared of Criminal Wrongdoing

Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Staton has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the state's Department of Justice.

"We have concluded that the sheriff engaged in no criminal conduct in relation to the four areas of allegations under review," The chief of the criminal division, Michael Slauson, wrote in a letter to Multnomah County Commission Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury and District Attorney Rod Underhill.

The two had requested the investigation in early February after allegations surfaced that Staton had implied that he had had members of a commission investigated.

There were also allegations that he had threatened violence, created a hostile work environment, and that he had offered to promote a union official in an attempt to block a no confidence vote from the union.

The letter doesn't mean Staton is out of the woods.

"The scope of our investigation was limited to potentially criminal matters," Slaussen wrote. "We did not conduct any investigation into questions that were purely civil or administrative, nor concerning matters of labor or employment law.

"We offer no opinion as to the sheriff's conduct in those areas."