Senior Assistant AG Faces Elections Complaint

One lingering elections complaint remains unresolved from the recently-completed May primary.

In that complaint, Portland lawyer Patricia McGuire, alleges that Donna Maddux, a senior assistant attorney general in the Oregon Department of Justice's Medicaid Fraud unit, of sending out a political email during work hours from her Department of Justice email address.

The law McGuire cites says in part:


The complaint is interesting not only because Maddux is a senior DOJ lawyer (prior to moving to the Medicaid fraud unit, she led the 2009 criminal investigation of Portland Mayor Sam Adams), but she has also served as a Tualatin City Councillor. She also considered running for attorney general last year.

In a May 18 written response to questions from an elections division investigator, Maddux acknowledged sending the email from her DOJ account during the middle of the day, but said she was on her lunch break at the time:

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