Bar Declines to Investigate Nathan Vasquez’s Statements in Voters’ Pamphlet

The Oregon State Bar has dismissed a complaint alleging that Nathan Vasquez, a prosecutor and candidate for Multnomah County district attorney, committed misconduct by calling a suspected serial killer, who has yet to be charged, a “murderer” in his Voters’ Pamphlet statement.

Vasquez is running a campaign to unseat his boss, District Attorney Mike Schimdt, in next month’s election. “Under my opponent’s watch, a violent criminal who was arrested for kidnapping and assaulting a police officer was released from prison. Once free, he murdered four women,” Vasquez wrote.

Vasquez did not name the criminal suspect, but he is clearly referring to Jesse Lee Calhoun, who is a suspect in the killings of four women last year. WW first reported that fact last summer, but Calhoun has still not been charged. Prosecutors still have time—he is currently being held in prison on unrelated offenses and cannot be released until June 7 at the earliest.

In her complaint to the bar, Lewis & Clark professor Aliza Kaplan said Vasquez had made a false statement by calling Calhoun a murderer and that it could bias a potential jury pool.

The bar disagrees. “I find no sufficient evidence of professional misconduct, I will take no further action on this matter,” assistant general counsel Linn Davis wrote in an email to Kaplan this morning. “That a person has not been publicly identified or charged is not evidence that Mr. Vasquez’s statement is false. Additionally, the information you provided, and the actions of other parties to reverse course with respect to the release of the person you identified, suggests there may be some basis for believing that the person you identified could be the culprit,” she added.

“I am obviously disappointed with the bar’s opinion,” Kaplan says. “It is incredibly troubling that any prosecutor would do this strictly for the purpose of political advantage.”

Vasquez says, “This complaint was nothing more than a political stunt from Mike Schmidt’s supporters to distract from his failures as district attorney.”