Spokane Mayor Sex Scandal Spirals

Spokane, Wash., is abuzz with the daily revelations about its mayor, Jim West.

"He should resign," says one resident.

"The mayor should definitely step down," says another.

"A tragedy" is how yet another refers to the charges flying around West.

As Hattie Kauffman reports on The Early Show Thursday, just one week's newspaper headlines track West's fall from popular mayor to accused sexual harasser at best, and at worst, a pedophile.

West calls himself the victim of a brutal outing by a local newspaper, The Spokesman-Review.

"Mayor West, in my mind, abused his power and abused his authority in the position he was placed in," charges Ryan Oelrich, who met West in an Internet chat room, gay.com, where, it's alleged, West was using an alias, "Right Bi-Guy."

Later, West appointed Oelrich to a city commission, then allegedly began harassing him, including a reported one-time offer of $300 if Oelrich would join West skinny-dipping.

"This isn't a gay story. The issue here is an abuse of power, an abuse of authority," Oelrich asserts.

Reporters for The Spokesman-Review spent two years investigating West, a conservative Republican with an anti-gay rights record.

The newspaper hired a computer expert to pose as a high school student visiting gay.com.

"It took two months of chatting with the mayor online in a variety of ways to get him to the point where he trusted us enough to reveal himself," says Spokesman-Review editor Steven A. Smith, "and that was absolutely documentable and provable."

West thought he was communicating with a teen-ager, says Smith, adding, "He showed up for a meeting that he set up, and at that point, we knew we had the mayor."The more serious allegations, Kauffman says, date back to the '70s, when West was a deputy sheriff. He's accused of molesting young boys, sometimes in the squad car.

"All we have at this time are allegations, which the mayor denied categorically," Smith notes. "But they are allegations from two named sources."

One of them is Robert Galiher, who is behind bars on drug charges.

The other supposed victim claimed abuse as a Boy Scout.

West spent decades volunteering with the scouts.

"The only two that say they were abused by him as children are convicted felons?" Kauffman asked Smith.

"That's correct," Smith confirmed. "Anybody who has ever operated in the child abuse arena, child protection services, will tell you this does not strike them as the least bit unusual. …The damage done to young people by abuse produces damaged lives."

At a news conference, West said, "I categorically deny any allegations about incidents that supposedly occurred 24 years ago as alleged by two convicted felons and about which I have no knowledge. The newspaper also reported I had visited a gay Internet chat room and had relations with adult men. I don't deny that."

Now, Kauffman points out, more people are coming forward.

Matt Spaur says his 15-year-old son was approached by West before he became mayor, when West was a state senator.

"When you're 15, you're very tuned in to flirting and being flirted with," says Spaur. "He very much knew what was implied in the conversation."

Spaur's son, Brad Crelia, says, "I tried to be polite 'cause he was a senator. He asked in a really sexual way, 'Do you want to go do anything else? Anything else?' "

With the FBI now looking into the abuse-of-power allegations, the mayor has taken a temporary, voluntary leave of absence, Kauffman says. But West's critics want him to resign.

"He needs to step down as mayor immediately," insists City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers. "He's facing allegations of two young boys over 20 years ago. He's also facing investigation of corruption of public office by using his office of mayor to solicit young boys on the Internet. And that's just plain wrong."

"There's something of an investigatory fever at this point, because it looks like it goes deep and it goes a long way back," notes Rebecca Mack, a talk show producer for KGA Radio. "The 'ick factor' is so high, there's a sickening thud in the community."

One question investigators are probing is whether West used his computers at City Hall to cruise gay chat sites, Kauffman adds. Others are questioning whether former city officials covered up the 1970 abuse allegations.

The Spokesman-Review and Seattle Times are calling on West to resign.