Fired police chief sentenced to prison

Thomas J. Schlicker, who was Swinomish Police Chief from 1997 until he was fired last September, was sentenced to federal prison on Tuesday.

According to court documents, U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughner in Seattle sentenced Schlicker to 16 months in prison followed by 2 years of supervised release for stealing money from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

In August Schlicker took a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to one of the 10 felony counts the U.S. Attorney’s office had filed against him. The rest of the charges were dismissed on Tuesday, in keeping with the plea agreement.

The 16-month prison sentence is what the office of U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes had sought. However, the $3,000 fine the prosecutors wanted was waived, and the three years supervised release was cut to two.

In addition to the prison and parole time, Schlicker must pay restitution of nearly $18,000, which, with pay and vacation time, he was owed, bringing the total restitution to more than $33,000.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office states that during sentencing, Judge Coughner called Schlicker’s crime a “breach of trust.”

That sentiment was also expressed in a victim impact statement by Swinomish Tribal Chairman Brian Cladoosby filed with the court last week.

“Those stolen funds can be replaced,” Cladoosby wrote. “But there can be no restitution for broken trust.”

Schlicker, 57, a Stanwood resident, admitted that starting in 2008, he put money into a Washington Federal account he opened in the name of the Swinomish Police Department, listing only himself as the authorized signer. He deposited checks made out to the Swinomish Police Department into that secret account and then made cash withdrawals, all without the knowledge of the Swinomish accounting department.

He also admitted that he used the tribe’s Chevron credit card to buy fuel for his and his family’s personal vehicles.

The prosecution’s documenta-tion in support of the prison sentence states that when Schlicker was caught by tribal officials, he lied to them and attempted to hide financial documents by placing them in a locked container of material to be shredded. He also withdrew all the cash from his secret bank account and closed it the day he was caught and placed on administrative leave.

In his five-page victim impact statement, Cladoosby noted that Schlicker had a prominent role in the community, as leader of the police department and also as leader of the teenagers in the Swinomish Police Explorer program. That program draws youth from throughout the La Conner area, not just from the reservation.

“How can we as adults expect our youth to look up to us, to look up to law enforcement, when they know the man wearing that Police Chief’s uniform was stealing the funds he was entrusted to protect?” Cladoosby wrote.

And, “It may be years before the good men and women of our department will be completely free of the shadow of corruption cast by their former supervisor.”

Under the federal sentencing guidelines used by the courts, Schlicker received the maximum at 16 months. The court on Tuesday recommended that he be allowed to self-report to the federal prison at SeaTac.