Deputy suspended after exchange with Pretzer; county now scrutinizes state’s attorney
By BRYCE MARTIN
Pioneer Editor | [email protected]
Bowman County State’s Attorney Stephanie Pretzer came under fire Tuesday with members of the sheriff’s office and several county commissioners claiming that she’s not doing her job.
That was the impetus for Sheriff’s Deputy Doug Langhoff’s recent heated confrontation with Pretzer, which led to him being suspended for one-day without pay for workplace harassment.
While Langhoff claimed the county overstepped their authority in handing down the suspension — he told commissioners that his supervisor was the sheriff and was the only party able to impose punishment — discussion of his suspension during the Bowman County Commission’s regular meeting May 3 turned into a larger conversation on the state’s attorney’s role with local law enforcement.
Langhoff admitted to the commissioners that while his behavior was inappropriate during his meeting with Pretzer about a particular case, he meant what he said to her.
“We’re all considered a joke,” Langhoff said about local law enforcement.
Langhoff insisted that any respect for local law enforcement has been lost since the belief is widely held in the community that Pretzer doesn’t impose stiffer punishment for criminal cases. Instead, he alleged, that she gives “slaps on the wrists.”
Pretzer, who was at court in Dickinson during the meeting and unable to attend, told The Pioneer on Wednesday that she was confused why commissioners would agree to hold discussion on her job performance without a separate meeting where she could attend.
“I’ve prosecuted cases very well,” Pretzer said. “Part of my job is to find a solution to things. Our judges require us to give a plea offer to the other side.
“It’s not like I just sit there and say I don’t want to take this to trial.”
But Langhoff adamantly disagreed.
An individual around town had reportedly indicated that he lights up a methamphetamine pipe while driving when he sees a police officer or deputy, according to Langhoff.
An arrest would be made if such a crime were spotted by police, according to Bowman County Sheriff Rory Teigen, who was in attendance during the meeting with commissioners.
But that criminals reportedly no longer acknowledge a police presence within the area is troubling.
Langhoff made several accusations against Pretzer during the meeting, but the most concerning to commissioners was her alleged threat that she would not follow up on any of the deputy’s cases.
She said she would not comment on matters related to Langhoff because there is an ongoing human resources investigation into Langhoff, but Pretzer told The Pioneer such a threat never happened.
The problem, according to Langhoff and acknowledged by Teigen, is that there is no supervisor above Pretzer since she is an elected official. The only options would be to petition the governor for her removal or for the public to hold a recall vote.
But that has its own problems.
“(Teigen) feels my pain, trust me, I have been in his office, I have bent his ear a billion times in the last two years,” he said, “but he looks at me and says, ‘There’s nothing we can do.’”
There were no candidates in 2014 when Andrew Weiss, former Bowman County state’s attorney, resigned his position to join a law practice in Mandan.
Pretzer, who was mounting an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for Sen. Bill Bowman’s N.D. Senate seat, decided to declare herself as a write-in candidate for the state’s attorney job, meaning she did not have to file a petition to be on the ballot.
She was elected with 28 total write-in votes.
Because she met the qualifications of the position, she was offered the $60,000-a-year job.
If a recall vote goes to the people, there is a chance that Pretzer could again become a write-in candidate and amass the most votes, thereby installing her back into office.
“It’s a Catch-22,” Langhoff acknowledged.
County Commission President Rick Braaten asked Langhoff why nobody else has come forward to report Pretzer’s conduct.
“Everybody knows she’s not doing her job, but nobody will step up and say it,” Langhoff answered.
Braaten said he understood Langhoff’s frustration.
Commissioner Ken Steiner added that the county had previously experienced the same type of frustration with the state’s attorney. Steiner said the board is still waiting on matters they’ve requested of her, and have had to have several talks with her regarding her performance.
“We’re not happy with some things she’s done,” Steiner told Langhoff.
But Pretzer said those conversations never happened and was taken aback by the commissioners’ statements.
“I think those comments are somewhat out of line,” she said. “(The commissioners) don’t know the cases, they don’t know the full stories.”
Pretzer called her actions ethical.
“If I don’t know the answer, which a lot of times I don’t, I do call the attorney general’s office and association of counties,” she said. “It’s not always my fault the answer is not what the commission wants or what they think is right.”
Commissioner Bill Bowman listened closely as Langhoff described the office’s vast efforts to curtail crime, especially drug and alcohol related incidents, within the county, and the subsequent blocks allegedly created by Pretzer.
Bowman responded in awe to the deputy’s statements.
“I’m going to talk to a couple people in Bismarck to see what can be done,” Bowman told Langhoff.
“There’s a more serious thing here: By not doing her job and letting people off that have done something very wrong, that’s also putting the public at risk,” he continued. “Now you’ve got a really serious problem that needs to be avoided for all of us.
“This is the beginning to hopefully solving that problem. It opened my eyes up a lot.”
Bowman said he didn’t previously have knowledge of what was going on in regards to Pretzer.
Langhoff admitted not everyone arrested deserves jail time, which is figured on a case-by-case basis, but when Pretzer won’t even consider taking a case to trial, according to Langhoff, it leaves the officers feeling somewhat hopeless.
“There should be more than just a slap on the wrist for some these offenses that are going on,” he explained.
Langhoff said that a man from Bowman County who was jailed then released on probation incurred 30 violations while wearing an ankle monitor, but his probation was revoked only three days before he was to be freed last week. Those violations occurred over a year.
Pretzer called that incident a miscommunication between the sheriff’s department and her office. She said she was surprised that the sheriff’s office made that an issue.
“If we bring enough stuff forward, we probably can petition the governor, but at this time we don’t really have anything,” Commissioner Lynn Brackel told Langhoff near the end of the discussion.
