After almost two years, (complaint filed October 31, 2013) the State and Roger Schlotman entered into a plea agreement. Former County Auditor Schlotman was formally charged after a preliminary hearing with three counts of misapplicaiton of entrusted property and two counts of criminal conspiracy. In the end Mr. Schlotman plead guilty to one count of a public servant refusing/failing to perform his duty -- with no fine and a reimbursement of the $900 in question plus $100 court costs.
This case is a testament to prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutor Murray stalled and delayed this case for almost two years. On the eve of trial, August 3, 2015, she played "Let's make a deal with Mr. Schlotman." One's examination of the file shows that all the delays were caused by Ms. Murray's incompetence.
Why the delay of bringing this case to trial? One can only speculate that Ms. Murray felt that the lack of any hard evidence would be apparent to a Foster County jury.
The best example of Ms. Murray's dilatory tactics can be found in HER motion for a change of venue. She requested that the Court move the trial to Ramsey County because of the pretrial publicity (almost exclusively from this website). Apparently, Ms. Murray failed to take any type of Constitutional law classes while attending law school. Her motion for change of venue lacked any real legal authority since the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution requires all criminal trials to occur in the district in which the offense is alleged to have occurred.
Ms. Murray engaged in a battle of attrition. Her numerous frivolous motions for continuances and her unsuccessful motion for change of venue and joinder of Commissioner Carr's case obviously cost Mr. Schlotman tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
What was the final result? As mentioned above, Former Auditor Schlottman has to repay the $900 that was authorized for payment by the commission and $100 in Court fees.
This website has repeatedly demanded that Ms. Murray disclose to the public her billable hours in this case and in the case of State vs. Carr. To this date no such response has been provided by her. Now that the case is closed, we intend to demand that Ms. Murray provide all of the billing records regarding this case. Once those records are revealed, we believe that it will show the incompetence of the Foster County State's Attorney's office.
This entire case was initiated by our own State's Attorney Paul Murphy. We taxpayers can thank Mr. Murphy for wasting all the taxpayers' money in this case.
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