EXCLUSIVE: FBI probing donations to Curry County Sheriff
Donor says Sheriff not required to disclose donations because former Sheriff who received donations told him so
Curry County Sheriff John Ward (Photo courtesy Curry County Sheriffs Dept.)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing contributions from a family foundation to the Curry County Sheriff Department, according to three sources who have spoken with FBI agents in relation to the inquiry. The John G. Atkins Foundation reported in federal filings to have contributed $390,524 to the law enforcement agency for the rural county, population 23,000, bordering the Pacific Ocean and California. The potential crime or crimes under scrutiny by the FBI is unknown. However, county officials seek an accounting of the contributions from Sheriff John Ward, which do not appear in official county accounts or asset lists, according to county officials.
The FBI declined to comment for this article. No charges have been filed.
Foundation meets struggling county government
The John G. Atkins Foundation was long stewarded by Jayne Gibney, resident of Brookings, Oregon, to honor her late father, after whom the foundation was named. The foundation was seeded with highly valuable stock in United Parcel Service owned by Atkins during his life, according to foundation manager Rory Smith. Gibney herself passed away in 2007, according to the Fort Bragg Advocate-News. Smith told Oregon Roundup Foundation Gibney intended the foundation to support education and law enforcement in Curry County.
Curry County, meanwhile, has struggled with economic challenges common to rural Oregon, where reductions in timber harvests, fishing and federal payments intended to mitigate lost tax revenue from reduced timber harvests on federal land have hamstrung families, businesses and local governments. As county revenue dwindled, county commissioners attempted at least six times since 2013 to create a separate property tax levy to support the Sheriffs Department. Each attempt failed, most recently in May 2025, when 60% of county voters rejected levy that would have raised taxes on property owners to fund an additional $4 million per year to the Sheriff Department.
Untracked contributions
According to publicly available IRS filings, the foundation contributed $390,524 to the Curry County Sheriff Department, the Curry County Sheriff and Curry County Sheriff Search & Rescue between 2009 and 2023 in amounts ranging from $2,000 (2011) and $58,677 (2013). Smith, the foundation’s manager, described to ORF the means by which contributions were made. According to Smith,
When I get a request from the Sheriff I say put it in writing what you want, why you need it and how much it is. Then I go to my board and give them that and tell them to get me an invoice from where you’re going to order this stuff and I will write the check to the vendor and the equipment will show up to you.
Smith explained he and successive Curry County sheriffs landed on this approach to prevent County Commissioners from using foundation contributions for purposes other than those intended by the sheriff and the foundation. Smith told ORF he believes the Curry County Sheriff Department is chronically underfunded by county commissioners and he does not trust commissioners to allocate any donated funds to the sheriff’s desired use. In an interview, he repeatedly referred to the commissioners’ efforts to obtain information about information about equipment donated by the foundation as a “witch hunt” against the Sheriff.
Smith pointed to Curry County’s significant history of financial mismanagement. The county announced in early 2025 that it could not track approximately half of $2.7 million in federal COVID grants beginning in 2021, according to The Redwood Voice. The disclosure followed the May 2024 resignation of then County Treasurer David Barnes, who maintains he properly reported to the federal government the use of the funds, according to The Redwood Voice.
Current Sheriff John Ward corroborated in an interview with ORF Smith’s account of the foundation’s purchase of equipment for the Sheriffs Department at the sheriff’s request. Ward, who has served as Sheriff since 2014, said he could think of only two items purchased for his department by the foundation: a utility trailer the department uses as a emergency command center, and a side-by-side ATV. County officials told ORF it has no record of either donation. The county does own a utility trailer it uses as a command center, but could not verify by the publication deadline that it was donated by the foundation, according to officials.
Ward told ORF he does not keep a list or otherwise account for property donated to the Sheriff Department by the foundation.
Foundation reporting shows contributions to other local governments in Curry County, including the Brookings Harbor School District, the Brookings Police Department, local Oregon State Police outposts and, for a time, the Lake County Sheriff Department. Lake County Commissioner James Williams told ORF he can find no record of cash contributions from the foundation to Lake County, but did not respond to a follow-up question about whether the county has records of equipment purchased for the Sheriff Department by the foundation.
The FBI takes note
The FBI contacted Smith, the foundation manager, last week regarding its investigation into foundation contributions to the Sheriff Department, Smith told ORF. He said he provided emails, invoices and other documents to the FBI, but declined to provide those documents to ORF for this article. “Voters don’t care about this crap; they care about funding the Sheriff Department,” Smith said in an interview.
Smith said when he received the call from the FBI he was “in a truck with the retired county sheriff.” He clarified the former sheriff with him in the truck was John Bishop. Bishop served as Curry County Sheriff from 2008 to September 2014, during which time the foundation reported contributing to the Sheriff Department. According to Smith, Bishop used the same request and direct foundation purchase method used more recently by Ward.
Bishop’s tenure as Sheriff ended when he resigned to become executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association. Bishop told The Oregonian at the time his career change was driven by dwindling funding for his department driven by declining federal subsidies and Curry County voters having voted down property tax hikes to fund his department repeatedly by 2014.
In 2019, Bishop’s role with the Sheriffs’ Association came to an end, with the former Sheriff pleading guilty to a charge of theft in the first degree for inappropriate expenditures of Association funds. Bishop was sentenced to two years’ probation and 180 hours of community service and ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution to the Association, according to the Associated Press.
In an interview with ORF, foundation manager Smith said, “The Sheriff does not have to report [foundation purchase of equipment] to the county.” Smith said his legal opinion is based on Bishop, whom Smith said has been a personal friend since 1994, telling him as much when the two were in the truck together when the FBI called Smith last week.
Curry County Director of County Operations and Legal Counsel Ted Fitzgerald disagrees. “The county is in financial straits. If people are making gifts, those need to be recorded” with the county, Fitzgerald told ORF in an interview. “It’s the law that county commissioners have a fiduciary duty to oversee the funds and assets of the county.”
Smith consistently maintained in his interview with ORF that the contributions to the Curry County Sheriff Department were lawful, and consistent with the intent and purpose of the foundation.
County Commissioners v. Sheriff
Foundation contributions are not the only source of conflict between the county government and its elected Sheriff. County Commissioners issued a press release April 3 regarding the county’s contention Sheriff John Ward refused to meet with county officials regarding county-owned ammunition the county asserts Ward and Sheriff Department deputies purchased with their personal funds, at a discounted government rate.
Last November, Circuit Court Judge Martin Stone entered a judgment requiring Ward to coordinate with the county regarding lawful surplus property disposal, to comply with Commission-adopted county policies and pay the county $4,426.00 in attorney fees arising from Ward’s opposition to a discovery request by the county. Director of County Operations Fitzgerald and Commissioner Jay Trost told ORF the county believes Ward has failed to abide by the judgment, and the county seeks a contempt order against the Sheriff.
In July of last year, Lieutenant Jeremy Krohn of the Sheriff Department, who reports to Ward, filed recall petitions against County Commissioners Trost and Patrick Hollinger, both of whom have pushed for greater scrutiny of Sheriff Department operations. The petitions, each of which failed to receive the required 1,900 signatures to qualify for the ballot, accused Trost of supporting “expenditures like additional legal fees to litigate against elected officials,” an apparent reference to the county’s lawsuit leading to the aforementioned judgment against Ward.
Ward denies any wrongdoing.
Oregon Roundup Foundation created this article. ORF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to covering Oregon political and government news. Media outlets are welcome to use this article for free with attribution of the author and Oregon Roundup Foundation.