Fired federal agent can sue U.S., judge says

A former federal law enforcement agent, fired after he uncovered corruption on the Spokane Indian Reservation, can pursue damages in court for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment, a judge has ruled.

Senior U.S. District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush dismissed claims brought by Duane Garvais, of Nine Mile Falls, for civil rights and job discrimination against the United States and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

But the federal judge left intact a claim for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment that will allow Garvais to ask a jury for damages against the Spokane Tribe of Indians and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A trial date has not been set in the civil case that dates back to 2004.

The judge, in a 16-page ruling filed Monday, held that Garvais, a former special agent with the BIA, can’t pursue damage claims for wrongful discharge under the federal Civil Service Reform Act because his attorney failed to file a timely appeal after Garvais was fired.

At the time, Garvais was represented by an attorney working for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

“I’m disappointed that a large portion of my complaint was dismissed, but pleased these claims for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution remain intact,” Garvais said Thursday. “Basically, that was the core of our case from the beginning.”

In his ruling, the judge said the Federal Tort Claims Act allows the United States and its agencies to be sued for acts or omissions by its law enforcement officers, and claims for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution are not exempt.

The judge dismissed a companion claim for false arrest.

Garvais was hired in 1999 as a BIA special agent and was assigned to the Spokane Indian Reservation.

In 2002, he developed information that fellow law enforcement officers on the reservation were stealing car stereo equipment, receiving stolen property and using and selling marijuana on and off duty.

He reported the information to his boss, Edward Naranjo, and the BIA’s Internal Affairs Office before an investigation was opened. It led to the suspension of two officers, one of whom admitted stealing a car stereo.

Shortly thereafter, the Spokane Tribal Council passed a resolution characterizing the officers’ conduct as a “prank” and demanded that Garvais be investigated and removed from his job by the BIA or transferred from the Spokane reservation.

The BIA responded by re-assigning Garvais to a reservation in Wyoming while he was investigated for allegedly mishandling funds paid to undercover informants on the Spokane reservation.

The U.S. attorney’s office conducted an investigation and absolved Garvais of wrongdoing and blamed Naranjo and the BIA for mismanagement and accounting failures.

When federal authorities declined to charge Garvais, the Spokane Tribal Court issued its own warrant that was used to arrest him in Omak in August 2003. He was held for four or five days in the Okanogan County Jail before being transferred to a federal detention center on the Spokane Indian Reservation where he was held for another three to five days.

Garvais filed a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court, challenging the jurisdiction of the Spokane Tribal Court over him because he wasn’t an enrolled member of a federally recognized tribe.

Garvais won that action with a ruling by Quackenbush, but the Department of Interior then took the position Garvais had been incorrectly hired as a BIA agent under its “Indian preference” clause.

In February 2004, he was fired by the BIA, even though hundreds of other federal employees hired under the same “Indian Descendant Preference” provision continued working for the BIA and Interior Department.

Garvais currently is unemployed, working as a stay-at-home father raising a newborn daughter at his home near Spokane.