(The Center Square) – Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office has signed a $250,000 contract with Pacifica Law Group, which is headed by Zack Pekelis, a former AGO employee, and includes incoming Attorney General Nick Brown, to defend it in a potential lawsuit stemming from a $42 million tort claim.
The tort claim filed by Police Strategies CEO Bob Scales in July was originally filed with the Office of Risk Management, which was then assigned to the AGO’s Tort Claim Division. The AGO’s contract with Pacifica Law Group was signed on Aug. 18 between Pekelis and AGO Deputy Attorney General Kristen Mitchell.
In an email to The Center Square, Scales argued that “not only is this an inappropriate and probably illegal way to handle my tort claim, it gives Pacifica Law Group a blank check to start billing state taxpayers for reviewing document and preparing for litigation that may never happen.”
Pekelis is Pacifica Law Group’s lead attorney. He who worked as the Washington state assistant attorney general between 2018-2021. One of the law group’s partners is Nick Brown, who was elected to attorney general by Washington voters during the November election; Ferguson will be taking over the governorship in January after defeating Republican Dave Reichert.
Scales has accused the AGO and Washington State University of racketeering stemming from a police use of force database project authorized by the state Legislature in 2021. SB 5259 assigned oversight of the project to the AGO, which was directed to engage in a competitive bidding process in which institutions of higher learning were invited to bid on the contract.
Scales alleges that AGO and WSU employees colluded to ensure that the university, a client of the AGO that has a division office on the campus, would be awarded the contract. Scales’ Police Strategies was a potential subtractor with Seattle University, which chose not to submit a bid. Ultimately, WSU was the only institution to bid on the project.
As part of his ongoing feud with AGO and WSU, Scales has leveled complaints against employees of both entities. The complaints against the AGO were handed to the State Ethics Board, staffed and run by members of the AGO, which found no wrongdoing. Complaints against WSU employees were informally dismissed by WSU President Eric Schulz, who has no formal role in handling ethics complaints, before Provost President Elizabeth Chilton contacted Scales and said she would investigate the matter.