Michael Spasaro, a candidate for Linn County Sheriff, says recent revelations of a letter recommending his suspension during his career as a Drug Enforcement Agency are an attempt to smear him as the primary election nears.
“I’ve arrested I can’t tell you how many thousands of people,” he said last week. “I’ve made enemies on both sides.”
The letter, which was reported in the Albany Democrat-Herald, and which was posted at one time on a pro-marijuana Web site, accused Spasaro of using his position as resident agent in charge of the DEA office in Istanbul, Turkey, to check up on the ex-husband of his future wife, Canan.
Spasaro said that while he was agent-in-charge in Istanbul, in 1990-91, “Turkish cops brought a young woman into my office whose husband had fled to America with their kid.
“I knew if I sent her down to the consul’s office, it’d get pushed under the table,” he said.
“I used a DEA phone and fax to contact the INS to check into it.”
Spasaro said about four years after he made those calls, the ex-husband called the DEA to complain about Spasaro, who married Canan in 1995. After an investigation, a letter was inserted into his personnel file recommending a 30-day suspension and demotion as a result of the investigation.
Spasaro said he took a voluntary downgrade “to save money” and the letter stayed in his file for several years, but was expunged.
“What actual documents are in there now, I have no idea,” he said of his file. “Part of it was expunged. I didn’t even know this stuff was in there.”
He said he did the right thing, even if he had to bend the rules.
“If I had to do it again, I’d do exactly the same thing,” Spasaro said. “Sometimes it’s not the letter of the law, it’s the spirit of the law you have to follow.”