Woman accused of embezzling from Eugene Weekly walks free in Ohio as Oregon governor denies extradition

The Lane County district attorney this week called out Gov. Tina Kotek for declining to extradite a woman whose alleged yearslong

embezzlement from the Eugene Weekly

nearly led to its collapse.

District Attorney Chris Parosa said he sought authorization from Kotek’s staff to bring Elisha Young, 38, back to

Eugene

from central Ohio, where

she was arrested

May 6.

Young faces five counts of felony theft for allegedly stealing from the

Eugene Weekly

between July 2021 and December 2023. Young had worked at the news organization since 2018 and served as its business manager since 2020, according to longtime editor Camilla Mortensen.

Young’s husband tipped off Mortensen to his wife’s alleged theft late last year, Mortensen said. The episode decimated the locally owned publication, forcing it to lay off its 10-person staff three days before Christmas and suspend its print edition.

A grand jury indicted Young on April 3, according to court records. A spokesperson for the Eugene police said Thursday that financial crimes detectives knew Young had fled to Ohio and coordinated with police in the community of Whitehall to have her arrested.

According to Whitehall police Lt. Tanner Williams, police arrested Young on May 6 in the driveway of a home “for her warrant out of Oregon, which listed nationwide extradition.” She was arrested about 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and booked into the Franklin County Jail, he said.

According to Parosa, a paralegal on his staff notified Nicole Townsend, Kotek’s director of extradition services, at 3:05 p.m. that same day that prosecutors wanted to extradite Young.

At 3:34 p.m., Townsend responded, denying the request, Parosa said.

He said Townsend suggested that Lane County revise Young’s warrant to reflect extradition would be authorized only if she is picked up in Idaho, Montana or Washington, states in the so-called Northwest Shuttle Program. Oregon has an agreement with those states to shuttle criminal defendants back to the state via vans.

“This person’s not in one of these shuttle states and we have no information or knowledge that they would ever go to one of these states, considering they appear to have set up shop in Ohio,” Parosa said. “So that’s not very helpful.”

He said his office asked the governor’s office to reconsider.

“We put out kind of an appeal to the governor’s office trying to explain the circumstances and why we wanted this person to be held accountable for this embezzlement and we were told that they were still going to deny the extradition,” he said.

Parosa said it was the second denial in recent weeks. Kotek’s office also denied the extradition of a burglary suspect accused of targeting the homes of Asian families in Eugene. The suspect was picked up in Texas, he said.

“If a person is going to intentionally target a community like the Asian community for criminalization, that’s a person that needs to be held to account,” he said. “And we were denied on that.”

The Eugene Weekly case sheds light on the little-known bureaucracy within the state government that handles extraditions, which are processed by the governor’s office.

The governor’s office, not the counties, typically picks up the tab for returning felony defendants to Oregon, a process that involves sending law enforcement officials out of state to accompany a defendant back to Oregon.

Generally, the state pays to bring back Oregon defendants in higher-level felonies from anywhere in the country and restricts extradition involving lower-level felonies to nearby states, according to the Washington County District Attorney’s policy manual.

However, the governor’s office “may make exceptions on a case by case basis” and depending on a range of factors, such as whether a sex crime is involved or the defendant is likely to pay substantial restitution, the policy manual states.

Kotek’s office did not respond to a request for data showing the number of extradition requests it receives each year and the number it has denied.

Kotek’s proposed budget calls for additional funding to pay for a deputy director to help review and process extradition requests due to the “continued increase in workload in the extradition program.”

Roxy Mayer, Kotek’s spokesperson, said Kotek “believes that the theft committed against the Eugene Weekly is unacceptable. She understands the importance of the publication to the community and was heartened by the collective action people took to keep it open.”

Mayer said each request is assessed individually. She declined to provide the guidelines that factor into each decision.

“The state does not have the financial resources to extradite every fugitive,” she said. “The budget resources are prioritized to maximize the benefits to public safety.”

Lane County is free to fund Young’s extradition, she said. Mayer did not respond to a question asking for the estimated cost of returning Young to Oregon.

Parosa said given that cost is a factor in the governor’s decision, he said his office has “tried to tighten” its extradition requests.

“It’s now getting to a point where you just begin to wonder whether or not this is just an effort to hoist onto local communities the obligation to pay for extradition of all their cases, which we are not funded for,” he said.

In an interview Thursday, Mortensen said Young is accused of stealing $100,000 to $200,000 but the actual loss is closer to $300,000.

A fundraising effort to get the newspaper back on its feet netted more than $200,000 and made it possible to hire most of the staff back and resume publishing six weeks after the newspaper had shut down, she said.

Mortensen said a Eugene detective earlier this month let her know Young had been arrested in Ohio.

She said she felt relief tinged with regret “because this was someone I had actually pretty previously considered my friend, so it sucks to see that, but also like a friend who destroyed the thing that I love most.”

She said she kept tabs on Young’s custody status and noticed that she had been released from jail. She said she later learned Kotek had denied extradition, allowing Young to go free.

“I’m still in a little bit of a state of disbelief because I realize it’s not a violent crime, but it’s a financial crime that didn’t just hurt the paper but literally hurt the community,” she said.

Parosa said for now the case remains in limbo. He hasn’t decided whether to limit the warrant to surrounding states. He said he may stick with the nationwide warrant.

“And if she’s picked up anywhere in the country, then we request, once again, the governor’s office to pay for extradition,” he said.

— Noelle Crombie is an enterprise reporter with a focus on criminal justice. Reach her at 503-276-7184 or


ncrombie@oregonian.com


.

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