News to Me - Dale Kinniburgh on Libby Issues

"" Sgt smith/Libby police, sheriff dept , Lincoln Co government officials do not like the information that was collected against them.

I am not going to precise dates because I no do not want to turn the inside lights on in order to read them. This information is coming straight from notes that I have kept as the events have happened. I also have alot of photos and video I have taken over the years that back up all of the facts.

When I was in the USAF as a Security specialist 811x0, we were taught very well on precise record/note keeping 1995 I was buying mushrooms for cascade mushroom co, my Boss was Gary Smith.

I was buying mushrooms up on mid Griffin, no other buyer wanted the area, but from done logging in that area in the 1980s, I knew from experience of picking burn morels that it should produce large amounts of mushrooms.

I bought for around 3 weeks, the first 2 weeks were slow, having received snow fall 3 times during those weeks. The last week I was buying morels, I was buy as high as1750 - 2750 pounds of mushroom per night, as i bought the mushrooms, my pickers would grade their own mushrooms and all I had to do was weigh and pay.

At the end of the night my helper and I would drive back into the old Libby ready mix building, where the main operations for cascade mushroom co was located. The last night that I ended up buying for cascade, owner of Cascade Mushroom co.

Matt Briggs was that the plant. I had met him the night before and when i pulled into the plant to unload the 2 pickup loads, Matt chewed me out for being late and that there was no time to grade and ship the mushrooms which I had bought. I informed him that they were all graded and could be weighed in and shipped that night.

Matt picked out 2 baskets which had low grade mushrooms in them and complained as to their low quality, I asked him how much he would have paid for that same quality of mushrooms and he told me that he would not have paid over $2.50 for them and that's days buy was set at $6.00 per pound and that he had lost money on them.

I told him to look under the lid of the basket and he would see a strip of paper in it, with the weight, amount paid for them and grade of mushroom on it.

When he saw that I had paid $1.75 per pound he was happy, he then asked me if all of the baskets had price, weight and grades under their lids. I also told him they were all readable from out side of the basket.

I showed him where all of the highest grade baskets were stacked. He then opened at random 5 baskets of perfect fresh market morels, poured, and weighed them. Matt had the crew that was working in the plant load all of the highest grade mushrooms to be shipped that night as their best fresh market.

I went over to do all of my paper work, for total pounds bought and total price paid for the Morels. Matt got mad and asked me why I did not have my paper work done already. He ask me if I was trying to match the scales. I told him that by the time I was done buying I had to get to the plant as soon as possible and that my figures would be done prior to the weigh in of all of the mushroom.

It took me around 10 minutes of math to finish the tally sheet, As I was finishing up Gary Smith walked in and told me that his stepson was going to take over my buy station I had been operating on Mid Griffin. I asked him if he was going to allow me to buy any where else, he said I could work as plant crew, for $5.00 and hour and that he did not need another buy station.

I walked in and hand Matt the tally sheets, keeping my copy, 15 minutes latter when the unloading, weighing and reloading into the refer was done, Matt compared the totals and the pelt weights showed there was a total of 75 more pounds then paid for, I told him that there were a total of 75 baskets which were made heavier then the rest and he needed to lower the plant weight.

My total and the plant totals were within 3 pounds of each other. Matt asked how I could be within a few pounds and Gary was off by 10%, I told him he would have to ask Gary
I had to turn in the rest of the cash to Gary and when I walked into the buy room there stood Gary, Robbie Bo and Dave Briggs.

Gary said give me all of the money in the buy pouch, I reached in and handed him back every cent that I had of Cascades', then he said all of the money not just sum of it, I had that's nights commission in the buy pouch and the previous nights commission.

I reached in and gave him that's night commission and he said all of it I know you have another nights common on you. Robbie said I would do it, we have 3 witness that you tried to steal co money. I gave Gary every cent, and walked out and told Matt to check out Grays back seat, Gary had 150 pounds of mushrooms in the back seat exactly 10% of that nights buy from the Libby plant.

Matt fired Gary on the spot for theft, I told him about Gary, Robbie and David stealing my commission money and he said that there nothing he could do about it. Early the next morning I went up to Middy Griffin to retrieve my tarps and other equipment I ended up selling all of the tarps to the mushroom pickers for a shelter and let them know that I was no longer buying and what had happened.

Smiths stepson showed up to buy and none of the pickers who were selling Morels to me, would deal with him, there were a few six pack pickers who sold him a few hundred pounds of drier quality mushrooms. Gary showed up to see how his stepson was doing and found out that all of the main pickers were in the process of drying their mushrooms and were not selling.
Smith had been in a very bad accident the year before and was disabled and receiving social security payments.

He was also in the process of getting a divorce from Jane cline. I had delta with Jane many time over the years and had found that she was the most honest woman in business I had every met. Mr. Smith was in the process to trying to take half of all of the land that Jane owned through the divorce, he had already had Jane Clines land survey. I knew that Mr. Smith had made more money then social security would allow him.

I talked with Jane cline and her attorney about Mr. Smith and a few days latter Smiths attorney Chuck Evans called and requested that I come in and talk to him about the up coming divorce, I refused to speak with him, because with a divorcé case a witness dose not have to and he could see my evidence in court.

The date of the trial came up and I went in and testified before court, I also brought with me copies of all of the buy sheets I had bought on along with me, all of the other buy sheets that the other buyers and used and thrown away. When totaled up Mr. Smith had made over $50,000 in common and had taken over $100,000 in mushrooms from Cascade in the 10% shrinkage scam.
Mr. Smith lost every thing in court and was allowed only to keep his clothing, truck, tools he had and camper.

After court Mr. Evens approached me and said that court had not needed to turn out the way for Mr. Smith, himself and me if I had only talked to him prior to court, every thing could have worked out better. I also found out in court that Mr. Evens had paid for the subdivision of Jane Clines land and was not happy with me at all. '"

Dale Kinniburgh - Libby Montana Resident