Marion County commissioner running for governor faces ethics investigations

Nick Hunter, the Marion County sheriff, was having dinner on New Year’s Eve of 2024 when the call came in.

On the phone was Danielle Bethell, the blunt-speaking Marion County commissioner whose daughter just hours earlier had been cited by one of Hunter’s deputies.

The sheriff would later recount how the commissioner “chewed” on him for 20 minutes.

That citation has now landed Bethell back before the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

The agency’s preliminary review concluded there was evidence Bethell used her public post to help her daughter. The commission decided early in December to order a full investigation.

“It appears that Danielle Bethell attempted to use her position to avoid having her daughter cited for traffic violations,” the commission report said.

READ IT: Ethics Commission report

Bethell rejected that in a Dec. 9 statement to the commission.

“I can’t stress enough how this was not about getting anyone out of anything,” she said.

The ethics investigation comes as the politically ambitious Bethell has her sights on higher office. She’s running for Oregon governor, seeking the Republican nomination.

Bethell has been in public office since 2020, serving on the Salem-Keizer School Board until 2022 and taking office as county commissioner in 2021.

In addressing the ethics complaint, Bethell told the ethics commission, “I work very hard to be transparent.”

Bethell wouldn’t grant Salem Reporter an interview and didn’t respond to detailed written questions. She also didn’t respond to draft excerpts of this story provided for her review for accuracy.

She has maintained in other statements that she did nothing wrong, that her actions were being misconstrued, first by the experienced sheriff’s deputy and then an ethics investigator.

READ IT: Danielle Bethell’s statement

But the citation matter is only one of the ethics proceedings against her.

The commission also has ordered a deeper investigation into her vote on a county contract with a company that employed her son. The commission review found that under state ethics laws, Bethell should have abstained from discussing and voting on the deal. She defended her action, saying she acted on advice from the county’s lead attorney, who subsequently told the ethics commission that his counsel “was not the best approach.”

Bethell has already been sanctioned once for an ethics violation. In June, she conceded violating open meetings law for failing to see that public notices were issued for a homeless alliance on whose board she served. The ethics commission issued her a letter of education as it did for several other public officials caught in the same circumstance.

But it was the New Year’s Eve traffic stop of her adult daughter that put Bethell in jeopardy for another ethics violation.

Natalie Bethell was stopped about 4 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2024, as she drove down Northeast Lancaster Drive. When the deputy turned on his emergency lights, Bethell, then 19, pulled into the center turn lane on the busy road to stop.

This wasn’t her first encounter with police over her driving.

In April 2023, a Stayton police officer cited her for speeding and driving uninsured. The citations were dismissed a month later because the ticket was delivered to the court the day after Natalie Bethell was scheduled to appear, according to court officials.

The new traffic stop was initiated by Sheriff’s Deputy Ron Cereghino, who at that time had worked for Marion County for 26 years. He had seen her using her phone while driving.

Cereghino recorded the traffic stop and later recounted events after that when he filed a complaint against the county commissioner with the ethics commission.

Seated in her vehicle during the encounter, the younger Bethell turned her mobile phone towards the deputy so he could hear the person on the line – Danielle Bethell.

“Commissioner Bethell began telling me what I was and wasn’t going to do in regards to her daughter’s citation/court appearance,” Cereghino wrote in his complaint.

According to the transcript, Cereghino told the commissioner that her daughter had presented an expired proof of insurance card. Bethell responded that she could find the current card and send an image.

“Well we’re right in the middle of the road, cause she didn’t pull to the right. So I’m gonna finish my business with her and um you guys can show the current card that would’ve been valid today to the court and they’ll dismiss it automatically,” the deputy told her.

Bethell responded, “She can’t go to the court in Marion County because I’m a commissioner, so please be thoughtful before you send her.”

Bethell later told the ethics commission that “I requested the deputy choose a court other than the justice court.”

The transcript doesn’t reflect such a request. The deputy assured her the court would address any conflicts of interest in handling the citation, the transcript showed.

The younger Bethell was cited for unlawful use of a mobile electronic device, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle and failure to carry proof of insurance. The total maximum fine Bethell’s daughter faced: $795.

Cereghino said in his complaint that he learned that “Commissioner Bethell had called Sheriff Hunter the same night of the incident. It was stated that his ear got chewed for 15-20 minutes about the incident, while eating dinner.”

The deputy didn’t respond to requests for an interview.

“He said he was pleased with the traffic stop and the professional conduct during the traffic stop, adding it was not as Commissioner Bethell had described.”

– Ron Cereghino, Marion County sheriff’s deputy

Hunter declined an interview and wouldn’t answer written questions from Salem Reporter. A spokesman said “it would be inappropriate to comment on an open investigation.”

The deputy said in his ethics complaint, however, that two days after his stop of Bethell’s daughter Hunter reviewed the dashcam video of the incident.

“He said he was pleased with the traffic stop and the professional conduct during the traffic stop, adding it was not as Commissioner Bethell had described,” Cereghino wrote.

According to Cereghino’s account, Bethell kept pressing the matter.

Three days after the citation, the commissioner called on Justin Kidd, Marion County justice of the peace. His justice court, part of Marion County government, handles traffic citations.

In a Jan. 3 email from her personal account, Bethell reminded Kidd that he had previously adopted a policy of not handling matters involving county commissioners or their immediate relatives.

She recently wrote the ethics commission that she had learned this practice “a couple of years ago” while at lunch with the justice of the peace.

“It was my understanding that any kind of interaction with myself or my family would have to be overseen by any jurisdiction of which I do not have direct influence,” she wrote.

In her email to the justice, she said, “I need to be directed in what the process will be.”

Kidd responded that he had already transferred her daughter’s citation to state court.

He wrote the ethics commission that the county commissioner questioned the sheriff’s office practices with citations.

“I remember she thought that the number of citations coming from one stop was excessive,” Kidd said. “I communicated to her that it was not uncommon for a stop to result in multiple violations.”

Cereghino said Bethell had complained of “violation stacking.”

Court records show that on Jan. 2, Kidd transferred the traffic case to Marion County Circuit Court “because of a professional conflict.”

A month later, the deputy said in his complaint, Bethell “made derogatory or slighted comments about the sheriff’s office and its issuing of tickets. I was told it was no secret Commissioner Bethell has been trying to abolish the Traffic Safety Team.”

He also said that Bethell had been “contacting circuit court judges about the stop.”

The presiding state judge in Marion County Circuit Court, Judge Tracy Prall, said in an email that Bethell had not contacted her and she was unaware of the allegation of contacts with other judges.

But a week after the traffic stop, the deputy wrote, “Commissioner Bethell was openly overheard discussing the traffic stop with Judge Queen,” referring to Marion Circuit Judge Amy Queen.

The occasion was the swearing-in of county officials last Jan. 6 for their new terms – just six days after the traffic stop. Queen swore in Bethell, who had contributed to the judge’s 2022 campaign for office.

Queen responded to written questions from Salem Reporter by declining comment. 

“The Judicial Code of Conduct prohibits me from answering your specific questions regarding any allegations contained in the complaint,” the judge said in an email, noting she may be a witness in the Bethell ethics matter.

Court records show that Natalie Bethell was originally scheduled to appear in court on March 28. For reasons not documented in the record, the trial was delayed until August.

Bethell joined her daughter in the Marion County courtroom when her citation was heard. Natalie Bethell pleaded guilty to using the cell phone and the other two charges were dismissed. She paid a $265 fine. Her mother later paid $10 still owing on the case, according to court records.

Three weeks after the trial, on Sept. 4, the deputy filed his complaint.

“The commissioner should not use the resources, influence or connections associated with her position to interfere with or insert herself into the situation,” he wrote. “Commissioner Bethell however inserted herself at every point.”

The ethics commission notified her of the complaint on Sept. 5 and gave her 20 days to provide a response. She didn’t do so.

Instead, County Counsel Steve Elzinga, the county’s lead attorney, submitted a response dated Oct. 8. He wrote that he was writing “on behalf of Marion County” but his focus was clearing Bethell of any misconduct.

Elzinga wouldn’t agree to an interview and didn’t address detailed written questions from Salem Reporter.

His submission showed he independently investigated the matter, though he wouldn’t answer who asked him to do so.

He provided the ethics commission the private emails between Bethell and the justice of the peace and the video of the traffic stop without explaining how he obtained them. He also provided the audio recording of the ticket trial.

Elzinga told Salem Reporter in an email that he did the work to “confirm that there was no county liability.”

His submission went beyond that, though, including criticizing the county’s own deputy.

“Deputy Cereghino got the wrong impression of some statements while standing in the middle of the road during a noisy traffic stop,” Elzinga wrote.

He said there was no ethics violation apparent in the video or the private emails. The rest of the allegations were “unsupported” and “contain numerous inaccuracies.” Elzinga didn’t elaborate on what the inaccuracies were or what investigation he had done to establish them.

He said he wasn’t representing Bethell. In an email to Salem Reporter, he said that county attorneys in the past have represented employees facing ethics accusations.

Salem Reporter sought public documents of such cases in the last five years. In response, Elzinga’s office provided records of just one other instance where the county provided legal services to its employees on state ethics matters.

That was earlier in 2025 – and involved Bethell.

The records show that county attorneys represented the commissioner and one other county employee over the ethics complaint about improper meeting notices. Both subsequently received letters of education from the state.

According to the county’s website, Elzinga is “prohibited from providing legal advice to the public or to parties other than the political subdivision and body politic of Marion County.”

In a Dec. 9 statement to the ethics commission, Bethell said that “no person within the Marion County legal department has drafted any comments on my behalf or for me.”

But Elzinga’s intercession on Bethell’s behalf caught the attention of ethics investigators.

“It appears that Commissioner Bethell may also have used her office to have County Counsel draft arguments on her behalf to avoid the financial detriment of hiring her own private counsel,” according to the preliminary report.

Elzinga’s letter “does not merely provide factual information, but addresses individual legal rights of Commissioner Bethell.”

The ethics report said investigators would need to establish if legal service is part of Bethell’s compensation package.

The county’s employee benefit plan does include access to legal services ­– but through an employee assistance program, not the county’s in-house legal team. A listing of benefits specifically for elected officials such as Bethell doesn’t list county-paid legal help.

Reporter Joe Siess contributed to this story.

RELATED COVERAGE:

Ethics commission said Bethell’s vote benefitted her son’s employer

Contact Editor Les Zaitz: [email protected]

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