Man acquitted of stealing from DOT

PALMER — A former Department of Transportation employee has been acquitted on charges he tried to cover up the theft of department property.

“This investigation and the charging of my client has basically created a policy change within DOT,” said Jon-Marc Petersen, attorney for William Barrickman.

Petersen said the jury took about 20 minutes to decide his client’s fate last week. He said he later ran into a juror at Fred Meyer who said the decision wasn’t even a close call.

Barrickman was foreman of a DOT station in the Cascade area on the Glenn Highway. Petersen said the investigation began with allegations his client’s brother, Micahel Barrickman, stole fuel from a DOT tank.

“He stole fuel. No doubt about it,” Petersen said.

Michael Barrickman has since pleaded guilty to felony theft and received a sentence that included no prison time.

But Petersen said that as troopers began investigating one brother, they also started looking at the other. He said they had no allegations William Barrickman had stolen anything, but knew he lived up the road from his brother.

“They say, ‘Well, we’re going to take aerial photographs of William Barrickman’s residence just because they’re related they both work at DOT,’” Petersen said.

And so they did. And they found a couple of stands holding up fuel tanks on William Barrickman’s property had been put together using Telspar — the square metal tubing used to hold up street signs.

“My client goes in and talks to his supervisor, his supervisor says, ‘Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on, your brother’s in trouble for stealing fuel. I’m telling everyone that if you have any stuff that might be from DOT to take it back.’”

So, Petersen said, his client did. He took the fuel stands and some shelving he’d also made partially out of Telspar and brought them to a DOT scrap pile.

And thus came the charge of tampering with evidence.

“They’re saying that that basically hindered their investigation into the Telspar,” Petersen said.

He said his client was never charged with theft. People took scrap Telspar home all the time. Once a sign is broken the Telspar can’t be reused. And it’s cheaper for the state to give it away than to pay to have it disposed of. DOT didn’t really have a policy in place for who could use scrap Telspar or even the definition of scrap where Telspar is concerned.

“They kept trying to say in my trial that it was four feet, that anything over four feet was not scrap,” Petersen said.

But he couldn’t find anywhere in DOT policy where that four-foot rule was spelled out. Since the Barrickman brothers were charged, though, those policies have been put into place, Petersen said, quoting a DOT official who testified at trial. Petersen said winning the case was a good thing for him and his client.

“I don’t know if you could find one person that would say, ‘Yeah he took things that belonged to him, he’s a thief and he’s a liar,’” Petersen said.

But while his client’s acquittal puts to rest the criminal side of things, Petersen said, William Barrickman still has some things to sort out. He’s suing DOT, claiming the department forced him to resign when the case started heating up. Petersen said it would only be fair if DOT hired his client back.

“Based on the acquittal in this case he should get his job back,” Petersen said. “He’s a hardworking guy, lifelong Alaskan and his brother got caught up in something and he just got dragged through the mud because he’s got the same last name.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.