Former DCSO detective Ron Brown sentenced, serving a week in Prineville jail on official misconduct conviction

(Update: DCSO confirms Brown at Crook Co. Jail; DA Gunnels confirms sentence details, comments)

Prosecutor's memo notes other incidents, says Brown 'sewed distrust into the community'

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A former longtime Deschutes County sheriff’s deputy and detective, recently convicted by a judge of two counts of official misconduct, was sentenced Friday afternoon and began serving a week in the Crook County Jail, records indicated.

Ron Brown, 59, is actually listed as an inmate in both the Deschutes and Crook County jail online rosters, for a sentence set to end next Friday.

A Deschutes County Jail sergeant confirmed Monday that such a double-listing is common when an inmate is being held at another facility. He said records show Brown was given a 10-day jail sentence, but credits such as time served can reduce that to a week, as is shown.

DCSO Sergeant Jason Brown told NewsChannel 21, "Former employee Ron Brown was fingerprinted and booked at the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office Adult Jail and then transferred to Crook County as a courtesy and for the safety of all involved. The roster at both facilities reflect this fact. "

The online Deschutes County jail roster showed Brown was booked in shortly after 4 p.m. Friday and held without bail, to serve a week for two counts of first-degree official misconduct. The Crook County Jail roster, meanwhile, shows the same charges and no-bail hold, listing Brown as "lodged for another jurisdiction."

District Attorney Steve Gunnels confirmed Monday that Brown was sentenced to 10 days in jail, one year of supervised probation and 120 hours of community service.

"We believe the sentence was appropriate, given his position and his conduct," Gunnels told NewsChannel 21.

After a two-day non-jury trial, Crook and Jefferson County Circuit Judge Annette Hillman found Brown guilty of transferring photos and videos of a sexual nature of a man and his girlfriend to his own cellphone while investigating the man’s suicide in December of 2021. He also was convicted of directing the woman into his patrol car, where he was watching porn and sexually aroused. She acquitted Brown on two other charges.

Some jail time had been recommended by a Deschutes County prosecutor in the summary of a scathing sentencing memorandum, filed Friday, that detailed other reported incidents involving Brown.

In her memorandum, Deputy District Attorney Alison Filo said Brown’s conduct with the victim not only “impacted (her) significantly, it also constituted an egregious violation of the public trust and will continue to impact the law enforcement community for years to come.”

Filo noted that there are few state sentencing guidelines on misdemeanors, and said just one mitigating factor seemed to apply, that Brown has no criminal history. But she cited “significant aggravating factors” in the case, noting that the victim “was incredibly vulnerable” at the time and that Brown “used that vulnerability and desperation for his own sexual gain.”

The prosecutor also pointed out that “persistent involvement in similar offenses” is an appropriate aggravating factor, and they don’t have to have resulted in convictions.

That said, Filo detailed and included with her memo a transcript of a statement from a woman who said she was in Las Vegas on a work trip in 2014 and had been booked, without any action on her part, in a room with an adjoining door to Brown’s room.

She said she fell asleep early one night and awakened to Brown pacing back and forth in front of the open adjoined door while “obviously masturbating” while apparently watching porn on his TV. The woman said she pretended to be asleep and prayed he would stop, but he actually walked in and hovered over her.

Filo said the woman regretted not reporting the incident to the sheriff’s office, but mentioned being a single mother who needed the job and wanted to remain safe and employed.

Filo said a detective’s 75-page report included “details of numerous incidents of sexually related inappropriate conduct” by Brown, such as storing numbers in his phone as “spam likely” so his wife would not know who was calling him, then showing the calls to co-workers when his phone rang,

She said he initially was held back from promotion to sergeant due to sexually inappropriate comments to a female deputy.

“The state submits that Ron Brown’s actions caused more harm than the average official misconduct conviction,” Filo wrote. “He was not filling his personal car with gas from a county-owned pump or firing his weapon to show off to a group of friends. Ron Brown preyed on someone he thought no one would believe.

“His behavior with (the two women) and with the impressionable young deputies at the sheriff’s office are representative of someone who thrives on power and control. He used that power and control to create a misogynistic environment where women were reduced to objects of sexual gratification,” the prosecutor wrote.

“Ron Brown sewed distrust into the community and made it infinitely harder for law enforcement to do the thankless job we demand of them daily,” Filo said.

In her conclusion, Filo said for those reasons, prosecutors believe “actual jail time is appropriate and necessary for Ron Brown. It is the hope of the state that being on the other side of the power and control dynamic would be illuminating to Mr. Brown.”

She also recommended Brown “be directed to engage in at least 12 group or individual sessions of therapy that are specifically designed to educate Mr. Brown on appropriate sexual boundaries and how to confirm his behavior to stay within them.”