A trial date is finally set for a Washington County Sheriff’s Office deputy accused of ramming a jail inmate’s head into a wall nearly five years ago.
Rian Alden, 43, faces charges of second-degree assault and first-degree official misconduct stemming from a March 30, 2018, incident in which an inmate was seriously injured during intake. His trial date is set for Feb. 7.
A 13-minute video, shared on numerous media outlets, shows Alden charging Albert Molina, 49, in the booking area of the jail. In the video, Molina’s head is slammed into a cement wall during the takedown.
Molina had been arrested in Tigard for riding his bicycle while drunk. The video shows Molina making a gesture at Alden, then the deputy charges at him.
No charges were initially filed against Alden, with prosecutors saying that the case couldn’t be proven against Alden due to varying witness statements, surveillance video from the jail lacking audio, and Molina’s inability to recall what happened.
Molina instead hired a civil attorney to sue Washington County for damages. His suit says that he suffered permanent injuries as a result of the attack.
Washington County paid $625,000 to Molina in 2020 and officially apologized for the "needless injury and trauma" he experienced.
New charges
A criminal investigation into Alden was also reopened in 2020, after the Washington County Sheriff’s Office was tipped off in a social media post to emails sent by Alden prior to him working for Washington County.
In that email, written by Alden in 2003 — four years before he started working for Washington County — Alden used several racial epithets and complained that “(expletive) foreigners … don’t belong here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, That was Racist, but I guess I am,” he wrote.
The Sheriff’s Office announced June 5, 2020, that Alden had been charged with first-degree official misconduct.
Two weeks later, a former Washington County Sheriff's Office employee, Rylan Albright, used his old login credentials to access an email account and distribute a faux “newsletter” to more than 35,000 people. It contained a screenshot and link to the 2018 jail booking video depicting the incident in which Alden attacked Molina.
Albright was arrested and indicted on charges of identity theft and computer crimes. He pleaded guilty to a computer crime felony, saying he hacked the email account to expose institutional racism and a lack of accountability at the Sheriff’s Office.
Oregon State Police Sgt. Jace Hall reviewed the video and concluded that Alden’s use of force wasn’t justified.
Molina’s attorney, Greg Kafoury, issued a statement after the case was reopened, criticizing prosecutors and investigators for not seeking this outside determination earlier. He also called out investigators for never obtaining Molina’s medical records to determine his level of injury from the assault.
“None of these agencies even requested medical records of the assault until this week,” Kafoury said in a June 2020 statement. “Perhaps they should be asked to explain.”
Washington County senior deputy district attorney Bracken McKey was the one who obtained the medical records, which showed Molina suffered a skull fracture and permanent brain damage because of the attack.
Weeks after the case was reopened, Washington County paid the $625,000 settlement and a grand jury had added a second-degree assault charge to Alden’s case.
Stalled case
Alden hasn’t worked since June 1, 2020, but the county was still on the hook for paying his salary and benefits until June 16, 2022.
When Pamplin Media Group reached out last March for confirmation of how much Alden had been paid since then, the Washington County Sheriff's Office said his total salary, benefits and other stipends amounted to more than $170,000 since he was placed on paid administrative leave.
While it already took two years from the incident to pursue criminal charges against Alden, there have been other holdups in the process.
Alden’s defense attorney, Daniel Thenell, has tried to have the case dismissed, saying it is politically motivated and partially spurred by the national fallout over George Floyd’s death in June 2020.
Alden’s indictment was announced less than two weeks after Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin — an incident that ignited nationwide protest and led to Chauvin being convicted of murder.
Court documents show that the defense also argued for the case’s dismissal because of an ethics investigation into McKey, the prosecutor who reopened the case.
A complaint was made by at least one Washington County Sheriff's Office employee following a meeting between McKey and Sgt. James Cuthbertson, the Washington County training instructor who initially reviewed the footage.
During that meeting, Cuthbertson said McKey threatened him and another Washington County Sheriff's Office employee, Cpl. Cade Edwards, not to testify, saying it would make the Sheriff’s Office look bad. They also claim McKey said he was reopening the case because he planned to run for DA someday and “didn’t want to appear soft on cops.”
McKey denied the allegations, which were investigated by the county and the Oregon Department of Justice. Both investigations found no wrongdoing.
In 2021, the Oregon State Police began an investigation of Cuthbertson for allegedly lying about his conversation with McKey and about his evaluation regarding Alden’s use of force. The status of that investigation is unclear.
The Alden case has since been transferred to chief deputy district attorney Jeff Lesowski, and the trial is scheduled to begin on Feb. 7.
A previous trial date was set for November 2021 but was canceled.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this story stated that Washington County was still paying Rian Alden's salary. He has been unpaid since June 16, 2022.