Attorney: Misconduct Wasn't Proved But Findings Leveraged Orland Fire Chief's Early Retirement

A former chief may not be responsible for the pornographic materials on his work computer, but those items did help the district leverage an early retirement agreement, a special investigator said Tuesday.

Before district trustees and the public at Tuesday night's board meeting, attorney Karl Ottosen presented some results of an investigation into the potential misconduct of two former district employees.

He said his firm was tasked last spring to look into personnel matters, including Joseph Madden, who was promoted from lieutenant to deputy chief, skipping the rank of battalion chief, and a female lieutenant who allegedly received written answers before a promotional test courtesy of Chief Bryant Krizik.

What he found was that Madden’s three-year contract was unenforceable, because, according to state law, he said, “there cannot be a fire agreement with anyone other than the fire chief that … extends beyond the term of any trustee.”

Ottosen said he was instructed to give Madden the option to drop rank or retire, .

In regards to the allegation involving Krizik and promotional testing, the evidence suggested that there had been no deliberate misconduct, Ottosen said.

A closer look at Krizik’s district-issued laptop, however, revealed “a significant amount of inappropriate sexual pictures and images and videos,” he said.

Although the computer “had very limited access by anybody else,” there was no proof that Krizik had looked at pornographic websites or downloaded porn, he said.

Still, they “gave us leverage in negotiations that seemed to be the ultimate, or the preferred direction, to go anyway,” Ottosen said after the presentation. “Rather than go through public hearings with this kind of stuff, we thought it was best to enter into a retirement agreement and move on.”

Krizik officially retired on Sept. 1 with .

Both Krizik and his attorney, Rich Gonzalez, did not return messages seeking comment on Ottosen's findings.

Absent during the presentation were Board President James Hickey and Trustee Martin McGill.

One of the Ottosen’s colleagues had been tasked with investigating Battalion Chief Randy Reeder, who was voluntarily demoted—the results of which have not been publicly released.