The former manager of the Barlow Water Improvement District, John Robert Herlocker, 59, was arrested Oct. 7 on five charges including felony computer crime, burglary and theft and official misconduct.
Wasco County District Attorney Eric Nisley said Herlocker was accused of a number of financial activities that weren’t proper. As the lengthy investigation continued, he was ultimately accused of unlawfully accessing one of the water district computers after he was suspended and told not to come onto water district property.
He was also charged with second-degree burglary, accused of wrongfully entering the building to access the computer, Nisley said.
He was also charged with second-degree theft and is accused of stealing a computer from the water district. He is accused of using water district money to purchase a computer, allegedly for work purposes, but the water district never received the computer back, Nisley said.
He is accused of first-degree official misconduct for allegedly taking a computer and accessing a computer software program, Nisley said.
The Wasco County Sheriff’s Office was first contacted in March 2018 about the matter. “It took a long time, a lot of financial stuff, and it was very confusing, so we took a long, careful look at all the allegations that were made and the grand jury returned this indictment,” Nisley said.
Neither Herlocker nor his attorney could be reached for comment.
Daily Holman, chair of the water district board, said Herlocker started with the water district, whose office is in Pine Hollow, in 2011. He was terminated in 2017. The district has about 524 residential customers and four commercial customers.
When Herlocker was suspended, he was told not to return to the water district office or properties and to turn in the keys to the office and vehicle, as well as the company phone and credit card. Holman said Herlocker failed to turn over the keys and never gave the credit card back, so it was cancelled.
Holman said Herlocker is accused of returning to the office and getting on the computer, deleting a number of items and damaging the computer to the point it said “hard drive failure.”
Herlocker sued for $2.7 million and the water board reluctantly settled for a small amount that “basically covered his attorney’s fees,” Holman said. “Our lawyer explained that we’re going to spend this much going to court and even though we have an iron-clad case, you never know how a jury will go. And I explained that to the rest of the board and they agreed that, yeah, let’s just end it. He signed away all rights of future complaints. It was a convenient way to end it.”
When Herlocker’s employee evaluation came up, he wanted it done publicly. “The room was full and they were hostile to us board members. And of course, since things have come out, that has mostly changed.”
Herlocker was elected to the South Wasco County School District 1 board in 2017 and was president of the Barlow Grange, Holman said.
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