Wait, why is this dude being charged with bribery when:
Following a two-year investigation, the DA’s office discovered that the two sheriffs were deliberately “refusing to release [the CCW licenses] until the applicants gave something of value.”
Unless I’m missing something, the problem is with these two sheriffs acting illegally. Were they brought up on charges for soliciting a bribe or what?
The grand jury also issued indictments against two county officials, Undersheriff Rick Sung and Sheriff’s Captain James Jensen, alleging that they had actually requested the bribes
The duo from the County Sheriff’s office appeared to be the ones primarily in the District Attorney’s crosshairs, with DA Jeff Rosen stating in a press release at the time that the accused “treated CCW licenses as commodities and found willing buyers” in folks like Apple’s Moyer.
Depends who brought the charges. Somebody with an ax to grind internally would just bring the charges because they got exposed so I'm taking you down with me.
Somebody external would charge with bribery because they're participating in the scheme.
If you bribe you're not innocent. You might be in an unwinnable position, you might have to do it, but you are facilitating the cycle.
I mean, if you change the word from bribery to extortion it sounds a lot closer to what happened. People don’t normally wait 2 years to start bribing people for something they should already have gotten.