Scoop: Ferguson's office was told of allegations against top aide years ago

Catch up quick: Webb served as Ferguson's chief of staff in the attorney general's office for years before becoming Ferguson's chief strategy officer in the governor's office.

• Webb resigned in March after multiple state officials raised concerns about his workplace conduct.
• Still, Webb remains in the governor's inner circle. He told Axios this week he meets with the governor's campaign team "at least once a month" and flew on the governor's plane with him last month, accompanying Ferguson to a meeting in the Tri-Cities.

Flashback: A 2019 fraud audit of a nonprofit that received state funding — the Washington Coalition of Crime Victim Advocates — surfaced allegations that Webb had a sexual encounter with one of the nonprofit's employees. (Webb was not the subject of the audit.)

• According to FBI interview notes, the employee told a state audit manager the 2013 encounter was consensual but said she "did feel some pressure from Webb," whose role in the attorney general's office gave him "some responsibility for approving payments" to her employer.

• The nonprofit employee declined to speak with Axios for this story.
• Separately, a former colleague said Webb later called her to ask what she told the audit team — and warned her that her name would be shared with the media. She told auditors the call felt intimidating, per state and FBI records.

The big picture: State auditors relayed their concerns about Webb's conduct to Shane Esquibel, then a top deputy in Ferguson's attorney general office, in 2019, according to audit documents and an agency spokesperson who confirmed the exchange.

• Esquibel later became chief operations officer in the governor's office and is now Ferguson's chief of staff.

The other side: In a written memo responding to auditors, Webb denied having "any social contact" with the nonprofit employee and said he called his former colleague to "get her perspective."

• This week, he told Axios he had a group dinner with the employee and the nonprofit's executive director in 2013 and drove the employee home afterward, but he denied any sexual encounter.
• He said he "certainly never, ever did anything intended to put pressure" on the nonprofit employee, adding that he had "zero role" in overseeing the nonprofit's grant at the time. The attorney general's office didn't assume oversight of the grant until a few months later.

Ferguson spokesperson Brionna Aho told Axios that when she said publicly in March that no formal or informal human resources complaints had been filed about Webb, she was responding to a reporter's specific question about HR reports.

• The information relayed to Esquibel by the auditor's office in 2019 didn't fall into that category, she wrote in an email, though she later noted that Esquibel did discuss the matter with an HR director.
• Auditors said at the time the reported sexual encounter wasn't under investigation, Aho wrote.

Between the lines: In 2015, Greg Wright — then the board president of the Washington Coalition of Crime Victim Advocates — wrote a memo instructing staff to avoid one-on-one meetings with Webb, according to a copy of the memo shared with Axios.

• At the time, Webb, then in the AG's office, managed the nonprofit's state grant, the memo says.
• According to the memo, in addition to the alleged 2013 sexual encounter with the nonprofit employee, Webb made "inappropriate comments" about her in front of others, causing staff to refer to him by a crude nickname, Wright wrote.
• Wright warned of "significant potential for additional unwanted sexual advances, propositions and contact" from Webb.

Webb called the contents of the memo false and "extraordinarily inflammatory."

The memo was titled "confidential" and wasn't formally addressed to Ferguson's office. But Wright told Axios he discussed the allegations in the memo with staff in the auditor's office and the attorney general's office in 2019.

• Nina Jenkins, a spokesperson for Attorney General Nick Brown — who assumed office earlier this year — said no one currently working in the office received the memo or heard from anyone at the nonprofit about the allegations it contains.
• Aho said the governor's office was also unaware of the memo and what it describes.

Yes, but: A person previously involved in Ferguson's administration told Axios they discussed the allegations with one of Ferguson's top aides earlier this year — and that the aide had reported talking about the accusations with the governor.

• The person recounting that discussion asked not to be named in this story, citing potential professional repercussions.

Additionally, in 2019, George Culpepper Jr., then a board member of the Washington Coalition of Crime Victim Advocates, sent an email to staff in the state auditor's office raising several concerns — including "sexual harassment complaints" that he said had come up "in prior conversations."

• While the email doesn't list a specific name associated with those complaints, Culpepper confirmed to Axios that he was referring to complaints about Webb. Culpepper's email was forwarded to staff in the attorney general's office.

More recently, before Webb resigned earlier this year, at least three female state officials brought concerns about Webb's workplace conduct directly to Ferguson, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations. That person requested anonymity due to concerns about professional blowback.

Aho told Axios that the concerns raised by employees to the governor this year "did not involve any complaints or concerns about sexual misconduct or sexual relationships."

• She wrote in an email that "a conversation with a manager is not an HR complaint," and that "people need to have room to have discussions with managers."
• "Our leadership is very engaged in ensuring our team feels heard and works together in the best way possible," Aho wrote.

Culpepper said he doesn't believe that Ferguson didn't know about the years of concerns about Webb — but even if Ferguson was in the dark, he added, that's a problem.

• "You should know what's going on in your own house," Culpepper said. "He was allowing this stuff to transpire."

Editor's note: This story has been updated to further clarify that Webb was not the subject of the state's audit.