Paul Hammel
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — A legal battle has erupted over whether a felony theft charge against the former director of History Nebraska, Trevor Jones, should finally be dismissed.
The issue is whether the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office failed to promptly file an appeal over the dismissal of a theft by deception charge that had been filed against Jones.
If the appeal was filed too late, the prosecution of Jones, who resigned the $164,800-a-year director’s job in 2022, could be over before any arguments are heard by the Nebraska Court of Appeals.
In January, Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong tossed out the felony charge Jones faced, ruling that prosecutors had failed to bring him to trial within the state’s speedy trial deadline.
On March 5, Nebraska Court of Appeals Judge Frankie Moore asked state lawyers to demonstrate whether they had properly complied with a statute that requires appeals be applied within 20 days of such a dismissal, and whether the fee to appeal had been paid.
“The record now before us does not indicate that the State (Attorney General’s Office) has followed the requirements,” the judge wrote.
In a March 12 response, the AG’s office said the clerk of the Appeals Court had filed their appeal under the incorrect statute, and that prosecutors had complied with another statute that allows 30 days to appeal a final order by a district court judge.
A notice of appeal was filed on Feb. 20 to the Jan. 21 dismissal of the charge, according to a brief listing Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Assistant Attorney General Erin Tangeman, and that the docket fee was intended to be paid via an AG’s account kept by the court system.
That give and take was followed Monday by a request from Jones’ lawyers to sustain a “summary dismissal” of the charge against Jones because prosecutors had cited the wrong state statute and had failed to properly file their appeal.
The Appeals Court had not issued a ruling on the purported errors as of Wednesday afternoon.
Jones, now 52, was a controversial figure during the six years he headed the Nebraska State Historical Society. He changed the agency’s name to “History Nebraska” during his tenure and won praise for seeking to modernize and digitize the agency’s collections.
But he earned scorn from some employees — and high turnover — for a heavy-handed management system he imposed requiring workers to, for instance, frequently document how many files they had scanned.
He resigned shortly before a critical state audit was released in 2022. The audit raised concerns about his handling of $270,000 in donations from the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation to cover the agency’s financial losses expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead of depositing the donations with the State Treasurer, as legally required, Jones funneled the money into a new private foundation he had set up to replace the State Historical Society Foundation. He had quarreled with its leaders. The money was never used to cover COVID losses.
Ultimately, the Attorney General’s office filed the felony charge against Jones, which carried a possible prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Jones had pleaded not guilty and maintained that he could manage the donations how he saw fit.
Prosecutors have maintained that the speed trial clock had been “halted” for a time due to a change in Jones’ legal defense team and that he should still stand trial for the theft offense.