Former county commissioner Brent Overson has long contended the same thing. Overson describes an encounter in 1988, the day after the November election, when he says Yocom accosted him and accused him of bringing about the defeat of a candidate Yocom favored.

"He looked me in the eye and said he'd do everything he could to get even with me. . . . He said he had a long memory and I had better watch out," Overson said.

Overson was later the subject of two Yocom investigations, in 1992 and 2001, neither of which resulted in criminal charges (a civil action in the latter investigation was squelched by Workman).

Yocom admits to becoming angry in the encounter with Overson but maintains that his investigations are based solely on fact.

"This is all smokescreen. . . . It's my job to investigate," he said. "It's in county policy. What am I going to do?"

Yocom can indeed become angry. One county official, who prefers to remain unnamed, said that on one occasion he was chatting with Yocom when Overson happened to walk by. Yocom launched into a blistering diatribe against Overson, repeatedly using a vulgarity that begins with "f" "as an adjective, a prefix, a suffix," the official said.

The official added that he is accustomed to gritty language but that he was nonetheless taken aback by the extent of Yocom's vitriol.

Skousen had his own run-in this week, being called into a meeting with the county clerk and an attorney from Yocom's office after commenting about the Workman investigation to the media. There he was told that he would be personally liable in any lawsuit arising from comments he made regarding a prior investigation.

Skousen believes Yocom was using the meeting to intimidate him into silence and intends to complain to Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who was himself once the subject of a Yocom investigation.

Yocom defended the meeting as a legitimate way to inform Skousen of the legalities of the situation. County Clerk Sherrie Swensen added that she, not Yocom, had asked Wilde to come to the meeting.

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E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com