A long-time Grand Forks County Highway Department employee pleaded guilty today to taking a well-used county tractor and a tankful of county fuel without permission in a sort of premature deal.
Michael Deziel, 55, entered an "Alford" guilty plea in state district court to the misdemeanor count of unauthorized use of a vehicle. The plea means he admitted no wrong-doing but that there was enough evidence to convict him.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail but he paid restitution of $887.70 plus $300 in court fees and a judge deferred imposition of the sentence if he keeps conditions of two years of unsupervised probation.
After 35 years with the county, Deziel retired May 15, only three weeks after being charged. Deziel lives near Fertile, Minn.
Reached on his cell phone today, Deziel said he was working late and couldn't talk while he was driving on the job for a construction firm.
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Richard Onstad, county highway superintendent, said the yellow 1969 Ford utility tractor that Deziel had prematurely taken home is back, being used around the county shop, until it's traded to Titan Machinery for a new 70-horse Case IH tractor due to be delivered in November.
Deziel had arranged to buy the old utility tractor from Titan after the trade-in deal with the county, said Onstad, who gave a statement to the sheriff's department on the case.
According to an affidavit from Sheriff's Sgt. Dan Hillebrand, this spring Deziel told a Titan manager to "hold" the tractor for him for an agreed-on price of $2,000 after the county made its trade.
But meanwhile, Deziel replaced all the hoses and fluids on the tractor at county expense, without authorization, and then was seen filling it up with county fuel the Friday before it went missing April 29, Hillebrand said in his affidavit.
During an interview in May, Deziel "admitted that he probably should not have put gas into the tractor knowing that he was taking it home," Hillebrand said in his affidavit, but "he claims that all the work that was done on the tractor, he was told to do."
Onstad said Deziel was instructed to do some of the work, including welding on rear wheels.
But the tractor wasn't supposed to leave county grounds until the new one was delivered, Onstad said.
Deziel made the decision to retire and was not forced to leave his longtime county position, Onstad said.
