Ex - Clackamas County Commissioner Melissa Fireside fled as investigators delved into finances

oregonlive.com · Feb 15, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Facing the prospect of going to prison, Melissa Fireside got to work. Using an Austrian passport, she clicked on a plane reservation, booking a flight from Mexico to Amsterdam on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. She probably ditched her phone, according to experienced fugitive hunters, and may be going by another name. Disappearing, after all, takes effort.“Even as a retired FBI agent with years of tracking down people who have absconded from the law, I couldn’t do it overnight,” said former FBI special agent Dan McLaughlin, who now works as a private investigator in Salem. “It would take pre-planning.”It’s been more than three months since the disgraced former Clackamas County commissioner gave authorities the slip. The Oregon Department of Justice still hasn’t found her. Former Clackamas County Commissioner Melissa Fireside at her arraignment in early 2025. She is accused of felony theft and pleaded not guilty. She took off as her trial approached last last year. Beth NakamuraFireside, 44, faces felony theft charges involving an elderly friend of her mother’s. As the December trial date approached, Fireside privately balked at a plea deal that would have sent her to prison for two years in exchange for her guilty plea. Investigators also had widened their inquiry into her finances.A source familiar with the investigation but who asked not to be identified because the case is ongoing said Fireside knew authorities had uncovered potentially questionable financing she secured for a high-end house she was building in West Linn and hoped to sell.Another source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said federal officials also are looking at pandemic-era relief she obtained. The government intended the money to help keep businesses afloat. When she vanished last October with her school-age son in tow, Fireside left behind a mess that included ruined relationships and a trail of financial dealings that her sister says included exploiting their 78-year-old mother.Fireside’s sister, Gwen Young, said she hasn’t heard from Fireside and neither has their mother, Gertrude. “Believe me,” she said, “if we had, I’d be the first one going to the police.”It’s not clear what state or federal investigators are doing to track down Fireside.State Justice Department officials remain tight lipped about the investigation and declined to say whether they sought help from the FBI or U.S. Marshals Service. “We don’t have any updates we can share right now,” said Jenny Hansson, spokesperson for Attorney General Dan Rayfield. Lenny DePaul, a retired chief inspector and commander with the U.S. Marshals Service, said seasoned investigators would turn Fireside’s “world upside down” to search for digital clues.“Who’d she talk to? What kind of websites did she visit?” said DePaul, who led a regional fugitive task force in New York and New Jersey. “We call it: who’s who in the zoo,” he said. “You are looking not only at her … but her trusted circle of friends.”He said federal marshals tend to bring the government’s most powerful resources and a deep well of experience to fugitive cases. “If they really want to put this thing to bed, they’re going to need help from folks that know how to find human beings,” he said. Portland-based Deputy U.S. Marshal Jason Fitzpatrick did not respond to emails asking if the agency had been approached to help with the search for Fireside. Likewise, a spokesperson for the FBI in Portland did not respond to inquiries about whether the agency is involved.DePaul said Fireside likely thought ahead about using a burner device, getting cash and even outside help.“She set the table for this,” he said. “She didn’t just wake up one morning and say, ‘I’m in trouble. I gotta get out of here.’”Lake Oswego tiesFireside circulated in Lake Oswego political circles and promoted her consulting startup, Resolute Consulting PDX, which she opened in 2018. Her resume lists her consulting firm as her “corporate experience.” It also listed her as co-founder and chief branding officer of TheRavenBlanc, a company she registered with the state in 2019 but is no longer active. It’s not clear what the company did, though the business name remains on multiple Instagram posts that feature modeling photos of Fireside.She attended an Emerge Oregon bootcamp, a political training program that helps women raise money and build campaigns. In response to an inquiry from The Oregonian/OregonLive, the organization confirmed her participation.On her consulting site, she lists a Ph.D. after her name. Her resume says she received the degree from Capella University, a for-profit online program. A program spokesperson confirmed Fireside earned the degree in “organization and management with a specialization in management education” in 2014. It’s unclear what if any consulting business Fireside generated. A review of Lake Oswego city records by The Oregonian/OregonLive show she pitched an ambitious development proposal with other business leaders in 2020.At least two of those relationships later soured.Records show the group proposed a “boutique lifestyle hotel,” condominiums, retail space and parking near First Street downtown. Fireside, according to the submission, said her firm had “relationships and access to private equity investors.” Among those joining Fireside in the proposal: local businessman Joe Buck, the current mayor of Lake Oswego who previously served on the City Council. The submission noted he would serve as the operator of a hotel envisioned by the project. Robert Wei, a West Linn businessman who imports building materials, was listed in the group’s submission as the finance and supply chain manager for Fireside’s firm. Wei said in a recent interview that he met Fireside during the pandemic when she helped him distribute personal protective equipment he imported. He said Fireside initially struck him as competent, well-connected and a “hard working single mom.”“Overall, the view was pretty positive about her during that time,” he recalled.Buck said last week that he knew Fireside had sought a position on a Lake Oswego city committee and that she approached him to join in her development proposal. “She is a smart lady,” he said. “She comes across as being very driven, very assertive, knowledgeable, confident.”He said, though, that she stopped talking to him in late 2020 as he ran for mayor and she unsuccessfully sought a seat on the Lake Oswego City Council.Buck said Fireside never made clear the reason for the sudden falling out. He said she undermined his campaign and participated in “a particularly negative” attack on him. Her conduct prompted him to discourage influential Democrats from backing her for a seat on the powerful county commission, he said. “Without a doubt, campaigns get heated,” he said in a text message, “yet her behavior was so inflammatory, malevolent and volatile that it gave me great concern to see her as a leading candidate for countywide office.”Investigation launchedFireside appeared determined to make her name in politics and in 2024 challenged a controversial one-term incumbent on the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners who was known for offensive comments on Islam, Muslim people, transgender people and the Black Lives Matter movement.That September, as the election approached, Lake Oswego police started investigating Fireside.Fireside’s mother had a friend named Arthur Petrone and Petrone’s daughter told police she noticed irregularities in her father’s bank account, according to an affidavit filed with the court.Court records allege Fireside took advantage of Petrone, a retired Safeway worker. He died last year. Petrone’s daughter told a detective that she noticed an estimated $30,000 in unusual transactions and described her father as confused and unaware of what was happening with his accounts, court records say. Prosecutors have accused Fireside of coaching Petrone on how to reset his bank account login and posing as Petrone in emails to get loans.They allege she forged Petrone’s signature and that of state Rep. April Dobson, D-Happy Valley, on various documents. Dobson said she had loaned Fireside money and that authorities later told her about problems with the “source of the money” Fireside used to repay her.The investigation did not become public until after Fireside won the election. She served just two months in office before resigning last March.New inquiriesBut investigators apparently didn’t stop with the indictment.They now appear to be looking at Fireside’s ties to the federal Paycheck Protection Program and a real estate deal that ended in foreclosure.Fireside also duped their mother, her sister claims.In 2020, Fireside’s consulting firm received a $18,391 loan from the program for payroll purposes, according to a database maintained by the investigative journalism organization ProPublica. The federal government set up the loans to keep companies and nonprofits afloat during the economic turbulence of the pandemic. The ProPublica database notes Fireside’s company employed two people and offered management consulting services. It does not identify the employees. The loan was forgiven, the database says.The database also shows that a woman with the same name as Fireside’s mother received a similar loan as a “residential remodeler” in Washington County with 15 employees. The loan amounted to about $290,000; the database does not indicate whether the loan was forgiven.Young, Fireside’s sister, said she saw her mother’s name in the database and found it puzzling that Gertrude Fireside would be linked to the relief program. Their mother never operated a remodeling business or any business with employees, she said; Gertrude Fireside spent most of her life as a homemaker, she said.Young called the Oregon Department of Justice and spoke with an investigator named Jerry Gorman, she said. He told her, she said, that Melissa Fireside’s potential ties to that loan are part of an ongoing inquiry. Young said her