Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, left, and Dan Rayfield, Democratic candidate for Oregon attorney general, listen June 19, 2024, as audience members bring up their concerns in a meeting in Hermiston. Rayfield, Oregon attorney general, filed a civil suit against Smith and others July 15, 2025, claiming they used insider knowledge to purchase a company. (Tori Schuller/East Oregonian, Archive)

SALEM — Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a civil penalty lawsuit Tuesday, July 15, against former Morrow County elected officials and community leaders as well as state Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner.

The suit, which Rayfield filed in Morrow County Circuit Court, claims the defendants — called “insiders” in the filing — used knowledge they only had from their positions of power in the community to purchase a broadband company from a nonprofit for personal profit.

The insiders orchestrated the purchase of the broadband company Windwave Technologies from Inland Development Corp., an Oregon nonprofit “created to provide internet services to rural school districts, hospitals, libraries and courthouses,” according to the suit.

In addition to Smith, the defendants are Jill Parker and Richard Devin, Smith’s fellow members of Inland’s board of directors; Jerry Healy and Marvin Padberg, former Port of Morrow commissioners; Gary Neal, former Port of Morrow general manager; and Don Russell, former Morrow County commissioner.

The group purchases Windwave Technologies n 2018.

Rayfield, as attorney general, “brings this action to redress the harm caused by the insiders to Inland and to ensure that the insiders and others involved in the transaction are permanently barred from any further involvement with any nonprofit organization in Oregon.”

More to come.