Cylvia Hayes must release emails for review

Cylvia Hayes has 14 days to turn over her private emails to a court, which will decide whether they should be made public.

The former Oregon First Lady cannot claim that she is not subject to the state’s public records law, Marion County Circuit Court Judge Tracy Prall said in an order released Wednesday.

“Plaintiff herself set out the functions she believed she performed or hoped to perform on behalf of the Governor’s Office in her February 2014 ‘revised work portfolio’,” Prall wrote in her order. “Plaintiff led the Oregon Prosperity Initiative, did significant work toward Oregon’s adoption of the “Genuine Progress Indicator” as a measure of policy outcomes, regularly participated in high-level executive branch meetings, orchestrated meetings of state officials, and directed state employees in their work.”

Prall also threw out Hayes’ claim that the court did not have jurisdiction in the case.

She did not make a decision on Hayes’ argument that the act of releasing the emails, which would acknowledge that they exist, would violate her Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.

Hayes and former Gov. John Kitzhaber are under federal investigation.

Hayes, Kitzhaber’s live-in fiancee, has been accused of using her relationship with him to secure contracts for her green-energy consulting business.

In January, The Oregonian made a request for Hayes' personal emails dealing with public business.

In February, Hayes filed an opposition to the request, but Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum granted the newspaper's petition and ordered Hayes to turn over the emails, saying she was a public official.

Following Kitzhaber's resignation Feb. 18, Hayes sued to block release of the emails on a number of grounds, including her assertions that she is not a public body or official subject to the law, that producing the emails would be an unreasonable invasion of privacy, and that ordering her to provide the emails would violate her right against self-incrimination.

Hayes’ lawyer, Whitney Boise, said there are about 117,000 emails responsive to the request.

Gov. Kate Brown released 74,000 of those in April, leaving about 43,000 for Prall to examine.

tloew@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6779 or follow at Twitter.com/Tracy_Loew