The gift of a rifle to Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter has County Legislator Rachel Barnhart raising ethics concerns. She’s asking the county’s Office of Public Integrity to review the situation.
In a Facebook post, the sheriff says he asked for and got a legal opinion from the county attorney before accepting the gift, which came from several board members of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Foundation. They purchased the semi-automatic rifle after it went unclaimed following a charity auction. Baxter then made a donation of the rifle’s listed auction value to the foundation.
The sheriff says he originally bid for the rifle and won it, but after a conversation with the #2 bidder, agreed to let him have it. But that individual later changed his mind, and the board members said they would buy the rifle as a gift to the sheriff. Baxter says he then donated the gavel price of the rifle to the foundation.
Barnhart is questioning if that is the same as buying the rifle and is asking for an ethics commission ruling on whether this constitutes a gift to a public official, which is strictly limited under New York law.