FARGO, ND – Former Cass County Sheriff’s Deputy Darin Viken was sentenced Monday to five days of electronic home monitoring along with $275 in fees, 50 hours of community service and 360 days of unsupervised probation. Along with the terms of his sentence, Viken will need to surrender his peace officer’s license during the probation.
On Wednesday, Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner spoke to WDAY Radio’s The Coffee Club about the sentence.
“At the end of the day, we’re disappointed in the sentence that came out of this,” he said.
Jahner said that the ordered surrender of Viken’s peace officer license was ‘iffy.’
“We had actually already sent information the POST board way back in January in reference to his license,” he said. “So I don’t know that that’s really relevant in the court case.”
The case
A total of six counts of disorderly conduct were filed against Viken – but more were possible.
The Cass County Sheriff’s Office says Viken was placed on administrative leave on July 17 and was fired days later. He was with the office for 19 years. The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation was investigating Viken.
“We know there were other victims,” Jahner said. “But some of them didn’t want to come forward because of the nature of the situation, which is certainly understandable.”
Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner on the case and its sentencing during an appearance on WDAY Radio’s The Coffee Club
The charges are Class B misdemeanors, punishable by 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine.
Jahner said Viken’s sentence ‘lacks accountability and responsibility’ because the sentence is, Jahner said, ‘pretty lenient.’
Viken was appointed by the Sheriff to his position. He was also the leader of the sheriff’s department’s 24/7 program,
“Darin used that authority, in this instance, to take advantage of other people,” Jahner said. “When things like that happen, that’s makes a person very upset.”
Jahner said he believes the acts by Viken ‘were preplanned.’
“Darin knew where the cameras were at the jail and where people couldn’t see what he was doing,” he said.
He said had the victims not come forward, the situation could have been much worse.
Moving forward
Now that Viken has been sentenced, Jahner said it’s time to move forward.
“It’s trying to get this thing behind us,” he said. “And to regain that trust from our community and from people on that program.”
Jahner says the department has made changes within the organization. Among those is technology upgrades.
“We had to put up more cameras,” he said.
Prior to the new upgrade, cameras in the jail were not able to capture audio, a feature that is now added.
“At the end of the day, it’s really sad that we have to put in additional measures like that,” Jahner said. “But I certainly understand that we don’t want anyone to go down this same type of path.”
