WALLACE — History was made Tuesday when Shoshone County commissioners approved two agreements that will create the first Special Assistant United States Attorney Office in North Idaho.  

One agreement signified a partnership between Shoshone County and other communities that will make up the North Idaho SAUSA Initiative. The other is the partnership between that group and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Shoshone County will handle the administrative work.

Former Kootenai County prosecutor and Idaho legislator Luke Malek, U.S. Attorney Joshua Hurwit and Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Whatcott met with commissioners to discuss the benefits of creating such an office.  

They said the first SAUSA office in Idaho was created in 2006 in Boise’s Treasure Valley with a focus on gang crimes. The next office was opened a decade later in the eastern Idaho region with a focus on drug trafficking between Utah and Montana.  

In North Idaho, the Interstate 90 corridor through Shoshone and Kootenai counties, as well as U.S. 95, will serve as the primary area of concern for the new SAUSA office, which has been created to combat drug trafficking throughout the region.  

“It’s a problem that’s landed in your community, but it’s not your problem,” Hurwit said.    

Under the new office, trafficking offenses would be tried in federal court, where the burden of time and cost would shift from the local level to the federal level.  

“This program provides such a significant benefit to the state by taking people out of our state who have come to our state to do our citizens harm,” Whatcott said.  

Whatcott, who grew up in Post Falls, said the project became personal over the years and he’s excited to see it come to fruition. 

“I think you know the good that can be done with this program for the state, and to take the burden off of the locals when it’s not really their burden to bear because it’s not your people doing this,” Whatcott said. “It’s people from outside of your county, outside of our state, and, frankly, it’s people from outside of our country. That’s where these drugs are coming from.”  

The successes enjoyed by the SAUSA Offices in eastern Idaho and the Treasure Valley paved the way for the North Idaho Office, which is being funded through a combination of federal grants, the Governor’s Office, and the North Idaho SAUSA Initiative. 

According to Shoshone County prosecuting attorney Ben Allen, the annual cost will be about $135,000, funded by $50,000 in federal grants, $70,000 from the Governor's Office, and the remaining $15,000 divided among the members of the initiative.  

Allen anticipates the SAUSA will prosecute roughly 30 cases per year, which, when compared to a similar caseload from Treasure Valley, came with a cost of roughly $2.5 million. According to Allen, those costs will shift from local taxpayers to federal taxpayers. 

Whatcott said the SAUSA’s goal isn’t to catch the smaller fish.

“We don’t take user amounts, we don’t prosecute possession,” he said. “We prosecute traffickers.”  

Other benefits of the new office surround how these crimes are punished. Unlike state punishments, which can take a 10-year sentence and divide it into determinate and indeterminate years, Whatcott said if you get a 10-year federal sentence, you’re serving 10 years.  

The people committing these crimes serve their sentences in federal prisons instead of Idaho Department of Correction facilities.  

“I’m pretty excited about this,” Commissioner Jeff Zimmerman said.  

Malek was complimentary of Allen’s work on getting this project off the ground.

“He has been able to take the lead on this,” Malek said. “The fact that we can have this person housed in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, but as an employee of Shoshone County, is a huge step in making this happen. And a lot of that is due to his (Allen) leadership."

The state and North Idaho SAUSA Initiative will now wait until President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office determines the direction it wants to go for hiring the new SAUSA.