Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield today filed a civil enforcement action against several public officials and community leaders for orchestrating the insider sale of a valuable broadband company—a subsidiary of a nonprofit originally created to serve rural schools, hospitals, courthouses, and libraries in eastern Oregon—for their own personal financial benefit.

The lawsuit alleges that a small group of “insiders”—including the Port of Morrow’s General Manager, two Port Commissioners, and a Morrow County Commissioner—abused their positions as board members of Inland Development Corporation, a nonprofit formed in 2004 to expand fiber-optic internet access in underserved public institutions.

“This nonprofit was created to connect eastern Oregon communities—not to quietly enrich a handful of officials behind closed doors,” said Attorney General Dan Rayfield. “When public officials use their positions to game the system for private gain, it’s a betrayal of trust. These were people in power who knew that Windwave was about to explode in value—and instead of protecting the public’s interest, they cashed in.”

The insiders formed a plan to purchase Windwave Communications, Inland’s for-profit subsidiary, at a sharply undervalued price. Windwave had grown dramatically in value as large data centers—including those built by Amazon—began locating in northeastern Oregon. According to the lawsuit, the insiders were aware that Windwave’s revenues were surging and that the company was entering a new period of unprecedented profitability. One of the insiders, who was also the General Manager of the Port of Morrow, had direct involvement in Amazon’s plans to acquire land for multiple new data centers that would further boost Windwave’s value.

Even though they had access to up-to-date financial information, the defendants gave an outside valuation firm outdated and incomplete data, leaving out key details that showed Windwave was thriving. That old information, from early 2017, was then used to justify their insider deal to buy Windwave in 2018 for just $2.6 million. But internal emails show they knew the company had already earned $1.5 million in profits that year. Those numbers were only likely to increase with Amazon’s plans to expand its footprint in Eastern Oregon.

The Oregon Department of Justice is seeking damages of at least $6.9 million, or, alternatively, for the sale of Windwave to be voided, an injunction and other remedies to ensure accountability and to safeguard the principle that nonprofit resources created for public benefit must not be converted into private profit.

Inland was created to serve schools, hospitals, courthouses, and other public-sector institutions in eastern Oregon—many of which continue to rely on Windwave today. The insider sale of Windwave not only diverted public value into private hands but potentially undermined the long-term availability of affordable broadband for these essential services.

The complaint was filed today in Morrow County.