For nearly a week, there have been rumors circling of numerous criminals being housed among Katrina evacuees at the Utah National Guard's Camp Williams.

Utah's Attorney General Mark Shurtleff seemingly confirmed those rumors Friday as he told a caller in a talk show radio program it was true. However, what he said turned out to be "incorrect information."

When asked on Bob Lonsberry's morning show on KNRS AM 570 about the New Orleans evacuees, Shurtleff responded by saying, "We actually found out that several dozen are convicted murderers."

The questioning caller responded to Shurtleff's statement by saying, "There are several dozen convicted murderers among our 400-some evacuees?" Shurtleff said, "That's correct."

Dave Johnson, assistant to the attorney general, said later Friday that the information Shurtleff received was wrong, perhaps because of a miscommunication of national and local numbers of criminals being reported.

"We have been chasing down the correct information all day and we don't know an exact number but we know there were several violent offenders brought out in that 400-some people from the southeast," he said. A search of criminal records, Johnson said, confirmed there could be as few as three and as many as eight convicts among the 583 evacuees initially brought to Utah.

"I was misinformed on the number but not of the fact that there were violent felons and murderers there in that group that came here seeking help," Shurtleff told the Deseret Morning News. He said different numbers were reported to him at different times.

"There were reports of as many as 40 or 41 violent felons in the original group that came here," he said. "In that group there were possibly a couple-dozen murderers."

Shurtleff said attorneys general from across the country were concerned about the people they were accepting into their states and "were forced to ask the legal questions," he said. Officials from Louisiana and Texas told them, in a telephone conference call, that there may have been several convicts released in the mix of people who evacuated the area following the devastating Hurricane Katrina.

"We had a right to know who they are," Shurtleff said.

However, he said that no criminal arrests have been made at Camp Williams since the time the evacuees arrived. Criminal background checks were performed on all of the evacuees who came to Utah, according to the Department of Public Safety. Utah officials have no jurisdiction to book any of the evacuees into jail and have said on several occasions that the evacuees pose no threat to each other, to volunteers or to surrounding communities.

"Unless they have warrants out, we assume they've served their time," Shurtleff said.

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E-mail: wleonard@desnews.com