From Deseret News archives:

Ex-Utah mayor facing 7 felony counts

Eagle Mountain's Olsen is accused of misusing funds

Published: Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2006 10:48 a.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Utah County prosecutors Monday filed seven third-degree felony counts of misuse of public funds against Brian Olsen, the controversial Eagle Mountain mayor who abruptly resigned Friday.

Olsen is accused of "intentionally, knowingly or recklessly appropriat(ing) public monies to his own use or benefit or to the use or benefit of another without authority of law," according to charges filed in 4th District Court.

The Utah County Attorney's Office began scrutinizing Olsen's financial records three weeks ago after city employees raised concerns about some of Olsen's travel reimbursement requests.

Olsen, who gained notoriety earlier this year for admitting to lying about having a master's degree in public administration, allegedly requested advance travel money and to be reimbursed for travel to meetings and conferences that he did not attend or that never took place.

"There are people in the city who were concerned about what they were seeing," said Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson.

"In our opinion, they were accurate about the inappropriateness of what was going on."

Story continues below
The charges filed against Olsen list Oct. 10, Feb. 22, Sept. 15, Aug. 8, Aug. 3, Sept. 5 and July 27 as dates that Olsen's alleged improprieties took place. Chad Grunander, the deputy Utah County attorney assigned to the case, declined to elaborate on the charges.

Although the county attorney's office didn't say how much money Olsen is accused of taking, Bryson said each third-degree felony charge could be attached to the alleged misuse of up to $5,000. Second degree felony charges would apply to amounts over $5,000.

If found guilty, Olsen could face up to five years in prison for each count. Olsen has been scheduled to appear in 4th District Court on Nov. 17 at 8:30 a.m.

Olsen did not return calls for comment on Monday.

"I've never charged an elected official with this particular crime," said Bryson. "We think this is a very straightforward case. Of course, if you charge an elected official like this, it draws media attention, but we're trying to handle this as we would with anybody else."

Eagle Mountain City Councilwoman Heather Jackson said she and Councilman David Lifferth received information about Olsen's alleged misuse of city money shortly before Olsen resigned.

"The second we received evidence, prior to the charges filed (Monday), we moved forward in the appropriate responses by making sure evidence was turned into the attorney's office," Jackson said. "We as a city cannot tolerate abuse of power by any elected official. There's no exception to that, for anyone."

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

Image

Brian Olsen

previousnext

Latest comments

Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh get the audience they deserve and vice versa. ...

I find the rule,very discriminitory. I am not gay, I don't understand what...

Celtics crush Jazz

I understand we were outmanned last night. However, this effort was awful....

Tavernari has matured

My advice to Jonathan is shoot it when they pass it to you as soon as you...

Maybe they should try drafting a shooting guard who can shoot from outside ....

The sad thing about it is that there are actually people out there that are...

12 Utes return to Texas

Thank you TCU and BYU. Your wanting to beat Utah so bad has to drive you...

Celtics crush Jazz

Play fes and koufos. Look to the future. It looks like we will have two...

Letters: Obama 'too busy'

Oh come on. Obama's a horrible president, but I couldn't care less which...

"We had the best soccer of any place in the state. There's no disputing...

Advertisements
Advertisement