Video revs up Bryson squabble

Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson said he was trying to catch a burglar when he asked a Utah County sheriff's detective to install county-owned video surveillance equipment in the Salt Lake condo where his son lived.

What he caught instead, he says, was a videotape showing a romantic tryst involving his now estranged wife, state legislator Kathy Bryson and another man.

"It did not catch a burglar; it caught an unfaithful wife is what it caught," Kay Bryson said, acknowledging he threatened to release the tape after his wife testified during debate on the House floor this past session supporting a bill on domestic violence, saying she had been a victim of such violence and implying he was involved.

Rep. Kathy Bryson, R-Orem, says her "mafia" husband is abusing his power, using county equipment and an off-duty county employee to pursue a personal agenda against her in a bitter divorce.

While Kay Bryson says the equipment was installed last fall to determine the "unknown" person entering the Salt Lake condo, his son, Scott, said he knew all along it was his mother who was frequenting the residence in his absence while he was out of town.

"Who else was it going to be?"

The controversy resulted in Kathy Bryson filing a complaint on Sept. 1 with the Salt Lake police against Utah County sheriff's detective Dennis Harris, who is accused of installing the equipment at a residence where the department shows no complaints of theft or burglary.

Although initial incident reports filed with police agencies are classified as public under Utah's law governing records, a request early this month by the Deseret Morning News for a copy of the report was denied, with officials saying the ongoing investigation precludes releasing the details.

Kathy Bryson says she can't even get a copy of her own report that she filed with the police department because it is restricted, and the Utah County sheriff said such use of equipment in other jurisdictions is routine if it involves a potential criminal matter.

"I don't deny that I was with someone who was with me in the living room of my condo having lunch," she said. "What I am bothered by is that the Utah County Sheriff's Department can do something like this when it is nothing related to drugs, nothing related to a burglary, nothing related to trespassing in Salt Lake City, and not report it to Salt Lake police."

It is yet another ugly chapter in the bitter pending divorce between two high-profile political figures involving allegations of fraud and adultery against her on his part and counter-allegations of abuse of power that Kathy Bryson says have left her with no authorities to turn to.

Fallout over the controversy led Kathy Bryson to withdraw her filing for re-election earlier this year.