From Deseret News archives:
Kay Bryson won't be charged
Evidence in videotaping of wife found insufficient
Rep. Katherine Bryson, R-Orem, notified the Salt Lake City Police Department in September that her estranged husband had videotaped her in the condo, 932 E. 700 South, without her knowledge or consent in October 2003.
On Monday, prosecutors announced that there was not sufficient basis to file any criminal charges in the case.
Neither Kay nor Katherine Bryson could be reached for comment.
Bryson said he asked a Utah County sheriff's detective to install county-owned surveillance equipment in the condo, where his son lived, to catch a burglar.
He told the Deseret Morning News in September that instead, the tape caught his wife with another man.
"It did not catch a burglar; it caught an unfaithful wife is what it caught," Bryson told the paper.
Bryson threatened to release the tape after his wife testified on the House floor this past session that she had been the victim of domestic abuse.
For her part, Katherine Bryson said her husband was abusing his power by using county equipment and an off-duty county employee to install the camera.
The couple is in the midst of a bitter divorce.
The pending divorce, and the public spats it has generated, led Katherine Bryson to withdraw her filing for re-election earlier this year.
Last month, the Utah County Commission asked the state's attorney general to investigate if Bryson did abuse his power by using county-owned equipment and county employees in a personal matter.
Katherine Bryson also asked the attorney general to investigate, but a spokesman for the attorney general's office said the matter would fall under the jurisdiction of the Salt Lake Police Department.
Utah County Sheriff James Tracy says the surveillance equipment is available to any Utah County resident worried about criminal activity on his or her property. Tracy also said the detective who installed the equipment was working on his own time.
"I never thought there was criminal conduct involved," said Utah County Commissioner Steve White. "If there's nothing criminal, then there's nothing there."
E-mail: jhyde@desnews.com
