Ex-sheriff rips Daggett law enforcement

The former sheriff of Daggett County says that watching what has happened to his old office, in the wake of a prisoner escape, is "like standing back and watching a skyscraper implode ... the whole thing came crashing down."

Allen Campbell said when he was sheriff, he worked hard to improve the Daggett County Jail.

"We did a lot of things. ... We hired more people. We had training from the Marshal's Office. We purchased a lot of cameras. We had a system in place where we could look at every inmate that was coming into our facility. I think we were pretty accountable. We never lost any inmates," he said.

Now, Campbell said it's disheartening to read in the paper that all his work has fallen into disrepair. And he puts much of the blame directly on the man who beat him in the last election.

"Quality people have been terminated or let go," he claimed. "We worked four years to build up the jail and the Daggett County Sheriff's Office. We wrote a lot of grants, got a lot of equipment. ... To my knowledge the budgets are (now) in disarray. There's no new equipment that's been purchased. Things are falling apart."

The Deseret Morning News attempted to reach current Sheriff Rick Ellsworth at the Daggett County Sheriff's Office both Thursday and Friday. The News was told Friday that all media questions were being referred to Daggett County Attorney Bryan Sidwell. He did not return a call placed by the News Friday.

The Daggett County Sheriff's Office, and more specifically the jail, have been under scrutiny after two convicted murderers escaped from the jail last month, leading to an intense week-long manhunt that culminated in a high-speed chase and one of the escapees being shot and wounded by police. Both are now in custody.

A lone deputy, who also happened to be sick, was in charge of watching the entire jail the night the men escaped.

This week, the Utah Department of Corrections pulled all of its remaining 45 inmates out of the Daggett County Jail due to security and management concerns.

Campbell was the incumbent when he lost the election last year to Ellsworth, one of his deputies. That election is still under investigation by the Utah Attorney General's Office after complaints were filed that more people registered to vote in the tiny county than actually live there.