Miller may sue investigator

Salt Lake County District Attorney Lohra Miller is considering civil action against a snoopy private investigator and nosy neighbor.

The beleaguered Republican district attorney said Thursday she is exploring appropriate civil actions to combat what she calls a wrongful invasion of privacy.

The move comes two days after a private investigator revealed he has been tailing Miller for months, digging through her garbage and snapping pictures to try to prove Miller hosted underage drinking parties. One neighbor even admitted to videotaping through her window to prove the allegations.

The whole controversy started last year after some of Miller's South Jordan neighbors complained that she and her husband, Lorenzo, had permitted loud underage drinking parties in their home. Her next-door neighbor, Gary Zielinski, called the house "party central" and told the Deseret Morning News that slamming doors and fights awakened him and his wife during frequent gatherings of young people that sometimes ran until 4 a.m.

Neighbors also registered complaints with the subdivision homeowners association that Miller and her husband run an unlicensed day-care center in their house.

Miller was so confident in her innocence that she personally asked Republican Attorney General Mark Shurtleff — who endorsed her candidacy — to investigate. Shurtleff found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

However, Miller did break a city ordinance by running a business out of her home without a license.

Private investigator Todd Gabler said he was hired by an unnamed client in August 2007 to unearth concrete evidence about both the underage drinking parties and the business license flub. Turns out Gabler doesn't have a business license of his own.

Gabler continued to investigate Miller, even after his client stopped paying him and dropped the case. The private investigator went through her trash, videotaped the Miller home and placed a GPS tracking device on Miller's car, all actions Gabler insists are legal and in no way invading the district attorney's privacy.

The private investigator said in a previous interview the underlying issue is not underage drinking or neighborhood complaints, but the integrity of the district attorney's office.

"I've been in this business for 17 years, and a district attorney has got to be credible and has got to tell the truth," Gabler said. "This is fundamental to the office of district attorney. When you have someone who is using their office as a public platform to call neighbors liars and then lying herself, it does serious injury to the public good."