Mortgage employee accused of making up suspect to avoid blame for shooting computer after Twilight Concert

SALT LAKE CITY — Prosecutors say a mortgage company employee who called police claiming someone stole his gun and threatened to kill him, actually used his own gun to shoot an expensive computer server while drunk.

Joshua Lee Campbell, 23, called dispatchers on Aug. 12 and told them a man had stolen his pistol and fired it, according to charges filed in the 3rd District Court on Monday.

When officers arrived at at RANLife Home Loans, 268 W. 400 South, where Campbell worked, they could smell alcohol and urine on him. Further investigation revealed Campbell had been drinking that night at the Twilight Concert at Pioneer Park with a coworker and returned to work afterwards.

Police searched the building and found .45 caliber pistol casings on the floor and a computer server worth $100,000 that was damaged by a bullet, charges state.

The coworker told police she had returned to the work site to grab some belongings and found Campbell passed out on the second floor with his pistol next to him. Charges state she picked up the gun and hid it in the bottom left drawer of another employee's desk on the third floor.

An acquaintance of the defendant told police Campbell called him angry and drunk that night threatening to shoot seven rounds into the server and then kill himself with the last bullet, charges state.

Campbell has been charged with second-degree felony criminal mischief, carrying a dangerous weapon while under the influence of alcohol and giving false information to a law enforcement officer, both class B misdemeanors, and intoxication, a class C misdemeanor.

— Lana Groves