A.G.'s office investigating Uintah District employee in misuse of funds

VERNAL — The Utah Attorney General's Office is investigating whether a Uintah School District employee and several building contractors "may have committed multiple felonies involving the misuse of public funds," according to a court record obtained Thursday by the Deseret News.

Assistant Utah attorney general James W. Palmer wrote — in an application for a secrecy order filed on July 22 in 3rd District Court — that his agency was conducting an investigation of "a career public employee, his employer, and several building contractors who have business and personal relationships with public officials and private businesses throughout Utah."

"Preliminary information obtained by investigators indicates that the public employee and some if not all of the contractors may have committed multiple felonies related to the misuse of public funds," Palmer wrote.

The attorney general's office sought to have all information related to its investigation kept secret for several reasons. Palmer argued that publicly disclosing information about the probe could endanger the safety of witnesses or impede the investigation. It could also damage the reputations of the targets of the investigation before any possible criminal charges were filed.

"Such damage is irreversible," Palmer wrote.

Shortly after the secrecy order was filed and granted, investigators with the attorney general's office executed a search warrant on the school district's office in Vernal. A source with knowledge of the search said records and computers were seized.

The attorney general's office has declined to comment on the investigation, going so far as to deny a Government Records Access Management Act request for information about the location where it filed public court records or the date that those records were filed.

"I've been told that I'm to say absolutely nothing regarding this investigation," attorney general's spokesman Scott Troxel said Thursday.

Uintah School District officials have also been told "pretty specifically not to say anything to anybody," Superintendent Charlie Nelson said in late August.

"We're just trying to do what we're told," he said, after confirming that the district office had been searched.

Nelson said at the time that no one in the district office had been placed on administrative leave or terminated in the wake of the search warrant's execution, noting that no criminal charges had been filed. He could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

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E-mail: geoff@ubstandard.com