Ex-UHP trooper files lawsuit over firing

Editor's note: Utah District Court sealed all records in the domestic violence case noted here, and in December 2010, the Utah Highway Patrol changed Stanley Fieeiki's employment status from "terminated" to "voluntarily resigned."

A former Utah Highway Patrol trooper has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming his firing was discriminatory.

In court documents filed this week, Stanley Fieeiki said although he was involved in a domestic violence altercation, the Utah Department of Public Safety singled him out for termination because he is Polynesian. The complaint states that Fieeiki was one of 15 officers charged with some sort of criminal action between 1998 and 2005 but he was only one of two who were fired.

Fieeiki alleges that of 11 officers charged with domestic violence crimes, all were either suspended or issued letters of reprimand.

Fieeiki had worked for UHP for almost five years when he was charged with domestic violence and domestic violence in the presence of a child after he struck his wife, the lawsuit states. It said he hit her out of self-defense as she attacked him in his sleep, but also said they reconciled. Fieeiki was eventually convicted of simple assault, a class B misdemeanor.

The complaint contrasts the incident with those of two other "non-Polynesian officers" who were involved in seemingly more severe or repeat offenses.

Public safety spokesman Jeff Nigbur said that while the department hasn't yet reviewed the lawsuit, it plans to let the legal system take its course.

"In my understanding he was terminated due to the domestic violence that occurred, and it had nothing to do with race, color or religion," Nigbur said.

— Emiley Morgan