Cottonwood police chief sues sheriff's office

COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — A former lieutenant of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office who is now chief of Cottonwood Heights Police Department has sued Salt Lake County, the sheriff's office and Sheriff Jim Winder over issues revolving around a disciplinary issue.

Ernest Robert Russo Jr. fought the disciplinary action and claims he and the sheriff's office reached a settlement but that the sheriff's office never executed its part, according to the suit, filed Thursday in 3rd District Court.

Russo is suing over breach of contract and bad faith breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. He wants a judge to order the sheriff's office to abide by the settlement, including paying him $4,000 in fees and all of the additional attorney fees he racked up in filing Thursday's suit.

Winder, who is in charge of the Unified Police Department, which replaced the sheriff's office at the beginning of the year, said Friday evening that no settlement had actually been reached, which makes the suit meritless.

"This is another in a long line of litigious efforts that will come to the same end," Winder said. "There's no cause and rationale with these actions."

"I don't know how I can fail because I never had a hearing," Russo said, in response to Winder's comments.

According to the suit, shortly after Winder won elected office in 2007, he heard rumors that Cottonwood Heights wanted to discontinue its contracted services with the sheriff office and start its own city police department. At the time, Russo was assigned to Cottonwood Heights.

In May 2007, Winder began an internal affairs investigation of Russo. In September, Russo was placed on administrative leave and removed from his supervisory role in Cottonwood Heights. He challenged the discipline by filing a grievance with the Salt Lake County Deputy Sheriff's Merit Commission, and was assigned a hearing on Feb. 24, 2009.

Before the hearing, according to the suit, attorneys for Russo and Winder reached a settlement. Russo was to withdraw the grievance and the sheriff's office would withdraw the notice of intent to discipline Russo and remove evidence of discipline from his file.

The sheriff's office also agreed to pay his attorney's fees. But there were disagreements over semantics of the settlement agreement. By April 2, the sheriff's office told Russo's attorney that details of the settlement had reached an impasse and a new hearing was set, the suit says.

Russo said Friday evening he never had another hearing.

Winder disagrees the settlement ever existed.

"We hadn't come to agreement," he said. "Mr. Russo's attorney walked out and announced he had won and… made a number of statements that were totally inaccurate."

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