Embattled former Utah Attorney General John Swallow faces a new felony charge for allegedly taking a Nevada houseboat trip paid for by a campaign contributor whom he also had defended in a state consumer protection investigation.Read up, peeps:
The new charge — a second-degree felony count of accepting a gift — brings the total tally against Swallow to 14 and reflects the nature of an ongoing probe, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said.
The charge, filed Thursday in 3rd District Court, is tied to a five-day Lake Mead houseboat trip prosecutors say Swallow took with his family in June 2010, while he was then-Attorney General Mark Shurtleff’s chief deputy, at the expense of Jared Pierce.
A businessman with a checkered past and ties to former Attorney General John Swallow is in custody in the Salt Lake County Jail along with his two brothers, awaiting transfer to U.S. marshals, potentially to face unknown federal charges.Read up, folks:
Robert Montgomery, owner of Emmediate Credit Solutions, was arrested Friday morning, along with brothers Michael Chase Montgomery and J.D. Montgomery.
Jail records do not reflect what charges the Montgomery brothers face. Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Utah, said she could not provide any information about the case. A message left with the U.S. Marshals Service was not returned Friday [...]
In April 2012, Montgomery and then-Attorney General Mark Shurtleff co-hosted a fundraiser for Swallow, Shurtleff’s chief deputy who was running for attorney general, at Mimi’s Cafe in Murray. Attendees included a number of members of the online-business opportunities, or BizOps, industry.
Honestly, is there any argument left against Utah setting limits on campaign donations?And here's the full editorial for your perusal:
Or, are we once again going to deal with the same pusillanimous arguments by our pols that Utah does not need campaign cash limits, that the idea that big dollars would influence our vote is insulting, and that everything is properly disclosed, ad nauseam, and so on?
After the several-years spectacle of the attorney general’s office being receptive to those with the biggest cash pockets, such enabling rhetoric is enough to make one clutch an air sick bag.
Utah is one of only four states that basically have no limits on money that can be stuffed in pols’ pockets for use in campaigns. Also, in the matter of disclosure, Utah falls behind most of the other states. This is a dysfunction that should have been corrected a long time ago. But it wasn’t. Pols, enjoying the access and cash of deep-pocket donors, have instead passed mostly meaningless “baby-step” reforms.Weber County Forum will be seriously (perhaps feverishly) on this bandwagon during the 2015 Legislative session, concerning the campaign finance reforms which the SE Editorial Board proposes.
The embarrassing and sickening saga of Shurtleff and Swallow must change the mind set and break down the objections. It’s time to limit campaign cash.
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| Swallow/Shurtleff Booking Photos |
SALT LAKE CITY — Former Attorneys General John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff were arrested and taken into custody Tuesday, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill confirmed.Here's the story link, folks:
The FBI planned a 9 a.m. news conference in regards to the state arrest warrants issued Tuesday morning. The arrests come after search warrants were served at both men's homes in June.
More information will be posted as it becomes available.
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| Salt Lake Tribune photo |
Local prosecutors are on the verge of issuing multi-count criminal indictments against former Utah Republican AGs John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff, a source has told UtahPolicy.Read the full write-up, folks:
Swallow, who resigned his post last December, and Shurtleff, who served 12 years as Utah’s top cop before retiring at the end of 2012, will be charged by Salt Lake County Attorney Sim Gill, a Democrat, and Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings, a Republican, after more than a year of intense investigations.
Both will face at least a dozen counts, a source tells UtahPolicy. A decision will be made this week as to the timing of the charges.
Also, a top AG deputy to both Swallow and Shurtleff, Kirk Torgenson, will likely be charged as well.
And Swallow’s top 2012 campaign consultant, Jason Powers, could also see half a dozen charges against him, the source says, unless he agrees to testify against his former clients.
It will be a Byzantine effort to prosecute Swallow and some of his minions. But it must be done. A prosecution would also serve to move Utah toward greater campaign finance reform. Our legislators' failure to set simple campaign limits is an embarrassment. The Swallow saga shows what can happen -- what can be enabled -- in a state that has little respect for campaign finance reform or lobbying reform.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
A damning report from a House committee concluded Wednesday that former Utah Attorney General John Swallow hung a "For Sale" sign on the door of the office, doing favors for wealthy supporters and friends, compromising Utahns’ interests and damaging the integrity of the justice system in the process.Read up:
John Swallow left a 2012 meeting at Krispy Kreme with Jeremy Johnson so alarmed that he was in the cross hairs of federal investigators that Swallow took drastic measures to cover his tracks and ties to the indicted businessman, Utah House investigators said Thursday.Yes. Many of us expected the worst; and it appears that's just what's being rolled out, as the discussion turns to the possible legal blowback for the beleaguered John Swallow, as is set forth in the accompanying SL-Trib "companion" story:
In the weeks that followed, Swallow obliterated his electronic footprints and created new documents designed to mislead anyone who might delve into his activities, according to evidence pieced together by a five-month investigation by a special House committee.
"We believe the evidence here shows Mr. Swallow panicked following the Krispy Kreme meeting, thinking about the consequences that would occur in terms of his political run for attorney general if Mr. Johnson went public with his allegations," said Steve Reich, special counsel to the committee. "And it was this panic that led him down a path of evidence elimination and evidence fabrication."
Within weeks of the doughnut shop exchange, Swallow had thehard drives on his state-issued computers wiped clean and appears to have purged thousands of emails, later lying to the public and investigators about their disappearance, Reich said. He bought a "burner" phone that couldn’t be traced and created a fake paper trail for consulting work he did on a Nevada cement project.
"Based on the record available to us, our conclusion is that the Krispy Kreme meeting that Mr. Swallow had with Jeremy Johnson … set off a months-long spree where Mr. Swallow destroyed or lost records while creating new ones designed to support his version of events."
His record of behavior, his shifting story and attempts to mislead investigators and the public, taken as a whole, Reich said, cannot be innocently explained away.
Here's the full writeup, folks:SANDY -- The Utah Republican Party selected three finalists Saturday to replace former Attorney General John Swallow, who stepped down last week amid ongoing allegations of bribery and misconduct.The party's central committee, meeting in Sandy, forwarded the names of Sean Reyes, Robert Smith and Brian Tarbet to Gov. Gary Herbert.Herbert, also a Republican, will choose one of the three to serve as the state's top law enforcement officer until a special election can be held in November 2014.
Needless to say, we'll all be sitting on the edge of our seats, eagerly awaiting the next development in this ever-enthralling matter.Herbert said he does not have a fixed deadline to make his choice but hopes to decide before Christmas. He plans to interview and vet each candidate."I think I've got three great people to choose from," Herbert told The Salt Lake Tribune.
Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office [today] arrested Tim Lawson, a fundraiser, political fixer and ally to Utah Attorneys General John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff, on six felony charges, including obstruction of justice, threatening a witness and failing to pay taxes on roughly $120,000 he received in payments from Marc Sessions Jenson, a businessman convicted of securities fraud who used Lawson to gain access to Shurtleff and Swallow.Read up, folks:
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Democrats contend embattled Attorney General John Swallow wasn't legally elected, and because he can't resign from an office he didn't hold, Republicans shouldn't get to pick his successor.And check out the accompanying video, folks, which lays it all out in a nushell:
"It's rewarding the party of the evildoer," said Utah Democratic Party Chairman Jim Dabakis. "So why should we go back to the Central Committee of the Republican Party, the people that got Swallow in there in the first place, and say, 'Here, take another crack at it?"
State Democratic leaders say voters should choose the next attorney general, and Gov. Gary Herbert can call a special election in June.
"This gentleman was not elected by the voters under Utah law. He committed a cheat and a fraud on the Utah voters," said Joe Hatch, a Democratic Party lawyer and former Salt Lake County Council member.
Democrats called their shot in a news conference Tuesday that could lead to legal maneuvering with the GOP majority over how to replace Swallow, a first-term Republican.
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| Swallow and company |
"Yesterday I met with the governor and the chief of staff and I informed then that I would be stepping down," a somber Swallow said."The answer comes down to burning a little vacation time. He's leaving for a week for a previously scheduled vacation over the week of Thanksgiving," explains John Swallow's spokesperson, Paul Murphy:
A day later, however, John Swallow is still the A.G. His letter of resignation is post-dated.
"I delivered and tendered to the governor's office a letter of resignation indicating that would be resigning from this office effective Tuesday, December 3rd at 12:01 AM," he said.
In other words, his last day on the job will be Monday, December 2, 2013. That's 11 days from John Swallow's announcement that he is leaving until he will actually leave. Why the delay? It's a good question.
Attorney General John Swallow’s Dec. 3 departure date — announced when he submitted his resignation last week — may be more than just a convenient time to wrap up his time in office.Read Mr. Gehrke's atonishing writeup here:
It could mean tens of thousands of dollars for his retirement, money he never would see were he to bow out just a few days earlier.
By making it past Dec. 1, Swallow will have accumulated four years in state government, a magic threshold that qualifies employees for the pension system.
That means the soon-to-be-former attorney general will be able to collect a state pension of about $12,000 a year once he reaches retirement age.
That amount comes on top of a separate state pension, pegged at about $2,000 a year, he was already eligible for after his six years in the Utah House.
Sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, tell Utah Policy that Attorney General John Swallow will resign from office by Friday. Swallow has reportedly cut a deal with investigators to resign from office in order to avoid criminal charges. As part of the deal, Utah Policy is told, he will be slapped with a civil fine for campaign finance violations.Read up:
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