Envision Ogden Records Show Corruption, Fraud, Political Pressure

To investigators, the case was a “hot potato”.
By Dan Schroeder
The Utah State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) has recently released all of its records from the Envision Ogden investigation, opened in April 2009 and closed in March 2011. The records provide a vivid look into Envision Ogden’s fundraising efforts and into the investigation itself.

Envision Ogden was a local political action committee, formed in early 2007, that concealed its political nature from most or all of its contributors. It sponsored a fundraising dinner at the Ben Lomond Hotel in February 2007, and a grand opening event at the city-owned Salomon Center in June 2007. After covering expenses for these events, Envision Ogden directed most of the remaining proceeds to political candidates and campaign activity, including expenditures that helped Mayor Godfrey’s reelection campaign in fall 2007. Godfrey told reporters last November that he had been responsible for the bulk of Envision Ogden’s fundraising.

Among the revelations contained in the newly released records are the following:

• Both of Weber County’s hospitals contributed to Envision Ogden in order to curry favor with Mayor Godfrey, who personally solicited their contributions. A January 2007 email from McKay-Dee CEO Tim Pehrson states that his hospital’s contribution may give its affiliated health plan, Select Health, “a better shake the next time it bids on city employees.” Similarly, minutes from a meeting of Ogden Regional Medical Center administrators explain its $5,000 contribution by saying that CEO Mark Adams “has a good relationship with the mayor, good to keep it that way.”
• Records provided to investigators by UBS Financial Services show how Envision Ogden and the Ben Lomond Hotel fabricated an invoice, months after the fact, to make it look as if the $6,047 contribution from UBS to Envision Ogden was really going to the hotel as a direct reimbursement of fundraising dinner expenses. Earlier correspondence shows that those expenses had already been paid and in any case, Envision Ogden deposited the check and never passed the money on to the hotel.
• An April 2009 email from investigator Jim Vaughn to his supervisor, Major Jeff Carr, explains that he was trying to get federal authorities to take on the Envision Ogden investigation, because it was a “hot State potato”. After the FBI declined to take the case, Vaughn and investigator Scott Hansen proceeded with the investigation despite this. Vaughn has since retired and Hansen has also left the SBI.
• After the initial phase of the investigation in Spring 2009, there was a lengthy delay while the Utah Attorney General’s Office was supposedly trying to obtain Envision Ogden’s bank records. A subpoena for these records was finally prepared in February 2010 and signed by Judge Denise Lindberg on February 9. Apparently, however, the Attorney General’s Office never served the subpoena on Wells Fargo Bank. The investigation therefore stalled once again, until a new subpoena was finally prepared and served in late 2010.
• An undated entry in the investigation report, probably from late 2009, states that during a meeting with Assistant Attorney General Scott Reed, “It was determined that with only misdemeanors being evident that the case would be closed....” Although the case actually was not closed at that time, this comment underscores how Envision Ogden’s activities fell through the cracks in the criminal justice system. Misdemeanor offenses would have to be prosecuted by the city attorney (who reports to the mayor) or the county attorney (who also treated the case like a hot potato). The statute of limitations for misdemeanor prosecutions expired in 2009 in any case. State investigators were interested only in potential felony charges such as communications fraud and money laundering, but the Attorney General’s Office ultimately decided not to bring these charges either, for reasons that remain unclear.

The Attorney General’s Office took over the Envision Ogden investigation, using its own investigators, in September 2010. It then closed the investigation without filing charges on March 4, after the statute of limitations had expired for any crimes associated with Envision Ogden’s February 2007 fundraising dinner.

Some of the Attorney General’s records of the investigation have also been released, but the office is withholding other records including Envision Ogden’s financial records which were finally obtained from Wells Fargo Bank. Among those records should be the five canceled checks, totaling over $20,000, that Envision Ogden wrote to Friends of Northern Utah Real Estate—the intermediary that passed the funds on to city council candidates Blain Johnson and Royal Eccles. The endorsement signature on those canceled checks should show conclusively who controlled FNURE. I have appealed the withholding of these records to the Utah State Records Committee, which will hold a hearing on the matter on July 14.