A Utah man is suing Wasatch County prosecutors and police, claiming his reputation was damaged when he was labeled as a “terrorist” in the media in connection to a brochure-tossing case.
Scott Eckersley filed the libel lawsuit in Heber’s 4th District Court earlier this month, alleging county officials were “reckless” and “negligent” when they charged him in 2015 with multiple counts of felony “commerical terrorism” after he threw away free tourism brochures that he believed weren’t authorized to be in the lobby of a Midway resort where he owned a room.
The problem? “Commercial terrorism” is an outdated term in Utah’s criminal code for what is now known as “commercial obstruction.” The wording was changed during the 2010 legislative session — five years before Eckersley was charged with the crime. Prosecutors said in 2015 that the wording was inserted by the software program they use to draft charging documents.
Eckersley eventually resolved his case by pleading no contest to two class A misdemeanors. The pleas were held in abeyance, and the case eventually dismissed after he met all the judge’s requirements.
But the damage was done when prosecutors and police repeated the phrase “commercial terrorism” to reporters, the lawsuit alleges, which created a “media storm” that harmed Eckersley‘s reputation, and damaged his advertising business and immigration law practice.
He seeks $1.5 million, plus punitive damages. No court dates were immediately set.
Wasatch County Attorney Scott Sweat did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Eckersley said in a 2015 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune that there was some bad blood between the company whose brochures he tossed and his own digital advertising company. But he said he never put his own business ads in the advertising racks, as police initially told various media outlets. He said he had no interest in advertising in the same lobby, but was bothered that the brochures remained there without authorization from the three-member HOA board at the Zermatt Resort.
“It just seemed very amateur … to call somebody a terrorist,” he said in 2015. “Just the fact that they would use that term, which is so incredibly damaging to a human being, much less a professional.”
Deputy Wasatch County Attorney Case Wade said in 2015 that “there was no calculated decision” to use the word “terrorism” in Eckersley’s charging documents. He also said there was some confusion about whether the brochures were authorized by the Zermatt’s HOA to be in the lobby because three HOAs govern various parts of the property.
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