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Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams wants his former campaign manager Justin Miller to go to jail.

That's what McAdams says in a letter to the 3rd District Court, where, on Monday, Miller, a former state lawmaker and one-time associate deputy mayor who pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $25,000 from the mayor's campaign account, will be sentenced.

"Elected officials, like everyone else, should be held fully responsible for their criminal conduct," McAdams told The Salt Lake Tribune in an email explaining his request. "Justin not only stole money from the people who contributed to my campaign, but then made up outrageous allegations about Salt Lake County and me."

Miller, 35, was charged and pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree felony communications fraud on the same day in October, and simultaneously resigned from the Utah House after serving just nine months.

He faces a possible prison term of up to 15 years when he appears before Judge Randall Skanchy.

It's unclear, however, what the judge, will do.

State law allows Skanchy some discretion to decide whether Miller belongs behind bars, and the terms of his plea agreement also allow for the charges to be reduced, altering the punishment he may face.

Under the agreement, if the $24,388 in restitution owed in the case is paid at the time of sentencing — which his attorney Steven Shapiro says Miller will do — the crime will be reduced to a third-degree felony, which carries a lesser punishment of up to five years. The charge could be further cut to a misdemeanor if Miller is sentenced to probation and completes it without being slapped with any new counts.

Additionally, a letter from the state's probation and parole office, suggests prison might not be an appropriate punishment in this case. Evaluators deemed Miller a "low risk" and suggested he be "placed under the jurisdiction of the courts with judicial reviews."

Betrayal • McAdams — arguably the highest-ranking elected Democrat in Utah because of the size of his constituency — contends Miller's punishment should reflect the breadth of his misconduct, including violating the trust placed in Miller by the campaign, taxpayers and voters.

McAdams pointed to Miller's attempt to file a wrongful-termination claim with the county seeking a $700,000 payout, his denials of wrongdoing and allegations he leveled against the county and mayor as a monthslong campaign "to mislead the public, media and law enforcement officials." The mayor also blasted Miller for using "media staff employed by the Utah State Legislature to help spread his untrue allegations."

Miller's attorney said the mayor is asking the court to impose a standard of punishment for his client that is different from other defendants in similar cases. That's understandable on a human level, Shapiro conceded, but it's not the way the justice system should work.

"He's asking for more than the system considers appropriate," Shapiro said. "It's just another indication of how this has become spiteful and not a fact-, or reason-driven crusade. He wants revenge."

McAdams told The Tribune his "betrayal" at the hands of his one-time friend and adviser "was, without exaggeration, one of the most difficult things I have ever experienced."

"And to be forced to defend myself in the media against Justin's baseless allegations was exhausting. Even though the county and I have been exonerated [by FBI investigators], those media reports will live forever. Some day, even my kids will read them."

House Democratic Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, said it was clear McAdams was angry — understandably so.

"In the heat of the moment, this was very upsetting and had the potential to inflict some real damage on the mayor," King said, "and I think that he rightly was really concerned."

A bit of that frustration was aimed at the Democratic caucus for not immediately taking the mayor's side against Miller last May when the allegations first surfaced, and allowing him to use legislative resources to issue media statements, King said. But he added that Democrats needed to wait until the facts were out, and it was Miller's legal right to use the platform of his office until his resignation in October.

Other crimes? • Monday's sentencing may not be the end of the former lawmaker's legal troubles.

In his letter to the court and in an email to The Tribune, McAdams detailed a host of other acts by Miller, including financial transactions totaling nearly $80,000 that the mayor believes could be evidence of other crimes.

The claims are based on the findings of forensic accountant Mark Anderson of Norman, Townsend & Johnson. McAdams hired him to examine transactions involving both the McAdams for Mayor campaign and West PAC, a political-action committee, both of which Miller controlled.

Anderson found that Miller started writing checks from the campaign to himself in 2013, but that the practice did not increase in frequency and volumes of cash until late 2013 and 2014.

In addition to a $24,388 catering-check embezzlement that resulted in Miller's felony plea, the forensic accountant discovered a dozen instances in which Miller allegedly played fast and loose with the books:

• Rent payments: Unknown to McAdams, Miller signed a three-year lease for office space using the West PAC account. While he told McAdams the campaign was paying only $100 a month for its share of the office, the campaign and West PAC ended up footing the whole bill — about $8,500.

• Bonuses: Miller had his own political consulting company based out of that office and hired Andrew Roberts, who was raising funds for the McAdams campaign, as a fundraiser for his consulting firm, too. Anderson determined that Miller gave Roberts a $12,000 bonus, ostensibly for his work for Miller's consulting firm, but paid him out of the campaign account.

• Double billing: The accountant said Miller bought a subscription to an online donor database that cost $3,900. But Miller requested reimbursements of $3,350 from both the campaign and West PAC, he added, apparently pocketing $2,800.

• Missing receipts: Miller filed for and received almost $15,000 in reimbursement for purchases that did not have supporting documentation, involving things labeled as being for insurance, rentals, repairs and website work.

Restitution • McAdams concedes that Miller repaid $9,600 of the catering bill and, through various other transactions, may be able to justify some other expenditures. But he argues Miller still owes his campaign and West PAC a total of $57,770.

Despite the accountant's findings, McAdams said he's never asked for — nor pushed prosecutors to seek — additional criminal charges against Miller. He also agreed to accept a restitution payment of roughly $30,000 — essentially the catering fee, plus $5,000 to pay the accounting bill.

But that doesn't mean prosecutors couldn't bring additional charges.

Deputy Davis County Attorney Steve Major said that after sentencing Monday, he plans to sit down with investigators to examine the accountant's findings more closely.

"There is still a possibility that we will be looking at additional charges for additional incidents that took place when [Miller] was managing the campaign."

Shapiro declined to respond to the specifics outlined by McAdams and his accountant and said Miller denies any wrongdoing beyond the single criminal count.

"There has not yet been an investigation [of other crimes] that we are aware of," Shapiro said. "But if one surfaces, we will cooperate."