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A three-year legal tussle between the Utah Department of Commerce and a former employee drew near its close last week when a jury decided the woman had been wrongfully terminated in 2013 and that politics had played a role in her exit.

Friday's decision awards Rebekah Conner $250,000 for personal and economic damages after her seven-year tenure as the assistant to commerce chief Francine Giani ended abruptly Jan. 9, 2013.

The jury's findings, which followed a five-day trial, are a "significant vindication" of Conner's rights, said her attorney, C. Reed Brown.

"It's what we were asking for," he said.

But the case isn't over, and the decision could be rendered moot — if a judge decides that Giani, her department and the state are protected under governmental-immunity laws.

Third District Judge Matthew Bates is scheduled to hear oral argument on the matter Sept. 26.

Giani is away, tending to her ailing parents, and has not been available for comment since Friday's ruling. In a statement, however, a Commerce Department representative said any comment would be reserved for after a decision by Bates.

Filed in October 2013, the lawsuit came on the heels of an unemployment payment dispute and administrative court actions that similarly found Giani had unfairly fired Conner and said the employee had been "simply caught in the middle of an acrimonious association between the Department of Commerce and the office of the attorney general," court papers say.

Giani maintains that Conner wasn't fired, but voluntarily resigned amid a "serious issue of trust" that arose after Conner disclosed information about a department probe to her husband, an investigator for the Utah attorney general's office.

Court filings outline a she-said, she-said tale of disagreement about the details of Conner's departure from the Commerce Department. The lawsuit also underscores simmering and well-known discord between Giani and the state's top law enforcement office, dating back to about 2007.

That year, the attorney general's office — then led by Mark Shurtleff — declined to bring a civil lawsuit against Utah businessman Rick Koerber, whose companies had been investigated by the Commerce Department's Division of Consumer Protection for an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme.

The decision followed meetings involving Koerber, the attorney general's office and influential Republican state lawmakers, some of whom had criticized Giani's investigation. Koerber has said Shurtleff told him not to worry because his office was not controlled by Giani's department. Shurtleff has denied doing any favors for Koerber.

In 2009, on his way out of office, then-Gov. Jon Huntsman told The Salt Lake Tribune he had been under considerable pressure to fire Giani. Huntsman said he perceived Giani had "stylistic differences" with others, although he declined to say who had leaned on him.

A state lawmaker suggested an audit might be needed to see whether friction between the two offices had hampered fraud investigations.

Tensions again arose in June 2012, when John Swallow, then an attorney general candidate and Shurtleff's chief deputy, was caught on tape telling a telemarketing businessman fighting $400,000 in Commerce Department fines that Swallow planned to take over the consumer division if he was elected.

Swallow's campaign also said that most states house consumer-protection duties under the umbrella of an attorney general's office and that Utah lawmakers should consider doing the same.

Amid that climate, according to court papers, Giani questioned whether she could continue to work with Conner in January 2013. The question came two months after Conner told her husband in a Nov. 7, 2012, phone call that, like the attorney general's office, the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL) was investigating reiki parlors and wondered if the sting operations he was to be involved with that week were part of the same probe.

After the call, court papers say, Alan Conner spoke with DOPL investigators, who confirmed their inquiry and then filed administrative citations against one company, which was also under scrutiny by the attorney general's office. According to the documents, DOPL's actions put reiki-parlor operators on notice and blew up plans for a raid by the attorney general's office.

The attorney general's office complained about DOPL and Giani to the governor's office, court papers say, and Giani was "called to the governor's office." At the time, Giani did not discipline or reprimand Rebekah Conner for the disclosure to her husband.

Conner's attorneys contend, however, that in the following months, Giani "developed an irrational degree of hostility" toward the assistant based solely on her marriage to an agent with the attorney general's office.

When the attorney general's office wanted to meet with Giani in January 2013, Conner alleges that her boss expressed her anger over complaints to the governor and said she was unsure whether her working relationship with the assistant could continue.

The issue came to a head Jan. 9, 2013, when Conner said Giani told her that working together was "just too uncomfortable" and that she feared she would "never be able to speak freely."

It's here the accounts of events differ.

In Conner's account, Giani slapped her desk and said, "That's it," indicating that she was letting Conner go. Giani doesn't deny raising the trust issue, but she denies Conner's characterization of events, saying in an affidavit that she was undecided about continuing the working relationship.

Conner, Giani contends, was agitated and defensive about her husband and quit by placing her employee badge on Giani's desk and stating, "Here's my badge and my loyalty."