Communication between the Civilian Review Board and the Salt Lake City Police Department was frozen while a private investigator interviewed review board members and police detectives and combed through their telephone records, Anderson said Tuesday.

That investigation has not turned up the source of the leak.

Nonetheless, Anderson gave the panel - which he beefed up when he took office in 2000 - the green light to resume investigations this week.

The private eye, working for $100 an hour, is trying to discover who told a Tribune reporter that the review board sustained allegations that officers used excessive force when detaining a man in Liberty Park last fall.

"We're doing everything we can to find out [who leaked the information]," Anderson said Tuesday.

Anderson declined to disclose how much the investigation has cost the city so far or details of how it is being conducted, saying it was "ongoing."

The police union, which urged Anderson on April 4 to investigate the leak, has cited potential criminal violations.

The leak probe stems from allegations made by Miles Lund, a Korean War-era veteran who claims he was roughed up by Salt Lake City police officers in Liberty Park. Lund, who is suing the city for $10 million for "wrongful and excessive force," says officers struck him in the head, causing a blood clot in his brain that was surgically removed, said Clark Newhall, his attorney.

The review board on April 2 released its quarterly report, which, while not specifying the Lund case by name, contained enough information to identify the incident and the board's decision. The Tribune, citing unnamed sources, reported on April 3 that the review board sustained Lund's allegations.

Burbank, in an April 12 interview on KCPW radio, confirmed the review board's decision to sustain the allegations. But the chief, who can overrule the review board, has yet to act on the decision.

Anderson said the leaked information undermined the process that he helped create. He put a freeze on communication between the review board and police department, essentially halting investigations into police wrongdoing.

In an April 4 letter to Anderson, Salt Lake Police Association President Tom Gallegos demanded internal and criminal investigations into the leak, saying such probes would force review board members and its investigator to "understand the necessity to comply with city ordinance, Utah code and the ethical standards required for such a sensitive oversight panel."

About the same time, Burbank began his own investigation, assigning detectives to look at city phone records, he said. At the time, Burbank said, subpoenas were possible.

A week later, on April 12, Anderson announced he had called Burbank off the investigation and assigned a private investigator. A spokesman called it an "internal administrative review" and not a criminal investigation.

Burbank has since said it was improper to have the police department investigate the panel that oversees it.

"The police department should not be investigating the Civilian Review Board," Burbank said this week.

But the police union continued to probe the incident. Saying he was concerned that the review board's investigator, Ty McCartney, or a review board member were the source of the Tribune story, Gallegos on April 12 requested McCartney's disciplinary records from the Sandy Police Department, his former employer.

Gallegos declined to comment about the request Tuesday.

The city hired investigator Lisa Forrester, who has been on retainer with the city for five years.

Forrester went through city phone records, including cellular phone records, of detectives in the internal affairs unit and of review board members.

Burbank said he stalled internal affairs investigations pending the outcome of the leak investigation because he lost confidence in the process.

"Our entire internal affairs process has been on hold the whole time since that information got out," Burbank said.

But Lt. Tim Doubt, who heads internal affairs, said his office completed its investigation into the Lund incident and has forwarded the findings to the chief's office. Doubt said that only two or three investigations among nearly two dozen were placed on hold because of the leak probe.

"It hasn't really affected us," Doubt said.

Anderson said the leak investigation was important to "maintain the integrity" of investigations into alleged police misconduct.

"The trust the police officers have in the process is being completely undermined by reporters retaining wrongfully leaked information," Anderson said. "The [police] union is saying that everyone is telling them, 'We told you so. We should have never had a review board.' "

Anderson said he did not want to hold up investigations into police misconduct longer but planned to continue the leak probe.

rrizzo@sltrib.com