The sentencing this week of former Daggett County jailer Joshua Cox for abusing inmates represents the latest episode in a series of scandals that has plagued the tiny county in the northeast corner of Utah since the 1980s.
The ongoing infestation of corruption, I would argue, stems from a good-ol’-boy network spanning generations and fed by a rural small-town version of gerrymandering.
Cox was sentenced Monday to 120 days in jail for shocking inmates with stun guns in exchange for soda and taking police dogs into the jail for training, which led to two inmates being bitten.
Cox blamed the culture of the Daggett County jail for his actions. Indeed, former Sheriff Jerry Jorgensen pleaded guilty in September to misdemeanor official misconduct. Former jail commander Benjamin Lail pleaded guilty to class A misdemeanor reckless endangerment for firing a stun gun at the feet of a jail employee, and two other deputies were charged with official misconduct.
As a result of all that misbehaving, the Utah Department of Corrections moved some 80 state inmates out of the jail, a move that cost Daggett County more than $1 million it would have received through its contract with the state.
We’ve seen versions of this movie before.
In the late 1980s, suspicions about Daggett County grew when it was noticed the county’s population, at the time, of fewer than 1,000 grew substantially on Election Day.
Residents along the Wasatch Front who owned vacation cabins and boat slips around Flaming Gorge would vote in Daggett instead of where their primary residence was in other Utah counties.
Their votes would ensure the re-election of incumbents, and they would be rewarded for their loyalty by registering their cars, trucks and boats in Daggett at much cheaper tax rates than in their home counties.
A win-win for everyone, right?
One well-connected official with deep generational roots in the county somehow became the head of several governmental departments. He had tight relationships with the then-county commissioners as well as the sheriff.
When a county official who was not part of the clique expressed concern about county finances and spending practices, she was locked out of her office after a private meeting held by the other officials and was told she faced criminal charges.
An ACLU attorney eventually represented her. The charges were dismissed, and she successfully sued the county.
But the good ol’ boys remained in power.
In 2006, another election curiosity occurred.
Dozens of people were charged by the Utah attorney general’s office with voter fraud in 2008 in connection with that vote.
Turns out they did not reside in the county (some even lived in Wyoming) but registered there anyway, using bogus addresses, to vote for sheriff candidate Rick Ellsworth, who defeated incumbent Alan Campbell by 20 votes out of 594 cast.
Fourteen defendants used the address of Ellsworth’s parents to register.
That fraudulent election had dire consequences in 2007, when the incompetence of the sheriff’s oversight of the jail led to chaos.
Two convicted murderers walked away from a work detail and escaped into heavily wooded areas while the only guard on duty was in the restroom. They weren’t discovered missing for several hours and ended up terrorizing a cabin owner several miles from the jail before they were finally captured.
It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Didn’t get the memo? • Former Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans for years ran a payday-lending company that would go after customers if they were late on their payments.
He also oversaw the GOP’s lawsuit over SB54 (the bill that changed the way parties nominate their candidates), which contributed to the party’s $300,000-plus debt.
Now, Dominion Energy, formerly Questar, alleges he failed to pay a $710 gas bill incurred between June 2016 and May 2017.
Evans has filed a complaint with the Public Service Commission against the gas company, and he wants a hearing.
In his complaint, Evans says he sold his Check Line lending company last year and closed down his office in Taylorsville in June 2016. He says he notified Dominion of the office closure at that time and did not know the company had continued the service for nearly another year.
Dominion says there is no record of Evans’ call to discontinue service.
Evans says he stopped mail, electricity and phone service at the same time. He also says a Dominion employee told him the company’s mail to that Check Line address was returned as undeliverable and that an employee stopped by the office and reported that it seemed empty.
There seems to be an imbalance, he says, between the consumer-company relationship.
