For more than a year, E.E. was held in a juvenile lockup after he was accused of murder for a fatal stabbing that prosecutors initially concluded could have been self-defense.

He was 14 years old in 2023 when a stranger came up to a parked car in which he was sitting in West Valley City and demanded money. During the encounter, the teen stabbed the 24-year-old man 17 times. He died from his injuries.

At first, the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office declined to charge E.E.

But in a new lawsuit, E.E. and his mother allege a Salt Lake County prosecutor later pushed to file a murder charge in juvenile court six months later — with a plan to move his case to adult court — because she wanted to remain close to the West Valley City detective on his case, with whom she was allegedly having an inappropriate romantic relationship.

The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday and seeks $20 million in damages, claims Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill and other top prosecutors ignored warnings about the relationship and failed to intervene. The Salt Lake Tribune generally doesn’t name young people accused of crimes, and is identifying E.E. by his initials because that is how he is identified in his federal lawsuit.

E.E. later admitted to a manslaughter charge and was ordered to remain in juvenile custody possibly until he turned 25. But after allegations of the inappropriate relationship came to light, a judge allowed him to withdraw the plea and disqualified the Salt Lake County office from handling the case. After the Utah attorney general’s office took a look at the evidence, its prosecutors said it could not disprove E.E.’s self-defense claim, and asked for the case to be dismissed.

In response to the lawsuit, Gill told The Tribune on Friday that “we intend to vigorously defend the work of this office and its prosecutors in the context of the courtroom.”

But Gill, who is running for re-election, questioned the timing of the federal lawsuit — which was filed six weeks ahead of the Democratic primary election by Nathan Evershed, a former prosecutor who once ran against him and who is supporting Gill’s opponent, Shawn Robinson.

“This litigation, to me, smells of a political stunt,” Gill said.

Evershed and Spencer Young, another lawyer representing E.E. and his mother, said in a statement Friday: “This lawsuit is not about Mr. Gill’s campaign for reelection, but the malicious prosecution of a child by multiple Salt Lake County prosecutors and West Valley City detectives.”

West Valley City police, who are also named as defendants, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

The stabbing

E.E. was sitting with his girlfriend inside a car parked at Scottsdale Park in the early morning hours of Aug. 17, 2023, when Niusami Auelua approached them and flashed a light into their car. He pointed a gun at E.E., and demanded money and marijuana.

The teen later told police and prosecutors that he didn’t have anything, and didn’t have a wallet with him. Auelua grabbed a backpack that was sitting in the front seat.

“I felt like after that he was going to try to shoot me or something,” E.E. later told authorities. “... I was kind of freaked out. ‘Cause, I don’t know, I just saw the barrel.”

E.E. got out of the car, and the two began fighting. The teen said Auelua choked him and put him in a headlock during the altercation, and E.E. stabbed Auelua repeatedly.

After the stabbing, E.E. and his girlfriend ran from the park. He was arrested later that afternoon and booked into a juvenile detention facility.

Four days later, the lawsuit says, prosecutors met and determined not to charge E.E. after watching surveillance footage and determining he could claim self-defense.

‘This filing is dead wrong’

But a team of prosecutors — including Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Adrianna Davis — took another look at the case six months later, in February 2024. They decided to charge E.E. with murder, and they wanted him to face consequences in adult court.

E.E.’s lawsuit alleges Davis took a new interest in the case because she had been in an inappropriate romantic relationship with the West Valley City detective who investigated the stabbing. Both were married to other people at the time, the lawsuit alleges, and Davis was worried he was close to ending their relationship. So she began to review E.E.’s case again, the lawsuit claims, in order to spend more time with Detective Josue Llil and curry favor with his department.

The lawsuit includes copies of text messages that Davis sent to another prosecutor, Meghann Mills, in the months prior to the re-screening, where the woman confided that she had been in a relationship with Llil and that she was worried that he was avoiding her and might end things.

When Davis rescreened the case, she excluded Mills — who was the juvenile supervising attorney — and other prosecutors with expertise in juvenile cases, according to the lawsuit.

After Mills found out that E.E. had been charged with murder, the lawsuit says she immediately tried to bring her concerns about the relationship and the case to top prosecutors, including Gill, whom she met with to discuss the case in May 2024, according to emails included as exhibits in the lawsuit.

She wrote in an email that Davis was “unapologetically prosecuting that 14-year-old kid E.E.” and that “E.E.’s case was declined by the office last September, but to please Llil and [another detective], she spent every minute she could on getting it to where the office would sign off on it.”

“I feel very strongly that this filing is dead wrong,” she continued, “and an incredible abuse of power on her part.”

An admission to manslaughter

E.E.’s lawsuit claims that Gill’s office did nothing in response — and never disclosed the relationship to his defense attorney. Worried about the possibility of being tried in adult court and being sent to prison, E.E. admitted to a manslaughter charge in juvenile court in September 2024.

He was sentenced to be possibly incarcerated in juvenile detention until he was 25 years old.

Three months later, E.E. had a new attorney, Evershed, who filed a motion for relief after Mills told Evershed about the case and the inappropriate relationship.

A Salt Lake County prosecutor initially pushed back, writing in response that the case was reconsidered because the office received additional evidence, and defended the decision to try to move the case to adult court because E.E. had a past juvenile record — including for his involvement in a gang-related shooting at Valley Fair Mall three months before the stabbing.

The prosecutor further argued in her response that Davis was removed from the case after Mills complained to Gill, and another attorney had taken a look at it and decided it still should move forward. The filing said Davis denied having a romantic relationship with Llil.

But by February 2025, prosecutors asked that a judge allow E.E. to withdraw his plea. The judge agreed, and eventually also granted a motion disqualifying the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office from handling E.E.’s case.

The juvenile judge wrote that the office “committed a series of missteps that, when viewed collectively, call into question the objectivity and neutrality required in judicial proceedings. A recurring lack of transparency has compounded these concerns.”

The Utah attorney general’s office then stepped in, and after reviewing the evidence, joined E.E. in a motion to dismiss the charge.

A prosecutor from that office wrote in the filing that while it was “stupid conduct” for E.E. to have left the car and fought the victim, the office was unlikely to prove that E.E. “was not justified to use force by clear and convincing evidence.”

The next day, the judge dismissed the case.

A ‘malicious’ prosecution

E.E. claims in his lawsuit that he was unconstitutionally arrested and detained, and that the prosecution was “malicious.” He also alleges that police and prosecutors withheld evidence, including not disclosing that Davis and Llil had allegedly been in a romantic relationship.

The lawsuit says that West Valley City police leadership gave Llil a reprimand letter, which said he was being disciplined for having a “personal relationship with a deputy district attorney [which] resulted in widespread negative attention for him and the Department.” Davis was never disciplined, according to the lawsuit. Llil and Davis appear to still be working for West Valley and Gill’s office, respectively.

Mills now works as a prosecutor in Utah County, and has also publicly endorsed Gill’s Democratic challenger. She pointed to E.E.’s case in her endorsement.

“Justice failed in that case because the current administration prioritized politics and protectionism over the truth,” she wrote.

Gill noted on Friday that on the same day Evershed filed E.E.’s lawsuit, he also sent emails encouraging people to vote against him in the upcoming primary election.

“I’ve got a former Republican candidate that I defeated as one of the attorneys filing this litigation,” he said, “then sending out simultaneously an email supporting my opponent.”

Evershed ran for district attorney in 2018, while he was still a prosecutor in Gill’s office. After losing the election, he started his own practice and primarily works as a criminal defense attorney.