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Title: Saved from the Law
Author: John Harrington
Date: Aug. 28, 1997

The Tuesday evening hallway was crowded with television reporters and their cameramen pressed by the late-news deadline. Designated Salt Lake City bomb-catcher Ken Connaughton, Mayor Deedee Corradini’s spokesman, had his back to the wall outside the City Council chambers.

Reporters wanted to know what he thought about special counsel Martin Healey’s report on Corradini’s use of her office to raise $231,000 in personal gifts and loans.

“It’s a big tent, little circus,” Connaughton said. “It’s nothing different than what the District Attorney already found in his investigation.”

The television types dutifully nodded their heads. “Anything else?” the tired-looking Connaughton asked.

The mayor had spoken—well, at least her mouthpiece had. The reporters glanced at each other and shrugged.

But, before the group broke up and Connaughton ambled back to the mayor’s compound on City Hall’s south side, City Weekly Managing Editor Christopher Smart jumped in from the rear of the pack.

“How would you know what’s in the District Attorney’s investigation?” Smart asked Connaughton, “It’s secret.”

Connaughton hesitated and then said, Ron Yengich, Corradini’s lawyer could confirm that Healey’s report and Gunnarson’s findings were the same, Connaughton said. “You can call him, but he’s out of town.”

“How would Yengich know?” Connaughton was asked by City Weekly. But he walked away.

How would Ron Yengich, Deedee Corradini, Ken Connaughton—or anybody in Salt Lake City outside of Gunnarson’s investigation team—have a clue about the contents of Gunnarson’s five-month-long probe of Corradini’s “gift-taking?”

Gunnarson supposedly operated under a controversial Third District Court order of secrecy issued by Judge Homer Wilkinson through the very specific provisions of Utah Subpoena Powers Act, which is designed to prevent disclosure to the target of an investigation. That is, in fact, the first section of the law.

So, based on state law, nobody outside of Gunnarson’s office should have any information about the content of Gunnarson’s work—but they do.

City Weekly has learned after an exhaustive examination of Gunnarson’s look into the mayor’s activities—that, not only did Corradini know much of what Gunnarson was doing while his allegedly independent, secret probe was underway—the mayor actually helped Gunnarson conduct his investigation of her.

“It was a total whitewash,” Salt Lake Councilwoman Joann Milner said.

The mounting evidence backing the “whitewash” allegation is compelling, the most damning of it coming from Gunnarson, himself, in a lengthy interview City Weekly conducted with the backpedaling District Attorney Aug. 20.

City Weekly has found:
➤Gunnarson failed to disclose that when he first took on the Corradini probe that his office had serious jurisdictional problems that allowed the mayor to avoid prosecution—prosecution Gunnarson now would like to see by anyone but him.
➤The bulk of Gunnarson’s probe was not conducted in secret, nor covered by subpoenas that should have been issued under the court order.
➤Gunnarson and his investigation team improperly cooperated with Corradini and her lawyer Yengich during the investigation.
➤Gunnarson’s office frequently and seriously breached the secrecy court order.
➤Subpoenas were not issued to critical witnesses and for important documents.

There are also many more problems with Gunnarson’s probe and statements he has made since Healey’s findings were made public.

The bottom line:

Gunnarson, who told City Weekly that it’s quite possible Corradini has broken several laws, badly botched the investigative process.

As a result, Gunnarson has succeeded in, at least temporarily, setting up Corradini’s office as criminally—something akin to a breakaway, renegade republic not answerable to any aspect of state law, municipal law or, for that matter, basic oversight—by anyone.

“It’s unprecedented in state history,” Salt Lake City Council Chairwoman Deeda Seed said, “how do you respond to a situation like this?”

“We were totally misled from the very beginning by Neal Gunnarson … he totally betrayed the public trust,” Councilwoman Joann Milner said.

“It’s preposterous. I’m furious,” Councilman Keith Christensen said.

In order to understand why Christensen is furious, you have to understand what it all means.

By Gunnarson’s own admission to City Weekly—his office was never the best place to conduct an investigation of Corradini’s alleged lawbreaking. “My office, with the exception of the one law we looked at, never had jurisdiction” over Deedee Corradini’s actions, Gunnarson now claims.

And, by repeatedly violating standard criminal investigative procedures throughout the conduct of his probe, basic procedures Healey said are well understood “by any first-year prosecutor,” Gunnarson’s look into the mayor was tainted and doomed to failure from the outset.

After fruitless months and thousands of dollars of worthless investigation by the admission of the District Attorney, it is irrefutable that Deedee Corradini’s actions have yet to be examined in an independent criminal investigation by anyone with jurisdiction to prosecute her.

Compounding that, the “absolute betrayal of public trust” Milner condemns came oh-so-close to forever being covered-up by Gunnarson’s secrecy order.

A report to the Salt Lake City Council by special counsel Healey stands as the only publicly-detailed account of Corradini’s abuse of her office—and Healey has no Utah prosecution powers.

Yet, if the City Council didn’t hire Healey in the face of brutal pressure from Corradini, Gunnarson and editorial writers for Salt Lake City’s two daily newspapers, the mayor would have walked scot-free with no public disclosure, forever able to make the claim that she did nothing wrong, that “District Attorney Gunnarson cleared me.”

How did it happen—how could it happen?

You have to go to the beginning: City Weekly investigative writer Lynn Packer uncovered the mayor’s gift taking in the fall of 1996 by getting the Bonneville Pacific bankruptcy trustee to disclose how she was paying back an $800,000 out-of-court fraud settlement, when it was clear she did not have enough personal assets to pull it off.

Packer’s prying forced the mayor to disclose her money-raising scheme among wealthy Salt Lakers in a late Friday-afternoon faxed news release. A scandal, quickly dubbed “Giftgate,” ensued.

Corradini claimed her “friends” had simply helped her out and refused to acknowledge that any of her $231,000 worth of behavior was improper, let alone criminal. She was actually defiant, confidently predicting that, if investigated, she would be cleared.

In a November 18, 1996 letter, Corradini invited Gunnarson to investigate her “gifts.” Why was Corradini so confident she would be cleared by Gunnarson?

Gunnarson agreed—without disclosing he would only consider two sections of one ethics statute, a law he later excoriated as being “vague, weak and incomplete.” Nor did Gunnarson reveal the widespread jurisdictional problems he now claims crippled his probe.

A fool’s errand was underway:

The first move the D.A.’s office made was to cover its tracks in secrecy. It got Wilkinson to invoke the Utah Subpoena Powers Act.

Now, Gunnarson insists he had nothing to do with that move. “The secrecy was not my decision,” he said. “It was the investigators. I told them to investigate and they said, ‘thank you,’ and they obtained the secrecy order. They filed the affidavit (to obtain the order). I didn’t even read it before it was filed.”

Gunnarson said he read it long after it was filed.

Even though he’s trying to keep the affidavit from The Salt Lake Tribune in a suit now at the Utah Supreme Court, Gunnarson willingly detailed the secret affidavit’s contents to City Weekly, saying it claims various people’s reputations might have been hurt by an open investigation, so secrecy was requested in the Corradini probe.

While it may or not have protected people’s reputations, the secrecy mandate gave Corradini and her newly hired lawyer, Ron Yengich, something fabulous—the assurance that everything Corradini did would never be made public, unless the mayor was eventually charged.

As it now turns out, according to Gunnarson, it was impossible that she was ever going to be charged, based on the newly disclosed jurisdictional problems and the “vague, weak and incomplete” state law.

Corradini was actually home-free, totally protected from public scrutiny forever the second Wilkinson signed the secrecy order.

Well, not quite. Council members Milner, Seed, Christensen and Bryce Jolley were on the north end of city hall—watching and wondering.

Meanwhile, Yengich, who did not return City Weekly’s calls, swung into action.

Former Salt Lake City Police Officer Frank Hatton-Ward and ex-Salt Lake City Police Homicide Detective Krista Pickens, acting as investigators for Yengich’s client Corradini, were ordered by Yengich in December of 1996 to begin a counter-investigation for Corradini, Hatton-Ward told City Weekly.

At the same time they were operating their counter-action against the D.A., Yengich and Corradini publicly notified Gunnarson that Corradini would be happy to “cooperate” with Gunnarson’s probe in any way possible.

Gunnarson accepted, pre-empting any possibility D.A. investigators would go on a subpoena-serving spree in city hall, or serve search warrants seeking evidence.

Gunnarson, his chief deputy, Walter “Bud” Ellett, normally-astute career prosecutor Ernie Jones and the investigators assigned to the case, including the highly regarded Mike George, amazingly bought it.

Gunnarson’s office immediately embarked on a set of moves that are questionable and could be seen as the exact opposite of the intent of the state law and all standard criminal investigative tactics.

Corradini was arguably in effective control of the entire Salt Lake City side of Gunnarson’s probe, because Gunnarson had to reveal to the mayor what his people were working on, but had no idea what information was being withheld by Deedee’s office.

“The mayor agreed to cooperate fully with the investigation,” Gunnarson said. “We requested all public documents. They were forwarded to our office (by the mayor.)”

According to Gunnarson, “it was never necessary” to subpoena any city employee or documents from the mayor’s administration.

The friendly “cooperation” between Gunnarson and Corradini was hidden by the secrecy court order.

“We would have gone crazy if we knew,” Milner said.

Yet, even in the beginning, the Salt Lake City Council sensed something was wrong.

In mid-December, Gunnarson had a meeting with Christensen, who wanted to know the status of the D.A.’s probe.

Gunnarson told Christensen that “The investigation was going well.” “Then,” Christensen said, “Gunnarson told me he was preparing to hand his findings on the mayor over to a state grand jury.”

“That way,” Christensen said, “Gunnarson told me he was going to be able to get out the way of having to prosecute her (Corradini) himself.”

Gunnarson confirmed the conversation. “I told Keith that one of the options available was to go to a state’s grand jury,” Gunnarson said. “I told him one of the advantages to me personally would be that obviously I would not handle it (the prosecution of Corradini). I realized there were going to be political ramifications.

“I did make the aside—and it’s true—and even today, I’ll say—hey, had this been turned over to a grand jury, at least I would have been off the hot seat, but that’s not my job, to avoid the hot seat.”

But Christensen was unaware of communication between the mayor and D.A. “At the time, I had no idea about the way they were cooperating with the mayor and her lawyer. He just told me the entire investigation was being conducted under a secrecy order,” Christensen said, “that’s why he said he could not discuss anything specific with me.”

The Council had been led down the garden path, Milner said. “If we had known what was really going on, we would have done something about it sooner. But Gunnarson was giving us very misleading legal information about everything and so was (Salt Lake City Attorney) Roger Cutler. So, we were being misled by everyone, all of these lawyers…” Milner said.

In fact, Gunnarson now claims Cutler was really the man who was most responsible to prosecute Corradini under city ordinances. But, Milner and Seed said the Council was never told. Cutler was also harboring an undisclosed conflict-of-interest.

“We only found out about it when we would not back down to the mayor,” Milner said.

When the City Council eventually launched Healey’s probe of Corradini, vowing to finish it in the face of a blistering Corradini attack, it was only then that Cutler openly declared to the Council that he “worked for the mayor” and that he would “no longer represent the Council” because of its investigation.

Prior to that disclosure, which Council members said revealed Cutler’s true leanings all along, he had also acted as the lawyer for the City Council and dispensed critical legal opinions on what powers it did or didn’t have to investigate Corradini.

“He never told us his office had this responsibility to prosecute her,” Milner said.

Corradini has reported to the City Council that she prohibits all city employees she controls from speaking to City Weekly, making Cutler unavailable to respond.

“I wish he would have revealed it (his conflict) up front,” Seed said, “because we could have hired our own lawyer to advise us on Utah law and maybe we would not be in this situation.”

Meanwhile, a month passed since Christensen met with Gunnarson and the City Council was waiting for word on the “grand jury” Gunnarson had discussed. There was no word. The Council began asking public questions and revealed it was considering hiring its own investigator to find out what the mayor had done.

The investigation threat got Gunnarson’s prompt attention. He moved to get to the most vocal Council member, Milner, who was pushing hard for the special City Council probe. Gunnarson set up a meeting with Milner and Christensen on Jan. 13, 1997 in his office.

“I was running late from the governor’s office,” Milner said. “When I walked in, Keith was not there. It was just me. I was told it was going to be a private meeting with Neal Gunnarson, but right after I walked in, the room filled up with about 10 men and they surrounded me.

“They were trying to intimidate me. Gunnarson said that his office was ‘doing a good job’ on the investigation. He told me it would be a waste of money for the Council to hire its own investigator. Then, he said something I couldn’t believe I was hearing.”

According to Milner, Gunnarson began to explain to her that no hard evidence against the mayor was surfacing. At that point in the probe, witnesses had yet to be interviewed by the D.A.

“We were still collecting documents so we could formulate intelligent questions,” Deputy D.A. Ellett explained.

“Gunnarson,” Milner said, “told me ‘I don’t think we’re going to find anything that’s going to be good enough to beat Ron Yengich in court,’ that’s what he said.”

“Gunnarson kept bringing up Yengich’s name over and over again—like he was scared of him. It was a definite red flag, that he was saying these things at this point. I left the office and told several people what happened. It was at that time I was convinced we (the Council) had to do something ourselves.”

Gunnarson confirmed the meeting with Milner, providing his own perspective. “She was invited over. It was done as a courtesy to her. It was done as an attempt to brief her on the thrust and focus of the investigation. At that time we told her what we were looking at and anticipated that, with that information, she could see that possibly, if they had their own investigator, it would be … duplicating.”

Gunnarson claims he and three investigators met with Milner, “as far as I can recall.”

“No, it was closer to 10 men,” Milner said, “I wrote it down.”

Gunnarson admitted he referred to Yengich often during the meeting, but only because, “I was probably using it (Yengich’s name) as a symbol of the case. He was representing the other side.”

Gunnarson bristled at Milner’s impression Gunnarson was “scared” of Yengich.

“I have never been intimidated by Ron Yengich,” Gunnarson said. “He has never beaten me in court.”

Milner reported her disturbing encounter with Gunnarson to the Council.

“That’s when we came together,” Seed said.

While this was unfolding, Gunnarson’s investigation was breaking all the rules laid out in the court order. Gunnarson himself admits, “I had five or six conversations with Yengich about when the investigation might end, that sort of thing”—while the investigation was underway.

The Subpoena Powers Act, usually employed in drug or murder investigations, provides prosecution officials must operate with across-the-board secrecy. It didn’t happen. Instead of uniformly following the law, Gunnarson’s office picked and chose its behavior as it went.

Gunnarson’s loose approach to the law was evident in his matter-of-fact comments to City Weekly—calling into question his real motives for wanting secrecy in the first place. Was it to protect reputations, Corradini—or himself?

Gunnarson, by his own admission, discussed timing—a critical part of any criminal probe, with the target’s lawyer. At the same time, far greater abuses and violations of the secrecy order were underway.

Ellett confirmed information from Yengich’s investigation team that interview times and locations with Corradini and her chief of staff, Kay Christensen, were coordinated between Yengich’s and Gunnarson’s staffs. Ellett also confirmed that, when D.A. investigators questioned Corradini and Christensen, it was done without subpoena and with members of the Corradini/Yengich team in the room.

“It’s crazy,” a veteran Salt Lake County prosecutor who had contact with Gunnarson’s investigation team said. “They (Gunnarson’s team) should have been serving the living shit out of the mayor’s office with subpoenas—going in there and taking everything. They didn’t need her permission or help. That’s why the target of an investigation is called a target,” he said.

Corradini’s “cooperation” deeply troubled Gunnarson’s men, one source told City Weekly. “They felt they were in the trick bag,” he said.

So, the D.A.’s “secret” work was no secret to Corradini—a direct violation of the first provision of subpoena powers law Gunnarson’s men used to seal the investigation in the first place. But, because of the ersatz secrecy, there was no way for Wilkinson to know that his order was being trashed by the people who originally got it and he denied all attempts by The Tribune to open the sealing affidavit.

Of the “cooperation” with the mayor, Ellett said, “there is nothing wrong with that.”

But, according to the secrecy order, there is. It is vitally important to understand that Wilkinson’s secrecy order is a critical reason Corradini has thus-far slipped through the cracks of impartial justice.

If improper investigative techniques, Gunnarson’s self-claimed jurisdictional limitations and conflicts-of-interest would have been publicly disclosed early-on, “we could have gotten a real investigation,” Milner said.

In effect, Wilkinson’s order—which arguably was obtained in bad faith by Gunnarson’s office—has exacted an enormous toll on public process.

And, it is clear, Gunnarson either does not know the law under which the secrecy order was obtained—or he just doesn’t care. In his interview with City Weekly, the D.A. willingly revealed numerous facts about the supposedly-secret investigation.

Gunnarson provided a detailed account of how he and two other Utah district attorneys, Bill Daines from Weber County and Bill McGuire of Davis County, agonized, along with deputy D.A. Jones, over whether or not to charge Corradini with felony theft by deception under Utah State Code, for her actions in pulling a switch with midnight basketball charity money collected from Salt Lake businessman James Sorenson.

“We went back and forth on that and we argued that for four hours. (Daines and McGuire) were involved in the decisions (on the Corradini probe) from the first Theft by deception was looked at very, very carefully.” Ultimately, Gunnarson said he did not file the charge because he didn’t think he could prove it.

Gunnarson also confirmed his office allowed some witnesses to talk while not covered by investigative subpoenas issued as part of the secrecy order, while others were hauled in under the investigative subpoenas.

Gunnarson revealed witnesses on the main donor list were videotaped under subpoena by his investigators, but nobody from the city—including Corradini, was subjected to similar treatment. Gunnarson also said his office contacted 72 witnesses, another fact that a legal secret proceeding would not have revealed.

Gunnarson’s loose approach to secrecy may land him in a serious jam with the Utah Supreme Court. In fact, the entire Corradini matter has exploded in Gunnarson’s face. Even his recent attempt to save-face have brutally backfired.

Rhode Island Ethics Commission Director Healey, who conducted the Council’s independent look at the mayor, took Gunnarson to task in response to the D.A.’s numerous media comments about Healey’s findings, which Gunnarson was claiming supported his decision not to charge Corradini.

“I am outraged by Gunnarson’s remarks,” Healey told City Weekly. “None of my findings support anything he did.”

Because Gunnarson admits cooperating with Corradini—the target of his secret investigation—Healey is particularly upset about Gunnarson’s remarks. Healey was vehement about the independence of his own probe.

“In the many investigations I have participated in, in every criminal investigation I have ever worked, you make it as clear as possible at the very beginning that the target’s lawyer is not to interfere in any way, shape or form with any of the witnesses in the case and that there is to be no contact whatsoever between the prosecutor and investigators with the target’s counsel during the course of the investigation.

“That’s why, to this day, I have never spoken to Ron Yengich. I refused to speak to Ron Yengich and I refused to have Ron Yengich or any of his investigators present in the room when I conducted my interviews with the mayor’s staff.”

Healey said his report could “not be more clear” on the facts and laws that apply directly to Corradini and what she did. “It’s all there to be read,” Healey said.

Healey’s legal citations covered possible criminal violations by carefully laying out the actual wording of the laws that corresponded directly to evidence laid out in the report. “I looked at all the applicable statutes,” Healey said, “not just one.”

“I simply said to the Council that I declined to comment in public on whether the mayor should have been prosecuted. I declined to make a comment only, and this is very important, because I do not have prosecutorial jurisdiction in Utah, not because I think she should or should not be prosecuted.”

According to Seed, Milner and Christensen, Healey related throughout the course of his investigation that he was finding “large gaps” in Gunnarson’s secret probe.

“We were told Gunnarson hadn’t done the most basic things, that the most basic questions did not appear to have been asked,” Milner said.

Time and money spent on Gunnarson’s investigation—thousands of man hours and more than $70,000, dwarfed the 150 hours Healey spent working for the Council.

“Yet, look what (Healey) got,” Seed said.

“Martin Healey’s findings for the Council are the exact opposite of what Neal Gunnarson did,” Milner said. “He showed the public what happened. Anyone who reads that report and looks at the laws Healey listed can not escape making the same conclusion—that there was wrongdoing.

“He (Gunnarson) made misleading and untrue statements about the Council’s work in public, and thank God I didn’t see (them all),” Seed said,

“...you wonder why you have gotten into office in the first place—and you have to wonder how much longer is this going to continue with these people.”

Gunnarson is in rapid retreat. Backtracking on his recent media statements concerning Healey’s report, Gunnarson said, “He may be right on that (that I shouldn’t have made those comments). I in no way intended to second-guess his work.

“Mr. Healey … quoted many statutes and now seems to be mad I didn’t say there were any violations (of the law by Corradini.) He quoted about this law, this law, this law and this law.”

Gunnarson insists he never said that Deedee Corradini did not violate the law. “I said we could not charge her under the only (ethics) statute we had jurisdiction to look at. Healey listed all sorts of laws and I concur with him fully and there may be violations,” Gunnarson said.

Gunnarson noted several statutes cover elements of Corradini’s alleged wrongdoing—but he insists, “they are municipal statutes. My office doesn’t have jurisdiction over municipal ordinances—my office doesn’t have jurisdiction over most of the state ordinances (Healey listed in his report).”

“Please, please, please,” he pleaded, “show me a statute we can enforce. I want someone to enforce the law, too.”

“Unbelivable,” Milner said, “why didn’t he announce this in November when something could have been done about it?”

However, Gunnarson’s lack of jurisdiction excuse has trapped him in an irreversible position that could cause him major legal embarrassment and career problems.

One municipal ordinance that Gunnarson said covers apparent “violations” by Deedee Corradini is in fact, a word-for-word copy of state section 10-3-1304, the single state ethics law Gunnarson claims jurisdiction over.

As cited in Healey’s report, Chapter 2.44 of the Salt Lake City Municipal Code, titled “Conflict of Interest” carries a subsection, 2.44.04 (B) that reads, “...no appointed or elected officer, and in the case of the State law, no municipal employee as well, shall improperly use or attempt to improperly use his or her official position to secure special privileges for the officer or others.”

Gunnarson told City Weekly that, in his opinion, that municipal ordinance covers Corradini’s actions and that it “should be enforced by the city prosecutor.”

“The City Council should have (City Attorney Roger) Cutler conflict out and get a special prosecutor and do it the right way,” Gunnarson said.

Gunnarson’s self-spoken dilemma is inescapable.
➤Either Gunnarson does not know Utah law and did not fully read the provisions of the only ethics law he said his office was able to consider in the Corradini case…
➤and, he did not know a key city ordinance he claims applies directly to Corradini’s actions is an exact copy of that state law…
➤or, Gunnarson is lying.

Meanwhile, Corradini’s ethics problems mount.

A state grand jury, special prosecutor or the attorney general’s office may be part of her immediate future—even as additional revelations about the mayor’s long-running habit of using her position to solicit and accept “special privileges” come to light.

City Weekly has also learned Corradini may have accepted thousands of dollars worth of undisclosed free first-class air travel from Delta Airlines under an arrangement where the mayor, and possibly other city officials who have direct control over Delta’s business with the city, have been “complimentarily upgraded” from city-paid coach seats for years. The upgrades are a Delta P.R. ploy it has used successfully and unsuccessfully on numerous key public officials nationally.

In Corradini’s case, it is an apparent direct violation of the State Municipal Employees Act, according to Salt Lake City Council findings, which remain under investigation.