This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I got a text message Thursday night from a good source — the first person, in fact, to tip me off to what eventually evolved into the scandal that drove Attorney General John Swallow from office.
After the eight-person jury returned its verdict in the Swallow case, not guilty on all nine felony counts, the text read: "If Swallow can't go down, nobody can. Nobody. It's the Wild West now."
It is a valid takeaway of the culmination of 4½ years of investigative work and millions of dollars of resources devoted to shining the light on the highest-profile and most-brazen case of political corruption in our state's history.
It's the Wild West.
It's not that I had a desire to see Swallow locked up. I wouldn't wish that on him or his family, who have no doubt suffered during the past several years as a consequence of his poor decisions.
But what I wanted, and what I think many other people I talked to wanted, was some accountability and perhaps a recognition that there are consequences to corruption.
No, Swallow is not a felon, according to the courts.
But let's not pretend that a failure to convict the former attorney general is somehow a vindication for either him or his immediate predecessor, Mark Shurtleff, no matter what they try to claim.
The actions of both men — the craven abuse of power, the acceptance of lavish gifts and vacations, the utter disregard for the people they were elected to serve — are a stain on the office of attorney general and on their personal reputations. That should never be washed away.
A criminal conviction, however, is a different creature.
Since the charges were first filed, I predicted it would be difficult, almost impossible, to make a bribery charge stick.
The burden of proof on the state is heavy when it seeks to take away a person's freedom, as it should be, and bribery in particular demands that prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an official received the bribe with "understanding or agreement" that the gift was intended to influence a decision or action.
Unless you have a video of piles of cash changing hands, those elements are difficult to prove.
So prosecutors had a steep hill to climb going in and were handed a case fraught with problems, and Swallow's defense attorney Scott Williams utterly dismantled the case.
Testimony from one of the key witnesses, Marc Sessions Jenson, was already shaky, and it was easy for defense lawyers to undermine the credibility of a man twice charged with swindling investors.
The other key witness in the case, Jeremy Johnson, refused to testify at all, meaning jurors didn't get to hear details about the money that changed hands, the attempts to curry influence with Sen. Harry Reid, or Swallow questioning if a "paper trail" existed about the houseboat where he vacationed.
They didn't even get to listen to the jaw-dropping recording of Johnson and Swallow's meeting at an Orem Krispy Kreme that investigators for the Utah House said triggered Swallow's efforts to cover his tracks, wiping out computer records, falsifying documents, and, in a scene reminiscent of an organized-crime drama, buying a so-called burner phone.
Defense attorneys also poked major holes in the testimony of FBI agent Jon Isakson, one of the lead investigators on the case, who astonishingly was forced to acknowledge on the stand that he never interviewed key witnesses.
It didn't take long to see which direction the trial was headed and with each witness you could see the case slipping out of prosecutors' hands.
Jurors said later that they simply couldn't connect the dots they were shown. All the defense needed to do was muddy the waters and provide a somewhat plausible explanation for Swallow's actions — for example, why thousands of emails disappeared, or his computers were wiped clean, or his phone was lost, or his home computer destroyed.
The outcome of the case aside, there were institutions that were committed to uncovering the truth.
We saw the importance of watchdog journalism as The Salt Lake Tribune and City Weekly peeled back the layers of the story. Personally, it ultimately cost me my marriage, but I am proud of the work The Tribune did uncovering the scandal and we will be just as tenacious next time political corruption arises.
We saw the value of the Utah public, informed and outraged, demanding action.
We saw leaders in the Utah House, unswayed by partisan loyalties, mount a serious, in-depth investigation that laid bare the "For Sale" sign that Swallow posted on the door of the attorney general's office.
So if this is the Wild West, maybe we need more sheriffs like these.
Twitter: @RobertGehrke