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VERNAL — Uintah County prosecutors filed new felony charges Friday against a Utah fugitive who walked out of a Salt Lake City hospital two days after she crashed a pickup truck while fleeing from police in Wyoming.
The four counts of bail jumping, all third-degree felonies, were filed against Jamie Lindsay Cleghorn as the finger pointing continued over who is responsible for allowing the Alabama woman to walk out of University Hospital without notifying police.
"The hospital was to notify us or notify law enforcement if she was going to be released and then we would pick her up," deputy Uintah County attorney John Gothard Jr. said. "Unfortunately that did not happen, and she was released Wednesday."
University Health Care spokeswoman Kathy Wilets, however, noted that federal privacy laws restrict the information the hospital is able to release about patients without their consent.
"It is possible that patients may register under different names or opt out of our directory system," Wilets said in a statement. "In our directory system, we had no patient listed under the name of Jamie Cleghorn."
Cleghorn, 34, is now charged in four Utah counties with a combined 38 felonies and five misdemeanors. In addition to bail jumping, the charges include identity theft, theft by deception, possession of a controlled substance and providing pornography to children under the age of 10.
After Cleghorn skipped a July 16 court hearing in Vernal, a warrant was issued for her arrest. She didn't pop up on law enforcement's radar again until two weeks ago, when police say she passed two bogus checks totalling nearly $1,100 at a Shopko store in Powell, Wyo.
"She actually was living in our area," said Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt, who added that one of his detectives worked with police in Vernal and Layton to identify Cleghorn as a suspect in the case.
The same detective was listening to his scanner Monday, when dispatchers put out the description of a pickup truck that had just left a bank in Cody, Wyo., after the driver tried to pass a bogus check, Eckerdt said.
Police soon caught up to the truck, which Cleghorn was driving, and a high-speed chase ensued that spanned two counties, according to Wyoming Highway Patrol Sgt. Stephen Townsend. The sergeant said Cleghorn avoided six sets of spike strips deployed by troopers, and court records allege she tried to hit two officers head-on.
The chase ended when Cleghorn — who police say was throwing counterfeit cash and checks out the window as she drove — sideswiped a Jeep with three people inside and crashed in Riverton, Wyo., doing an estimated $16,000 to $20,000 damage to Bott Monument Gallery.
"I'm positive if you print your own dollars, you don't go out and get insurance," said Drew Bott, referring to Cleghorn's alleged penchant for counterfeiting and his belief that he'll have to rely on his own insurance to repair the damage.
The people in the Jeep were not injured in the crash, which damaged a natural-gas meter and snapped a power pole. But Cleghorn was complaining that she couldn't feel her arms or legs, police said, prompting doctors to send her by helicopter to University Hospital.
Salt Lake City police detective Dennis McGowan said his department posted an officer at the hospital to guard Cleghorn, but that assignment was canceled early Tuesday morning.
In his report, the officer assigned to the detail wrote that doctors told police Cleghorn was complaining of paralysis, but it was unclear Friday if that's what prompted the decision to pull the officer from the hospital, McGowan said.
Wilets noted that the hospital cannot hold people against their will and does not contact police when patients are discharged.
"Hospitals are institutions for healing," she said. "If a patient is considered a fugitive by law enforcement and considered a safety risk, we expect the law enforcement agency to place that patient under arrest and in custody for the safety of our staff and other patients."
Regardless of who is responsible for Cleghorn being on the lam, Gothard said, it's important that she be taken into custody soon.
"With her attempt to run — she attempted to ram at least two highway patrol vehicles in Wyoming — I would say that she poses a danger to the public at large," he said.
Anyone with information about Cleghorn is asked to call their local police department or 911.
