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SALT LAKE CITY — A former Salt Lake public works supervisor and his employee are accused of using city resources to rent excavators and other equipment for personal projects at their own homes outside the city.
One of the workers chronicled the progress on social media with hashtags, including #dirtlife, prosecutors say, and the pair worked separately and together to spread top soil and dig a basement for the supervisor's new Eagle Mountain home.
Michael Ryan Broadhead, 38, of Saratoga Springs, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with one count of misuse of public money, a second-degree felony, and three counts of attempted misuse of public money, a class A misdemeanor.
Brandon Michael Petersen, 32, was charged with two counts of misuse of public money, a third-degree felony, plus one second-degree felony count of the same charge, and two counts of theft by deception, class B misdemeanors.
On Nov. 2 and Nov. 7, Broadhead rented an excavator from Komatsu Equipment in Salt Lake County for $1,318, listing a job site in City Creek Canyon, charging documents state. That's in addition to a 1,750-gallon septic tank for $1,485 from Dura Crete, in South Salt Lake.
He made the rentals under a Salt Lake City Corp. account and on Nov. 8 requested they be put under his name and charged to his personal credit card, according to court documents.
A GPS tracker located the excavator in Eagle Mountain, where he told investigators he was building a house and where he had received a health department permit to install a septic system, charges state.
Detectives wrote that Broadhead told them he was doing "all the dirt work" on the house and that he said he had rented equipment with the city account.
City records show Broadhead's city purchasing card was used for "numerous nonwork-related purchases totaling more than $5,000 from 2014-16, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill alleges in court documents.
An onlooker took a photo of Petersen operating the excavator in Eagle Mountain, where he later told police he helped his boss lay groundwork for a basement, charges state.
Months earlier, Petersen charged to the city a $2,419 rental of a miniature excavator on May 26, according to court documents. The GPS tracker showed the equipment was brought to West Jordan, where Petersen told police he used it at his home; and to Saratoga Springs, where he told a Unified police detective he dug a hole, documents say.
Petersen also is accused of renting a skid-steer loader from the city's account for $552, and saying on social media that he had scraped more than 75 yards of topsoil from his yard.
He filled out time cards Nov. 3-4 saying he was in an off-site work training each day, charges state, but on the second day posted photos of the excavator, saying, "Another basement down."
Salt Lake City Mayor's Office spokesman Matthew Rojas said Monday the city did an internal investigation immediately after receiving a call from a tipster, and also turned the information over to the county attorney.
Rojas said the men are no longer employed by the city.
