Complaint against Salt Lake County district attorney dismissed


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SALT LAKE COUNTY -- A complaint against the Salt Lake County district attorney, involving allegations of a "politicized atmosphere" in her office, has been dismissed. The allegations, though, have ratcheted up the heat in an already hot race for that office.

Salt Lake County's human resources division released a report Wednesday afternoon dismissing complaints about the alleged politicizing of that office, this while an investigation continues into alleged "inappropriate comments of ethnic nature."

GOP incumbent Lohra Miller and her democratic opponent Sim Gill are locked in a tight race -- a repeat of their race four years ago.

Employees with Miller's office filed complaints regarding the use of the district attorney's office for political purposes. A report from a pair of Salt Lake County Equal Employment Office analysts finds the information provided was not substantive and did not warrant further action.

It also says allegations of "inappropriate comments" made in the office are still under investigation. Those allegations were first reported in the Salt Lake Tribune Saturday, which referred to a comment about Gill's ethnicity and about "racist jabs at defense attorneys, judges and interpreters," allegedly made by the district attorney's domestic violence team.

Miller says the comments were taken out of context.

In the meantime, that team has hired an attorney who is threatening to sue the paper for defamation.

Peter Stirba, the attorney for the domestic violence team, said, "Certainly the issue with our clients is that the article that was published was false, contained falsehoods and was defamatory of our clients. And our clients wish their names cleared and their reputations restored. And the way that can be done, at least in part, is for the [Salt Lake] Tribune to retract the very things we point out in the letter that are clearly false and defamatory."

The Tribune's managing editor said Wednesday, "We have received the letter and we're looking into it."

Miller says she's "not surprised" at the finding, saying, "We've been very careful to keep politics out of the office." She called the politicization complaint "petty."

By the way, Stirba is a Miller campaign contributor.

E-mail: jdaley@ksl.com

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