Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Two former Beaver County Jail inmates have said Sheriff Kenneth Yardley took them and other inmates out of the jail in 2000 to help remodel his home.
They said the prisoners were put to work stripping wallpaper, tearing out cabinets, pulling up carpet and moving furniture.
They said they sometimes drove to and from the home in a county-owned truck and worked without a guard.
"Kenny Yardley is a good friend of mine. I hate to incriminate him," but what happened was wrong, said former inmate Chett Pearson.
Pearson made the comments to The Salt Lake Tribune, which reported the allegations in a copyright story Thursday.
Two FBI agents questioned Yardley last month, said County Commissioner Chad Johnson and the commission's assistant, Bryan Harris. They said they also met with the agents, but they declined to discuss details of the interview.
Yardley declined to discuss the FBI investigation or the allegations he used inmate labor on his house.
"It's an investigation," Yardley said. "When I get the results, I'll talk."
Representatives of the FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Salt Lake City declined to discuss the matter.
Yardley, 63, has been sheriff since 1986. His term expires Jan 1. Yardley has said he will not seek re-election.
In January 2000, a short time after Yardley filed for divorce, he began refurbishing a one-story home about two blocks south of Beaver High School. To do the gutting, he used at least four jail inmates, said Pearson and Clayton Myers, who said he, too, worked on the sheriff's home.
"He just come in and got us and hauled us up there and said, 'This is what we're gonna' do,' " Pearson said of his first day of work on the house. "We didn't care. It got us out of the jail cell."
In separate interviews with The Tribune, Myers and Pearson said they would eat breakfast at the jail, then go to the jail's changing room to remove their inmate clothing and put on street clothes.
Then Yardley would transport the men to his house to begin work, Myers and Pearson said. He'd pick them up from the house in the evening so they could return to the jail in time to change back into their jail clothes and eat supper.
Myers and Pearson identified two other men they said worked with them at the house. One could not be reached for comment. The other is serving time at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison. In a telephone conversation monitored by prison officials, the prisoner denied working at the homes of any county or sheriff's employee, The Tribune said.
Myers, who was serving a one-year sentence for felony drunken driving, said he worked at Yardley's house for about 10 days, for which the sheriff paid him about $20 cash.
Pearson, who was serving a one-year term for failure to pay child support, said he worked on the sheriff's house for at least three weeks, and also did work at the jail and other county property. The day his jail sentence expired, Yardley gave him $400, Pearson said.
"He told me it was for the work I'd done on his house, the work I'd done on the jail, the work I'd done on the fairgrounds," Pearson said.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
