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SALT LAKE CITY — The lead attorney in a class-action lawsuit against Lisa Steed said the evidence he has seen against the embattled former trooper so far is "surprisingly bad."
The former Utah Highway Patrol Trooper of the Year was fired after it was revealed in 3rd District Court that she violated department policies, falsified police reports and used questionable practices when making DUI arrests.
Salt Lake attorney Robert Sykes said Wednesday that as part of a civil lawsuit filed against Steed, the state recently turned over 200 dash-cam videos from traffic stops made by her for his office to review.
After going through 31 of the cases, Sykes said he believes there is evidence on the videos that 22 of 25 drivers pulled over showed no sign of "swaying," contrary to what Steed allegedly wrote in her reports. In 15 of 28 cases, field sobriety tests were given out of view of the camera from her vehicle's dashboard, he said. And in 13 of 18 cases, Sykes believes field sobriety tests were illegally given.
"What this shows is a pattern of violating her own rules," he said. "You've got essentially no supervision of this woman who's out of control."
Sykes has filed a multimillion-dollar class-action suit on behalf of the complainants.
But Paul Murphy, spokesman for the Utah Attorney General's Office, said Wednesday that the state believes the lawsuit is baseless and won't be certified as a class-action case.
