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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Police raised concerns Thursday why a man with a first-degree felony warrant for aggravated sexual abuse of a child was initially turned away at the Salt Lake County Jail.
Cottonwood Heights police Sgt. Ryan Shosted said the man, 18-year-old Joshua Meyer, had agreed along with his parents to turn himself in at the jail Tuesday because of the $100,000 warrant, but jail staff couldn’t locate Meyer’s warrant in their system.
Meyer’s family, Shosted said, also told detectives that the jail staff instructed him to go get a state ID card and return with it since he did not have one yet.
“They were worried about appearing that they were not cooperating,” Shosted said.
Shosted called what took place “unbelievable” and “crazy.”
“Who goes into a situation like this to turn themselves in and gets told, ‘No, I’m sorry, if you can’t prove who you are, come back tomorrow,” Shosted said.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder disputed some of the facts of what took place, saying Meyer was never told it was a requirement to get a state ID card.
“Our staff did instruct the mother of this young man — he’s 18 years old — it might be helpful for him to have identification,” Winder said.
Winder also explained the reason why jail staff could not find the warrant in their computer system was that Meyer arrived at the jail a little over an hour-and-a-half after the judge had signed the warrant.
“Given this was a first-degree felony, Cottonwood Heights (police) could have transported the young man here and booked him on a probable cause and avoided all this,” Winder said.
Cottonwood Heights Police Chief Robby Russo said a simple search of court records would have adequately addressed the situation at the jail.
He characterized the case as more of the same from the jail, which has been under a new policy designed to relieve overcrowding issues.
“If we write them a ticket, they don’t appear. If it goes to warrant, they still won’t take the warrant,” Russo said. “I need the sheriff to take care of his own house and not worry so much about getting into (Salt Lake City) Mayor (Jackie) Biskupski’s and (Police) Chief Mike Brown’s affairs and worry about taking care of what he was elected to do and take care of the jail.”
Winder said it didn’t appear a mistake was made in this case and that the error was due to having someone arrive at the jail before the warrant was active.
“This is the kind of situation that generally professional organizations resolve through internal communication,” Winder said. “Cottonwood Heights (police) could have called down and had a clarification about what happened here.”
Meyer returned to the jail Wednesday to be booked and remained there Friday.
“It moved back the due process that that person deserved as a suspect,” Shosted said. “I’ve never heard of something like this before.”
