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SALT LAKE CITY — A man who broke into the Utah Attorney General's Office in 2022 allegedly told police he'd go right back to stealing and burglarizing once he was released from jail.
Police say he has kept his word — again and again and again.
The man is an example of a habitual misdemeanor offender — a segment of the population historically ignored by lawmakers — and who has fallen victim to a "revolving door of neglect and policy failure," according to Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, who says the county is looking at new efforts to address the problem.
Anthony Lee Jack, 44, has an extensive history of theft and burglary dating back to at least 1997. In November 2022, he broke into the Utah Attorney General's Office at the Heber M. Wells Building, 160 E. 300 South, as well as a downtown law office. At the time of his arrest, Jack told an officer "that he has done this before and when he gets out of jail, he will do it again."
It was a promise he made good on just two weeks later when he was arrested with stolen credit cards, drugs and a bag of keys and electronic keycards belonging to several businesses, according to police.
On March 13, 2023, a universal resolution was reached in 3rd District Court in 13 of Jack's criminal cases, and he was sentenced to serve one year in the Salt Lake County Jail, according to court records.
But by December, Jack started compiling arrests again.
On Dec. 24, University of Utah police said they found Jack on campus and "in possession of several stolen items" that were taken from places around the university, including backpacks from two buildings. "Items Anthony is suspected of having unlawful possession of include several Amazon gift cards, an LG cellphone and PAC 12 championship ring," a police booking affidavit states.
He was booked into jail for investigation of multiple counts of burglary and trespassing.
On Dec. 31, U. police again received reports of Jack on campus, this time looking into cars parked at the Huntsman Center and Primary Children's Hospital. Officers located him at a bus stop near the hospital parking garage. Police searched Jack and "found a used clear glass pipe inside the left pocket of his sweatpants. The pipe was placed inside a black sock. A Wells Fargo key with the label 'break room' was also found in his possession," another police affidavit states.
Officers also noted that Jack was served at the jail during his Dec. 24 arrest with a lifetime ban from the University of Utah campus.
But just a few days after that arrest, Jack not only went back to the U. campus on Jan. 3, but was spotted in the parking lot of the University of Utah Police Department. "Anthony was seen walking through a gate that was closing," an arrest report states.
When confronted, Jack claimed he was there to pick up items that were seized as evidence during his prior arrest. But when asked why he entered through a restricted area, police say Jack "became verbally aggressive."
Officers searched Jack and reported finding methamphetamine, burglary tools and a notebook "that contained information used to gain access to buildings and buildings to target."
He was booked again into jail, this time for drug possession, trespassing and possession of burglary tools.
On Jan. 29, Jack allegedly entered the Utah Indigent Defense Commission office, 370 E. South Temple, and took a purse off a public defender's desk, according to a police booking affidavit. Because the woman's bluetooth headphones were in the purse, she was able to locate Jack. She also learned that he had used her debit card, police say. Officers located Jack in a car near where the debit card was used and arrested him.
"(Jack's) bags were searched and the transaction cards were found along with a white crystal substance which field tested positive for methamphetamine. (He) was also in possession of two Microsoft laptops valued at $800 each along with the victim's headphones. The laptops were reported stolen in a separate case," according to the affidavit.
The laptops had been stolen from Westminster College, 1840 S. 1300 East, on Jan. 27, according to charging documents.
On Thursday, Jack was charged with several felony crimes, which means he should face stiffer penalties and restrictions as his cases make their way through the legal system.
A population 'nobody wants to work with'
But while Jack's history of repeated arrests is excessive, the problem of chronic offenders who commit misdemeanor, nonviolent crimes, and are arrested over and over is nothing new.
"This is not something new we discovered last week. We have just chosen to ignore it or we look to a law enforcement answer," Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said of the current chronic offenders. "This is the tail that wags the criminal justice dog."
In 2007, Salt Lake City officials conducted a study in which they identified 34 of their most habitual offenders. Although their crimes were small, the group was determined to be costing taxpayers more than $1 million a year. Between 2002 and 2006, officers dealt with those individuals approximately 15,000 times, costing the city between $1.2 million and $2.5 million, the study found.
Today, Gill said there are approximately 200 people who are charged on a regular basis with misdemeanor crimes, typically in Salt Lake City Justice Court. He describes them as "nonviolent nuisance offenders" who have been historically ignored by lawmakers and have fallen victim to a "revolving door of neglect and policy failure."
"We don't have a mental health system to address this segment of population," Gill said. "This is the population that nobody wants to work with."
The hardest segment of society for policymakers to work with, Gill says, is the people who are arrested for low level, nonviolent offenses, who are determined to have either mental health or substance abuse issues, and who have neither the "competency nor capacity" to receive traditional treatment provided by the jail.
"The community should be upset, because policymakers repeatedly fail them and keep giving them statements that they don't back up," the district attorney said.
Gill says the problem can't simply be passed off to law enforcement to solve, and he's "sick and tired" of lawmakers who pontificate policies without making any commitment to resources. He notes that no matter what policies are proposed, his office still has to prosecute people who are charged with crimes, whether his office receives the financial backing for those policy proposals or not.
'Changing responses'
Gill says there needs to be a "different off-ramp" to serve this segment of the population, or a new way of handling them. That's why he is encouraged by the work being done by Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson who he says are working to find a real solution by addressing issues such as housing and mental health.
"For the first time, I'm guardedly optimistic that my city, county and state partners are taking this seriously in a systemic way," he said.
Part of that solution includes keeping that segment of the population accountable in the justice system and making them show up to court on a regular basis. When someone is "civilly committed," Gill says it's typically a process the defendant is expected to follow and not a physical place they are sent to. But when that person fails to show up to court, in the past there has been no follow-up.
"It's about building the system and changing responses," he said. "We need the consistency of interaction."
Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera says a feasibility study is currently being conducted regarding expansion of the jail. She notes that the problem is not a perceived notion that there's no room at the jail for misdemeanor offenders. As of Thursday, approximately 1,700 of the jail's 2,000 beds were occupied.
But where the jail can do better, she said, is by expanding programs to help inmates in areas such as mental health and drug abuse.
The study, she said, will look at what types of inmates are being housed and what the jail's future population is expected to look like. For example, she says the jail currently has "a lot" of inmates with mental health issues. But the Salt Lake County Jail was not built to properly address that segment.
"We don't want to just put in more beds. We need mental health and other programs," she said about what a possible jail expansion would look like.
The jail feasibility study, the sheriff said, is about a month away from being completed,
