Utah 7th District Court Judge George Harmond is sorting through murky details from arguments at the August 25th preliminary hearing of San Juan County Sheriff Rick Eldredge and two of his deputies. The judge will likely decide after September 20th whether there is enough evidence to bring the officers to trial for official misconduct, retaliation against a witness, and various other charges.
The Salt Lake Tribune reportsformer San Juan County Deputy Todd Bristol testified at a preliminary hearing that Eldredge pointed an unloaded assault rifle at him during a qualification shoot and clicked the trigger, while Deputy Robert J. Wilcox looked on and chuckled. Bristol later resigned from the department after the Sheriff recommended firing him. The Utah Attorney General’s office filed charges after it reviewed the results of an internal investigation of the incident by Chief Deputy Alan Freestone, and concluded that Freestone’s investigation was questionable.
However, the defense argued that Bristol had a long record of performance issues at the department, and that the holes in Freestone’s investigation came from contradictory statements from Bristol himself--namely whether Bristol attended at the same qualification shoot as the Sheriff. The defense said Bristol had insisted that the incident happened in October, but department records showed his qualification shoot was in May. Furthermore, the defense argued that the prosecution's charges were overblown, according to the San Juan Record's account of the trial.
Prosecutors must now provide a response to the defense’s motion to dismiss the case by September 12th. The judge plans to rule whether to try the case shortly thereafter.
