Gold coins, posh trips form backdrop in Utah bribery trial

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A corruption scandal that prosecutors say connected wealthy businessmen and powerful politicians against a backdrop of luxury vacations, gold coins and a surreptitiously recorded meeting at a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop is set to come to a Utah courtroom Tuesday.
A nearly monthlong trial beginning with jury selection will decide whether former Utah Attorney General John Swallow’s stunning fall from grace will end with a prison sentence. Jury selection is expected to last throughout the day.
Swallow, 54, is charged with 13 counts of bribery, evidence tampering and other crimes. He was arrested in 2014, along with his predecessor and onetime boss, Mark Shurtleff, who’d been Utah’s top lawman for more than a dozen years.
Authorities said that the two hung a virtual “for sale” sign on the door to the state’s top law enforcement office, taking campaign donations and gifts like beach vacations from fraudsters and businessmen in exchange for favorable treatment in investigations.
Shurtleff’s presence will likely loom over the trial. He turned up unexpectedly at a recent hearing, but the charges against him were dropped last year by prosecutors who cited infighting between agencies in the sprawling probe.
Both men have denied any wrongdoing. Swallow’s lawyer says there was no scheme to break laws and the charges are politically motivated.
The case eventually grew to include a second prosecutor who said in 2015 that he was going after a big national name: U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings didn’t specify the nature of the allegations, but Reid’s name had come up earlier. A Utah internet millionaire said Swallow had offered to bribe Reid to make an investigation into his online business go away.
Businessman Jeremy Johnson, who once made headlines for flying his personal helicopter to Haiti for earthquake relief, bolstered his allegations with secret recordings made at a meeting over Krispy Kremes.
Reid, the former Democratic U.S. Senate majority leader, has never been charged and is not expected to have a role in the upcoming trial. Reid’s spokeswoman has called any alleged connection to the case unsubstantiated.
Johnson, who is now in prison after being convicted of lying to banks in his business practices, is on the witness list for the prosecution.
Prosecutors also said Swallow took a dozen gold coins from a former employer and payday loan titan, then sold them back for a total of $17,000.
Last year, Rawlings served up another twist in a case full of them: He dropped all the charges against Shurtleff. The prosecutor said he was legally hamstrung by a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a corruption case out of Virginia and the refusal of federal investigators to share information about their past probe into the two former lawmen that ended without charges.
Swallow’s lawyer says there’s little difference between the cases against the two former attorneys general, and the charges against his client should dissolve as well. Attorney Scott Williams has said he could call Rawlings to the stand as one of nearly 70 a witnesses for their side.
But Williams is facing a different set of prosecutors, and they’re fighting the idea of putting their colleague on the stand. The judge, meanwhile, has denied efforts to delay or end the case.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, have a list of more than 50 people they could call as they work to show a jury that the cozy relationships and posh trips amount to crimes in one of the most high-profile political cases in state history.