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Prosecutor spoke at length with store owner

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Apr 15, 2008 by Copyright 2008 Deseret News By Leigh Dethman Deseret News

A former veteran Salt Lake County prosecutor called the accused ringleader of a prostitution ring and spoke to him at length the day after the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office filed charges against him.

The recently fired prosecutor, Kent Morgan, talked to Steve Maese for 17 minutes that day, according to phone records obtained by the Deseret News through a public-records request. The conversation was one of 132 calls placed in more than 21 months between the prosecutor and Maese.

But both men insist no top-secret information was revealed.

"Of course not," Morgan said.

The pair are friends who enjoy talking about politics, nothing more, they said.

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District Attorney Lohra Miller fired Morgan last month for allegedly leaking confidential information to Maese, who was co- owner of the Doll House.

Maese is scheduled to go on trial April 23 in 3rd District Court on six felony counts, including money laundering, exploiting a prostitute and showing a pattern of unlawful activity.

Morgan is appealing his dismissal to the county's Career Service Council.

Miller's office was "notified by outside sources" that Morgan was "providing confidential internal information to a defendant in a criminal case that the office was prosecuting," according to a letter the district attorney submitted to the Career Service Council stating reasons why Morgan was fired.

The letter further states that the phone records prove Morgan and Maese had a cozy relationship. Maese called Morgan 90 times between April 2006 and January 2008. The calls came from two different phones, according to county sources. Morgan, according to the records, called Maese 42 times.

Most of those calls were short and unanswered. But the pair did talk for 20 minutes the day of Maese's roll-call hearing in court. That's in addition to the 17-minute conversation the day after the district attorney's office filed charges against Maese.

They also spoke to each other several times the week after police executed a search warrant at the Doll House, according to the phone records obtained by the Deseret News through the Government Records Access and Management Act.

Maese apparently made some sort of statement to police that made them believe he knew information only prosecutors involved in screening the case would have known, according to the letter. The letter does not specify what information Maese supposedly knew that only prosecutors would have known.

"That information was only known within the district attorney's office," the letter states. "Without an inside source he wouldn't have had access to that information."

Maese said Morgan never revealed any confidential information in their many conversations and that the two men are just friends.

"I never received confidential information from Kent," Maese said. "He has too much integrity to do that."

The letter also indicates Morgan was involved in confidential meetings in which prosecutors screened the charges against Maese.

"That's crap," Morgan said. "That's horse manure. Steve was an acquaintance of mine and that would have been just totally inappropriate, so I didn't participate in any of those meetings."

The unlikely friendship started during Morgan's campaign for district attorney, which he later lost to Miller during the 2006 county Republican convention.

Maese volunteered to work on Morgan's campaign, and helped set up his Web site, as well as assist with marketing efforts. However, Maese does not show up on any of Morgan's financial disclosures, even in-kind contributions.

He also served as Morgan's sidekick during meet-the-candidate nights across the county, Morgan said.

"Steve was just like many people who were with me through the whole thing and helped me out," Morgan said. "Steve came in to help me out with my campaign. This was long before charges arose. He was kind of an excited guy."

About 30 percent of the calls came in the days leading up to the county Republican convention, where Miller defeated Morgan and avoided a primary battle.

E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com

Prosecutor spoke at length with store owner

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Apr 15, 2008 by Copyright 2008 Deseret News By Leigh Dethman Deseret News

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