January 10th, 2017
Dear President-Elect Trump:
Yesterday, I told you the story of Tim Todd (not his real name) and the sheriff giving him until sundown to leave Millard County. That letter spoke to our need to maintain our freedom through transparency, diffusion of power, and respect for the process.
The experience I recount today relates to yesterday’s letter. Let me be clear: I am not accusing any one person of setting in motion the events of today’s letter. I don’t know who was behind them.
We had our law office on Fillmore’s main street. It was a small storefront, with a 1/2 star motel next door and a two-store motel directly across the street.
For two lawyers just out of law school, it could not have been a better introduction to the practice of law—at least the small town practice of law. Wills, trusts, divorce, general business questions, we did a bit of everything. But what paid the bills month in and month out was our public defense contract.
We received a flat fee each month to defend everyone who couldn’t afford a lawyer. The contract drew us to Millard County because the county had granted preference to in county residents. And as the only defense attorneys in the county, that meant we got the defense contract.
As public defenders, we defended our clients, vigorously. What we hadn’t understood was that the out of county defender who held the contract previously hadn’t held either a preliminary hearing or trial with a public defense client in the two years that preceded our arrival.
An out of county judge held court every two weeks in Millard County. The previous public defender would arrive into town, receive plea bargain officers from the prosecutor, and then pushed, persuaded, or manipulated the clients into taking the deal.
It was a cozy relationship for everyone—except the accused.
We arrived in the county ready for action–and lacking in local understanding. We began pushing every case. Not surprisingly, we found that nearly every case was winnable because both prosecution and police had grown so unaccustomed to having to prove a case and they had become sloppy.
We began winning our cases.
That didn’t sit well with the sheriff, or any of his deputies, whose routine and county we had disrupted.
Tim Todd had been out of the county, or so I thought, for five or six weeks. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and I was busy preparing for a public meeting that night at city hall. The next day, Wednesday, I was arguing a public defense case in Salt Lake City before the Utah Supreme Court. I planned to attend the evening meeting in Fillmore and make the 2.5-hour drive to Salt Lake City Wednesday morning.
As I sat at my desk, I had an immediate feeling that I needed to leave for Salt Lake City immediately and attend the public meeting telephonically. Not understanding the reason behind the feeling, but trusting it, Chelom and I loaded our two kids in the car and left for Salt Lake City. That night, I participated in the public meeting over the telephone with the meeting participants hearing my voice over the speakerphone in Fillmore.
The next morning, I argued my case in court, and before I left the courthouse, I called our office to check in with our assistant. When she answered the phone, the panic in her voice startled me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“The sheriff’s office is here, searching your office!”
“What? Why?”
“About an hour ago, a woman came into the office with $800. She said that she was Timothy Todd’s wife and that she had come to the office to pay the $800 that her husband, Timothy Todd owed you for drugs. She said that you were Timothy Todd’s drug dealer and that you tried to kill him last night down by the creek when he didn’t pay you $800 that he owed you. The police came a few minutes later and began searching your office for evidence that you were a drug dealer.”
It turns out that Timothy Todd did not leave the county permanently.
Instead, he returned to Fillmore and rented a room in the .5 star motel next door to our office, where he lived for nearly five weeks prior to the incident.
I had been set up.
Who did it? I don’t know. Whoever it was wanted to destroy me and my ability to practice law, and they would have succeeded, but for the feeling to leave town the night before. There was no way I could have been near the creek in Fillmore, Utah trying to kill Timothy Todd. I was in Salt Lake City and on the speakerphone in a public meeting. Timothy Todd’s allegation was false—and everyone knew it.
I may never know who set me up. But I do know this: Timothy Todd never went back to jail and people in power like to stay in power.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
