James Mooney, the American Indian church leader who twice had peyote use and distribution charges against him dismissed, is making charges of his own -- that prosecutors went too far when they went after him.

On Monday, Mooney performed a cleansing prayer at the Utah County Office Building to "clean up" the valley. One aspect of the ritual featured Mooney burning sacred plants -- in this case a mix of sage and cedar -- and fanning the smoke around with eagle and hawk feathers to disseminate the cleansing properties and remove negative energies from an area.

"I see Utah County is very corrupt," he said, and the prayer will help "prepare it for some really wonderful things" to come in the future.

Also Monday, a letter delivered to the Utah County Commission from the Oklevueha EarthWalks Native American Church asks that the Utah County attorney be investigated for what Mooney and church members are calling abuses of power.

"We're bringing to light evidence that their county attorney was involved in a massive malicious prosecution, that they broke the law," said church member and spokesman David Lee Hamblin.

County Attorney Kay Bryson did not return a phone call seeking comment Monday.

The letter and an accompanying petition signed by church members asks that commissioners demand an investigation of the county attorney's office by the state attorney general's office or the U.S. Department of Justice.

Commissioners Steve White and Larry Ellertson were in Washington, D.C., on Monday and said they hadn't seen Mooney's letter.

Commissioner Jerry Grover said the issue probably would be forwarded to the state attorney general's office, but that the commissioners aren't really able to demand anything.

"We wouldn't have any authority to do that anyway," Grover said. "We forward that to the attorney general.

"It'd be a total conflict of interest for us to investigate our county attorney. ... There's no way for me to objectively investigate anything involving our legal counsel," Grover said.

Paul Murphy, spokesman for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, said the office had not received Mooney's letter and could not comment on it.

Mooney and his wife, Linda, faced state charges for distributing peyote in 2000 -- charges that the Utah Supreme Court threw out, stating that they could not be prosecuted for giving peyote to non-American Indians as part of a legitimate religious ceremony.

Federal drug charges were filed last year, but were dismissed recently after Mooney agreed not to use or distribute peyote unless under the auspices of a federally recognized American Indian church.

The complaints listed in Monday's letter, however, come from the state charges -- specifically, that the county attorney's office withheld evidence favorable to the Mooneys and that evidence supporting James Mooney's American Indian heritage was ignored.

The purpose of the complaint, Hamblin said, is to get an injunction, which would basically be an order for officials to leave the church alone.

Herald reporter Katie Ashton contributed to this story.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.