Challenger Jeff Gray held a joint press conference with Adam Pomeroy Tuesday morning at the Utah State Capitol to address their concerns with David Leavitt, the incumbent.

Gray said he called the conference to set the record straight on “numerous untruths” made by Leavitt. Some of the main points discussed were the disbandment of the Special Victim’s unit, high rate of attorneys leaving the UCAO since Leavitt took office, backlog of cases within UCAO and the press conference Leavitt held calling for Sheriff Mike Smith’s resignation.

The Special Victim’s unit was a team of trained prosecutors who took on cases that primarily involve women and children. In a separate interview, Leavitt said his reason for disbanding the unit was to have all his prosecutors trained and able to handle these types of cases.

Gray said this wasn’t true, and such training was almost nonexistent.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

“Some of the prosecutors have gone to a domestic violence bootcamp, but I’m told that is only a three-day training covering domestic violence,” Gray said. “It does nothing to prepare attorneys to cover sexual crimes. At best they get a half hour or so of training at the end of the week.”

He said if elected, he would reinstate the unit on day one.

Pomeroy currently works at the UCAO. He claimed that when the unit was disbanded, Leavitt told him that he did so because, “The attorneys in the special victims unit disagreed with his soft on sex offender policies and views he maintains.”

“He shared many of those views with the special victim attorneys,” said Pomeroy. “I was one of them, and I heard all this firsthand.”

Pomeroy then listed examples he said Leavitt used with the office.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

“Examples include his belief that child pornography is a victimless crime even though the victims say opposite. His believe that being raped by a stranger is worse than being raped by a family member, even though professionals say the exact opposite,” Pomeroy said.

In an interview with Daily Herald, Leavitt addressed several of the points made against him by Gray and Pomeroy.

Leavitt said his disbanding of the Special Victims Unit had to do with the prosecutors’ performances on the job.

“Well, it’s clear that the attorneys from the for SVU disagreed with my policies because they are the ones who have come out in such a vengeance to change the results of this election,” Leavitt said. “Was that the main reason? No. It was because they weren’t doing their job which was to prosecute cases on behalf of victims, and they had a backlog of 400 cases that went back three years.”

According to Pomeroy, the UCAO is in disarray, which has led to 24 prosecutors leaving since Leavitt took office. He said two more will also have left by the end of June.

“For those of us in the office, we know that Leavitt has so thoroughly destroyed the proper function of the office that it isn’t an exaggeration to say it will take years, if not decades to repair the damage done,” Pomeroy said.

Leavitt agreed that 24 individuals leaving the office sounded accurate, but he doesn’t view this as a bad thing.

“I’m here to change the criminal justice system and you don’t change it with keeping all the same people as before,” he said. “Now in all fairness and accuracy, many of those people retired, many left for better paying jobs and some did leave because of philosophical reasons. To suggest that there is an exodus of people from the county attorney’s office because of my policies is false. … Now admittedly, some left for philosophical reasons, and the truth is I view that as an improvement in my office and not a negative.”

Gray added that one of the attorneys who recently left the office was a woman who was overwhelmed with rape and sexual assault cases. They claim she never received the proper training to handle the caseload.

“The currency of the office is no longer to the Constitution, or duty to see justice done, but personal loyalty to Leavitt and no one else,” Pomeroy said. “These professionals have spent decades fighting for victims and community safety, and they pushed back Leavitt’s obviously flawed policies only to have him lash out at them and threaten them.”

Pomeroy said the UCAO currently have a backlog of more than 1,000 cases. Before Leavitt took office, it had an average sum of 4,200 filings in the district courts, according to Gray.

“In his second year that declined to 3,690 and in 2021 he had only filed some 2400 cases,” he added.

Leavitt called the 1,000 of backlogged cases deceptive.

“We have many cases that have been sent back to the police agencies for investigation,” he said. “We don’t charge crimes to get a plea bargain, we only charge crimes for which there’s evidence. When police don’t have the evidence, we leave it in that pool. So, it’s in their court, not mine.”

He mentioned after the election, many of those cases will be sent to the pre-filing diversion program once it is fully implemented.

“So, I think that Adam’s statement is deceptive,” he added.

All three attorneys also discussed the events on June 1, when Leavitt held a press conference in which he ultimately revealed information regarding a ritualistic child sex abuse and trafficking case the Utah County Sheriff’s Office announced it was investigating the day prior.

Leavitt said he became aware of accusations, which he believed to be circulated by his political opponents to gain support in the race for county attorney, and that he and his wife were involved in cannibalizing children and participated in a child sex ring.

Gray said this was simply not true, and he would never make such accusations.

“I quite frankly demand that he retract it,” Gray said. “Sheriff Smith announced they were investigating a ritualistic child sex ring and asked that victims come forward. He named no suspects, and yet my opponent announced at a press conference that he was a suspect. As far as I know, there is no claim of cannibalism. Sheriff Smith stated it was about ritualistic child sex abuse and still hasn’t identified any suspects.”

In response to Gray’s comment, Leavitt said he doesn’t believe there is an actual investigation, but a political hit job. He said the reason cannibalism was mentioned is because in the 150-paged victim report he received the day before his conference, cannibalism was specifically mentioned.

“I think that Mike Smith, Brian Chapman and Jeff Gray are all a part of this,” Leavitt said. “Brian Chapman is the same campaign consultant for the sheriff and Gray. The evidence that I’ve been told — that I’m sure will come out when the county commissioners choose to investigate this — will come out that this was a plan concocted to try and hurt my chances for reelection. I don’t believe for a minute Jeff Gray didn’t know about it. Do I have evidence? No I don’t.”

Gathered members of the media asked Gray where he thought the allegations of Leavitt cannibalizing children came from. He said he wasn’t going to comment, because it is an open investigation, and he was “disturbed” that Leavitt commented on the investigation in the first place.

When asked why Leavitt revealed information about the investigation at his conference, he said it was because the information was leaked by someone else first.

“I was told by political operative a week before the sheriff announced his ‘investigation’ into ritualistic abuse, and I put that in quotes because I don’t believe there is an investigation, that the sheriff would create an investigation, leak a report that is damning and false to the media and tie it with someone overseas,” Leavitt saod.

Around 3 a.m. on June 1, Leavitt said Nicholas Rossi, who Leavitt is prosecuting on rape charges, revealed such information.

“I wasn’t the first person to make this public,” he said. “If you look at the tweets and timing of Rossi’s disclosure, he did so well before my press conference.”

Also at the press conference supporting Gray were Utah Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork; Ray Flores, Utah County Sheriff’s Office detective and president of Fraternal Order of Police Utah County Lodge 31; former U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon; and former Utah Speaker of the House Greg Hughes.

Pomeroy was originally a candidate for Utah County Attorney, though he dropped out of the race on June 3. Voters may return ballots for the GOP primary election until June 28.