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MAGNA — A Unified police officer is facing criminal charges accusing him of bidding on a plumbing project within his own department, and then trying to cover it up once he was told it was a conflict of interest.
Darwin Russell Buhler, 47, of Riverton, was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court by the Utah Attorney General's Office with communications fraud, a second-degree felony; and two counts of witness tampering, a third-degree felony.
In October, the Unified Police Department was working on a sewer remodel project for its Magna precinct and had a budget of $30,000. Buhler was tasked with getting bids. In April, Buhler told his lieutenant that four bids had been submitted, according to charging documents.
"Buhler then stated that his plumbing company was going to bid on the project as well," the charges state. But he was told that "he could not get involved because there would be a conflict of interest because of his employment with the Unified Police Department."
Because of the number of bids, the department required that a "request for proposals" be submitted and that "a company on the state or county contract list would need to do the job."
One of the companies on the list was Stallings Construction. Buhler called the project manager with County Contracts in April and said his company — Precise Plumbing, Heating, A/C, & Construction, Inc. — had submitted the lowest bid of the four, but that he would need to use Stallings as a subcontractor, according to the charges.
In May, the Stallings bid was approved.
"The bid, which did not identify Buhler's company, was approved by UPD," and the county sent an email to Precise Plumbing "letting Buhler know they had the go-ahead to start work," charging documents state.
Two weeks later, Buhler met with his lieutenant and "told him that he needed to 'confess his sins,'" according to the charges, and claimed he is a friend of the president of Stallings.
"Buhler stated that Stallings had called his company, Precise Plumbing, and asked them to bid on the job. Buhler stated that Stallings had said that they had won the bid. (The lieutenant) informed Buhler that his company could not do that work because it was a conflict of interest. Buhler stated he did not think it was an issue because Stallings had asked his company to bid on the project. Buhler stated that he was not involved in the bid process and that it was one of his employees who had created the quote while he was on vacation in Mexico," the charges state.
When the lieutenant said he would have to inform the procurement administrator of the situation, Buhler asked, "Why does she need to know? Why do we even need to tell her?" according to the charging documents.
The president of Stallings, however, told Unified police that he "had never done business with Buhler before and had met Buhler once" to talk about the project, which Stallings believed was a potential conflict of interest, the charges say. Stallings said he was led to believe based on Buhler's statements that Unified police "had already dealt with any possible issues internally."
"Buhler asked Mr. Stallings if he could tell the lieutenant that another contractor would be performing the work and not Buhler's company. Mr. Stallings informed Buhler that he did not feel comfortable with that explanation and would not be doing that," the charges allege.
A records check on May 29 of Buhler's plumbing business listed him as the president and director but also that his business license was "delinquent due to failure to renew," although he does have a valid business license for another plumbing company, according to prosecutors.
Unified police said Wednesday afternoon it is taking the charges "very seriously."
"When the UPD administration first became aware of facts regarding this incident, it placed officer Buhler on administrative leave and notified the Utah attorney general of the circumstances, requesting that it conduct an outside criminal investigation. Now that the attorney general has filed charges, the UPD will review the investigative file and proceed expeditiously with an internal investigation. If the internal investigation finds that officer Buhler committed policy violation(s), the department will follow its procedures for discipline," the department said, adding that Unified police "halted the bid and no money was paid to Buhler."
