Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
- Two investigations involving Wasatch County Sheriff's Office have been launched with former employees claiming public safety concerns.
- But some current sheriff's employees told KSL.com that circulating claims are "patently false allegations."
- A judge is involved in one investigation while the sheriff asked Cache County to investigate as well.
HEBER CITY — Two investigations are underway in Wasatch County after former sheriff's office employees brought concerns about public safety to the attention of Wasatch County Council members in February.
Third District Judge Richard McKelvie will lead the investigation after the County Council approved it Wednesday. Cache County has also been asked by Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby to look into any matters that arise as a third party.
Thursday was the first in-person meeting between County Manager Dustin Grabau and McKelvie. He has "received the written materials we have so far and has begun to interview individuals connected to the complaints," a spokesperson for Grabau told KSL.com.
The timeline and cost of the investigation are yet to be determined. "There is likely going to be a fair amount of money devoted to this project," Grabau told the County Council on Wednesday. "I think that it's worth the money."
The concerns — which remain unknown at this point — are tied in some ways to the administrative leave of Wasatch County Sheriff's Lt. Shane Fredrickson, which took place in January while alleged misconduct is being investigated internally.
Fredrickson, in turn, is claiming action was taken against him in retaliation for a complaint he filed in January 2024 against Undersheriff Josh Probst. In March, Rigby concluded that that complaint was unfounded, according to reports obtained through public records requests.
The contents of that complaint were made public in the past two months and have been used as a platform by others to explain or potentially add credence to the potential allegations against the sheriff's office by former Wasatch County Sheriff Todd Bonner and retired sheriff's Lt. Jeff Winterton.
The county manager's office, in a press release, said the two men have been approached in person by Rigby and they attended a meeting at the county manager's office, but have been "unable or unwilling" to detail their concerns on both occasions.
Jeremy Jones, Fredrickson's Iawyer, told KSL.com, "Other people have come out of the woodwork in the wake of my client's whistleblower letter." Bonner told the Park Record that over 20 individuals have come forward with retaliation complaints similar to Fredrickson's.
"There seems to be a bigger issue here about how Wasatch County Sheriff's Office is being run and the decisions that are being made, and why people in that community may not like that if they were made aware," Jones said.
'Patently false allegations'
Several sources close to the office are firing back, however, at the year-old complaint made public.
"There's just some patently false accusations out there," detective Marcus Gardner, senior detective in the sheriff's investigations unit, told KSL.com. "I guess I feel a responsibility as somebody who has the actual truth to speak up."
"I've had absolutely no concerns with Sheriff Rigby personally. I found him to be a very good sheriff and a very good leader of the department," said Chris Goode, a 20-year veteran of the sheriff's office.
Another employee familiar with the investigations involved, but who wished to remain anonymous out of professional concerns, said, "My view is that (Frederickson) saw things in a much more grand scheme conspiracy tone of what people's actions were than what the reality was. Everybody had a motive for some reason or another against him."
Infant homicide investigation
One of the biggest issues employees say they take with the information in Fredrickson's original complaint and subsequent retaliation claim involves the case of Estrella Meza-Ojeda, who had deprived her son, who was born premature, of supplemental oxygen he needed to survive, before dumping his body on the side of I-80, according to court documents.
Fredrickson wrote that Probst "intruded into the investigations to such a degree that his behavior influenced the deputies involved to stop working the case."
In a later letter from Jones notifying the County Council of retaliation claims, Probst was said to have "directly influenced WCSO deputies to stop working a missing infant case because of his subjective and unfounded belief that the child was not in danger."
The letter says, "When Fredrickson discovered the undersheriff's actions, he recommended that Heber City continue its own investigation whereby it was quickly discovered that the mother had murdered the child. This death might have been prevented had the undersheriff allowed WCSO deputies to do their jobs."
Gardner said those claims are "so blatantly the opposite of what the reality is."
"That was my case," he said. "I received information about the welfare of that infant through DCFS, through their reporting system, and I opened that case."
According to the detective, Probst encouraged investigators to put their energy into looking for the mother, to find the baby, instead of the initial efforts of searching through landfills and dumpsters, operating off known patterns but little concrete information.
Heber City Police Sgt. Rick Keel and later Fredrickson, Gardner's two supervisors, got offended by the suggestion, according to Gardner, and stopped aiding the investigation, though Fredrickson was not actually at the meeting in question.
"For three days my direct supervisors abandoned me and turned away resources out of spite for Probst's direction, leaving me to work on the case alone," he said. "They go home for their weekend, and so I'm left by myself, still unknowing whether this child's alive or not, but knowing the child's in danger."
Probst and Gardner worked through the weekend to set up passive surveillance on known modes of transportation Ojeda took. Gardner left for a training, Ojeda was found and eventually led investigators to her child's body, he said.
Location data from her phone showed that the baby was dead before the office began searching, according to Gardner.
"Fredrickson and Keel have tried to promote this idea that Josh's involvement prevented us from saving this baby, that he has killed this baby because he slowed down the investigation," Gardner said. "That's just patently false. I mean, it's a provable fact."
"Those data records are irrefutable, and they provide a very solid timeline that the baby was dead before we ever even started looking for it."
Goode called the accusations "a character attack used to create animosity to polarize people. Facts are facts, and that's why I believe facts should be discussed. Theories, conjectures and blatant lies are not appropriate."
Old and new complaints
Fredrickson was put on administrative leave following the investigation into the shooting death of 61-year-old Hideout man Patrick Hayes. "Undersheriff Probst falsely accused (Fredrickson) of policy violations and insubordination relating to the investigation," Jones wrote in his letter to the council. "These allegations are pretextual. Undersheriff Probst has a clear motive to 'get back' at Lt. Fredrickson and has made his personal vendetta clear."
Gardner said that in terms of insubordination, "I witnessed that blatantly on that case."
"There were several specific things that were asked of (Fredrickson) to be done and reporting on to the administration. ... They were blatantly disregarded," he said. "(Fredrickson) gave me direct orders to not share information with the administration when I had been told by the administration to share that."
Before Fredrickson was put on leave, Garder said he was in the room when Frederickson told county prosecutors that he had incriminating surveillance footage of Probst and Rigby, mentioning he would turn that tape over to the FBI.
Bonner reported to the Park Record that he is reaching out to the FBI to field his complaints, though it is unclear if these two issues are connected. Gardner said he reviewed the footage spoken about and did not find what was alleged, though he would not specify what is in the footage.
Already, written complaints have been passed on to Judge McKelvie, the spokesperson for the Wasatch County manager's office said. Probst told KSL.com, "I am not aware of any formal complaint involving me."
Winterton referred KSL.com to Bonner for comment, but Bonner did not reply.
To submit a written complaint or request the judge's contact information, residents can send an email to the county manager, Grabau, at dgrabau@wasatch.utah.gov.
