Utah's District Attorney Lohra Miller has declined involvement in pressing criminal charges against Salt Lake City police union president, Tom Gallegos. Gallegos will be tried for sending emails with sexually explicit content through a work account, an offense that could be ranked as a third-degree felony.

The case against Gallegos has been building over two years, starting with comments and text messages to female coworkers that were declared sexual harassment and escalating to a stream of pornographic emails sent to a police sergeant between February 2005 and October 2006.

The officer has been issued a handful of written reprimands and was made to sign a document outlining his department's policy on personal interaction and appropriate conduct. The last reprimand was issued for the stream of inappropriate emails and is also what caught the attention of Mayor Rocky Anderson. Mr. Anderson felt the action taken was not severe enough and ordered further investigation.

The prosecutor normally assigned to cases concerning city employees, Sim Gill, said he could not take the case. His explanation was that Gallegos had often worked closely with too many people in his offices and this conflict of interest would affect the case.

City Attorney Ed Rutan then turned to Miller in finding a prosecutor for the case. Miller, having turned down the case citing “political controversy” has raised some eyebrows. Since being elected District Attorney last fall, Miller has also dropped felony assault charges against one officer and declined to file charges against two county deputies in the unnecessary shooting and killing of a suspect.

Gill has criticized her decisions stating, “When you take the job of district attorney, you have to make tough decisions, but you don’t shy away from making a decision that’s your responsibility because there might be some political issues.”