A judge Thursday dismissed a criminal trespass charge filed against former Uintah County Sheriff Lloyd Meacham.
Meacham's attorney said his client's arrest was politically motivated and never should have happened.In July 1995, Meacham was handcuffed by sheriff's detectives and taken from his office in the Ute Indian Tribe's Bottle Hollow complex.
During a time of political upheaval on the Uintah/Ouray Reservation, Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement officials had asked the sheriff's office to remove Meacham because newly elected Ute Tribe leaders disbanded the 10-member security force that Meacham headed.
The security force was formed by former Ute Tribe Business Committee leaders who no longer held office. Meacham refused to leave his office after he received the order disbanding the security force because he felt it violated his employment contract with the tribe.
Meacham was later charged with criminal trespass.
Justice of the Peace G.A. Petry dismissed the charge Thursday after a motion from deputy Uintah County attorney Ken Wallentine. The motion to dismiss was contingent upon Meacham dropping a threatened civil lawsuit.
Meacham has filed a "notice of intent" to sue Uintah County for unlawful arrest.
According to Wallentine, the misdemeanor charge Meacham was accused of carries a $50 fine, but it would cost the county thousands of dollars to defend a lawsuit in the event it made it into court.
Wallentine said the criminal charge could be refiled should Uintah County elect to pursue the matter in the event the lawsuit is not dropped.
Defense attorney Ron Yengich said sheriff's detectives who were sent at the request of the BIA Police Department lacked jurisdiction and legal grounds when they took Meacham into custody.
He also said he doesn't expect that the charges should or could ever be brought up again.
"He shouldn't have been arrested in the first place," Yengich said. "They lacked jurisdiction and he didn't commit criminal trespass, but because of their political feelings, the deputies went out to arrest him anyway."
Yengich believes the sheriff's office acted not out of duty to the law, but out of vengeance because the former sheriff left office in August 1994 after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of falsifying or altering government records on reports he had filed with he U.S. Forest Service.
The resolution of the case clears the way for Meacham to reapply for his peace officer certification, said Wallentine.