Mayor Jess Green has spent most of the past two days publicly trying to dispel rumors that he assaulted one of his teenage daughters.
American Fork police received a complaint Tuesday that Green had physically abused his 15-year-old daughter. Also, an anonymous woman called local media about Green. And Green has called newspapers to find out whether they'd received the anonymous calls.Police Chief John Durrant verified that the department did file a report on the allegation. He declined to discuss the nature of the complaint, calling it an active investigation. Durrant also refused to release a copy of the initial police report on the alleged incident, a document that is a public record.
"He's a suspect. It's a child abuse case. It involves an assault," he said.
American Fork quickly sent the case to the Utah Attorney General's Office to remove city police from the investigation.
Craig Barlow, chief of the attorney general's child abuse division, received the file Tuesday afternoon but said he wasn't prepared to discuss it. He did say it does involve the Green family.
Barlow said the report is labeled "runaway," "family fight" and "simple," a reference to a minor assault.
"I don't know if it's a shouting match that got out of hand or some sort of corporal punishment that might have been excessive," Barlow said. Barlow will assign an investigator to look into it.
Green called the Deseret News Monday wondering if the paper had received an anonymous telephone call regarding him. The newspaper had not. He declined to say what he thought the caller might have said about him.
In a three-paragraph letter to the editor in Wednesday's edition of the American Fork Citizen, Green explains his side of the story and basically tells the "sweet" anonymous caller to back off.
Green said in the letter that his 15-year-old daughter and friend ran away to Idaho a few days ago. The girl, he said, had broke the family curfew for the second time, and "we decided the out-of-state trip was enough nonsense." He had American Fork police pick her up when she returned.
The mayor could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.