SALT LAKE CITY — The son and daughter-in-law of a slain Brigham Young University professor on Monday sued Utah County police and prosecutors in federal court over their wrongful arrest and murder indictment in connection with his death.
Attorneys for Roger and Pamela Mortensen contend the couple's constitutional rights were violated by the Utah County Sheriff's Office and the Utah County Attorney, who first falsely arrested and imprisoned the couple and then engaged in their "malicious prosecution."
Court papers contend that in securing an indictment through a rarely used state grand jury process, police officers gave false testimony and omitted information that would have exonerated the Mortensens.
"Defendants testified in a false and/or misleading manner on a number of issues, including direct falsehoods, misrepresentations, half-truths and omissions ..." the Mortensen's attorney, Robert Sykes, writes in court papers.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Salt Lake City's U.S. District Court seeks a jury trial and unspecified financial damages.
A comment from Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman was not immediately available and a message left for Utah County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Spencer Cannon wasn't returned.
Several individual police officers and a county prosecutor are also named as defendants in the lawsuit along with the county agencies.
Roger and Pamela Mortensen were indicted on murder charges and arrested in July 2010 — eight months after retired BYU professor Kay Mortensen was found dead in the bathtub of his Payson Canyon home with his throat slit on Nov. 16, 2009.
The charges were dropped in December 2010 after informant tipped police to a pair of Vernal, Utah, men who had a cache of weapons stolen from the professor's home. Martin Cameron Bond and Benjamin Rettig are now charged with Kay Mortensen's murder.
The lawsuit restates what Roger and Pamela Mortensen said from the beginning: They arrived at Kay Mortensen's home and were taken hostage at gunpoint and bound with plastic zip ties. After the men left, they freed themselves, found Kay Mortensen dead and called 911.
Police quickly labeled the couple persons of interest in the case, however, and said their stories were inconsistent and that they were uncooperative.
In court papers, Sykes contends police never had probable cause to support the Mortensen's arrest, nor did prosecutors have sufficient evidence to seek a grand jury indictment. The lawsuit contends prosecutors also failed to provide the grand jury with evidence that might have negated the Mortensen's guilt.
Such actions denied the Mortensen's of their constitutional rights and violated Utah's grand jury law, the lawsuit states.
Since the Mortensen's release, Bond, 24, has been ordered to stand trial for Kay Mortensen's murder. He's not yet entered a plea to the charge.
Rettig, 23, pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping charges earlier this year, but is trying to withdraw that plea.