Former Carbon County Emergency Operations Director Jason Llewelyn has pleaded not guilty to one charge of theft from programs receiving federal funds. Llewelyn entered the plea Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
Llewelyn was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury last month. He is accused of embezzling money from Carbon County, including funding from federal grants, and using it for personal use. He was arrested on August 24 and booked into the Emery County Jail with bail set at $85,000. That was later reduced to $10,000 and Llewelyn was released on bail.
Llewelyn was originally charged in Seventh District Court last September with 20 felony counts of misuse of public funds stemming from his alleged fraudulent use of a county credit card. The preliminary hearing was set for October 16, continued to November 20, and reset for December 21.
Carbon County Attorney Gene Strate has indicated that if the Federal Government prosecutes the case, his office will step aside. He said, “We can both prosecute but the federal penalties are far more severe than state penalties so often times, we’ll defer to them if we’re both prosecuting basically the same case.”
In addition to his public safety and law enforcement responsibilities, Llewelyn was a Helper City Council member. He was defeated in his bid to retain the city council seat in last month’s general election.
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