I know for a fact that Sheriff Winder has NOTHING to do with this situation. The chief of Cottonwood Heights PD is Robbie Russo and he and the Sheriff do not like each other. That grudge goes back to when CHPD was formed and took the contract away from the Sheriff's Office and Russo left the SO to become chief of CHPD. Chief Russo is the one who placed Babka (a CHPD Officer) on administrative leave and cooperated with the investigation. Sheriff Winder would have had no access to the Cottonwood Heights city records that contain Babka's fuel purchases. It is pretty well known in LE circles that Babka probably made hundreds of dollars in unlawful fuel purchases but DA Gill is going with the 2 counts that he can prove most easily (video surveillance and a confession). Babka effed up big time and he is going to pay for it. The only thing political about the situation I would speculate is that Gill is making it very clear that he is not going to tolerate bad cops no matter how popular they are. Babka is being made an example of, but I believe he deserves it. He is a power hungry individual who thought the rules did not apply to him. And he screwed his pension because he was just short of 20 years of service.
What would make you think that Sheriff Winder has anything to do with this? Babka was soundly defeated by him and subsequently lost his public spokesperson job with CHPD. What would the leader of a large agency have to gain by going after an ordinary patrol officer from another agency? Sheriff Winder is a stand up guy and has plenty to keep him busy running the UPD and Sheriff's Office. He has not even publicly commented on this whole thing. I think Sim Gill will also prove to be an effective DA and fix some of the problems that have plauged that office.
Wed Jan 23, 2013 6:46 pm by 
