SALT LAKE CITY — Attorneys representing embattled Sen. Kathleen Riebe are pushing back on a Senate-ordered investigation, demanding it be dropped.
In a letter addressed to newly elected Senate President Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, an attorney representing Sen. Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, disputes the findings of a law firm hired by the Utah State Senate to investigate staffer complaints against her, claiming "the case against her rests on a distorted record."
Details on discriminatory behavior, harassment investigation into Riebe released:
When a Senate staffer filed a complaint, it triggered an independent investigation into accusations of workplace discrimination and harassment. The report detailed disparaging comments Sen. Riebe is accused of having made. She is also accused of saying she didn't want a legislative intern who was Latter-day Saint or gay.
"Senator Riebe has spent her career speaking up for her community and for disadvantaged groups. Her accusers—whether by design or by carelessness — took her expressions of concern for those people, cut away the context, and recast them as bigotry. The investigator adopted that distorted picture in an unreliable report," Ryan McConnell wrote in the letter.
Riebe has claimed that it's because she spoke up about that staffer doing political campaign work on the side for a senator and filed her own counter-complaint. The independent investigation determined "more likely than not" that Riebe engaged in a pattern of conduct motivated by the staffer's race or national origin; made comments based on someone's sexual orientation or characteristics; and that her conduct violated legislative HR policies.
In the letter, McConnell alleged the complaint "came the moment Senator Riebe announced she would run for caucus leadership."
"Senator Escamilla holds that post, and Senator Riebe’s challenge put it in jeopardy," McConnell wrote, referring to Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, whom the caucus voted to keep in her leadership post on Friday.
The Senate Minority Caucus voted to expel Sen. Riebe from its ranks and publicly called on her to resign. Riebe has so far refused to step down. She declined to comment to FOX 13 News on Friday night as she left the Senate Minority Caucus offices, but issued a statement saying: "I take every workplace concern seriously. I have heard the concerns Senate staff raised, and I am listening."
On Monday, her attorneys emailed FOX 13 News their letter.
Read the letter here: