MAGNA, Utah — An officer with the Unified Police Department has been charged with trying to bid on a construction project at a UPD precinct, then trying to sub-contract the work to his own company after he was told it would be a conflict of interest.
The officer, 47-year-old Darwin Russell Buhler, was charged Wednesday with one count of communications fraud (2nd-degree felony) and two counts of witness tampering (3rd-degree felony). He has been with the department since 2020, according to the Transparent Utah website.
Court documents state that Buhler was tasked with getting bids for a sewer remodel project at the Magna precinct. The project had a budget of $30,000.
Buhler, a resident of Riverton, told a lieutenant and a procurement administrator that he received four bids toward the end of April. He added that he was also going to bid on the project with his company, Precise Plumbing, Heating, A/C, & Construction. However, he was told he could not get involved because of his employment with the department.
According to charging documents, Buhler instead contacted a construction company that was on a list of state and county contractors. He reportedly told that company about the project and said his company was the lowest bid — but he would need the second company to "subcontract him out," the charges state.
Buhler sent the bid from the outside company to his lieutenant, and the department approved it — but the bid did say Precise Plumbing would be sub-contracted on the project.
About four days after the construction company was approved to start the work, Buhler went to his lieutenant and said he needed to "confess his sins." However, prosecutors say he was not completely truthful in doing so. He reportedly said he was a "preferred" contractor for the company that he brought in on the project. He claimed a manager at the outside company asked Buhler to have his company to bid on the project. Because of that, he told his lieutenant that he thought it was not an issue. The lieutenant told Buhler that the job was compromised, and he would need to inform the administrator. Documents state that Buhler objected to that, asking, “Why does she need to know? Why do we even need to tell her?”
A few days after the conversation with his lieutenant, Buhler contacted two managers at the outside company and gave them another contractor's information to use for the work instead of his own. He also told them that a lieutenant would be calling them, and he asked them to say the work was being done by the contractors that he just referred to them. Both managers said they told Buhler that they "did not feel comfortable with that explanation and would not be doing that."
One of the managers also told investigators that he had only met Buhler once and had never done business with him. He added that he had spoken with his fellow manager about the project, and they were concerned about Buhler's possible conflict of interest. But they said they concluded, based on their conversations with Buhler about the bidding process, that UPD had dealt with any possible internal conflicts.
Although he has been charged, it does not appear Buhler has been arrested as of Wednesday.
