Home Care In Bluff, UT

HURRICANE, Utah — A former treasurer of the Lava Bluff Homeowner's Association in Hurricane has pleaded guilty to two federal charges in an embezzlement scheme of HOA funds.

Sharon Gordon, 66, could spend up to 20 years in prison upon sentencing for wire fraud and making false statements on a tax return.

Sources in the courtroom said she agreed to a plea deal in which she will only serve 17 months, if it's approved by a federal judge. FOX 13 News first broke the story in 2022.

Gordon embezzled approximately over $232,000 from four Lava Bluff HOA bank accounts between 2016 and March 2022.

Prosecutors said she abused her position of power to divert the money and then underreported her personal income to the IRS.

"In execution of the scheme, Gordon diverted the funds electronically by transferring them directly to her personal account, writing checks to herself and her boyfriend and forging other board members’ signatures, depositing checks representing HOA member fees directly into her personal accounts, writing checks to casinos from HOA accounts, and withdrawing cash from HOA accounts."

Gordon was ordered by the court to pay $20,490 in restitution to the IRS and $63,448.32 in restitution to Lava Bluff HOA.

To date, Gordon has paid $168,629.68 in restitution to the HOA after a lien was placed on her property. In order to sell her house, Gordon had to pay the lien with proceeds from the sale.

"She not only took the money from the HOA fund, but she stole from every one of us seniors here," said homeowner Ken Alderman. "My wife worked for a bank before, so it sounded really fishy to me."

Homeowners said they believe Gordon has a gambling problem.

Tim Mullicane noticed his checks were being deposited next to a casino in Mesquite, Nevada.

He spent years trying to get the HOA to look into the missing funds.

"Honestly, I was just kind of told I didn't know what I was talking about," Mullicane said. "You know, I'm not a whiz or anything — but if you look at it... things weren't adding up right. It was obvious to me, but a lot of people got lost in the numbers and figured everything was just fine.”

Mullicane described Gordon's demeanor in the courtroom on Thursday as "reserved."

He said he hopes the federal judge rejects the plea deal at sentencing, because he feels 17 months is too lenient.

"I don't think she's sorry," Mullicane said. "When she came in, she just gave us dirty looks. Didn't say a word to any of us... maybe she's sorry she got caught."

"She stole from these seniors here for over six years. I would like to see the judge sentence her to at least six years," he added. "Do to her as she did to us. I’m not saying 'a hand for a hand' or anything like that, but 17 months is kind of a slap on the wrist to a lot of us that lived through it for six to seven years."

Gordon hung up the phone, presumably declining to comment when FOX 13 News spoke to her in 2022.

FOX 13 News plans to attend her sentencing, which is not expected to occur until February 2024 at the earliest.

The hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ST. GEORGE — A crowd cheered as local dignitaries cut the ribbon Friday for the new pedestrian tunnel under Bluff Street connecting the east and west sides of St. George. The cutting marked the completion of the joint Utah Department of Transportation-City of St. George project between Main Street and the southbound Interstate 15 ramps in St. George.

The tunnel joins the previously broken halves of the Hilton Drive Trail and is aimed at providing better access to the regional trail network in town. The new tunnel is also expected to improve safety for the pedestrians and bicyclists of St. George by providing an additional option to cross Bluff Street without dealing with the traffic of Bluff Street.

St. George City Councilwoman Dannielle Larkinthanked the Utah Department of Transportation and the Southern Utah Bicycle Alliance (SUBA) for their involvement in making the tunnel possible. She also thanked the current and past mayor, who she said were instrumental in the groundwork for the tunnel.

“This has been a problem space for a long time; St. George has a lot of pinch points,” Larkin said. “We’ve got a lot of geologic pinch points that make up the rivers, the mountains and all these different spaces and Interstate 15 going through the center of our city. Transportation has been a challenge in our city.”

Larkin said the city had worked hard so people could use different forms of transportation throughout St. George. The tunnel is a “big deal” for the city’s active transportation plan. She said that getting people safely from point A to point B on a bicycle, on foot or in any other way than a car is a priority.

Research from the Utah Travel Study determined that an estimated 7% of all trips in St. George, regardless of purpose, are done by people walking and biking. Larkin said the study also showed that 40% of all trips in the city are less than two miles long and can be “easily converted” to walking or biking trips.

“This project makes those types of trips safer,” Larkin said.

When the project started in June, Bluff Street was closed off between Main and the interstate ramps. While the closure was expected to last two weeks, the street was opened three days ahead of schedule. Larkin said she was impressed with the speed the tunnel was completed.

“I have to say for projects, this happened really fast, which is an impressive statement about Utah and the City of St. George and our collaborations and our commitment to activity and active transportation in this city.”

Larkin added the tunnel helps to fulfill the city’s mission of becoming a pedestrian and cycling-friendly community, which she said is consistent with St. George’s twin pillars, “activity and optimism.”

The co-president of the Southern Utah Bicycle Alliance, Brett Burgess, spoke about how challenging it was to get from the north side of town to the south side when not in a vehicle. He complimented how quickly the tunnel materialized, remembering when the city built the first bike trail in 1990 and how St. George now has many paths.

“The tunnel was put together in record time, in two years,” Burgess said. “This is an amazing accomplishment.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Oct. 24, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced neary $2 million to fund projects across Utah, selected to “advance environmental justice as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda,” an EPA statement says.

The Utah Department of Environmental Quality and the Utah town of Bluff will each receive funding for projects “to ensure disadvantaged communities that have historically suffered from underinvestment have access to clean air and water and climate resilience solutions in alignment with the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice40 Initiative.”

The programs are the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Solving program (EJCPS) and the Environmental Justice Government-to-Government program (EJG2G).

This is the first in a series of environmental justice grant announcements the agency will announce before the end of the year, the statement says.

“No president has invested more in environmental justice than President Biden, and under his leadership we’re removing long-standing barriers and meaningfully collaborating with communities to build a healthier future for all,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “Together, these community-driven projects will improve the health, equity, and resilience of communities while setting a blueprint for local solutions that can be applied across the nation.”

EPA Regional Administrator K.C. Becker also shared thoughts in the prepared statement.

“These Environmental Justice grants will address local needs and challenges across a diverse set of communities in Utah,” he said. “We are proud to support projects identified by our state, local and nonprofit partners and bring positive change to communities disproportionately impacted by pollution.”

The EPA’s EJCPS creates a designation of funds exclusively for small nonprofit organizations, which are defined as having five or fewer full-time employees, thus ensuring that grant resources reach organizations of lower capacity that historically struggle to receive federal funding. Eleven of the organizations selected for EJCPS this year are small nonprofit organizations, receiving over $1.6 million in total.

The EPA’s EJG2G provides funding at the state, local, territorial, and Tribal level to support government activities in partnership with community-based organizations that lead to measurable environmental or public health impacts in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms.

EPA EJG2G grant selections in Utah include the following:

| Updated: May 5, 2018, 7:14 p.m.

The soil below Bluff Elementary is saturated with septic effluent. The classrooms don’t have enough space for the growing student body. And ceiling tiles sometimes come crashing down onto desks in the middle of lessons.

This small southern Utah school, built in the 1950s, is now too old and too run-down for many improvements. But finding a suitable spot to relocate before it becomes entirely unusable has been difficult.

San Juan County School District’s first choice, a small lot near State Route 163 purchased in 2015, abutted an ancient American Indian burial ground — making it unacceptable for many Navajo families whose children make up 90 percent of the enrollment.

The next three years came with heated debate, stalled construction plans, dead-end negotiations and threats that if a new site wasn’t selected soon, students would have to be bused to Montezuma Creek or Blanding. That could add 20 minutes to a commute that’s already two hours for some living on the reservation.

“They’ve been trying to solve this puzzle for quite some time,” said state Treasurer David Damschen.

In early April, the school board moved forward with another hoped-for answer.

With a 5-0 vote, it approved a deal to acquire a 23.61-acre parcel owned by the Utah Navajo Trust Fund where the tribe hosts an annual two-day fair in the fall. The newly proposed site sits in a flat and sandy creek bed.

Early archaeological and geological appraisals found that about half of the lot is in a wash area that, with heavy rain — which is infrequent in this arid corner of the state — could become a muddy swimming pool. Another 12 acres, though, was “deemed very, very usable,” said the school district’s superintendent, Ron Nielson. “You have a very good protective zone.”

There was unanimous support, too, from the Utah Navajo Trust Fund, which was established in 1933 by the federal government to manage royalties from oil wells on Utah’s portion of the Navajo Nation, and its tribal advisory board.

“It’s a classic no-brainer scenario. This is just good for Utah Navajos,” said Damschen, who serves as chairman of the trust fund board and helped broker the deal.

The trust fund will exchange the fairground property in Bluff for 5 acres in Monument Valley that it currently leases from the school district for a medical and dental clinic it owns. The two parcels — though much different in size — were appraised at just an $8,000 difference in value.

The 23.61 acres in Bluff, which sit at the doorstep of the newly reduced national monument at Bears Ears, were assessed at $567,000. The 5 acres in Monument Valley, near the border of Arizona, were $575,000.

“A piece of land in Monument Valley is at a little bit of a premium,” Damschen said.

The swap resolves the pending crisis at the elementary school. But for some tribal members, it’s another fight over land where what they actually wanted wasn’t considered an option. “That’s just how it is between the Navajos and San Juan County,” said Navajo Nation Council delegate Davis Filfred.

He wants to improve education in the area and had fought for the school to be built on the reservation so it would be more centrally located for the roughly 120 students enrolled there.

“Students have to be picked up at 6 a.m. to get on the bus,” he said. “I don’t know why they don’t want to build a school on the Nation. … It’s a struggle, but that’s just how it is.”

The new site, too, he said, is in a known flood zone. He’s seen water gush over it two or three times, making it impassable. “I think that’s hazardous for kids.”

And the first spot, Filfred believes, would have been too close to an excavated site where the remains of 18 American Indians were removed three decades ago. He’s visited the tract and noticed pottery on the ground from the Ancestral Puebloans who lived there.

“It’s a place where you’re not supposed to go,” Filfred said. “It’s a forbidden place.”

Superintendent Nielson said it’s not clear yet what the district will do with that plot, which cost $500,000. Preliminary tests have shown no artifacts underground at the new site.

The debate over the school relocation, though, has exacerbated existing tensions that American Indians, who make up roughly half of the county’s residents, aren’t fairly represented in government decisions. A federal judge recently redrew the boundaries to give Navajos a significant majority of voters in two of three commission districts and three of five school board seats. The decision was meant to reverse the historic political domination by whites there.

It’s also picked at the scab left from the former Bears Ears National Monument, which five tribes, including the Navajo Nation, fought for and President Donald Trump carved up late last year. The executive order is being challenged in federal court.

Damschen understands some of the frustrations, but said “they need a new school in the worst possible way.” Bluff Elementary is stable for now, but the septic system was last overhauled in 2001 and only expected to last five years. There’s no room to expand it, and most else there is in a constant state of disrepair.

“Clearly, the structure is dated. It’s cramped. It’s just not a good facility all the way around.”

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Draper • Inmate Ferosa Bluff stood stock-still, barely swaying as she curled one foot behind her knee and stretched her arms toward the gymnasium’s drab ceiling at the Utah State Prison.

Stretched out in a half-moon shape in front of her, 13 other women held the same pose.

Bluff calmly instructed the women to breathe and find their balance as she led the yoga class on a recent Friday. In unison, they followed, pushing and contorting their bodies from position to position.

At the conclusion of the class, the women breathed deeply while laying flat on the gleaming wood floor across yoga mats in a blend of deep blues, magenta and foamy green. Bluff played a soft string song that gradually shifted into a stirring operatic crescendo and looked on at the other women silently.

In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Bluff said yoga has become popular at the prison and helped transform each woman participating for the better.

Yoga helps practitioners quell anger and anxiety, tackle addiction, teach new paths and, above all else, helps them deal with trauma, she explained.

“We store a lot of negative things in our bodies,” Bluff said. “Sometimes women will cry during classes and not know exactly why, but it’s that release.”

“You can have a positive experience in a place that is known for a negative connotation,” she added. “Even in a place like this, we can find the beauty and peace in something like yoga.”

Corrections officers said they have seen a change in inmates.

Regina Dietrick, a correctional officer who often oversees activities in the gymnasium, said she personally supports the program because it has helped these women become grounded.

She recounted that in the beginning inmates speculated about yoga itself and passed it off as just stretching and bending, but as time went on and more became involved, many started feeling inspired by the practice.

“I have seen a big change in how they react to circumstances here in the prison,” Dietrick said. “Those that participate are now much calmer and think about what decisions they will make instead of impulse actions.”

Deeply personal

Outside volunteers have been teaching yoga at the prison for more than a decade, but Bluff, an inmate herself, earned her 200-hour teaching certification in March as part of the first group to do so. Earlier this month, she and four other women began their advanced certification, an additional 300-hour training program.

Their expertise can be traced back to Denise Druce, a yoga teacher at Yoga Assets who specializes in a teaching framework that strives to understand trauma and helps others become yoga instructors.

Druce started volunteering at the Timpanogos Women’s Correctional Facility in December 2017, but she wanted to do more than just teach yoga classes. She wanted to teach the women how to lead their own groups. To do so, she used her nonprofit Yoga Forward to fund the supplies.

For her, the decision to volunteer at the prison was deeply personal.

Druce’s father was incarcerated when she was 13. Throughout the 15 years he was there, she dreaded visiting or even seeing the prison to the point that long after he was released, she would feel sick driving past the Point of the Mountain.

To confront her pain, Druce created the program to train some of the incarcerated women to become yoga teachers. Looking back on her first day, she recounted standing in front of the prison’s steel gates and barbed wire and feeling terrified.

It wasn’t until the first few women started trickling into the gym that she realized teaching was going to be a much different experience than visiting her father as a teenager.

“I was overwhelmed with emotion and a deep feeling of compassion for these women,” she explained. “I looked at them and just imagined that most of them probably have children out there who are having a hard time with them being in prison.”

Druce said she always encourages people to volunteer in an area where they’ve experienced pain — that’s where healing comes in.

Bluff, who now leads weekly classes, was instrumental in creating the teacher training program overseen by Druce and her partner Cynthia Wand.

Of the original 10 participants, Druce said, four graduated and moved to the advanced certification training, and two are still working on their 200 hours. The other four have been released, though three of them are still working on their certification and one has graduated.

Complications

Teaching at the prison is more complex than operating from a studio. Time constraints can be tricky, materials are limited, and sometimes classes are delayed or canceled if an altercation occurred earlier in the day.

It took a reporter from The Salt Lake Tribune several attempts to observe the group yoga class, one of which ended abruptly when there was an issue with the inmate-tracking system. On this occasion, all classes were canceled and everyone, including the reporter and a photographer, were placed on lockdown for nearly two hours until every inmate had been manually counted.

Druce is careful about the type of language she uses while teaching people who have suffered trauma. She avoids saying things like “relax” because an abuser may have said it to the women in the past. She instead uses empowering language that inherently gives participants choice, such as “do this if you would like."

Druce teaches the women in the instructor-training program to do the same.

Recognizing boundaries and being careful with physical touch are also important, she said. A lot of people who have experienced trauma don’t want to close their eyes during meditation or while relaxing.

Druce recounted watching the women transform through the program into stronger, more at peace individuals. She said yoga has helped them be present, which is hard to do behind bars.

Perhaps most inspiring, Druce said, is the ripple effect of women teaching other women.

“I love putting the tools in the hands of the people who are there in the prison 24/7,” she said. “The impact they can make is so much greater than any I can make.”

Expanding yoga

There used to only be one class a week. Now there are three or four a week, because the women who received their 200 hours and are now working toward 300 are leading classes.

Administration from the clothing brand Lululemon recently donated a sum of money to start a similar training program at the Wasatch men’s facility, though a start date is still to be determined, according to Liam Truchard, an information specialist at the Utah Department of Corrections.

Yoga participant Emily Ellington said the program is helping her become more selfless — unlike drug addiction, which she described as inherently selfish. Ellington works in the prison’s substance abuse treatment program.

“It’s hard to verbalize, in prison there are things that can be so depressing, but this has given me some hope,” said Jeanne Mace, another woman now working toward her advanced certification.

She described struggling with feelings of uselessness and how the program has helped her realize that she can’t fix her past, but a little bit of compassion can elevate her life tremendously.

“I need to have it for myself and others,” Mace said.

Eileen McLaughlin is one of the four women released from the facility since the program began. Yoga is still a part of her daily routine. She does it at least 15 to 20 minutes a day — preferably barefoot in the grass.

McLaughlin was incarcerated for 9½ years. Throughout that time, she said she lost family and a great deal of her life.

“In that place you are so broken. They break you down in every way possible, which is kind of actually good because you are able to rebuild yourself back up properly,” she said. “However, you need structure to do that, which is what the yoga program was for me.”

McLaughlin said she’s doing a lot better now than when she was first incarcerated, but it’s not easy either.

“It is very hard reacclimatizing to life after being gone for so long,” she explained.

McLaughlin is not currently teaching. She recently got a job with a yoga activewear company and said her goal now is to start teaching the other employees, bosses and owners — hopefully soon.

“I want to help people not feel the way I have felt. Life is rough as it is, especially being [in prison]. Honestly, just being a woman is a challenge,” she said. “If I can help someone’s life be a little less traumatic, then I believe that I am doing what I’m supposed to.”

The yoga program in the prison helps women realize their worth, something they all struggle with, she said. It helps them find who they are, not just as a mother, sister, wife, boss or employee, but also as an individual.

Sometimes women never find that in life, she said, and that’s really unfortunate.

“These are things that women are not only going to take outside and share with others, but are truly changing who they are as individuals,” McLaughlin said, “and that is what the justice system should be focusing on.”