Investigation: State officials accuse Phil Lyman of unprofessional, misogynistic behavior at meeting | News, Sports, Jobs

Republican gubernatorial candidate and outgoing state Rep. Phil Lyman was accused of misogyny, verbal abuse and the use of profanity during a meeting with state employees earlier this year, according to an investigative report obtained by the Utah News Dispatch on Friday.

The investigation, conducted by the law firm Parsons, Behle & Latimer, found that Lyman’s conduct was “unprofessional and inappropriate” and met “several of the elements of a hostile work environment.”

“However, I also conclude that Representative Lyman’s conduct was not severe enough to create an abusive work environment,” the investigator wrote in the report, concluding that Lyman did not violate any Utah Legislature policies or any federal, state or local laws or government policies.

The investigation stemmed from a Jan. 25 meeting between Lyman and the Utah Trust Lands Administration, colloquially known as SITLA, an independent state agency that manages state trust lands to raise funds for Utah’s public schools. During the meeting, investigators say, tense conversations arose as Lyman and SITLA staff discussed the Bears Ears land swap, a now-failed proposal to exchange land between the state and the federal government. In the weeks following the meeting, Utah withdrew from the swap amid concerns about how the federal government planned to manage Bears Ears National Monument.

According to the report, Lyman called female SITLA staff members “idiots,” used foul language and mimicked them “in a manner that both women perceived as a verbal attack on their gender.” When Lyman began using foul language, including the F-word, the SITLA staff members left the meeting, the report said.

On Friday, Lyman, a Republican from Blanding and the only remaining Republican challenger to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, defended his conduct at the meeting. In an initial, more measured statement, he told Utah News Dispatch that environmental groups are working with federal and state agencies, which has implications for his district.

In a later statement, he added: “Yes, I said it and I’ll say it again. They’re taking the whole damn country.”

According to the investigation, the meeting was originally scheduled to discuss HB320, a bill Lyman supported but never passed. It would have prohibited state employees or contractors from receiving a financial bonus “for overseeing the sale of trust lands” while giving the Legislature more power over SITLA.

According to the report, Lyman accused SITLA employees of “fabricating” the financial note attached to the invoice. A financial official then suggested that Lyman and SITLA meet in person at his office, according to the investigation. The names of the SITLA employees were redacted in the investigation.

During the meeting, “it quickly became clear (to SITLA staff) that Rep. Lyman had no real interest in discussing the financial numbers in the budget memo,” the report said.

“Rep. Lyman said he didn’t care about the numbers. He just wanted to get SITLA to do things it ‘should be doing anyway,'” the investigation says. “He claimed that (redacted) and the people at SITLA were either ‘idiots’ or that they were ‘deceived by the Red Rock Wilderness conspiracy.’ He said (redacted) and her colleagues ‘don’t know what (they’re) doing.’ He said SITLA was a ‘failed agency’ and if it were up to him, he would disband SITLA unless he didn’t trust the Utah State Legislature to take over.”

The investigation states that a SITLA staffer tried to “steer the conversation in a different direction,” but “Representative Lyman became increasingly irritable.”

At that point, one of the SITLA staff members told Lyman, “We need to agree that we disagree,” the report says.

According to the investigation report, Lyman repeated the SITLA employee’s statement “in a high-pitched voice while gesturing with his hands and tilting his head so that it was clear to both (female employees) that Representative Lyman was making fun of their gender.”

One of the employees later told an investigator that she considered the company representative’s behavior to be “misogynistic.”

Lyman then continued to talk about the Bears Ears land swap and, according to the report, began to use explicit language, telling SITLA staff, for example, “You’re swapping the damn land” or “You’re swapping the damn land in Bears Ears.”

SITLA employees began to leave Lyman’s office, and one of them told the representative, “His behavior was unprofessional.”

Lyman asked how that happened, to which the aide replied, “You just yelled the F-word at us,” according to the report. Lyman denied doing so, the investigation said. SITLA employees “said they all heard it. Rep. Lyman then said he didn’t say it to them; he was just talking about the country,” according to the report.

As they attempted to leave the office, Lyman “again accused SITLA of accepting bribes and commissions on land sales.”

A SITLA employee denied the allegation, telling him “she was sure that was not the case.” Again, Lyman “mimicking what (the employee) had just said, using a high-pitched voice and gesturing with his hands.”

The two employees then left Lyman’s office. “As they left the office, Representative Lyman said, ‘I’m not done with you yet,'” the investigator reported.

In an attempt to “capture” their memory of the meeting and out of fear that Lyman might damage SITLA’s reputation, staff wrote a narrative account of the events, according to the report.

A copy of the bullet points obtained by Utah News Dispatch details what the investigation found, including the allegation that Lyman spent about “10 minutes verbally abusing us, accusing us of incompetence and inaction, saying we were either stupid or had been drawn into the Red Rock Wilderness conspiracy, telling us SITLA was a failed agency and that he would disband it if he trusted the legislature more.”

Both female employees told investigators they were hesitant to attend another private meeting with Lyman. One said she would not meet with him “unless there were men with her” – the other said she would decline any invitation unless it was related to a public hearing.

However, according to the investigation, both employees said they never felt physically threatened by Lyman.

As part of the investigation, the investigator wrote that he interviewed three people who were present at the Jan. 25 meeting, but not Lyman. Lyman told House Speaker Mike Schultz (R-Hooper) he did not want to be interviewed, so Schultz directed the investigator to write the report without speaking to him, according to House staff.

After interviewing the three other participants in the meeting and “responding to a question from Speaker Mike Schultz, I felt it was unlikely that anything Rep. Phil Lyman might say in an interview would change my answers to the above questions,” the investigator wrote. “Therefore, Speaker Schultz instructed me to write my report without speaking to Rep. Lyman.”

Schultz was advised by lawyers to hire an outside attorney to investigate. In a Friday statement to Utah News Dispatch, Schultz acknowledged that Lyman’s conduct was “unprofessional” but that the investigation found he had not broken any laws.

“Earlier this year, we were presented with a complaint against one of our deputies. We followed all processes and procedures to address the matter in a timely, professional and fair manner, including engaging outside counsel to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation,” Schultz said in the statement.

A request for comment from SITLA representatives was not immediately answered on Friday evening.

Contribute: Katie McKellar

Utah News Dispatch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news source covering government, politics and the issues that most impact the lives of Utahns.

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