Utah
Dr. Kirk Moore ‘completely stunned’ over Attorney General’s decision to drop COVID vaccine scheme charges
SALT LAKE CITY — Saturday morning, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to dismiss the charges in the case of Dr. Kirk Moore, who was facing charges of running a fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination card scheme out of the Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah during the pandemic.
“My initial reaction was, I was just completely stunned. Wasn’t expecting it,” Moore said. “I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do. I don’t think I spoke for a good two and a half minutes.“
The trial came two years after a federal grand jury indicted him, claiming Moore and others destroyed legitimate vaccine doses, distributed fake COVID-19 cards, and administered saline shots to minors.
During the trial, two of Moore’s co-defendants took the stand for the prosecution. One claimed that when she was hired, Moore said her job would be to give out vaccine cards without administering the vaccine. Another claimed people were urged to give donations for the vaccine cards and said she felt like what they were doing was wrong.
Kathy Nester, Moore’s attorney, spoke to the public on Saturday about the decision.
“The Attorney General’s decision to dismiss all the charges before the trial concluded reflects what the evidence has shown all along: our clients did not commit a crime. They honored the personal medical choices of their patients. They never received a dollar in return, and no unexpired vaccines were ever destroyed,” Nester said.
When asked about his decisions, Moore said he went with what his gut was telling him.
“I just did what was right. I just did what my patients wanted. I talked to them about full informed consent. You can’t have informed consent with people when you don’t know what you’re injecting in them,” Moore said.
FOX 13 News reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for a comment but did not receive a response.
SALT LAKE CITY — A California man in Utah, as part of his duties with the National Guard, is accused of trying to solicit sex from a young teenager.
Joshua Ruben Rodriguez, 29, of Fresno, was charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with attempted rape of a child, a first-degree felony, and enticement of a minor, a second-degree felony.
The investigation began when an agent with the Utah State Bureau of Investigation posed as a 13-year-old girl on a “popular social media site … in an attempt to locate and apprehend adults attempting to have sexual contact with children,” according to charging documents.
On April 16, Rodriguez sent the agent a message — believing he was talking to a teen girl — that stated, “I’ll be direct with you, I would like to get to know you and (have sex with) your mind into a daze to where you feel like a woman,” according to charging documents.
When the “girl” asked if he had a problem with her age, Rodriguez replied, “I don’t have a problem with your age,” the charges state.
The agent told Rodriguez to meet at an apartment complex in Salt Lake County where the girl lived, claiming her mother would be gone. When Rodriguez arrived, he was taken into custody, the charges state.
“(Rodriguez) does not have ties to Utah. He is a resident of Fresno, California. (He) was in town as part of his military service with the California National Guard,” prosecutors stated in charging documents while requesting he be held without bail pending trial.
ST. GEORGE, Utah (KUTV) — One person was hospitalized at the St. George Regional Hospital after a car rolled and caught fire just south of the Utah-Arizona border.
The Beaver Dam and Littlefield Fire Department in Arizona said its crews responded to the crash near the Black Rock Road exit – roughly two miles south of the state border – on Sunday night.
Upon arrival, crews put out the car fire and found the driver had left the scene. A single occupant, who was able to get out of the car on their own, was transported to the hospital by a Beaver Dam ambulance.
MORE | Crashes
Their condition has not been publicly released.
Details on what led to the crash and the condition of the driver were not immediately available.
The Beaver Dam and Littlefield Fire Department said law enforcement investigated the scene.
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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz missed out on the NBA Playoffs, but still scored a big win thanks to a coin flip.
In Monday’s tiebreaker coin flip to determine who had the fourth-worst record in the league last season, the Jazz came out winners over the Sacramento Kings, who had the same 22-60 record.
Had the Jazz lost the coin flip, they would have been fifth in NBA Draft Lottery odds. Only the worst four teams are guaranteed to remain within the top eight of the lottery.
If Utah had fallen to fifth, there would have been the chance they could have dropped out of the top 8 teams in the lottery, and owed the draft pick to Oklahoma City, which was top-8 protected in a previous trade.
The Jazz now have an 11.5 percent chance to win the first overall pick in the NBA Draft Lottery, which is scheduled for Sunday, May 10.
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