Orem mayor allegedly assaulted by daughter of reporter he disparaged in City Council rant
The daughter of a newspaper reporter was arrested Tuesday and accused of assaulting Orem Mayor David Young after a City Council meeting in which Young ranted for 20 minutes about news articles and repeatedly disparaged the reporter.
After the meeting, Linnea Pugmire, 31, of Orem, confronted the mayor and at some point spit on him and slapped him, according to a police booking affidavit.
"Pugmire admitted to being upset at the mayor over personal concerns with family," the affidavit says. "While speaking with the victims and witnesses of this incident, officers also learned there was a second victim who had been hit and spit on." The arrest report does not identify the second person.
Pugmire was booked into the Utah County Jail for investigation of assault, disorderly conduct, propelling a bodily substance and threatening elected officials.
In a video recorded by a witness, Pugmire is seen saying, "How dare you?" multiple times to the mayor before appearing to spit on him. She continues arguing with the mayor and others in the video, saying "he deserves it." After a few minutes of arguing, Pugmire lurches towards the mayor, hitting him, and then appears to hit a woman next to him.
Daily Herald Managing Editor Ryan Christner confirmed Linnea Pugmire's family relationship to her mother, but declined any other comment on the incident.
In a YouTube recording of the City Council meeting, Young spent about 20 minutes pointing out several Daily Herald articles, complaining about headlines, the placement of stories, as well as questioning the news value and reporting in "off the rails articles," at times offering other topics that could have been reported that would be more complimentary.
"I would encourage you — well, I am not going to encourage you to look at it, it's a waste of your time," the mayor said about one of the articles about alleged censorship at an Orem library.
The mayor spent considerable time complaining about news stories about him, including a weekend story about a $1 million fraud lawsuit in Alabama that the mayor was named in last year.
"It's just mind-blowing the disconnect. What's going on in this newspaper versus what's going on in reality?" he said.
Young then accused reporter Genelle Pugmire of being in "cahoots" with an attorney on the opposite side in the personal civil case he is fighting.
"Who on earth works with an opposing attorney if you're trying to find the truth?" he asked. "So Danny Evans — the attorney we have been working against for the last 16 months — is in cahoots with Genelle Pugmire writing an article in Utah? And there's no reaching out to any other side?" the mayor said.
Yet the mayor went on to say that the reporter had actually reached out to him for comment on Thursday, but he didn't notice until Friday afternoon after he had been hiking.
Young, his real estate company Torch13 LLC, and his son were ordered by an Alabama judge to pay more than $1 million in a lawsuit over fraudulent business loans in 2022. The judge called the Orem mayor "a lynchpin to this fraud" and said both Young and his son were "extremely lacking in credibility."
Young later sued his former daughter-in-law and an Alabama man for what he claims was an illegal scheme designed to defraud him and his real estate company.
During Tuesday's City Council meeting, the mayor again said he did nothing wrong, was not involved in the Alabama fraud case and called it a dispute between his son and his son's friend. The mayor said he has appealed the $1 million judgment to the Alabama Supreme Court, calling it a "desperate money grab that I will continue to defend myself against."
Young also told the council he questions why Utah media have covered the judgment against him when no media organizations in Alabama have covered the case. He says it is a civil disagreement that "normally gets no press. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that," the mayor said.
"These kind of articles promote extreme divisiveness," Young said. "It is sad when people work so hard to increase contention and divide our community for political gain. It is pathetic and we should all push back against it."
Young said Orem is a model for other cities and there are great things happening despite what news articles about the city show.
"Orem is better than this and let's work together to end the misinformation and division," the mayor said in ending the meeting, to which he received a standing ovation from all seven City Council members and many in the audience.
A statement from Orem city officials was given to KSL.com on Wednesday.
"We are deeply troubled by this incident because City Hall should be a place for civil civic dialogue where everyone feels safe and protected. The security and safety of our public officials is a top priority. The city of Orem will continue to promote civility at all times and ask for the public to join us in this effort," the statement reads.
