Arthur Brown

Utah senator

(1896-1897)

Utah’s first U.S. senator and the founder of the state Republican Party served a short term and a few years later was shot dead by his longtime mistress, Anne Maddison Bradley, in a Washington, D.C., hotel room. Bradley, who had two children by Brown, was tried but acquitted on a defense of temporary insanity.

Enid Greene Waldholtz

U.S. Rep., R-Utah

(1995-1997)

Investigated by a Washington, D.C., grand jury convened under the direction of then-U.S. attorney (now U.S. Attorney General) Eric Holder, Greene Waldholtz was never charged with a crime, although she did pay fines for campaign violations.

Her then-husband and campaign treasurer, Joe Waldholtz, was convicted of several felony fraud counts after being exposed as a hoaxster — and, for a time, a federal fugitive — who had created an elaborate fictitious biography of personal wealth.

Ted Cannon

Salt Lake County Attorney

(1979-1987)

A former assistant attorney general who rose to prominence as a Republican anti-pornography crusader, was accused in 1986 by a secretary of sexual harassment. Other allegations surfaced, including misconduct and misuse of funds. Cannon was charged and eventually convicted of misdemeanor criminal libel. He pleaded no contest to other misdemeanors.

Dave Watson

Salt Lake County Commissioner

(1986-88)

Watson was a few months from the end of his first two-year term when he was arrested and later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. Watson, who had been seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, stepped down from office before the completion of his term and never again ran for public office. He died at age 45 of an apparent heart attack.

Nancy Workman

Salt Lake County Mayor

(2001-2005)

Workman was charged with two felonies as a slew of scandals enveloped her last year in office. Two officials in Workman’s Republican administration — including then-House Speaker Greg Curtis — resigned their county posts after questions arose of their misuse of county-owned vehicles, which came to be known as “guzzlegate.” Longtime County Auditor Craig Sorensen, who had dubbed himself the “taxpayer watchdog,” served 10 days in jail for stealing county funds by filling up his personal vehicles with a county gas card. Separately, prosecutors argued that Workman tapped county health funds to hire two successive bookkeepers for a nonprofit Boys and Girls Clubs, where her daughter was the chief financial officer. Workman was placed on administrative leave for the last several months of her term and removed her name from the ballot. She was later acquitted of all charges.

Douglas Stringfellow

U.S. Rep., R-Utah

(1953-54)

Stringfellow won office with his campaign-trail tales of dangerous exploits behind German enemy lines during World War II as an agent for the OSS, a precursor of the CIA. He said one mission to abduct German atomic scientist Otto Hahn ended in his capture and torture in a Nazi prison, but he escaped with help of an underground resistance and later was awarded the Silver Star. This elaborate lie, retold on the popular TV show “This Is Your Life,” was exposed and Stringfellow later made a tearful public admission and agreed to resign as a candidate for re-election.

Deedee Corradini

Salt Lake City Mayor

(1992-2000)

Corradini paid $800,000 as a result of questionable loans, advances and trips she had received from bankrupt Bonneville Pacific while employed as a subsidiary director and executive, but unlike other company officials she never was indicted. While mayor, she became entangled in a scandal dubbed “giftgate.” Court documents showed she had solicited more than $230,000 from wealthy Utahns and corporate executives, many of whom had business with city government. She also was a member of the Winter Olympic bid committee, which was investigated in the Salt Lake City bribery scandal that brought down Tom Welch and Dave Johnson. Corradini chose not to seek a third term.

Allan Howe

U.S. Rep., D-Utah

(1975-77)

Howe was running for re-election when he was arrested on a charge of soliciting a prostitute in Salt Lake City. He rebuffed pressure from the party to resign, saying he had been framed by the undercover police officers who arrested him. He lost the election that same fall, but went on to a successful D.C. lobbying career before his death in 2000.

Mel Brown

House Speaker

(1994-1998)

Brown was seeking a then-unprecedented third term as Utah speaker when his political scandal rocked him after two former legislative interns overheard him discussing future job prospects with a lobbyist for US West and it came out that the long-married Brown had a close personal relationship with an assistant. Brown withdrew on the day House Republicans were casting ballots for a new leader. He left the Legislature two years later after serving out his term as a “back bencher,” but returned to the Capitol in 2006. He now serves as House budget chairman.

Sheldon Killpack

Senate Majority Leader

(2008-2010)

Killpack, R-Syracuse, stepped down from office just days before the opening of the 2010 legislative session after his arrest on a drunken driving charge after an evening with lobbyist friends at a tavern.

Kevin Garn

House Majority Leader

(2008-2010)

Garn steped down at the end of the 2010 legislative session after revealing that 25 years earlier he had been nude in a hot tub with a minor girl employed by him and later paid her $150,000 as part of an agreement to conceal the incident. Aware that The Salt Lake Tribune was running with the story the next morning, Garn acknowledged some of it on the House floor and apologized. He soon stepped down. The House’s standing ovation for Garn that night, led by then-House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, contributed to Clark’s defeat a few months later in his bid for a second term as speaker.