FARMINGTON — Former Syracuse Councilman D. Matthew Kimmel and his attorney did not appear Monday in 2nd District Court. However, Kimmel entered a plea in abeyance to a charge of improper use of a state employee’s position.
Kimmel, 35, entered that plea through a notarized, signed document that was given to Judge John R. Morris by the Davis County Attorney’s Office.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said the court allows a defendant charged with a misdemeanor to enter a guilty plea or a plea in abeyance through a notarized, signed statement.
Kimmel agreed to be sentenced to 12 months’ probation and to pay $1,650 in restitution to the North Davis Sewer District. A plea in abeyance means if Kimmel does not get arrested in the next 12 months, the charge will not appear on his record.
“Mr. Kimmel has been cooperative with us on matters that are of concern to our office,” Rawlings said in a phone interview.
Rawlings would not elaborate on what those matters were.
Kimmel, who was serving his first four-year term in office, was removed from the North Davis Sewer District over an ethics question surrounding inside information, which he is accused of providing to a real estate agent on a $730,000 sewer district land purchase.
According to court documents, it was Kimmel’s involvement in that land purchase and the claim that he was to receive a $3,000 finder’s fee from the transaction, before declining it, that resulted in the charges being filed against him.
Kimmel resigned as a councilman in February.
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