Alleged ‘entrapment’ attempt has Utah lawmakers on ‘high alert’

UTAH STATE CAPITOL – Just when you think politics can’t get any more bizarre, one state senator says he feels someone tried to trap him by sending a prostitute to his hotel room.  This sparked a strong reaction from Senate leadership.

The incident reportedly happened Thursday night inside the Little America Hotel.  Senator Sean Vickers says he was about to meet a colleague to go to a basketball game when there was a knock on his hotel door. Vickers says, “I opened the door and there was a young lady standing there.  She said, ‘hi,’ and I said, ‘Hi.  Who are you?’ She said, ‘I’m your date.’  I said, ‘No, you’re not,’ and she says, ‘Yes, I’m your date and we have reservations downtown.’”

Vickers says he refused the woman’s advances, then shut the door.  A moment later, he called his colleague to meet him in his room.  Vickers says he saw the woman again by the elevator.  “I said, ‘I don’t know who you are.  I don’t know what you’re doing here.  She said, ‘No, you don’t understand.  I’m your date.  I said, ‘No you’re not,’ and I walked back to my room.”

The news was disturbing to Senate President Wayne Niederhauser.  “I brought all the senators into the Senate President’s office in groups of about four or five and told them about the situation and that they ought to be on high alert,” he says.

Niderhauser says he’s not sure who was behind this encounter, but, he’s calling for an investigation to see if this was a mistake, or a potential bad actor trying to set up a lawmaker for extortion.

(Photo Credit: Rick Bowmer, Associated Press, file)