A former Cedar City attorney, Matthew Terry Graff, is being charged by the Seventh District Court in Emery County for five different counts while incarcerated.
This is a man that was charged over a decade ago following a guilty plea to two counts of unlawful dealing of property by a fiduciary and one count of communications fraud, which are all second-degree felonies.
These charges were filed against the former attorney when investigators claimed that he stole money from settlements that two men received from a company that owned the plane in which their wives had died in an accident.
Graff was sentenced in 2010 to two consecutive prison terms of one to 15 years on two counts as well as a one to 15 year sentence on the third count. It was stated that the third sentence would run concurrently with the other two. He was being housed in the Emery County Jail to serve his prison sentence.
In June of 2021, intel was received on Graff that claimed that he was possibly in possession of a cell phone and that the cell phone had been provided to Graff by an Emery County deputy.
Upon investigation, a phone was located and several occasions were noted that the device would connect to the facility’s WiFi. According to a probable cause statement, the deputy confessed to providing the inmate with the cellular device.
When the deputy was later interviewed, he stated that he believed that Graff “spent months grooming and getting to know him” before talking the deputy into approaching his brothers and asking them if they would help to pay off Graff’s restitution. Graff allegedly went as far as to make arrangements to have the deputy’s hotel room paid for.
The incentive to the deputy for assisting Graff was a possible job that was offered to the deputy once Graff was released from prison and had his law practice going again.
Graff is being charged with one count of transportation or possession of items prohibited in a correctional facility, one count of communications fraud, one count of receiving or soliciting a bribe, one criminal solicitation count and one count of computer fraud.