A Utah police department is under scrutiny after it released the bodycam footage that showed their stop of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie. On top of that, the department will have to refund the $3,000 it collected from news outlets for the footage.
Evidently, the charges violated state law, the New York Post reported.
The video footage showed Moab police talking to the couple when they were stopped on August 12. Someone called the police and reported that they saw a man slap a woman outside a grocery store.
The stop occurred weeks before the couple’s cross-country trip resulted in a tragic ending.
The fees the department collected amounted to nearly three times what the department predicted to collect this fiscal year in records fee revenue, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The department released two videos. The first was Petito, who was seen crying and telling authorities that she and Laundrie had been having “little arguments” that day. The second came days later, and Petito was then heard telling police that her boyfriend had assaulted her.
Utah law allows agencies to charge only “actual costs of providing a record.”
