Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
A Davis County general contracting company once accused of labor trafficking only to have the charges dismissed more than a year later is now suing a former Utah attorney general and members of his team for $1 billion for alleged abuse of power. Rubicon Contracting LLC and its owners, Rudy Larsen and Jena Larsen, on Tuesday announced a federal complaint was filed against former Attorney General Sean Reyes; Leo Lucey, Reyes’ chief of the criminal investigations division; investigator Michael Adam Jeter; and deputy attorney general Kaytlin Virginia Beckett, who was the lead prosecutor in the case. The lawsuit claims the team “conspired to manufacture bogus criminal charges to falsely inflate the public perception of the severity of human trafficking in Utah. Why? To try and justify the existence of and secure funding for the SECURE Strike Force,” which the suit says was Reyes’ “pet project.” “The unconstitutional actions of Sean Reyes and other officials at the attorney general’s office caused devastating emotional, reputational and financial harm to Rudy and Jena and the businesses they founded and built up through years of hard work and dedication,” Cameron Drommond, vice president of Scandia, the parent company of Rubicon, told KSL.com. “Rudy and Jena are strong supporters of law enforcement, but they also believe that government officials who abuse their positions of public trust must be held accountable.” In November 2023, the founders and five executive members of Rubicon Contracting were charged with multiple counts each of aggravated human trafficking by the Utah Attorney General’s Office. The group was accused of recruiting about 150 people from Mexico to work for the company using H-2B visas. But once in Utah, charging documents alleged that the victims were paid very little and forced to live in deplorable housing provided by Rubicon, while also being forced to pay rent under the threat of deportation. In July 2024, however, the judge presiding over the case called for a Franks hearing for five of the 10 search warrants served by Jeter and used to collect evidence in the case, noting that statements made by Jeter to obtain the warrants “were knowingly false or, at a minimum, made with a reckless disregard for the truth.” A Franks hearing, named after a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a case out of Delaware, is held when it is believed that investigators made false statements or significant omissions in their affidavit submitted to the judge, who then approved the search warrant based on that information. Then, during a contentious hearing in December of 2024, 2nd District Judge Rita Cornish pressed Beckett on whether the case was “vastly overcharged” and asked prosecutors multiple times to come up with specific evidence that all seven individuals charged committed 14 acts of human trafficking each. “I am thoroughly frustrated, and I am trying really hard to dig deep and find where the state has met its burden," Cornish sternly told Beckett. Not long after that hearing, the charges were dismissed at the request of the attorney general’s office because of an alleged federal investigation. “To date, there has been no indication of an active federal investigation and no federal charges have been filed,” Drommond said. But by that point, the damage to the company was already done, the company says. “Rubicon’s business was decimated by the baseless criminal charges, the statements the AG’s office made to Rubicon’s customers about those charges, and the widespread media coverage,” Drommond said. “More than half of Rubicon’s customers canceled their contracts because of this. Rubicon went from exponential growth in revenues and profits to massive losses in revenue and profits. Rubicon was forced to lay off many of its employees and cut the salaries of many of its remaining employees. This damage and these losses continue to this day.” The lawsuit alleges that the attorney general’s office “maliciously prosecuted” the Larsens “not to pursue justice but to 1) grandstand for the public, with the goal of obtaining funding for its investigative division, 2) put a positive spin on Reyes’ close personal ties to embattled anti-trafficking activist Tim Ballard and Ballard’s nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad, and 3) divert the Utah Legislature’s and the public’s attention from Reyes’s questionable conduct.” The lengthy 103-page lawsuit further states that the Larsens, Rubicon and their other companies, Scandia Company and Smart Rain Systems, “are the victims here. (They) have never engaged in human trafficking. In full compliance with all laws, (the) plaintiffs employed hundreds of workers in real estate, construction, landscaping, snow removal and related businesses. ... Rubicon’s use of legal foreign workers, however, created the perfect target for the attorney general’s office to advance its agenda to artificially inflate the number of human trafficking victims in Utah.” The lawsuit claims that investigators for the attorney general lied and misled the court in order to obtain warrants. They are suing for alleged Fourth Amendment violations, including illegal search, illegal seizure of property, inclusion of the media during the serving of warrants at Rubicon’s headquarters, and malicious prosecution. “Compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial, but no less than $1,000,000,000, which includes, but is not limited to, lost profits, litigation expenses in the criminal proceedings, and emotional distress,” the lawsuit states. “Rubicon, Scandia, Smart Rain, and Rudy and Jena look forward to their day in court when they can prove the allegations in the complaint,” Drommond said. “Rubicon and others are grateful for all the support we have been given. Rubicon truly wants to rebuild our company and restore our reputation.”
