Copyright Salt Lake Tribune
The owners of a Bountiful landscaping company are suing former Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and the attorney general’s office for more than $1 billion, alleging they used false information to bring a human trafficking case that has since been dismissed but proved devastating to the business. The complaint accuses Reyes and the office of concocting the prosecution and bringing a television news crew along when it raided the offices of Rubicon Contracting in order to bolster the office’s image and case numbers with regards to human trafficking and divert scrutiny from Reyes’ close ties to Tim Ballard — a prominent figure in the fight against human trafficking world who was in headlines over allegations of sexual assault. “This case is about government corruption and the abuse of the criminal justice system for … personal and political benefit,” attorneys for Rubicon wrote in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in downtown Salt Lake City. “Defendants, state officials, conspired to manufacture bogus criminal charges to falsely inflate the public perception of the severity of human trafficking in Utah,” the suit states, alleging they did so to bolster a pet project of Reyes, secure funding for the program and divert attention from his links to Ballard. The Salt Lake Tribune reached out to the attorney general’s office Tuesday morning for comment. How the raid went down On Nov. 20, 2023, members of the attorney general’s office’s SECURE Strike Force raided the Rubicon offices, accompanied by a FOX 13 news crew, seized computers and financial records, the culmination of a six-month investigation. The company, its affiliated businesses and executives in the landscaping firm were charged with 50 crimes related to human trafficking. The state alleged that they had brought in workers from outside the country via the H2-B visa program and entrapped and exploited them for their labor — taking away their travel documents, forcing them to live in company housing and threatening them with deportation. None of it was true, attorneys for the company say in their filing in federal court Tuesday. What’s more, they add, the investigators and prosecutors with the attorney general’s offices knew it was false and lied to a judge in order to obtain search warrants for the premises. The warrants were approved days after the Legislature — amid the turmoil surrounding Ballard — had requested an audit of Reyes’ office. “There’s no other way to say it: They [the affidavits] were chock-full of misrepresentations,” Cameron Drommond, vice president at Scandia, parent company of Rubicon, said this week. “The allegations that were made in those affidavits were not supported by the investigation the attorney general’s office had conducted.” In March 2024, 2nd District Judge Rita Cornish ordered a hearing on a motion to suppress evidence gathered in the warrants and return the company’s assets, finding that the defendants had shown that statements made by the investigator were either knowingly false, showed a reckless disregard for the truth or lacked crucial context. The state investigator said in his affidavit that victims had claimed the company seized their travel documents, making it impossible for them to return home, but the judge determined the victims still had the documents and some provided copies to the investigator. The investigator said employees were forced to live in company housing, but Cornish said the record showed they could opt in to the rental units. The affidavit for the warrant said Rubicon refused to pay employees who left, but the court determined that was not the case. And while employees were told they would be reported to the U.S. Labor Department if they left the job or failed to show up for work, the company was legally obligated to do so — important context, the judge wrote. The charges against the company and its owners were eventually dismissed by the attorney general’s office. ‘Reputation ... will never fully recover’ “The reputation and public image of [the accused] will never fully recover,” Rubicon’s lawyers assert. “The legal costs for defending against the baseless charges and the direct financial losses and lost opportunities suffered … can never be fully recovered. The emotional distress and anxiety of being wrongly accused has been life altering and will continue to have a lasting psychological impact.” While charges were pending, large clients of the company — like Intermountain Health and Walmart — withdrew their business, Drommond said. In the case of Walmart, the complaint alleges, representatives of the attorney general’s office contacted the retail giant and informed its lawyers of the charges. Walmart immediately terminated its contract with Rubicon. It was, Rubicon’s attorneys allege, a malicious, orchestrated effort to embarrass and financially destroy the company and its executives. The complaint contends that it cost them millions in lost business, a real estate deal worth an estimated $250 million fell apart, the assets of the company and its executives were frozen, their credit and their reputations were ruined. They are seeking $1 billion in financial damages, plus punitive damages and legal fees. If the Rubicon executives prevail, the state would pay out the damages through the Division of Risk Management and a legislative appropriation. Payouts above $2 million also are required to be approved by the Legislature. In the past, the state has paid $13.5 million to the family of Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah athlete who was murdered on campus; reached a $5 million settlement with the family of Zhifan Dong, who was allegedly killed by a fellow U. student at a downtown hotel in 2022; and paid more than $2 million to former Attorneys General Mark Shurtleff and John Swallow after criminal cases brought against them failed to yield convictions.
