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Federal prosecutors had a binding agreement not to file criminal charges against associates of indicted St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson, then went ahead and did so. Now, they won't even produce lists of people whom they had agreed not to charge, according to new documents in the Johnson criminal case.

Criminal defense attorney Ed Wall filed motions asking a judge to dismiss the case against his client, Bryce Payne. Payne was charged along with three other top officers in Johnson's online marketing company called I Works after Johnson and prosecutors couldn't come to a final agreement on a plea deal at a January 2013 hearing in federal court.

In motions filed Sunday, Wall argues that prosecutors violated Payne's rights by failing to turn over to him lists of people who prosecutors agreed would not be charged as part of the negotiations over a possible plea deal.

"The list is highly material, as it identifies Mr. Payne, and others, which the United States has given its word and represented to the court would not be prosecuted — regardless of whether Mr. Johnson pleaded guilty or not," Wall argues in one of three motions he filed.

The U.S. attorney's office for Utah declined comment Tuesday. "We will file our response with the court," said spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch. U.S. District Judge David Nuffer has ordered prosecutors to respond by Sept. 21.

Wall also declined to answer questions.

Both sides involved in the lengthly case, which involves 86 criminal counts related to alleged bank fraud, are under a gag order issued by the court.

Johnson was first charged in June 2011 with one count of mail fraud, but by January 2013 had agreed to a deal in which he would plead guilty to a bank-fraud charge and receive an 11-year prison sentence. Johnson has said in interviews and court documents that he agreed to plead guilty only after prosecutors threatened to indict his family, friends and business associates if he did not. 

At a court hearing where he was supposed to sign the plea deal, Johnson produced lists of people whom he claimed prosecutors had agreed not to charge, which came from a PowerPoint presentation prepared by prosecutors and from an email Johnson sent them asking to add additional names.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Ward, the lead prosecutor at the time, agreed to make the PowerPoint presentation and the email part of the record of the case. But when Johnson balked and the deal fell through, Ward asked that they be withdrawn from the record.

Now, Wall argues, prosecutors have failed to respond to a court order requiring them to turn over the lists and told him they were no longer available.

Besides Payne, the lists included fellow defendants Ryan Riddle, Scott Leavitt and Loyd Johnston.

The government's agreement not to prosecute is binding even though Johnson did not end up accepting the plea deal, Wall argues.

He also asked that the case against Payne be dismissed because the U.S. attorney's office for Utah engaged in selective prosecution when it chose to indict only Johnson's four co-defendants and not the others on the list, which included Johnson's wife and parents.

"The election of the United States to selectively target some, but not all, of the individuals within the class shows the United States has been arbitrarily selective and discriminatory," Wall wrote.

It also appears there is no precedent in federal case law for "withdrawing evidence from the official court record and then failing to return that evidence or produce it as ordered by the court in this case," Wall wrote in one of the motions.