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A businessman with ties to the corruption scandal that embroiled two former Utah attorneys general still owes the state more than $4 million in restitution.
That was the conclusion of state Board of Pardons and Parole officer Curtis Garner after a hearing Monday.
If the five-member board agrees, then Marc Sessions Jenson will have to pay up or face the possibility of going back to prison.
The money was ordered as part of plea agreement in a 2005 securities fraud case filed against Jenson by the Utah attorney general's office.
Jenson, 55, settled the case through a no-contest plea agreement three years later and contends that he settled the debt through other lawsuits or out-of-court settlements even before he entered the plea.
Jenson was sent to prison for nonpayment in 2011, but he was released in October after his attorneys petitioned the board and offered evidence of those settlements, along with bank records and other financial ledgers, that they say prove his claims.
Jenson's attorney, Marcus Mumford, reiterated those arguments on Monday and said a newly obtained transcript of an FBI interview of Mark Shurtleff shows how Jenson was targeted for prosecution — and squeezed for money — by the former attorney general.
A state attorney could not comment on Jenson's new claims, but he said there is no dispute about the facts of the restitution payments.
"No restitution has been paid," Assistant Attorney General David Sonnenreich said.
Claims by Jenson that his debts had been settled through other lawsuits or settlement deals are irrelevant, he added, and only the terms of the plea agreement accepted by the courts matter.
Those include payments to his former business partners Michael Bodell ($1.6 million) and Morris Ebeling ($2.5 million), remittances of which Jenson was to notify the attorney general's office.
"Those events never occurred, the payments were never made, the confirmations were never sent," Sonnenreich said.
Also at Monday's hearing were Bodell and Mit Ebeling, the son of Morris Ebeling. Garner asked both men whether they had received restitution payments from Jenson.
"No, emphatically no," Mit Ebeling said, speaking on his father's behalf.
At the close of the hearing, Garner said he'll recommend the board issue a determination that no restitution has been paid.
The board can accept Garner's findings or disagree. It wasn't immediately clear on Monday when that decision may come.
Jenson is serving 36 months of parole. If the board agrees he still owes the money, he'll have to begin to make payments, or he could be sent back to prison.
Jenson has been unemployed since his release from prison, but he told Garner that he hopes to be working this year.
He also said that — from plea agreement to payments to third parties — his actions were directed by Shurtleff and his successor, John Swallow.
"I did what I was told," said Jenson, his voice breaking. "It was a sitting A.G. and the man he represented to be the next A.G."
Jenson has long said his 2011 incarceration was political payback for his resistance toward Shurtleff and Swallow. His attorneys say the new FBI documents they have obtained detail those plans. They offered to provide copies of the transcript to Garner and Sonnenreich.
In 2013, Jenson became a key player in the investigation of Shurtleff and Swallow when he alleged the pair pressured him for money and favors before and after he negotiated his plea deal.
The next year, Shurtleff and Swallow were charged with multiple public corruption and bribery-related felonies. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges.