This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Indicted St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson is asking a federal judge to release the $2.8 million bond that freed him from jail pending his trial.
To meet the bond requirements, 16 friends and family members put up homes, retirement accounts and other property, defense attorney Ron Yengich argued Thursday, and 3½ years later they are suffering financially as a result.
"It has since become a hardship for them as many have not been allowed to refinance their high interest-rate mortgages due to the lien, and Johnson's father-in-law has not been able to retire as he cannot access his retirement account due to posting it as bond," Yengich wrote in a motion in Salt Lake City's federal court, where Johnson and four co-defendants face 86 charges related to alleged bank fraud in the operation of I Works.
Johnson was required to post the bond after a hearing in which prosecutors alleged that if he were freed from jail, he might flee because he held a pilot's license and traveled frequently out of the country.
But Johnson has surrendered his passport and pilot's license, has attended all court dates and keeps in constant contact with his attorneys, the motion notes.
It also asks that Johnson be allowed to travel within the United States without approval from the court.
Johnson — a key player in the scandal embroiling former Utah Attorneys General John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff — and the others have pleaded not guilty but the case does not have a definitive trial date.
A huge volume of potential evidence given to attorneys and the difficult time getting it all into a searchable database have caused the latest delays.
Tom Harvey