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Testimony continued for a fourth day in the trial of Jeremy Johnson with bank executives telling the court they discontinued accounts tied to the St. George businessman's online marketing company after seeing excessive numbers of consumer chargebacks.

Ofer Yitzhaki, vice president of risk management for Wells Fargo bank, said his company cut off I Works and after an investigation found "clear evidence" that consumers were being injured in the marketplace.

"It was so severe," Yitzhaki said. "And there were very serious fines … as I recall, well over a million dollars."

That investigation also revealed that a "cluster" of more than a dozen companies returning money to consumers all had ties to I Works and Johnson, he told a U.S. District Court jury.

Yitzahki is among a handful of executives from multiple banks to testify in the case, each with a similar story.

Based on that testimony, I Works appears to have had accounts with at least five banks and third-party credit card processing companies that together saw chargebacks totaling more than $3 million between 2008 and 2010.

Johnson and two of his former employees — Scott Leavitt and Ryan Riddle — are charged with 86 counts, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, making false statements to a bank, wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering and others.

Prosecutors say Johnson and the others set up a series of shell companies designed to trick the banks into setting up new accounts after a large number of consumers demanded refunds.

If convicted, the charges could land the men in federal prison for decades.

The trial is expected to last up to six weeks.

"Any merchant can have a chargeback," Yitzhaki told the court. "But we're talking about a rate [for I Works entities] that is statistically, substantially different than the standard."

Each of the banks that had I Works chargebacks placed the company on warning lists after several consecutive months, triggering the account closures.

"It was a player that we said, we don't want to play with this player any more," Yitzhaki said. "This would hurt the reputation of the banks."

Prosecutors say the closures caused Johnson and his employees to panic and set up new companies using the names of employees, family and friends so that they could continue processing consumer transactions.

Earlier in the week, Johnson, who is representing himself, told U.S. District Judge David Nuffer that some of the accounts mentioned by witnesses were not I Works accounts.

Johnson contends he could likely prove that — and show that banks did not lose any money in processing payments for his companies — but not without access to an old company server that is currently held by the government.

Johnson has said the copy of the so-called "Yellow server" provided by the government is unworkable.

Repeated requests that the government provide a new copy have been rejected by the court, which has also barred Johnson from raising the issue that banks did not lose any money.

Johnson's business operations are also the subject of a parallel Federal Trade Commission case in Nevada. FTC attorneys say I Works sold information on government grants and Internet money-making schemes to consumers without disclosing they would be charged monthly fees.

Filed in 2010, the case is set for trial in March in Reno's federal court.