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A federal judge in Utah made numerous serious errors and repeatedly showed prejudice against the defense in front of the jury that convicted St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson in a high-profile trial last year, Johnson's attorneys argue in an appeal of his conviction and prison sentence.

Johnson's lawyers filed their opening brief early Thursday to appeal his conviction, levied in March on eight counts of providing false information to a bank. The same jury acquitted Johnson, who acted as his own attorney during the trial, of 78 mostly fraud-related charges. Johnson is serving a 10-year prison term at a low-security California facility.

U.S. District Judge David Nuffer ruled a number of times contrary to the law and trial procedures — decisions that, combined with a bias toward the defendant, deprived Johnson of his constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process of the law, attorneys Karra Porter and Mary Corporon argue in the 95-page appeal.

"It is improper for a judge to comment on evidence or to suggest an outcome to the jury," the brief says. "The district court did both."

Judges are not permitted to speak publicly about ongoing cases. The U.S. attorney's office for Utah declined to comment on the appeal. Its reply brief is due in about a month.

Johnson — who has been at the center of political scandals, including the public corruption case against former Utah Attorney General John Swallow, that came to light over the past four years — owned an online marketing company called I Works, which sold information, such as how to get government grants for personal expenses. Johnson and former I Works manager Ryan Riddle were convicted of providing false information to Wells Fargo Bank, which they did to obtain merchant accounts that were used to collect credit card payments for the marketing company's products so the company could keep selling after its other accounts were shut down because of excessive chargebacks by consumers. 

The appeal also argues that Johnson's conviction should be overturned for other reasons:

• No account applications were sent to the bank; third parties approved them. Because the bank never saw the applications, no false statements were made to Wells Fargo.

• Johnson's right to hire attorneys to defend himself was violated when prosecutors and the Federal Trade Commission seized all his assets, when the court failed to disclose a conflict of interest with his court-appointed lawyers and when it failed to hold an evidentiary hearing to examine the government's seizure of thousands of supposedly private emails between Johnson and his attorneys. 

• Nuffer refused to allow evidence at the trial that could have shown the information the jury found was false on bank account applications was not something that was even considered in approving an account.

• The judge improperly ruled that the defense's expert witness could not testify, depriving the jury of opinions that would counter those of the prosecution's expert.

• Nuffer made numerous errors in sentencing Johnson. He assumed that the bank lost more than a million dollars because of consumer chargebacks, the appeal argues, but it was I Works that paid fees or fines. The bank actually made money because of the chargebacks.

The brief cites examples of when Nuffer in the presence of the jury, said that Johnson could appeal the judge's rulings. Such statements are "grossly prejudicial," the appeal says.

"It signals that the court expects a conviction, as only a convicted defendant could appeal," the brief adds. "It also (incorrectly) suggests to jurors that any uncertainty on their part does not matter because it can be corrected on appeal."

Nuffer also displayed a lack of neutrality by repeatedly making or adding objections for the prosecution, Johnson's lawyers say, including when government attorneys themselves did not raise concerns.  

The court, the brief says, "conveyed to the jury that it favored the government."

Nuffer also displayed hostility toward Johnson, Riddle and attorney Marcus Mumford, who represented a third defendant, Scott Leavitt.

Riddle also acted as his own attorney. Leavitt was acquitted of all charges.

Nuffer summoned court security several times when Mumford tried to make arguments about a ruling the judge had made and further "belittled" him with remarks such as, "That's the most absurd question today," the appeal brief says.

The freeze on Johnson's assets came as the FTC colluded with federal prosecutors in Utah to bring a criminal charge against Johnson in an apparent effort to force him to settle the FTC lawsuit that had been filed in Nevada, the appeal says.

The original bank-fraud charge against Johnson was based solely on FTC information, and the man whom charging documents presented as the consumer victim of the fraud — known by the initials S.J. — was an FTC investigator.

"S.J. was, in reality, Sam Jacobson, an FTC investigator who was neither a consumer nor unwittingly charged for an I Works product," the brief says in arguing that the civil lawsuit and criminal case were tightly related and that asset seizures in both deprived Johnson of the ability to hire his own attorneys and violated his constitutional rights.

In addition, Johnson's lawyers write that despite his own pretrial ruling, the judge had allowed prosecutors to present details about whether the bank had to pay fines because of credit card chargebacks.

But when the defendants sought to cross-examine witnesses about those issues, Nuffer refused to allow that line of questioning. That meant large parts of the government's evidence went unchallenged, they wrote.

The government also seized thousands of emails, including private ones between Johnson and his attorneys, and made "no meaningful screening provisions" to ensure that the prosecution team didn't see that correspondence, which is supposed to be private.

Johnson was deprived of the ability to examine federal agents and attorneys about the email issue when the court declined to hold an evidentiary hearing, the appeal says.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Warner, who handled most pretrial matters in the Johnson case, told attorney Rebecca Skordas not to tell Johnson about a conflict of interest she had when Warner appointed she and her husband, attorney Greg Skordas, as Johnson's lawyers about six months before the trial began, the appeal says.

Rebecca Skordas briefly represented a possible witness in the criminal case and in the FTC lawsuit, creating a conflict of interest for the Skordases' representation of Johnson, his attorneys say.

Relying on evidence that is sealed from public view, the brief says Johnson alleges that Warner ordered Rebecca Skordas not to disclose the conflict, possibly because Nuffer was insisting that the trial go ahead as planned without further delays.

But when Johnson discovered the conflict, Warner denied him an opportunity to delve into the matter; the magistrate judge did not consider "all aspects" before finding that there was no conflict, the brief says, and Johnson based his decision to represent himself in large part because of that conflict.

"The appointment of conflicted counsel is an automatic Sixth Amendment violation," the attorneys wrote, "and Johnson's conviction should be overturned."