SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – Attorney General Sean D. Reyes joined a comment letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the pending Clean Air Act (CAA) regulatory proposal Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources and Emission Guidelines for Existing Sources: Large Municipal Waste Combustors Voluntary Remand Response and 5-Year Review. The State of Indiana led the letter, urging the EPA to “abandon the proposed regulation.”

On January 23, 2024, the EPA published its proposed rule. The press release announcing the rule states that the rule [would] reduc[e] existing disproportionate and adverse effects on overburdened communities.” However, the States make the case that “the EPA’s environmental justice analysis goes beyond the scope granted to it by Congress.”

In their letter, the attorneys general argue that “the EPA’s proposed rule is arbitrary and capricious, [that] the EPA’s proposed rule should not have considered any ‘environmental justice’ analysis, [and that] the EPA should extend the comment period to allow for substantive input from all stakeholders.”

The coalition writes, “For states with waste-to-energy facilities, those facilities play an integral role in our states’ economies and our approaches to waste and resource management….These facilities serve as an essential part of a necessary ‘all of the above’ energy policy – they help recycle metals while providing good jobs and clean, affordable electricity for local communities. Furthermore, WTE facilities often operate in partnership with local governments. We are concerned…with the Proposed Rule’s excessively burdensome effects on those facilities.”

Utah and Indiana were joined on the letter by the States of Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas.

Read the letter here.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – Attorney General Sean D. Reyes filed a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari at the Supreme Court of the United States in Utah v. Valdez. The case involves whether and how Fifth Amendment protections apply to a defendant who refuses to provide his cellphone passcode in response to a valid search warrant.

Police arrested Respondent Alfonso Valdez for kidnapping, robbery, and assault. They obtained a valid search warrant for his cellphone – which they seized from him when he was arrested – so they could access text messages he had used to arrange the meeting with his victim. But they could not execute the warrant because Valdez refused to disclose his phone’s passcode, which was a nine-dot swipe pattern. At trial, the State introduced evidence about Valdez’s refusal to disclose his passcode and invited the jury to draw adverse inferences from his refusal. The Utah Supreme Court held this violated Valdez’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

The questions presented to the U.S. Supreme Court are as follows:

1. Is disclosing a cellphone passcode with no substantive meaning testimonial under the Fifth Amendment when the only information communicated is the passcode?
   
2. Does the Fifth Amendment foregone-conclusion doctrine apply to disclosing a cellphone passcode when the government has evidence the phone belongs to the suspect?

In the brief, the State of Utah writes that the Utah Supreme Court wrongly concluded that the Fifth Amendment protected Valdez’s refusal to provide his passcode. Disclosing a cellphone passcode with no substantive meaning is not testimonial when the only information communicated is the passcode because the passcode itself doesn’t communicate anything. It’s merely a meaningless set of numbers or a meaningless swipe pattern. And even if disclosing the passcode is testimonial, the Fifth Amendment foregone-conclusion doctrine readily applies when, as here, the government has evidence the phone belongs to the suspect. Providing the passcode in that scenario “adds little or nothing to sum total of the Government’s information” about the passcode’s existence, possession, and authenticity. Thus, the Fifth Amendment did not protect Valdez’s refusal to provide his passcode.

Read the brief here.

VERNAL, UTAH—Last week, in the Eighth District Court before Presiding Judge Clark A. McClellan, Mannix George Glines, 50, was sentenced to one to 15 years in prison for financially exploiting a vulnerable adult. Glines was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $60,168.

This is Glines’ second felony conviction prosecuted by this office for the financial exploitation of the same victim, his mother.

“Stealing from or abusing any vulnerable person is offensive, but exploiting a close family member repeatedly is particularly reprehensible,” said Attorney General Reyes.

“I applaud our Medicaid Fraud Division in the Utah AG Office, led by Director Kaye Lynn Wootton.  Her nationally recognized team does an amazing job protecting the state’s most vulnerable adults from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.”

The Medicaid Fraud and Patient Abuse Division of the Utah Attorney General’s Office filed charges against Glines in November 2022. Glines pleaded guilty to one count of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult on January 3, 2024, in violation of § 76-5-111.4(2)(b)-(c), a second-degree felony.

Glines was taken into custody after the hearing to begin his sentence at the Utah State Correctional Facility.

Note: The Medicaid Fraud and Patient Abuse Division of the Utah Attorney General’s Office receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $2,825,860 for the federal fiscal year 2023. The State of Utah funds the remaining 25 percent.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – Attorney General Sean D. Reyes is co-leading a lawsuit in Kansas v. Biden over the President’s renewed attempts to unlawfully cancel student loan debts after a defeat at the Supreme Court of the United States on this very issue last summer. The challenge was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, asking the court to find that the U.S. Department of Education rule is unlawful.

The latest effort to cancel student debts without congressional authorization occurred in the days following a rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court over the administration’s first attempt, which utilized a provision of the HEROES Act to justify this action. This new maneuver from the U.S. Department of Education featured the “SAVE Plan,” yet it based its cost estimate and other details on the first salvo being left intact by the nation’s high court. The administration has also tried to expedite certain portions of the student loan cancellation before federal courts could weigh in on the plan.

“This attempt by the Biden Administration at massive student loan forgiveness is a desperate and purely political election-year maneuver,” said General Reyes. “The last Biden loan forgiveness program was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023. Instead of accepting such a clear legal rebuke, the White House blithely ignores precedent and acts like this version is somehow different and less offensive. In fact, the current proposal is even more problematic because it relies on numbers and calculations from its first failed attempt that are invalid and unsustainable.”

In their complaint, the States argue that the action from the U.S. Department of Education violates separation of powers principles, exceeds the Department’s statutory authority and jurisdiction, constitutes arbitrary and capricious agency action, and violates APA procedures.”

Read the complaint here.

The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force has observed a new form of evidence: Computer generated Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is commonly used to generate illegal images of children in sexual situations, similar to animated CSAM images.

Listen as Sete Aulai, our ICAC Commander, speaks out about this evolving trend. This is occurring at a time when ICAC continues to receive tips, cases, and explicit images, as well as attempts by some suspects to contact live young people.

Listen to the podcast here.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—Attorney General Sean D. Reyes joined a comment letter to the U.S. Department of Labor regarding its “proposed rule revising the regulations for registered apprenticeships.” The letter, which the State of Tennessee led, notes the coalition’s nationwide concerns over race-based regulations for apprenticeships.

According to the attorneys general, “the proposed rule deviates from the statutory purpose of safeguarding the welfare of apprentices and builds on existing regulations to further entrench an apprenticeship regime dedicated to picking winners and losers based on the color of apprentices’ skin.”

In their letter, the States highlighted “four legal barriers to the type of race-based system the Proposed Rule appears to require.” Those barriers are that “the Department’s imposition of new oversight and data collection requirements on State Apprenticeship Agencies exceeds the scope of the agency’s Spending-Clause authority, [that] the Department’s proposed race-based requirements for apprenticeship program design and administration violate the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, [that] race-based employment decision-making violates Title VII and related civil-rights laws, [and that] ‘what cannot be done directly’ under governing law ‘cannot be done indirectly.’”

The coalition of attorneys general wrote, “As we have previously admonished private employers and the Department of Commerce, neither public nor private employers can lawfully pursue that goal by engaging in racial discrimination, regardless of whether their efforts go under the labels of ‘equity,’ ‘DEIA,’ or other similar euphemisms. Additionally, no federal agency can wield legislative authority beyond that lawfully granted by Congress.”

Joining Utah and Tennessee on the letter were the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Read the letter here.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — This month, Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced that they filed a lawsuit to block a devastating new air quality rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that would raise costs on Utah manufacturers, utilities, and families. AG Reyes and 23 other attorneys general joined Kentucky and West Virginia’s coalition in filing the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“The EPA’s new rule has more to do with advancing President Biden’s radical green agenda than protecting Kentuckians’ health or the environment. This rule will drive jobs and investment out of Kentucky and overseas, leaving employers and hardworking families to pay the price,” said Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman.

Even before this heavy-handed new rule, the United States has some of the strictest air quality standards in the world – tougher than the European Union and far more stringent than the world’s worst polluters, including China, India, and Indonesia. Making the standards more stringent wouldn’t improve public health, but it would put as many as 30% of all U.S. counties out of compliance under federal law, leading to aggressive new permitting requirements that could effectively block new economic activity or job creation.

The new EPA rule could:

• Block the permitting of new manufacturing facilities and drive good-paying jobs out of Utah and overseas;
• Stop new infrastructure construction and leave Utah families on unsafe and congested roads and bridges; and
• Require small businesses, farmers, restaurants, and even homeowners to pay for costly new equipment.

The Biden Administration’s ongoing assault on fossil fuels through this rule will make Utah less attractive for future growth.

The rule would weaken the U.S. economy while strengthening our competitors. According to a letter led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and 28 other leading industry associations, “lowering the current standard so dramatically would create a perverse disincentive for American investment. The EPA’s proposal could force investment in new facilities to foreign countries with less stringent air standards.”

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey are co-leading this lawsuit. AG Reyes joined attorneys general from the following states in the lawsuit: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming.

Read the Petition here.

On Saturday, March 23rd, former Solicitor General Melissa Holyoak, surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues, was sworn in as a commissioner on the FTC.

While acting as master of ceremonies, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes reflected on his immense pride for his former solicitor general and expressed his hope for the much-needed balance Commissioner Holyoak will bring to the FTC.

The ceremony occurred in the Utah Capitol’s State Reception Room, the Gold Room. The Honorable Melissa Holyoak, standing next to her husband, Dr. Josh Holyoak, and flanked by their four children, was officially sworn in by United States Senator Mike Lee, the senior senator in Utah’s federal delegation.

As solicitor general, Melissa Holyoak was a tireless advocate for the people of Utah; as FTC Commissioner, her advocacy will have further reach and benefit the entire country.

Utah Solicitor General Melissa Holyoak Confirmed to Fill Republican Slot at the Federal Trade Commission
US Senate confirms Republican nominees to FTC

Salt Lake City, UT—The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is issuing over $10 million in refunds to consumers who paid for a deceptive real estate investment training scheme that falsely promised significant profits through “flipping” houses.

The FTC and the Utah Attorney General’s Office, on behalf of the Utah Department of Commerce’s Division of Consumer Protection, sued Response Marketing Group, LLC in November 2019, alleging that the company, its affiliates Nudge, LLC and BuyPD, LLC, and its principals used false promises to sell consumers a series of expensive real estate investment training programs. The FTC later named two real estate celebrities as additional defendants—Scott Yancey, the star of the home-flipping show Flipping Vegas, and Dean R. Graziosi, the author of Millionaire Success Habits. According to the amended complaint, Yancey and Graziosi promoted the training programs and were involved in efforts to bury online customer complaints that said Response Marketing failed to deliver on its promises or that it was a scam.  

“Companies that rely on deceitful or manipulative tactics to earn money will not be tolerated in Utah as it not only undermines people’s financial security but also the very trust we have in each other that is crucial to our #1 ranked economy,” Margaret Busse, the Executive Director of the Utah Department of Commerce, stated, “We are pleased that our Division of Consumer Protection’s investigative efforts, along with the cooperative partnerships with the FTC and the Utah Attorney General’s Office, resulted in restitution for affected consumers. We encourage consumers to do research and conduct thorough checks before purchasing.”

“Checks for the first ten million dollars are in the mail. This helps heal at least some of the harm caused at the hands of Response Marketing and the other defendants,” said Douglas Crapo, Director of White Collar & Commercial Enforcement at the Utah Office of the Attorney General.  “Protecting consumers from deceptive practices is essential for fostering an economy based on trust. Our Office is proud to represent Commerce and the Division of Consumer Protection in our concerted efforts with the FTC as we stop bad actors.”

The company and its principals agreed to a settlement that permanently banned them from selling “wealth creation” products and services anywhere in the country and required them to pay $15 million to be used for refunds. Graziosi and Yancey also agreed to settlements requiring them to pay an additional $1.7 million.

The FTC is sending payments to 4,670 consumers. Most consumers will receive checks by mail. Eligible consumers who do not have an address on file will receive a PayPal payment, which should be redeemed within 30 days. In addition, the FTC is sending claim notices to nearly 400 consumers who previously filed a complaint about Response Marketing. Consumers who paid for Response Marketing’s real estate investment training programs may file a claim for a refund.

Consumers who have questions about their payment or the claims process should contact the refund administrator, JND Legal Administration, at 877-871-0474 or visit the FTC website for questions about the refund process. The FTC never requires people to pay money or provide account information to get a refund. 

The Division of Consumer Protection is one of nine Utah Department of Commerce agencies. The mission of the Division of Consumer Protection is to strengthen trust in Utah’s commercial activities by protecting consumers through education and impartial enforcement. The Division administers more than 25 Utah state laws designed to protect consumers. More information can be found at https://dcp.utah.gov/.

Read the FTC press release here.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – Attorney General Sean D. Reyes joined an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States of America in Trump v. United States. The brief, which was led by the State of Alabama, asks the Court to reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s ruling about presidential immunity in the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

The case concerns whether former President Donald J. Trump is entitled to presidential immunity regarding the alleged actions that are the subject of the case. Both the district and appeals courts ruled against the president’s claims of immunity, leading to the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The former president argues that “from 1789 to 2023, no former, or current, President faced criminal charges for his official acts.” The trial in the case is on hold pending the outcome of the appeal.

In their brief, the coalition of attorneys general argue that the U.S. Supreme Court’s “immunity jurisprudence must remain sensitive to the danger of vexatious and partisan prosecutions” and that “the prosecutions of President Trump appear to be partisan.”

The states write, “Unfortunately, the concern that partisans may abuse the justice system is not limited to this case and this prosecutor. There are criminal and civil actions against President Trump around the country, in some cases led by individuals who campaigned on promises to target President Trump. They taunt him and gloat to fawning media. They launch sprawling investigations and scour state codes with one man in mind.”

Joining Utah and Alabama were the States of Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia.

Read the brief here.