The business of Utah-based landscaping and facility management company Rubicon Contracting collapsed last year after the state attorney general at the time, Sean Reyes, raided its offices on fabricated human trafficking charges, the company alleges in a complaint filed this week in federal court. It’s seeking $1 billion in damages.
“Plaintiffs suffered substantial losses and damages as a result of these unconstitutional actions, including lost business profits, litigation expenses, and emotional distress,” attorneys for the company say in the complaint, filed Oct. 28 in the U.S. District Court in Utah, Central Division.
Before the raid, the company was valued at more than $300 million and had high-profile customers that included Walmart, it says in the complaint. Then in November 2023, officials from the attorney general’s office, followed by media outlets that had been informed of the raid in advance, demanded entry into Rubicon Contracting’s offices, claiming the company was exploiting H-2B visa holders it employed. The federal government issues H-2B visas to permit workers into the country for temporary non-agricultural jobs.
In the affidavits the attorney general submitted to the magistrate to obtain the warrants, the company was said to be withholding the visas of some of its workers unlawfully, forcing them to live in company housing, exercising control over their bank accounts and threatening them with deportation, according to the complaint.
“Three Rubicon officers who were present during the search … were incarcerated without bail … for 11 days, which included the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend,” the complaint said.
The complaint states that none of the charges were true and the AG office used false statements to obtain the warrants.
“It is not the magistrate’s job to vet the information in the affidavits for truth, accuracy, or completeness,” the complaint states. “If the affidavits had been truthful and accurate, the magistrates reviewing the warrant applications would have known there was no probable cause to approve and issue the warrants.”
The attorney general was motivated to inflate the public perception of labor trafficking in the state to secure federal funds for a task force within his office and distract media attention from his involvement with an anti-trafficking activist who was under investigation, the complaint alleges.
The attorney general, the complaint says, “maliciously prosecuted [company owners Rudy] Larsen and [Jena] Larsen not to pursue justice, but to (1) grandstand for the public, with the goal of obtaining funding for its investigative division, (2) put a positive spin on Reyes’ close personal ties to embattled anti-trafficking activist Tim Ballard and Ballard’s non-profit Operation Underground Railroad (“OUR”), and (3) divert the Utah Legislature’s and the public’s attention from Reyes’ questionable conduct.”
The charges against Rubicon Contracting have since been dropped, and Reyes’ AG term ended earlier this year, but the company is left struggling, with its business down by 70% and major customers, including Walmart, no longer working with it, according to the complaint. “Rubicon lost tens of millions of dollars in ongoing business,” the complaint states.
The business of two affiliate companies, Scandia and Smart Rain, were also damaged, according to the complaint. Scandia is a real estate management and development company that had a $250 million pipeline of business in 2023; Smart Rain is a software-as-a-service irrigation management technology company.
“Between 2020 and 2023, Smart Rain grew very fast and secured national contracts with large customers, including the largest third-party apartment management company in the United States,” the complaint states. “Between the full release of Smart Rain’s technology in 2020 to 2023, Smart Rain had growth of 532%. However, due to the … resulting damage to the company’s reputation, Smart Rain only grew by 5% from 2023 to 2024.”
Rubicon, its owners and the affiliate companies are accusing Reyes and three staff members who were working for the attorney general at the time with malicious prosecution, illegal search and seizure and inclusion of the media in the execution of a warrant.
Reyes didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment, but a spokesperson for the former attorney general told ABC4 in Utah that he may provide a comment once he and his legal counsel have had a chance to review the complaint. Reyes is “out of town at an anti-human trafficking summit,” the spokesperson said, according to ABC4.
The Utah attorney general’s office, where two of the staff people named as defendants still work, according to the complaint, said it has no comment on the charges.
If Rubicon Contracting prevails in its lawsuit and the state is found liable, Utah would pay out the damages through the Division of Risk Management and a legislative appropriation, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Payouts by the state above $2 million require approval by the legislature, the report said.
