Harry Reid denies Johnson bribe allegations
Utah businessman was accused by Chad Elie of processing player funds in Black Friday.
US Senator Harry Reid has denied accusations that he was involved in an alleged attempt organised by Utah attorney general John Swallow to end an investigation into the iWorks business run by Jeremy Johnson, who was reportedly involved in Black Friday payment processing.
Swallow, who was sworn into office last week, has also denied the allegations that he helped set up a US$600,000 payment to Reid in 2010 and has asked US Attorney for Utah David Barlow to investigate Johnson’s claims. He has argued that his only involvement was to connect Johnson with the late Richard Rawle, who owned loans company Check City, in order to hire lobbyists to work on the Federal Trade Commission case.
Once the lawsuit was filed against iWorks, Johnson demanded that Swallow return some of his alleged $250,000 initial payment.
In a letter to Barlow on Monday, Swallow wrote: “I am deeply disappointed by the recent false allegations levied against me.
“In response to the recent allegations of Mr. Jeremy Johnson, I deny I have ever participated in a scheme to bribe a member of Congress,” he added.
And in a statement to the Salt Lake Tribune, Reid’s spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said: “Senator Reid has no knowledge or involvement regarding Mr. Johnson’s case. These unsubstantiated allegations implying Senator Reid’s involvement are nothing more than innuendo and simply not true.”
However, an email sent from Swallow to Johnson in 2010 alleges that Swallow tried to arrange a meeting “with Harry Reid’s contact”: “Jeremy, I spoke with Richard Rawle about the contact information for Harry Reid’s guy. Richard is travelling to LV tomorrow and will be able to contact this person, who he has a very good relationship with. He needs a brief narrative of what is going on and what you want to happen. I don’t know the cost, but it probably won’t be cheap.”
As part of the ‘narrative’, Swallow allegedly suggested: “Iworks would like to sit down with Senator Reid and show him what they have done and see if the Senator would be willing to encourage the FTC investigators to take a close look at Iworks and sit down and really understand their practices and try to resolve this matter equitably and in good faith, before litigation is started.”
Last year, Johnson was accused by Black Friday indictee Chad Elie for attempting to hide $51.4m in processed player funds by repeatedly moving the funds between various holding companies, but ultimately Johnson was not named in the Black Friday indictments.
During the investigation, Johnson claimed the funds were held in merchant accounts at SunFirst Bank, which went into receivership in November 2011.