SALT LAKE CITY — A key prosecution witness in the John Swallow trial didn’t immediately name Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes on Thursday as the “mystery” man at a secret Southern California meeting as he had testified in a hearing last month.

Marc Sessions Jenson also didn’t mention then-U.S Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., as attending the June 2009 meeting with former Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Utah Transit Authority officials and developers in his Corona Del Mar office.

Jenson, however, did testify that the late Tim Lawson told him another man whom he didn’t recognize was then-UTA attorney Bruce Jones.

Assistant Salt Lake County district attorney Chou Chou Collins didn’t ask Jenson to identify the man who he said brushed by him without introduction.

But under cross-examination by defense attorney Scott Williams, Jenson reiterated that it was Hughes whom he saw. Jenson said Shurtleff didn't introduce him to the "mystery" man with him, but "I got a good enough look."

Jenson, who testified for four hours Wednesday, spent all day and into the evening on the witness stand Thursday.

Swallow is accused of 12 felonies and one misdemeanor, including racketeering, bribery, accepting gifts and money laundering. The trial is expected to go into early March.

In January, Jenson testified that Hughes, R-Draper, and Reid attended a secret meeting with UTA officials and developers working on a transit station project hearing. He said he didn’t know it was Hughes until he saw an Instagram photo of him in 2016.

Hughes, who was not speaker at the time but was a legislator and UTA board chairman, vehemently denied being at the Pelican Hill resort and provided proof of activities in Utah during that week in June.

Cross-examination

During cross-examination, Williams went straight to Jenson's earlier testimony, asking him if prosecutors told him not to discuss his claims about the secret meeting.

Williams reminded Jenson that he earlier testified about a $35 million fraud involving UTA and cash payments to people. He reminded him that he said Shurtleff and Swallow wouldn't risk their careers for free golf, that Pelican Hill was about something bigger.

Jenson said UTA was part of the "fabric" at Pelican Hill, part of ongoing discussions. He said he didn't attend the meeting in his office but that Lawson told him about it.

Williams told Jenson that Lawson, who died last year, has said he was not at Pelican Hill during that time. He also cited a 2015 FBI interview in which Jenson said he didn't recall Lawson being there.

"He was there," Jenson said.

Jenson testified Thursday that Shurtleff, Swallow and Lawson showed up at Pelican Hill with guests that he didn’t know in early June 2009. He said Shurtleff and Lawson warned him not to interact with them and not to go to his Corona Del Mar office but to take his wife and leave Pelican Hill.

They were dressed in suits and ties and were "more serious" than on the previous trip in May, he said.

Williams asked Jenson if the office where the meeting was held was surrounded by video cameras, presumably as a means to verify if the meeting happened. Jenson acknowledged there were cameras there.

Much of Jenson's testimony Thursday dealt with his relationship with Shurtleff, though Swallow was usually in tow. Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings dropped criminal charges against Shurtleff, who once was a co-defendant in the case, last year.

Jenson — at Shurtleff's behest — reached a plea-in-abeyance agreement with prosecutors in May 2008 that included a fine but no jail time for selling unregulated securities. A 3rd District judge, however, rejected the deal as too lenient. The judge accepted a second plea agreement that also allowed Jenson to avoid jail but imposed $4.1 million in restitution.

Jenson moved to Pelican Hill in January 2009.

When he failed to pay the money back in 2011, the attorney general's office sought to put him in prison. He served four years of a 10-year sentence and was released in 2015.

'I'm nobody's fool'

Swallow made three trips to Pelican Hill in May, June and July of 2009, the last one being an anniversary getaway with his wife, Suzanne. Jenson reviewed receipts that he said Swallow billed to him, including hundreds of dollars for massages, food, golf balls, ball markers, hats and a $98 argyle sweater.

Swallow didn’t work in the attorney general’s office during the trips but was Shurtleff’s chief fundraiser for his political campaigns. But Jenson testified that Swallow told everyone at Pelican Hill that he would be joining the office as Shurtleff’s heir apparent. Shurtleff hired Swallow as his chief civil deputy in late 2009.

“I’m the next A.G. You’re going to need me,” Jenson said Swallow told him. “It was a constant, ongoing conversation.”

Jenson said Swallow became “agitated” when two men with whom he associated ditched him before a round of golf.

“Don’t they know who I am? They can’t treat me this way. I’m the next A.G. … I’m nobody’s fool,” Jenson quoted Swallow as saying.

Williams attempted to discredit Jenson during his exhaustive questioning that bounced from topic to topic. He tried to get at whether Jenson was willing or unwilling to pay Lawson as his “conduit” to Shurtleff. Jenson said part of him was willing. Williams asked which part.

Jenson said he gave Lawson money because the "sitting attorney general told me to."

'When politicians extort'

Williams also questioned why Jenson didn’t report what he called extortion to law enforcement, even though he testified that he told all of his lawyers about it.

Jenson said it’s done in a “more genteel manner” when politicians are involved.

“When politicians extort from you, they do it in a different way than a man with a gun,” he said.

Williams wondered how Jenson could live in the “lap of luxury” at Pelican Hill after his May 2008 plea deal that required he repay two investors $4.1 million. Jenson testified that he paid about $900,000 to rent four villas at the resort over 10 months.

He acknowledged that he had about $30 million in assets, including a $22 million art collection against which he borrowed money. He also said he had money coming in from a medical device company he owned. Williams also got Jenson to admit he had a Rolls Royce, Porsche, Hummer and a Mercedes SUV and sedan at Pelican Hill.

"I had no shortage of cars," Jenson said.

Williams said Jenson could have used his assets to pay the restitution but instead chose to let Shurtleff and Lawson continue to "extort" him.

"I was following instructions," Jenson said.

Restitution

Jenson testified that Shurtleff, Swallow and Lawson told him not to worry about the restitution because the attorney general’s office, not the court, supervised the plea agreement.

Jenson said Shurtleff told him to pay financially troubled Utah businessman Mark Robbins to keep his deals afloat and that it would count as his restitution. Robbins was not one of the two men Jenson was required to pay under his plea agreement.

"You pay him money. You keep him happy. You keep his deals going," Jenson said Shurtlerff told him.

Jenson said that he didn't call it restitution but Shurtleff did.

Jenson also testified that Shurtleff excused Swallow and pulled him aside at Pelican Hill one day, saying, “I’ve got a problem.” He said Shurtleff told him then-U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman wanted to file criminal charges against him in 2007. Jenson said Shurtleff wanted him to have Jenson's associate Paul Nelson, a first cousin to Tolman, arrange a meeting with the U.S. attorney.

After the meeting, Jenson says Shurtleff texted him that he was “euphoric” that they were able to work things out.

“Thank you. You’re done,” Jenson said Shurtleff told him.

Jenson said he thought that his case was over and that he could stop paying Lawson.

Related topics