Rubicon files another lawsuit against Utah attorney general

SALT LAKE CITY — The owners of a Davis County general contracting company once accused of labor trafficking — who are suing Utah's former attorney general for $1 billion for alleged malicious prosecution — are now suing the state's current attorney general for allegedly losing important evidence tied to the criminal investigation.

On Tuesday, Rubicon Contracting, LLC, and its owners, Rudy and Jena Larsen, filed a lawsuit against the Utah Attorney General's Office.

"This is a simple case about a serious thing. The office of the Utah Attorney General seized a box of original documents and four USB drives of original documents from a private business and its owners and managers, kept those items in its custody for more than two years under a series of court orders directing that they not be disturbed, and then lost those same items," the lawsuit states while pointing out that the documents cannot be replaced.

"They are gone. So is everything stored on the drives: in losing the physical devices, the attorney general's office also lost the electronic data recorded on them, and no copy or forensic image of that data is known to exist," the lawsuit continues. "This action seeks to recover statutorily authorized damages against the attorney general's office for losing these items, which contained evidence relating directly to a currently pending billion-dollar civil rights lawsuit."

In November 2023, the founders and five executive members of Rubicon Contracting were each charged with multiple counts of aggravated human trafficking by the Utah Attorney General's Office. In February 2025, the state's case was dismissed in light of a pending federal investigation. In April of this year, however, the federal investigation into Rubicon was also closed with no charges being filed.

In October 2025, Rubicon filed a $1 billion civil lawsuit in federal court against then-Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and three of his staff members, claiming the team "conspired to manufacture bogus criminal charges" against the company.

In July, attorneys for the Larsens sent a notice of intent to sue to the attorney general's office because of the missing box of evidence.

Tuesday's lawsuit, according to a statement from Rubicon, "relies on a Utah code provision that makes the (attorney general's) office answerable when seized property in its custody is negligently lost. It names a single defendant: the Office of the Utah Attorney General itself — not any individual official."

The lawsuit further contends that "by losing the box and four USB drives, the attorney general's office did not merely deprive plaintiffs of their property—it destroyed evidence material to the very lawsuit in which plaintiffs seek to hold the (attorney general) officers accountable, further perpetuating the damage caused to plaintiffs through the (the office's) pattern of misconduct."

The lawsuit contends that the loss of evidence was more than the result of "normal depreciation, deterioration, or ordinary wear and tear;" it was "negligent."

"When Derek Brown took office as Utah's Attorney General in January 2025, he saw the problems with his predecessor and promised the people of Utah a new era for an office battered by more than two decades of scandal," the lawsuit filed Tuesday states. "In stark contrast to these public statements…the attorney general's office under Derek Brown has fought to prevent accountability for what the attorney general's office officials did to (the) plaintiffs."

The attorney general's office declined to comment on Tuesday, citing the ongoing litigation.

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