SALT LAKE CITY -- A judge denied a request for a restraining order against the Attorney General's Office, sought by a businessman accused of fraud who claims he was "shaken down" by Utah Attorney General John Swallow and his predecessor, Mark Shurtleff.
But lawyers for Marc Sessions Jenson left court on Monday feeling they had won, anyway.
The attorneys asked for a restraining order, saying they suspected government officials had been harassing Jenson's family. His wife, Stori Jenson, said in an affidavit that she had received "an increase in calls to my home from 'unknown' or 'blocked' numbers."
"I have not answered these calls, as I have had previous experience with government prosecutors engaging in suspicious activity around my home, and I understand it is often the practice of government investigators to call from 'unknown' or 'blocked' numbers," she wrote.
In court, Jenson's lawyer, Marcus Mumford, also said Stori Jenson had believed someone had been in her home recently. She could not say who.
The claims leveled by Jenson's attorneys were adamantly denied by assistant Utah Attorney General Scott Reed, who said he was not aware that anyone in the office had contacted the Jenson family in the first place. Still, he told the judge, he would instruct them to have no contact with them anyway.
"We're the good guys here," he told reporters outside of court.
