Shurtleff donors often have legal problems

Despite previous controversy, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff — the state's top law enforcement officer — is continuing to accept donations from companies that have faced state investigations for telephone or Internet fraud or deceptive business practices.

In fact, disclosure forms filed this week show that his political action committee — called "PAC for Utah's Future" — accepted $84,500 from such companies this year, and some of them were its biggest donors.

Last year, Shurtleff's attorney general campaign accepted another $142,500 from such companies, for a grand total of least $227,000 from them in two years.

Jason Powers, manager of Shurtleff's current campaign for the U.S. Senate, said many of this year's PAC donations came as Shurtleff was working with such companies to encourage the Internet and telephone marketing industry to form an association to develop accepted best practices to help keep the industry clean.

Powers said that complaints against some of the companies came months after they had already donated to Shurtleff. But he said the PAC will wait until legal action against them is resolved before deciding whether to return their donations.

The Deseret News used an open records law request to obtain documents about investigations into many of Shurtleff's top donors by the Utah Department of Commerce. Descriptions of the investigations and donations from such companies include:

 $25,000 this year (and $32,500 over two years) in donations from Infusion Media/Thrive Learning. The state Commerce Department recently fined it $42,500 in civil cases alleging fraud. Additionally, other pending cases against it could bring more fines of up to $60,000.

The Federal Trade Commission in July sued the company in Nevada federal court, and persuaded a judge to freeze its assets to prevent them from disappearing. Texas has also sought a restraining order on its activities.

As an example of allegations, a complaint says a subsidiary called Google Money Tree (not related to the Google search engine) used telemarketers to offer a CD to help people make money from home. They were told the cost was $3.88 for shipping. But customers say they were charged $75 and could not obtain refunds.

 $1,500 this year (and $24,000 over two years) in donations from Summit Group of Utah, a telephone call center. It is named as a defendant in the same pending Commerce Department cases with Infusion Media where up to $60,000 in fines is possible.