PHOENIX, ARIZ. – Jeremy Johnson was arrested in Phoenix this weekend on an additional charge of mail fraud.
The new charge stems from allegations that Johnson committed mail fraud by sending software to clients for a risk-free trial. He was arrested by IRS agents while transferring planes at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
The Associated Press reports that Johnson, of St. George, was flying home with his wife and children to their house in Costa Rica where they have been living since Johnson and his company iWorks came under fire while being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission for fraud.
The Deseret News reports that, according to the felony complaint, Johnson used false advertising, false testimonials and phony reviews to market his companies. The Deseret News also gave two accounts of alleged victims who said they were scammed out of their money by ordering a CD to show how them how to receive government grants. But instead of receiving a CD, they allegedly were charged multiple times on their credit card.
i know jeremy johnson personally. i live in st.george and i dont agree with what they have done to this good man. he has spent more time and money than anyone i know to help out people in need. he spent over a million of his own money to help thoes in need during the tragic hati earth quake. he has givin people without homes a place to live, people about to loose there homes some peace of mind! like it says in the title Philanthropist, too all you people who dont know what that means —–phi·lan·thro·py altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons, by endowment of institutions of learning and hospitals, and by generosity to other socially useful purposes. —- the first thing you see when entering his home is god bless who ever enters this home. jeremy is a man of god who wants nothing more to help people! and all of thoes people claiming to be scammed i believe are dumber than rocks! he stated in all of his information that what he was selling was a 7 day free trial. if you dont understand that after 7 days its not free you shouldent have gotten the information! he even took a pollygraph test and passed did you all know that? no! of course not! why would the press tell you that! not only i can see one lie right off the bat, his wife and kids are still here in st.george! are you all serious comon! this man personally helped out my family for the last 6 years! our family would be living on the street if it wasnt for this man! stop trying to ruin a man of god!
Utah loves and makes heroes of it’s golden fraud kings. Utah media and residents make all kinds of excuses for large scale swindling and theft. This is why we are the fraud capital of the United States- we worship thieves as righteous saints and revile and attack those they steal from.
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all i know is pollygraph tests dont lie. im not greedy and i dont have much money, all i stated was what i know of him for the person he is. all i have seen from his is good since i have known him. i make an honest living and i struggle just as much as everyone else. i am not living fat i have no money. i just respect people that will take time out of there life to help out someone in need. he has not helped out my family in a while. i only posted that because i feel shocked at what happend. i wont say anything else because i dont know everything thats going on sorry =/
not my place again sorry =/
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support to jeremy a good man!!! aint never could i ever be friends with people as mean and foul as i see you all to christine. everyone can have there own opinion! dont shoot the messenger! god bless!
Jimmy
Pass the crack! JJ isnt a good man, he is always pulling a scam – you know it and so do the feds.
The good times are over. Too bad, he could have been successful. And no, I dont consider making millions only to be busted and thrown in jail, that is not success.
God Bless you too, time to find a real job now.
Inappropriate and derogatory comments will be removed. I agree that some media paints him as a king, while others used his services and now write opinionated and unbiased stories showing him as a horrible person. I have never met Jeremy Johnson and our story is not meant to show him as either but presents to the facts that are given to us by the authorities. There are court records that show that Johnson has moved his family to Costa Rica but that they also still have a home in St. George.
Having worked in the same industry, as iWorks I can testify first hand that the programs and so called offers are designed to draw unsuspecting people in, on the hope that they don’t read the fine print, and that their credit card will get charged 2 or 3 times before they notice, all offers these companies run are designed to have a short shelf life and then they replace it with a newly designed one that has a new look and new name but is the same offer. While is commendable that JJ did some good with the money, it does not change the fact that that money was gained by deceptive practices, I am ashamed that I ever took a job working in this industry and more ashamed that Utah is the scam telemarketing capital of the world, there is a good old boy system here where they rob people throughout the week then go to church Sunday and feel like all is well. Its a real problem in this State, just call your Consumer Protection Agency, they are severely overworked dealing with all these similar companies. Who continually stay one step ahead of the law, by constantly changing the names of the offer or business name. I am sorry but it is the truth as I have witnessed it first hand.
The IRS got involved for one reason, and one reason only: Jeremy had beaten the FTC case against him. After a year of fruitlessly trying to pin something on Jeremy (and failing), the Government finally cobbled together this ridiculous “mail fraud” allegation. If they thought the could nail him for mail fraud, why didn’t they do it a year ago? Why wait until the FTC’s case against him had completely fallen apart?
Jen
If you are going to moderate the posts, why not start with the first one that upset people?
Christine: “jeremy is a man of god who wants nothing more to help people! and all of thoes people claiming to be scammed i believe are dumber than rocks! ”
So, its ok to call scam victims “dumber than rocks?” Just who here is the keeper of the rocks?
Also, you might try updating the story on JJ, he was previously ordered to return 300000 he scammed from unwitting investors with his first scam “rumorsearch”.
He was then fined $10,000 when he lost a suit Google brought against him in a civil action. HMMM his buddy at SunFirst made a trip to the pokey too, as did a former partner who sued him for alledgedly ripping him for 20 million.
Not all is well in St George, evidently – but if you want to moderate your site, keep it fair, or people wont come back.
Thank you
I was mostly removing swear words and things such as “You’d make a good Plyg.” I am not going to remove people’s opinions nor am I going to be a babysitter on this site. Just keep it clean and I won’t have to do this.
A little reasearch and knowledge could go a long way for so many people that claim to know what is going on with Jeremy.
Please explain to me the difference with what Jeremy’s business was and the same garbage I get with my credit ard statement every month. Buy such and such product and we will “charge you card 19.99 a month for 3 months.” If I agree to that….DUH!!! My card will be charged no different than what Jeremy was doing. Have you ever purchased anything on the internet?? If you have and you DON’T read the terms and conditions before clicking on the “AGREE” button… then it’s YOUR fault for being so stupid!
You agree to the terms of the contract. It’s on every site and it HAS to be done or you can’t purchase. So everyone of these people that said they were SCAMMED out of their money didn’t agree to the terms?? WOW!! Plus everytime you purchase on the internet, there is an IP address stamp and time and date stamp. So NO ONE EVER can claim they didn’t push the button. No one was holding a gun to thier head at the time of purchase.
So a little knowledge can go a long way before some of you start popping off about something you know nothing about.
It’s to bad that so many pople want to jump on the “tear down the SUCCESSFUL business man” and see these people go down when a bunch of people working for the most CORRUPT GOVERNMENT this country has ever seen can get away with FRAUD in front of us and we are to stupid to do anything about that.
OK, well if Jeremy is so smart, why did the government take away his toys and throw him in jail?
Whine about it all you want, he has a track record of scamming people, now its come back to bite him.
Now who is stupid? Guess you might think he is smart, there are lots of smart people in prison.
If thats what you shoot for you might just win it.
The US Government is the biggest scam there is! One count of mail fraud? really? Frozen Assets without proof of guilt? Wake up people! Due process is supposed to be for everyone…
Well said Tom…. If being in the guidlines of the FTC and the IRS are criminal acts, then he is guilty. However, if you READ the court transcripts, which I’m sure the majority of those accusing him out hte of “scamming” people haven’t, you would find that every year the FTC made a visit to iworks and wrote in their reports that the compnay was “within in guidelines as written”.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
I’m not saying he’s not guilty or he is…. all i’m saying is get the facts before you start popping off!
It would do all of us a bit of good to read and study a little more about this messed up government we live in and how we as American’s can fix it.
Evidently this is a “guilty until proven innocent” situation. Allegations and assertions are not “facts”. As a actual judgment has not been declared by the courts in this situation this seems to be an attempt to get the public worked up and biased before anything has been proven. Sounds a little too much like Germany in 1938 to me. The IRS gestapo are “just doing their job” aren’t they? Also, the media would do well to avoid sensationalizing the situation in order to increase their ratings or circulation. This is America isn’t it? Sad.
Last I check we still lived under the red, white and blue. But things are geting a litle crazy.
I just hope it all works out in he end and Justice prevails.
jeremy’s companies charged people’s credit cards for amount they didn’t agree to – and when they did too many chargebacks visa & mc cut off their account. So they opened shell companies to process the payments. They also opened badcustomer.com, which is a way to intimidate people from chargebacks. He made it difficult for people to obtain refunds so that their only choice was to do chargebacks. His business model was sleezy and he made money from people who couldn’t afford it.
I don’t care if he donated zillions to anyone – or that he has a church saying in the foyer of his fancy home. He claims that he is broke but he flies all over the world and supports his family in style. He took advantage of people who were looking for help with grant monies – and the ftc still has civil charges against him. They aren’t able to file criminal charges because they’re not a law enforcement agency like the attorney general, who accepted thousands from him. The wash co sherriff’s office party’d on his dime and used his helicopter rescues. I don’t believe that he helped anyone because he was a good person, it was probably because he wanted to be a “big man.” He is also accused of kidnapping and intimidating someone who owed him money.
Again, his business model was sleezy and he took advantage of people. Lie detectors don’t mean crap – the guy deserves to be in jail and his family deserves to be as broke as the people he took advantage of. But they’ll live in style in Costa Rica and spend the gold & silver he hid away. He prepared for the day he’d be caught – doesn’t that say something to you? Christine, how would you like it if you were broke and looking for help, and someone took advantage of you while they spent millions gambling and living high on the hog? His associates, all of them, deserve to be in jail along with him and to lose every dime they made from their victims.
Please, if he were not guilty why not stay put! He left the country to Costa Rica. His donations were a ploy to cover up his bad dealings! Get the people behind him. He is a gambler, he gambled away hundreds of thousands of dollars. I thought Mormons did not approve of this behavior, he scammed millions from folks so he could gamble on himself. Oh, but wait, he gave so much you can not except you have been scammed yourself.
Sounds like things that would be pretty easy to prove. Should we let them try first? or should we skip that part because he’s rich? or because ellimae thinks his business practices are”sleezy”? or because he resides part of the time in a country that doesn’t harass him?
He lies to the Feds, guess where thats gonna get him?
You might think its cool he fools and rips the common people, you start lying to the Feds and OOOPS its Al Capone time.
He has done it and will continue to do it – his sack of lies is going to unravel on him. Just watch.
Sure, we should let them try him in court. Meanwhile, he lives high on the hog in fancy places, vacations on million dollar house boats and maintains a lavish lifestyle that was bought & paid for by people who were looking for help.
It takes years to get these things to court – and Jeremy & his cohorts ask for our sympathy because he needs $30k a month to maintain his residences and lifestyle. He stole the money, intimidated people and continually worked around the system to benefit financially. People just wanted some help – if he hadn’t slammed extra charges on people’s cards and made it nearly impossible to get refunds it would be different. Instead, he took advantage of vulnerable people.
He hid behind his money, status and religion. Elliemae isn’t the only person in the world who thinks his practices are sleezy. How would you like it if someone stole hundreds or thousands from you, and flaunted a lavish lifestyle? He was mean and selfish, and deserves nothing but the worst.
If I had a dime for every time I saw someone say, “I know this guy personally, so I know he didn’t commit this crime.” Get a grip on reality, folks.
It seems like it would be a lot easier to give money away when you know you shouldn’t have it in the first place, especially if it’s helping you build your “image” of being Mr Nice Guy (which has apparently worked on some of you).
Yeah, give him his due process, but like they say… People who aren’t guilty don’t run. Given that he has gone to great extents to be uncooperative with his customers, credit card companies, and the government in the past, I doubt he’ll be any more cooperative this time around. Give him a sign as big as his ego that reads “GUILTY”, and let him and his lawyers fight it out for years in court. Around here the only thing that matters is the Court of Public Opinion, and he’s surely being convicted… he’ll always be known as “That-rich-guy-who-was-being-investigated-by-the-government-so-he-ran-to-Costa-Rica”.
WOW!! Sounds like a bunch of people that have been “scammed” before and won’t admit that they agreed to a binding contract. If he is so guilty, then why did the FTC drop the case??? Huh?? They could find anythig he did wrong “within the guidelines” written be THEM.
He wasn’t running to Costa Rica, the “Government ban him from conducting business in the US” and so he moved to where he already had business interests to begin again.
I guess some of you just don’t read or do any research.
Let the courts work it out. Whether he is guilty or innocent…. that will be proved. 1 count of Mail fraud. REALLY??
According to everything I’ve read, the FTC hasn’t dropped the case. A grand jury found probable cause to hold him, and the us govt has kept him from continuing to scam people in the US so he fled to Costa Rica.
If there was a “binding contract” with his victims and he was in the right, why did he open so many shell companies to continue bilking people out of money?
I agree with Mike, just about everyone “knows him personally” and he’s a good guy. He scammed nameless, faceless people who were desperate for money. It’s sad that the people who are defending him in the court of public opinion still have their finances intact – if he’d stolen from them it would be different.
I stand by my “sleezy” comment, and respectfully disagree with those who believe that it’s okay to charge people money they can’t afford nor did they agree to pay for nothing. Check out Saltydroid, or http://scamfraudalert.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/i-works-jeremy-johnson-government-grants/. He victimized people and shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
Sounds like Mark may be on Johnson’s payroll…
If he’s so innocent, why has the FTC NOT dropped the case and why are they still keeping his assets frozen? He has to get permission just to make his mortgage payment, or to use his houseboat on Lake Powell. Hopefully he’ll soon need permission to use the bathroom.
He’s been banned from conducting business, had his assets frozen, been arrested and indicted, and will now be extradited back to Utah. Either the FTC and IRS are just a little slow now that tax season has passed, or they’ve got some reason to keep Johnson in sight.
If he’s clean I’ll happily eat my words, but in my happy little world where I get to voice my own opinions and make hasty judgements whenever I want, I have to agree with elliemae that Johnson is looking like a sleazebag.
Maybe Mark should link us to some of this credible “reading and research” he’s been doing? Don’t forget that your blog doesn’t count as a credible source… nor does “The Spectrum”, for that matter.
http://local.sltrib.com/upload/2011/02/1297279022Receivers%20Report%20jj%201.pdf
http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/1023015/101222iworkscmpt.pdf
The receivership report is very good reading, as well as the FTC’s case against him. This guy will be on the next episode of American Greed for Sure.