A pair of Utah businessmen are making serious allegations of fraud against Rep. Trevor Lee, and the claims go well beyond political disagreements.
In videos posted to the website Stop Trevor Lee, Moxie Pest Control CEO Jason Walton and his business partner Phil Nielsen allege that Lee manipulated company checks more than a decade ago while working for them in Raleigh, N.C. They say a bookkeeper flagged suspicious transactions, a bank investigation followed, and the bank concluded Lee had been cashing the same checks multiple times. Nielsen says that when they confronted Lee with copies of the checks, he denied wrongdoing until they threatened to call police—then admitted it.
"Our company has employed over 10,000 people over the years, and we've had dozens of people steal. But I have never seen someone do it in the way that Trevor Lee did it. It was unique, and it was special, and not in a good way," Walton said of the alleged scheme.
The site posts what it calls an “admission of guilt” Lee signed in 2013, along with images of altered checks.
Walton was a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in 2024.
A second video features Trent Spafford, founder and CEO of Enevive, a Pleasant Grove water research firm. Spafford says Lee worked for his company more recently and described a pattern of alleged dishonesty that he says ultimately cost the company a government contract opportunity at Hill Air Force Base.
Spafford’s claims are extensive: after hiring Lee as a full-time sales consultant in 2024, he says, Lee asked for $93,000 in commission advances, citing a legal fight with a homebuilder in Layton.
“He would come to us in tears, saying he would lose his home. We kept giving him the advances,” Spafford said in an interview with Utah Political Watch.
Eventually, the debt piled up.
To settle it, Spafford says, Lee pitched a fix: He’d leverage his position at the Capitol to help land a grant or contract tied to Hill Air Force Base, then use his commission to wipe the slate clean.
Spafford says he has dozens of audio recordings documenting Lee’s promises. In one clip he shared with Utah Political Watch, Spafford lays out the plan to use government money to retire the debt.
“If you want to continue a good relationship … we’re able to get a 15% to 20% government contract,” Spafford says on the recording. “As we talked about, wiping the arrears away—that’s a win for me, so that you don’t owe that to me.” He adds: “And then the possibility of still working with Alex—I hope that’s a good relationship despite what might be happening here.”
“Alex will do what I say, and I’ve told him to move forward with you guys and everything,” Lee replies. Spafford says “Alex” is lobbyist Alex Tarbet, who was helping Lee secure the contract.
Spafford says he fired Lee last summer after learning Lee was moonlighting for a competitor, BlueLogic. He filed a federal lawsuit in September naming Lee among the defendants, alleging Lee made sales calls for a rival while still at Enevive and used Enevive’s client list and lead-generation software to do it. Spafford says he dropped the case this month, calling recovery unlikely.
“The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze,” Spafford said.
Rep. Lee refused to comment when contacted by Utah Political Watch.
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