St. George • Former Toquerville Mayor Keen Ellsworth and a Washington County business associate are facing felony charges in connection with a cryptocurrency operation that was allegedly used to defraud investors.
Ellsworth, 57, who resigned as Toquerville mayor in September 2022 to become district manager of the Hurricane Valley Fire District, and St. George resident Brian Garry Sewell, 52, have been charged with conspiring to conduct an unlicensed money-transmitting business, a class D felony.
Sewell has also been charged with “unlicensed money-transmitting business” and theft of government property, a class D and class C felony, respectively. The latter charge stems from Sewell’s alleged crime of converting nearly $218,000 of property belonging to the United States for his personal use, according to court documents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah.
Wheeling and dealing
From March 2020 to September 2020, Ellsworth, 57, and Sewell, 52, allegedly engaged in a scheme to manage an unlicensed money-transmitting business that they had not registered with the state as required by law, according to court documents. In dozens of transactions over that timeframe, Ellsworth used his company, Ellsworth & Associates, to send Sewell more than $2.5 million, court documents say.
Sewell, in turn, then used his company, Rockwell Capital Management, to convert the cash he received from Ellsworth into cryptocurrency, U.S. attorneys allege in court documents.
In addition, Sewell allegedly took $2.6 million he received from a “separate entity” via 21 wire transfers and used Rockwell Capital Management to convert the funds to cryptocurrency. Neither of Ellsworth’s and Sewell’s businesses were licensed to operate as a money-transmitting business, according to the documents.
Further exacerbating Sewell’s legal woes, he has been indicted by a federal grand jury in a separate case of additional federal crimes, including two class C felony counts for wire fraud and money laundering and one class B felony count for making false statements to secure loans, according to a recent news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Telling tales, doctoring documents
From December 2017 to April 2024, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Sewell schemed to obtain $2.5 million from investors by lying about his education, experience and ability to generate large returns on investments. For example, attorneys say Sewell allegedly told investors he had 22 years of schooling, which included a bachelor’s degree from John Hopkins University and a master’s degree from Stanford University. In fact, he only had a GED and never completed his college studies or earned a post-secondary degree, according to the documents.
Moreover, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and court documents, Sewell lied to investors about having experience running cryptocurrency funds that generated high returns on investors’ investments and concealed the fact that he used Rockwell Capital Management as an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
In July 2020, according to court documents, Sewell applied for a federally insured home mortgage from a mortgage-lending business in which submitted a fabricated W-2 that stated he earned $180,000 in 2019 and $15,000 per month from Rockwell Capital Management in 2020. He is further accused of making false statements to Chartway Federal Credit Union to influence the institution to approve a loan, stating in a forged W-2 that his wages in 2019 and 2020 totaled $350,000 a year and that his 2021 earnings through Rockwell Capital amounted to $175,000 through June of that year.
Ellsworth did not return calls for comment. Sewell, who was arrested in Washington County last month and is in federal custody awaiting trial, could not be reached for comment. Both men have pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial for the two defendants has been set for Aug. 26 in 5th District Court in St. George.
Ellsworth resigned as Toquerville mayor in 2022 after news surfaced about his role as a paid consultant to the developers of a $65 million recreation complex proposed for his southern Utah town. His resignation came following two meetings at which City Council members met privately to “discuss the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual.”
Both meetings were closed to the public.
Ellsworth denied a conflict of interest after his resignation, telling The Salt Lake Tribune that city staff and council members already knew about his consulting gig and that the only reason he resigned was to take advantage of a great career opportunity.
“The timing only makes it look like there might be a connection,” Ellsworth, who resigned Sept. 13, barely eight months into his term to accept the fire district job, told The Tribune at the time. ”There is no way I could do that job and continue to serve as mayor.”
Ellsworth is no longer employed by the district. Hurricane Valley Fire officials confirmed Ellsworth’s last day working for the district was July 2, but declined to comment on why he left.
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
