David Sparks, a reality television personality known as “Heavy D” from the Discovery Channel’s “Diesel Brothers,” has been arrested in Utah for civil contempt of court after a federal judge ruled he repeatedly violated orders stemming from a lawsuit over illegal modifications to diesel vehicles.
Sparks was taken into custody on October 7 and is being held in a Salt Lake County jail, according to court and inmate records. The arrest follows an October 2 order from U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby, who found Sparks had “repeatedly and willfully” defied the court. In the order, the judge stated the court had “exhausted all means short of incarceration to obtain Defendant Sparks’s compliance.”
The contempt charge is the latest development in a case that began in 2017, when the activist group Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment sued Sparks and his associates. The group alleged the “Diesel Brothers” stars violated the federal Clean Air Act by removing emissions control systems from diesel trucks and then selling them, causing the vehicles to emit pollutants far exceeding federal standards.
In March 2020, Judge Shelby ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering Sparks and his co-defendants to cease the modifications and pay over $843,000 in legal fees to the environmental group. According to court filings, Sparks’s failure to pay these fees led to the initial contempt finding. Subsequent court orders, including one prohibiting him from transferring personal property, were also violated when Sparks held a garage sale.
Cole Cannon, Sparks’s attorney, said in a statement that his client “looks forward to his timely release and resolution of this matter.” He characterized the arrest as part of a “civil matter regarding some zealous environmentalists seeking collection of attorney’s fees” and noted that no crime has been alleged.
Sparks, who has a combined social media following of over 8 million, addressed the lawsuit in an August YouTube video. “There’s a lot of things about the lawsuit that I don’t feel are fair,” he said, while also acknowledging, “we made some mistakes in the early days of our business.”
According to the court order, Sparks can be released from jail if he either pays the outstanding fees in full or makes a series of court-mandated filings to resolve the issues. A hearing in the matter was set for October 8.
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