An assault charge against Ron Gibson, former president of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, has been dismissed due to an issue with the jurisdiction in which it was filed.

“There was a little confusion over the jurisdiction,” said Weber County Attorney Christopher Allred. “Initially it went to Hooper and I believe it took some time to sort that out. It’s been determined that was in the unincorporated area of Weber County rather than Hooper, so Hooper dropped it.”

He said now the Weber County Attorney’s Office is looking into whether it will refile or not.

“The case is still pending in our office being screened by our justice court prosecutor,” he said.

Allred was unsure of an exact timeline of when there will be a decision on refiling or not.

The Standard-Examiner also reached out to Gibson’s attorney, Steven Burton, on Monday and he provided the following statement.

“We have reached out to the prosecutors for the City and the County. We are grateful they have been willing to take a closer look at the case. We hope that after considering the additional circumstances that led up to the incident, they will determine that they were not given the whole story initially and that further prosecution in this case would not be in the interests of justice.”

Ron Gibson was arrested Aug. 8 by the Weber County Sheriff’s Office after allegedly striking a worker at his farm, Gibson’s Green Acres Dairy.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed in the case, “the victim called 911 and stated he was assaulted by his boss, Ron Gibson. The victim stated him and his several co workers were not being paid. He said the crew has not received their past 4 paychecks from Ron. When the victim went to Ron’s farm where they work, he confronted Ron about not being paid. There was a small verbal altercation that took place. The victim showed me on video, Ron telling him to shut up in Spanish and then proceeded to back hand him across the face. This caused the victims mouth to bleed and required medical attention.”

At the same time, Gibson also was accused of human trafficking and fraud, though no further elaboration on the nature of those allegations has publicly been made and no such charges are pending against him. The Department of Public Safety’s Special Bureau of Investigation took up investigation into the allegations of fraud and human trafficking. The investigation is still ongoing.

Within days of the August incident, Gibson resigned his positions as president of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation and as a member of the board of directors for the American Farm Bureau Federation.

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