REVEALED: ‘Fake Viagra’ Utah GOP Senate candidate Trent Staggs who is running campaign based on his business experience filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and claimed $1M in liabilities
Trent Stagg’s campaign portrays him as a successful business fixer, but the Utah Senate candidate filed for bankruptcy in 2010, claiming he had debts of nearly $1 million.
On August 12, 2010, Staggs filed for personal bankruptcy with $818,825 in debts and $459,317 in assets. Liabilities included a $50,000 judgment from a civil case in Clark County, Nevada.
He reported earning $1,954 a month in unemployment insurance. Bankruptcy was declared on November 18, 2010.
DailyMail.com previously reported that Staggs, the right-wing Senate candidate from Utah, was once put in charge of a company that was shut down after the FDA alleged it had improperly marketed his “natural” Viagra product.
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Staggs’ race last month.
A right-wing Utah Senate candidate used to run a fraudulent company that was shut down by the FDA over its ‘natural’ Viagra product
Staggs was pressed about the bankruptcy filing at an event and avoided answering.
“This room is full of people who value personal responsibility and accountability. I have in hand a bankruptcy petition filed in 2010 by a man named Trent Philip Staggs. My first question is: is that you? And second, if you value personal responsibility, integrity and accountability, how can you file for bankruptcy and force your debts on the public?”
“Next question,” Staggs said.
Kirk intervened. ‘Do you like Donald Trump or not? Donald Trump used the bankruptcy laws for his own good and purpose.”
Trump’s companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six times.
“Some people have no choice but to file for bankruptcy and call tomorrow a better day!” Kirk continued.
Also in 2010, JP Morgan Chase filed a lawsuit against Staggs and Tahitian Tan LLC for failing to repay a loan.
In July 2010, the court awarded JP Morgan Chase a total judgment of $26,839.63 including interest and attorney fees, according to court documents seen by DailyMail.com.
As of the lawsuit’s filing, Staggs owed the bank $21,766.63.
Staggs’ defense had tried unsuccessfully to argue an obscure monetary theory as to why he did not have to pay back the loan.
Known as the ‘vapor money theory’, he said the loan was unenforceable because the bank did not lend ‘real’ money backed by gold or silver, the bank put nothing into the transaction and therefore no enforceable debt was incurred.
Trent Staggs, a member of the Mormon Church who is running to replace Mitt Romney in the Senate, bills himself as a “classic Utah success story.”
His website states that he has “more than twenty years of experience running and managing successful Fortune 500 companies to small and medium-sized enterprises.”
Staggs has scored the endorsements of some big political names, including Trump and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake
The campaign of Staggs (pictured with his wife) to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney is being supported by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who will campaign with him in Utah this week. He has been mayor of Riverton since 2018
But Staggs took over as president of the soon-to-be-defunct Regeneca company in 2015.
The company was forced to recall its erectile dysfunction drug RegenErect three years earlier, after the FDA claimed the so-called “natural” product contained common Cialis and Viagra that they had not disclosed, potentially putting users at risk of fatal health complications.
The FDA also claimed that the company’s weight-loss supplement, which was marketed as “all-natural,” was actually just amphetamine — a stimulant drug.
Staggs noted that he was not the leader of the company when it sold the erectile dysfunction drugs, and that he was brought in to turn things around.
“All of these issues, which predate my arrival, are exactly why they brought me into the company as interim president. The owners needed someone to evaluate the business and see if there was a way forward,” he told DailyMail.com in a statement.
Staggs has also received support from pro-Trump politicians such as Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, former Trump administration officials Kash Patel and Ric Grenell. He is one of eleven Republicans competing in the primaries to succeed Romney.