Most people understand we all have to breathe the same air, so if one person pollutes with impunity, we all suffer. Plus, it isn’t like we don’t have photos from pre-emissions-regulations Los Angeles to remind us of just how bad things can get without emissions controls. Thankfully, even though Republicans are doing their best to legalize polluting as much as possible and destroy the courts, there are still occasionally consequences for breaking the law and ignoring court orders, something Diesel Brother David “Heavy D” Sparks found out the hard way when he was arrested Tuesday morning, The Drive reports.
If you aren’t already familiar with Sparks’ legal issues, back in 2020, the co-host of Discovery’s “Diesel Brothers”, along with Joshua Stuart, Keaton Hoskins, and David “Diesel Dave” Kiley, was ordered to pay about $850,000 in fines for violating the Clean Air Act. In addition to the fines, the judge also ruled that Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the plaintiffs in the case, were eligible to receive attorneys’ fees, rumored to have topped $1.2 million. It was a pretty open-and-shut case, too, since UPHE bought a modified diesel truck directly from Sparks, had its emissions tested and found its greenhouse gas emissions were 36 times the legal limit, while particulate emissions were 21 times the limit.
Fast forward to last week, and Bloomberg Law reported that a warrant had been issued for Sparks’ arrest, with the judge writing:
As the court explains below, the most recent two findings of contempt relate to Defendant Sparks’s failure to pay fees owed to Plaintiff and his violations of subsequent orders seeking to coerce his compliance. Based on the parties’ submissions, the court finds Defendant Sparks has both failed to purge these prior contempt findings and engaged in new conduct warranting an additional finding of contempt. And having exhausted all other mechanisms to ensure his compliance with court orders, the court will order Defendant Sparks incarcerated until he complies with the specific requirements necessary to purge his contempt.
All you had to do was comply, man
Looking a little more closely at the order, the first contempt finding has to do with the $843,602.23 in fees that Sparks, along with Diesel Power Gear LLC, B&W Auto LLC, and Joshua Stuart, were jointly required to pay. “Over three years later, after Defendants had failed to pay any amount to Plaintiff under the Fees Order, the court found all Defendants in contempt on June 24, 2024 for their noncompliance,” the judge wrote. They were then ordered to provide a list of pretty much everything they own or have an ownership interest in, so the judge could move forward with satisfying the judgment against them.
The first enforcement order also banned the defendants from transferring any property, an order Sparks allegedly ignored when he held an asset liquidation sale in late July 2025. He was held in contempt again but was allowed the opportunity to purge his contempt before being arrested. The second enforcement order allowed him to continue the sale but required him to “deposit with the Clerk of Court, on three separate occasions, the sale’s gross proceeds along with sworn accountings of all items sold.”
On August 18, Sparks received his first notice of noncompliance after failing to fully comply with the first enforcement order. Then, on September 4, he received a second notice of noncompliance after failing to make the second and third deposits from the asset liquidation sale and failing to provide a sworn accounting for that third part of the sale. He also transferred the ownership of two vehicles without the court’s approval and failed to provide a balance sheet showing his real estate holdings.
Sparks then failed to respond to the second notice of noncompliance, and on September 19, “Plaintiff filed a Motion seeking relief related to Defendant Sparks’s noncompliance. Defendants opposed this Motion on October 1, 2025.”
What happens next
Once the court concluded that Sparks remained “in civil contempt for his ongoing violations of the Fees Order and the First Enforcement Order” and found him “in civil contempt for his violations of the Second Enforcement Order,” the judge ordered his arrest “until such time as the court finds he has purged his contempt and orders his release from custody.” Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long to learn more, as there’s also a hearing scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Since Utah’s on Mountain time, that will be 12:30 p.m. for you East Coasters.
Of course, Sparks would never have ended up in jail if he had simply complied with the court’s orders. And if he didn’t want to do that, he could have always followed the law and not sold a bunch of ridiculously dirty diesels. But no, he was too selfish to do that. He wanted to break the law, make life worse for little kids with asthma and other lung conditions, force his neighbors to breathe dirtier air and then dodge the consequences of his actions.
And if you’re mad I’m siding with the judge here, I don’t know what to tell you. Vehicles don’t exist in a vacuum. They exist in the real world where actions have consequences, and there’s a reason we’ve long had the saying, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” And part of having a hobby is acknowledging and dealing with the negative effects your hobby has on others. I don’t know if you know this, but other people are also people, just like you and me. Caring about others and not going out of your way to harm them is just a basic requirement for not being a terrible person, and it still applies whether we’re talking about not blasting music at 3:00 a.m. or not modifying your truck to roll coal. Sorry.
