SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office says the senator was never involved in a deal to have a Utah businessman pay Reid to make a federal investigation disappear.

St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson says Utah’s attorney general orchestrated an agreement in 2010 to pay $600,000 to someone connected to Reid.

Johnson told The Salt Lake Tribune over the weekend that he believed Reid would intervene in the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into his business. Johnson is accused of running a fraudulent $350 million software scheme.

A spokeswoman for Reid’s office, Kristen Orthman, says the Nevada Democrat “had no knowledge or involvement” in Johnson’s case and said the allegations “are nothing more than innuendo and simply not true.”

Messages left with Reid’s office for further comment were not returned Monday.

Utah Attorney General John Swallow strongly denies the allegations.

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