Attorney General’s office takes legal action against solar panel company after Fox 8 reports

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) — The Louisiana Attorney General has filed a legal demand seeking records from a north shore solar panel company after a series of Fox 8 Defenders investigations.

We detailed complaints from customers in Louisiana and Mississippi who said their solar panel systems never worked after installation. Now, one of those customers says he’s thankful to see AG Liz Murrill’s office fighting for them.

Facing payment on a $99,000 loan for what he describes as defective solar panels on his Mississippi home, Jim Dutton says he’s spent the past year and a half trying to get answers from Tren Solar and its owner.

“I was down in the dumps there for a while. But then you called and it was like, they’re going after him and I went, ‘Yeah,’” Dutton said.

Dutton said he has renewed hope after the Louisiana Attorney General’s office filed a civil investigative demand in St. Tammany Parish Civil Court against the company.

“It’s a tool in the Attorney General’s toolbox which allows them to propound discovery,” attorney and Fox 8 legal analyst Joe Raspanti said.

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In the filing, the AG’s office asked for all records, files, documents, devices and items relating to the installation of solar panels by Tren Solar and its owner, Timothy Reyn Rogers. The filing says the attorney general’s office has evidence the company and its owner engages in methods or practices that violated the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.

“This is the civil end of the attorney general’s office, that is doing what they’re supposed to do to protect the citizens of Louisiana,” Raspanti said.

The AG’s office also requested records that show payments to Tren Solar by customers not only in Louisiana but Mississippi as well. That would include Jim Dutton. We first brought you his story last May.

“They installed the panels within three days. I was like, ‘Wow, this is cool. They weren’t kidding (about activation within) four to eight weeks.’ Then, it was radio silence,” Dutton said last year.

Dutton said the panels didn’t work. He said he later learned from the utility company that provides electricity to his home — Cooperative Energy — that it had not approved Tren Solar’s plan for the solar panels. Mississippi code says the co-op must first approve the plan before it can be installed.

After our first story aired, more Tren Solar customers reached out to the Fox 8 Defenders. We heard from people on the north shore and from Bill Rose in Perkinston, Miss.

“I actually went to Covington to the (business) address, about a month or six weeks ago, to the address they had on my contract. And there was no one there,” Rose said last May.

Rose said he paid $38,000 to Tren Solar and that his panels have never worked.

We also interviewed former employees, who said the company stopped paying them.

Former employee Jon Williams told Fox 8 last June the company owed him for “four weeks of work. A salary employee. So, that’s not including my gas and my truck. My own vehicle. Salary for $4,400. $4,500, something like that.”

Another ex-employee, Peyton Cefalu, told us last May, “We would not get paid for two weeks. He wrote us a check, made us drive to Abita Springs to get our check and then it bounced. It wouldn’t even clear the bank.”

Court records show the AG’s office filed its civil investigative demand in late June, two days after one of our investigations aired.

In the filing, the state alleges Tren Solar and Rogers made misrepresentations to consumers and deceived them into entering into contracts by representing the company would completely and properly install solar panel systems for their residences. It alleges the company did not complete the work, failed to communicate with consumers and failed to issue refunds.

Raspanti says he thinks the AG’s office listened to public outcry.

“Well, I would hope that that’s what they’re doing, is listening to the public outcry,” he said. “Because they work for us and that’s the attorney general’s job — or one of their jobs — is to protect the public.”

Court records also show that after the civil investigative demand was filed, Rogers exchanged emails with an attorney for the AG’s office over the course of three months.

At times, Rogers wrote he would deliver the requested documents. At other times, he explained why he didn’t have what the AG’s office requested. He also gave more insight into the company, which he said he founded with two other people in 2020, before it shuttered.

“From the start, we struggled financially (maxing out all personal and family members’ credit cards),” Rogers wrote in August 2025.

“Because of my position as the sales leader and communicator, I became the face of the company in many ways. That role has brought heavy scrutiny and turmoil onto my family in the aftermath.”

He also wrote, “I will never be involved with solar installations again, and I have no intention of pursuing entrepreneurship after what I have gone through in this experience.”

When asked if he thought Rogers’ responses in the emails sounded like excuses, Dutton said, “Absolutely. Hogwash, to be exact. Because I can’t say the other words on TV, I guess.”

According to court filings from the AG’s office, Rogers did not provide requested information by the deadline and stopped responding altogether by September. The state then filed a motion to compel compliance with its investigative demand, which a judge signed off on in December.

“Which means the judge is getting in the game now and the judge is telling this entity, ‘You need to turn this stuff over, otherwise I’m going to give you consequences,’” Raspanti said.

We learned this week that Rogers has turned over some information to the attorney general’s office. Raspanti said that leaves the AG’s office with a choice.

“Their decision is going to be: Do they file a suit against these people for money judgment against them as restitution for the people of Louisiana?”

It remains to be seen how Mississippi resident Dutton might be affected. For now, he’s trying to mitigate the damage to his credit caused by the $99,000 loan he took out for the solar panels.

“I always pay my bills,” Dutton said. “I always pay my bills, but this one I’m not paying, until I get something in return.”

Dutton said he’s eager to see how the attorney general’s investigation turns out.

“I just want something to happen to prevent this from happening to other people,” Dutton said.

We reached out to Rogers for comment on this story a number of times, but couldn’t reach him.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office told us, “Rest assured, the Attorney General’s office will review and use every legal avenue available to try and get justice for consumers and hold Tren Solar accountable.”

If you have a consumer complaint you’d like us to look into, call the Fox 8 Defenders, staffed with volunteers from the National Council of Jewish Women at 1-877-670-6397. Or click here to fill out our online complaint form, which is the easiest way to reach us.

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