Fulton County man speaks out after being sued by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita for jet ski dispute

FULTON COUNTY, Ind. -- A Fulton County man is speaking out after being sued by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita for allegedly selling him a faulty jet ski.

According to court documents, Rokita claims the defendant, Jess Sampson, uses Facebook Marketplace to sell motor vehicles while engaging in deceptive and unfair practices, violating Indiana's Consumer Sales Act and Regulation of Vehicle Merchandising Act.

In an exclusive interview with ABC57 News, Sampson claims the jet ski issues came down to user error, and that Rokita 'used and abused' the jet ski he bought from him.

"It's unbelievable, it's unexplainable," says Jess Sampson, the defendant in the lawsuit.

When Sampson received a Notice of Violations in the mail from the Indiana Attorney General's office this past November, he thought it was fake.

"I felt like it was maybe it was a, what would you call a scare tactic," Sampson says.

In this notice, that he says he received three days before Thanksgiving, he had two days to pay nearly nine thousand dollars to the AG's office to avoid a lawsuit.

But then he recognized the name at the top, Todd Rokita, as a person he had done business with a few months prior.

Rokita reached out to Sampson in the summer of 2025 on Facebook Marketplace from his personal Facebook page, asking him for mechanical help with his jet ski.

After two attempts to repair the jet ski, Sampson decided he didn't want to be liable for the jet ski.

"So, at this point, I told him, I said 'Okay look, there's something going on with a major component part inside the motor', I said I'm going to have to look at it, come up with my own conclusion with what to do," Sampson explains. "At this time, he sends me pictures and messages from the previous owner before him that had the jet ski with the same exact problem with the same exact things going on when that guy had it."

So, Sampson says he offered Rokita his own family jet ski for purchase over text message, which Rokita bought for three thousand dollars.

Sampson says it came with a built motor and an open title.

"I explained to him the break-in procedures, about how it was a completely built motor, that there were procedures to follow, he was handed a packet of paper that showed the break-in instructions and how it should be done," Sampson claims. "He was totally fine with it, he totally understood."

Two days later, Rokita reported issues with the jet ski.

According to Sampson, Rokita brought it back, and Sampson determined the engine was blown.

Sampson says Rokita wanted his money back, but instead Sampson would meet him halfway and repair the jet ski at no charge.

"At this point in time, that was the greatest thing ever; he was stoked; he couldn't believe it," Sampson says.

The jet ski had been repaired, and Sampson says they ran it through multiple tests together.

From there, Sampson says they shook hands, and he told Rokita that any future problems with the jet ski would be Rokita's problem.

"All our ties from anything past here once it was fixed, was cut," Sampson explains.

Weeks later, Sampson says Rokita reached back out and had committed to buying another jet ski from Sampson.

But hours before Rokita was set to pick up that jet ski, he reported another issue with the jet ski that had been repaired.

Sampson says he has reason to believe, according to text messages Rokita sent, that Rokita wasn't following the proper break in instructions; pushing the engine too fast too soon.

"I fixed it, everything was good. He took it out a second time and blew it up again because he had nowhere near the ten hours on it that he should have," Sampson says.

At that point, Sampson says Rokita offered to bring back that jet ski and pay only five hundred dollars for the second jet ski.

But Sampson did not like that deal, and it was the last he heard of Rokita until he received the notice of violations in the mail.

Now, he is getting sued by the AG's office.

"Really what I found was a Facebook scam," says Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita. "And I found a man who very much looks to be title jumping, selling really inferior products, saying so otherwise, so there's a Deceptive Consumer Sales practice. My end goal is to put him out of business, so he doesn't hurt other Hoosiers."

But Sampson has issues with these claims.

He says he never sold the jet ski off Facebook Marketplace, since it was over text, so it wasn't advertised publicly.

But what he really can't get behind, is that Rokita is coming after him for title jumping.

"He knew that that title was being jumped, he intentionally accepted that title being jumped, and him being the King Dog of Indiana and the top attorney, he should have shut that right down as being a not legal practice, but instead he didn't, he went ahead and took it and committed to a second one," Sampson says.

He also can't understand how he is being sued by the state of Indiana.

"I did not sell a jet ski to the state of Indiana; I did not service a jet ski for the state of Indiana, I did not do none of that," Sampson says. "What I did was service a jet ski for Todd Rokita and his own persons."

"Just because I'm Attorney General doesn't mean I'm not a consumer," says Rokita.

ABC57 asked Rokita if he knew about the title jumping during these transactions, to which he said he knew Sampson had a clipboard of titles, which he says gave him suspicion and so he turned it in.

Now, Sampson faces fines of up to ninety thousand dollars in total for consumer restitution that Rokita is requesting of over eleven thousand dollars, and then the rest in violation fines to the state of Indiana.

As for the lawsuit, Sampson filed a motion to dismiss earlier this month, which a Fulton County judge denied.