All Charges Dismissed: Ryan Bloom’s 18-Month DOJ Nightmare

When the FBI Calls Your Wife

Ryan Bloom got a phone call from his wife that changed everything. She was traveling with two of their children when someone kept calling her phone, claiming to be an FBI agent coming to arrest her husband. “There’s no way, like, what?” Ryan told me when I asked about that moment. He had no idea what was coming.

Ryan had built a utility construction company in Oklahoma over seven years with a business partner. They’d done $60 million in sales, paid out $30 million in wages to employees. The company had failed and gone through bankruptcy, but Ryan thought he’d moved on. That’s when things went from bad to worse.

Six FBI Agents in the Front Yard

When Ryan called the number back, Special Agent Ben Busek told him he had a warrant for his arrest and was posted outside his neighborhood. “You need to come out of your house with your hands in the air,” the agent said. Ryan’s response? “How many iTunes gift cards do you need me to go get? This has to be a scam.”

But when Ryan looked outside his window, there were three silver sedans and six FBI agents in navy blue jackets with yellow lettering. His nine-year-old son was with him, alone in the house. “What I’ll never ever ever ever get over is my nine year old son was with me alone,” Ryan said. “And I looked at him and he’d kind of heard all this play out. And he thought it was a big practical joke. And he had the biggest smile on his face.”

The agents wouldn’t let Ryan explain anything to his son. They put him in cuffs and drove off, leaving the boy hiding in the house until Ryan’s father arrived.

The Investigation That Wasn’t

When Ryan’s attorneys got the FBI files, they discovered something shocking. The FBI had interviewed three witnesses the week before the sealed grand jury indictment. That was it. The entire investigation consisted of three interviews done after the indictment was already in motion.

The case centered on Ryan’s company’s relationship with a bank that had loaned them money and purchased accounts through a program called Business Manager. The bank claimed Ryan had abused this program to commit felony bank fraud. But Ryan had a factual basis for every single transaction his company had done.

One FBI report claimed Ryan had driven a witness down a specific street in January 2023 in a Tesla Cybertruck. The problem? That vehicle didn’t exist to anyone and wouldn’t be on the market for another year.

The Prosecutor’s Conflict

Ryan started researching the people involved in his case and uncovered disturbing connections. The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney DH Dilbak, went to Ryan’s church. But more concerning was Dilbak’s wife, Mackenzie, who worked for the University of Oklahoma and directly reported to Joe Harris Jr., the university president.

Joe Harris Jr. wasn’t just any administrator. He was also listed as a board member, shareholder, and founder of the bank that was claiming Ryan defrauded them. Over ten years, Mackenzie Dilbak’s salary had jumped from $50,000 to $310,000 while working under Harris.

“If there was somebody who had been instrumental in my wife or me personally, going from $50,000 to $310,000 a year over a very short period of time, I would have a significant loyalty,” Ryan explained. “My judgment would be clouded by how influential that person had been.”

Fighting Back With Facts

Ryan’s attorneys initially dismissed the conflict concerns. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office is not a collections agency,” they told him. “They don’t go do favors for their friends.” But as they dug deeper into the facts, their tune changed. One attorney with 30 years of federal court experience said the connections were “making the hair on my arm stand up.”

Ryan spent hundreds of hours organizing documents to support every transaction his company had made. He even went to job sites with a friend from church to collect rock samples because the prosecutor claimed they had charged for rock removal where no rock existed. Ryan’s attorney warned him not to call them “boulders” because that’s slang for large amounts of cocaine.

Throughout this 18-month nightmare, Ryan kept working. His new employer could have fired him after the arrest made news, but instead they stood by him. “We believe in innocent until proven guilty,” the CEO told him. “We believe that innocent people can be targeted by the justice system for unjust reasons.” That support was a game changer for Ryan and his family.

All Charges Dismissed

In November, Ryan learned his case would be dismissed, but he couldn’t talk about it publicly. “I thought I’d feel relieved, I’d feel just this weight lifted,” he said. “I might feel happy. I might feel sad. I didn’t know what, I didn’t feel anything. I just felt completely numb.”

The formal dismissal came weeks later. Ryan had achieved what every federal defendant hopes for but almost never gets. All charges dismissed. The prosecutor was disqualified from the case, something that happens in less than 1% of federal prosecutions.

Ryan’s story shows what can happen when someone fights back with facts, finds the right legal team, and uncovers the real motives behind a prosecution. His company may have failed, but he didn’t let the government’s overreach destroy what remained of his life. Sometimes the nightmare really does end with complete victory.