The owner of MagnaGro International, a Lawrence-based agricultural fertilizer company that has caught the ire of federal agencies and the city, was arrested Friday afternoon on a federal warrant.

According to Douglas County Jail records, Raymond Glen Sawyer, 59, was booked into the Douglas County Jail just before noon on a federal hold warrant without bond. But federal officials said they could not comment on the arrest.

According to federal court records, U.S. District Judge Julie A. Robinson on Wednesday filed a sealed order in the 2008 case against Sawyer and the company, 600 E. 22nd St., that had been closed since July of 2010.

In that case, Sawyer pleaded guilty in 2009 to discharging waste from a fertilizer operation into the city’s sewer system. He received five years of probation, and Sawyer and the company had to pay a $240,000 fine.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Friday afternoon he could not comment on matters that have been sealed by a federal judge.

In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a civil complaint and compliance order against MagnaGro for failing to tell the agency what hazardous wastes were on the site.

In April of last year two men suffocated when they were overcome by fumes from a material being mixed at the site. City officials later declared the site “unfit for human occupancy” and boarded the doors.