Convicted swindler C. Dean Larsen lost the last of his many appeals Friday and will likely be headed to the Utah State Prison soon to serve his nine-year prison sentence for fraud.
The Utah Supreme Court Friday affirmed Larsen's conviction in a 5-0 decision, ending the last of Larsen's many state appeals. The only way the former president of Granada, a local real-estate development company, could avoid prison now is if he appeals his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court and the high court agrees to hear the case.That isn't likely because Larsen hasn't raised any issues of federal law in his appeals. But state prosecutors are reluctant to say "never" when it comes to Larsen. The developer has deftly avoided avoided prison with one appeal after another since he was convicted on 18 counts of fraud 31/2 years ago.
In his latest appeal, Larsen claimed that state prosecutors failed to prove that he intended to deceive investors. State law requires such proof, he argued.
State prosecutors countered that Utah's securities law required prosecutors to prove that Larsen's lies and omissions were willful and not accidental. They did not have to prove that Larsen intended to defraud investors.
Larsen claimed that if he told his investors something "in good faith," he is not guilty of fraud even if what he told investors wasn't true or he left out important facts.
Not so, said the five justices. In a 12-page ruling handed down Friday afternoon, the court said that the plain language of Utah's law does not call for proof of the intent to deceive.
Instead, the prosecutors must only prove that Larsen meant to say and do the things he did. " `Willful' does not require the intent to violate the law or to injure another," the ruling says.
In his appeal, Larsen warned that if the high court sided with prosecutors, Utah accounting firms that do business audits could be found guilty of a crime for overlooking or omitting something important in the audit. Other professionals could also be prosecuted for oversights, he said in his appeal.
The court disagreed. The court's interpretation of the law "will only affect those professionals who willfully omit or misstate materials facts," Justice Michael D. Zim-mer-man wrote.
"We're not going to prosecute people who accidentally do something wrong," said Assistant Utah Attorney General Michael Wims. "This ruling doesn't make securities fraud easier to prove. It just means we don't have to start proving something that wasn't already in the statute."
Larry Keller, Larsen's attorney, couldn't be reached for comment.
Larsen served four months in jail on two related theft convictions. Both sets of convictions stem from Larsen's management of Granada, a real estate development company that collapsed into bankruptcy in 1987. Larsen founded the company in 1970. Granada's bankruptcy cost thousands of investors more than $100 million.