A main player in a fraudulent offshore investment scheme was sentenced to more than four years in a federal prison Monday in Salt Lake City. The sentence comes on top of another sentence, ordered last month, calling for the defendant to serve more than five years.
Ozy J. Neeley, a former Provo-area attorney, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of wire fraud and was sentenced to serve 51 months in federal prison and pay restitution of more than $14 million. He will also serve three years of supervised release.
Neeley was charged with conspiracy, money laundering and wire fraud in a January 2001 indictment following an investigation by the IRS and the FBI. According to a statement from the office of Attorney General Paul Warner, the indictment charged Neeley and other participants with executing a scheme whereby client funds were solicited for investment in a bogus high-yield European investment program involving large European bank debentures.
Neeley was sentenced last month for his involvement in a separate scheme in which several accomplices, also former attorneys, evaded nearly $2 million in taxes by providing illegal tax shelters for wealthy clients.