Prosecutors in St. George have leveled a felony charge against a convicted con artist, accusing him in a new check-fraud scheme.
Wayne Ogden, 42, is in the Utah State Prison's facility in Gunnison after having his probation revoked last month. He was convicted in 1998 of bilking as many as 500 investors out of more than $7 million in a real-estate Ponzi scheme in northern Utah.
On Monday, a warrant was issued for Ogden to be brought to St. George to face the latest charge.
Ogden is charged in St. George's 5th District Court with one count of communications fraud, a second-degree felony. According to the latest charges, Ogden is accused of writing a series of checks that had insufficient funds, in an attempt to help someone already burdened with debt.
St. George police said they began investigating Ogden on Oct. 4 when a $27,000 check from his account bounced. The check was written to a St. George-area couple who had loaned Ogden money.
"Mr. Ogden works for a company, Paradigm Acceptance, where they clean up people's credit by dealing with credit-card companies to get debt amounts lowered," St. George police detective Allen Johnson wrote in an affidavit filed with the arrest warrant. "When a deal is struck, the company loans the debtor money to pay the smaller amount of debt, and in exchange, Mr. Ogden takes out a short-term loan against the debtor's home using his lien as collateral."
The alleged victims gave police a pair of bounced checks from Ogden, written for $200,000 and $120,600.
"(The victim) also had blank checks with only Mr. Ogden's signature, presumably given as a good-faith gesture," Johnson wrote.
Police said Paradigm Acceptance is run by Ogden's brother, Terry. Under questioning, Terry Ogden said his brother "basically ran the business."
"I asked if there are promissory notes or liens involved. He stated there were promissory notes involved," Johnson wrote said in the affidavit. "I asked him if Wayne had authorization to borrow money against the promissory notes issued from his customer. Terry stated he did not."
Terry Ogden said he was aware of his brother's probation status and kept him from handling money. Terry Ogden also told police the checks were unauthorized, the affidavit said.
"Terry stated he did not know about it, but he is finding there are a lot of incidents where Wayne used the checks," Johnson wrote.
After Wayne Ogden was convicted in the multi-million dollar real-estate scheme in 1998, he served 28 months of two one-to-15 year sentences. He was paroled in 2000.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com