SALT LAKE CITY — A history of violent behavior and threats will keep a man accused of bilking a Utah billionaire's family confined to jail pending his trial in federal court.

U.S. District Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells ordered Jose Arturo Riffo to remain confined pending the outcome of his case, ruling that he is a danger to the community and a flight risk.

Riffo, 67, is charged with mail fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors allege Riffo persuaded Joseph T. Sorenson to invest $2.5 million in a bogus medical data storage device he claimed to have developed. According to the indictment, Riffo used the money to buy cars, property and life insurance annuities. Sorenson is the son of the late billionaire inventor and philanthropist James L. Sorenson.

"Mr. Riffo has threatened to kill the entire Sorenson family," assistant U.S. attorney Trey Mayfield said during a detention hearing Friday.

Riffo also threatened former business associates, two of whom temporarily moved their families away from Utah, Mayfield said. The prosecutor said Riffo punched his wife in 2005 and beat his girlfriend with a belt in 2008, although he wasn't convicted .

Riffo shook his head and whispered "no" several times as the prosecutor described various intimidation tactics.

Originally from Chile, Riffo has represented himself as the son of an Italian mafia don and claimed ties with the Russian mafia and Mexican drug cartels.

"This guy terrifies people that come across him," Mayfield said.

Defense attorney Gil Athay called the incidents "ancient history" and attributed them to "braggadocio."

"There were no efforts made to carry out these so-called threats," he said, adding that those who claimed to be threatened didn't go to police.

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Wells last month ordered Riffo to undergo an mental-health evaluation. It contained no information that Riffo is mentally unstable. But Mayfield said Riffo wasn't forthcoming in his answers to the evaluator's questions. When asked what he did for a living, Riffo replied that he was self-employed.

"That self-employment is committing fraud," Mayfield said. "He doesn't have a real job."

Riffo served two years in federal prison in the mid 1980s for fraud in a case involving the Osmond family.

e-mail: romboy@desnews.com

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