A Utah-based real estate developer, who made headlines in Missoula after and subsequently online, has been arrested on a federal wire fraud charge. Aaron A. Wagner, 42, was arrested last week by U.
S. marshals after federal prosecutors accused him of using part of a $2 million investment in his restaurant business to purchase a private plane. As of Friday he was being held in a Salt Lake City jail, according to arrest records.
The criminal complaint, unsealed late last week, states that the money was raised from a Nebraska investment group. The head of the investment group told an FBI investigator that the plane purchase was not an approved use of the funds, according to the complaint. The total cost of the plane was more than $8 million, according to the investigator, $6 million of which was financed by bank loans.
The remaining $2 million was allegedly paid “almost entirely” from accounts related to investments in Wagner’s restaurant ventures. The criminal complaint only lists one count of wire fraud, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. But it indicates his alleged diversion of funds for a personal plane was part of a broader pattern related to his investment companies, including WagsCap Food.
Wagner “would show off to investors in person and in promotional materials Wagner’s own lavish lifestyle (including personal jets, exotic vehicles, luxury vacations, etc.) to induce investors to believe that he was a successful businessman,” the criminal compla.
