SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City returned a 16 depend indictment charging two Utah businessmen with varied monetary crimes, together with wire fraud and cash laundering. The two enterprise companions are accused of defrauding personal traders and lenders in restaurant companies similar to Dirty Bird, Everbowl, and Crumbl Cookies.
Aaron A. Wagner, 42, of Alpine, Utah, was initially charged by criticism on October 23, 2024, within the District of Utah and brought into custody. Wagner and his enterprise accomplice and codefendant, Michael Mains, 46, of Alpine, Utah, had been indicted November 6, 2024.
According to court docket paperwork, from March 2021 and persevering with to the current, Wagner and Mains devised a fraudulent scheme to trick lenders and traders to ship tens of millions of {dollars} to entities Wagner and Mains managed by means of Wagscap Food Services, LLC. These entities included, Hello Sugar, Dirty Bird, Everbowl, Crumbl Cookies, Las Botellas, and others. Wagner would inform lenders and traders that their funds could be used for growing sure eating places. Instead, Wagner used the funds for private bills or investments, or to prop up tasks for different investor teams, which additionally included himself as an investor.
Court paperwork allege Wagner would additional trick traders that he was a profitable businessman by displaying off his personal lavish life-style, together with private jets, unique automobiles, and luxurious holidays. Wagner didn’t disclose a big a part of his success was financed by investor funds he allegedly stole from the companies they had been meant to help. Essentially, Wagner used new investor cash, obtained by means of fraud, to falsely appease earlier traders.
As a results of the scheme, Wagner introduced in additional than $40 million from traders. Wagner and Mains diverted tens of millions for their very own private profit to make purchases, together with however not restricted to a $4 million greenback second house for Wagner in Scottsdale, Arizona; an $8 million private airplane; a $4.5 million business property to be developed right into a nightclub; and $8 million actual property property in Missoula, Montana.
Wagner and Mains are charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, transactional cash laundering, and concealment cash laundering. Their preliminary look on the indictment was November 8, 2024, earlier than a U.S. Magistrate Judge on the Orrin G. Hatch United States District Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City. A jury trial is scheduled for February 3, 2025.
United States Attorney Trina A. Higgins for the District of Utah made the announcement.
The case is being investigated by the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office.
Assistant United States Attorneys Carl D. LeSueur and Brent L. Andrus of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah are prosecuting the case.
If you consider you’re a sufferer of the alleged fraud talked about on this press launch or have data in regards to the fraud on this press launch, please e-mail wagnermainsfraud@fbi.gov.
An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed harmless till confirmed responsible past an affordable doubt in a court docket of legislation.
