Swindler receives March 15 parole date

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 1, 2004 | by Associated Press

POINT OF THE MOUNTAIN -- Swindler Wayne Ogden is scheduled to be released from prison again.

Ogden has been given a tentative March 15 parole date.

Amid four lawsuits and an ongoing FBI investigation, the former Weber County real estate agent was returned to prison Sept. 9 for parole violations.

Ogden was first paroled in November 2000 after serving 28 months for bilking 500 investors, mostly his friends and neighbors in Weber County, of an estimated $7 million. Investigators said Ogden was promoting a real estate development that was never more than a Ponzi scheme.

Ogden was paroled to Sandy in Salt Lake County, where he generated news again last year when four lawsuits were filed against him over $9 million or more in missing investors' funds.

The FBI took over the investigation of Ogden from four Salt Lake County police agencies that had received complaints about him and his now-bankrupt Empire Investment Group, headquartered in a Sandy storefront.

The parole violations chiefly involved Ogden violating a ban on his handling of investment funds.

"We relied, to some extent, on the allegations under investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office," said Robert Steed, assistant attorney general.