SALT LAKE CITY — Five years in the making, Wayne Ogden’s trial on his second round of fraud charges began Wednesday in federal court with the defense claim that Ogden was working undercover for the DEA, the FBI and federal housing authorities.
In her opening statement to the jury, Ogden’s public defender Mary Corporan told the jury, ”You’ve been told Wayne Reed Ogden is the author of all things deceptive” referring to the prosecutors’ opening statement. “You will hear a lot about fraud and deceit during this trial and you will hear that the federal government owns a large piece of it.”
Corporan said Ogden, while still in state prison, had approached federal authorities about providing them information about fraud and drug dealing in the real estate industry.
“What I am saying now is the first time anyone has said publicly that Wayne Ogden was a CI (confidential informant) for the DEA,” Corporan said.
The three-week trial will showcase what Ogden was doing from 2001 to 2003 instead of paying back the $9 million owed to his Weber County victims from his late 1990s
Ponzi scheme. He pleaded guilty to those charges, his first round of fraud, in Ogden 2nd District Court in 1998.
Upon his release from Utah State Prison in 2001, federal prosecutors allege he soon began another Ponzi scheme in Salt Lake County. After an FBI investigation spanning four years, those charges were filed in December 2007 in U.S. District Court for Utah in Salt Lake.
After years of motions and depositions, the trial began Wednesday morning. before Judge Clark Waddoups.
Ogden also was charged federally in 2011 with yet another alleged scam, set for trial in April in the same federal courthouse before Judge Ted Stewart, according to court files.
Brother Terry Ogden is a co-defendant in that case, which alleges Wayne Ogden masterminded yet another Ponzi scheme in St. George while running a credit counseling firm in 2005 and 2006. A Ponzi involves using funds from new investors to pay returns to prior investors.
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