Main player in scheme gets more prison time

A main player in a fraudulent offshore investment scheme was sentenced to more than four years in a federal prison Monday. The sentence comes on top of another sentence, ordered last month, calling for the defendant to serve more than five years.

Ozy J. Neeley, a former Provo-area attorney, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of wire fraud and was sentenced to serve 51 months in federal prison and pay restitution of more than $14 million. He will also serve three years of supervised release when he finishes his prison sentence.

Neeley was charged with conspiracy, money laundering and wire fraud in a January 2001 indictment following an investigation by the IRS and the FBI. According to a statement from the office of Attorney General Paul Warner, the indictment charged Neeley and other participants with executing a scheme whereby client funds were solicited for investment in a bogus high-yield European investment program involving large European bank debentures.

Neeley was sentenced last month for his involvement in a separate scheme in which several accomplices, also former attorneys, evaded nearly $2 million in taxes by providing illegal tax shelters for wealthy clients by creating off-shore accounts on the Isle of Man.

The head of the operation, which was known as Anglo-American International, was convicted in 2004 and is currently serving a 10-year prison ter