Auction of 210 cars is postponed again

SALT LAKE CITY — The auction of about 210 cars, motorcycles and boats worth $6 million has been indefinitely halted until prosecutors complete more paperwork.

The vehicles were seized by the FBI from Jeffrey Lane Mowen, who is charged with buying them with ill-gotten funds from a fraudulent investment scheme.

The first auction had been scheduled for Thursday, but it was postponed after Mowen, 47, of Lindon, filed an objection in court. Now, a second auction that had been scheduled for Jan. 21 has also been canceled.

In a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Warner, Mowen conceded that the planned sale itself was valid, but he said the federal government had "not complied with its own procedures for the interlocutory public judicial sale," court documents state. The judge agreed and ordered prosecutors to complete more paperwork on the sale and appraisal process.

Mowen has been charged with wire fraud, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, witness tampering and retaliating against a witness. Officials say he represented himself as a successful trader in foreign currency, swindled investors out of about $18 million and tried to convince a prison inmate to kill his investors to prevent them from testifying against him.

Prosecutors say Mowen used the vehicles in question to perpetuate the fraud. The collection includes a 1925 Ford Model T Speedster, a 1956 Austin Healey convertible, a 1970 Pontiac GTO, a 1971 De Tomaso Pantera GTS coupe and many more.

— Emiley Morgan