2 weeks Ago
A Utah-based real estate developer, who made headlines in Missoula after buying the old Missoulian building and subsequently making a series of hateful comments online, has been arrested on a federal wire fraud charge. Aaron A. Wagner, 42, was arrested last week by U.
S. marshals after federal prosecutors accused him of using part of a $2 million investment in his restaurant business to purchase a private plane. As of Friday he was being held in a Salt Lake City jail, according to arrest records.
Aaron Wagner, pictured in one of his Instagram photos. The criminal complaint, unsealed late last week, states that the money was raised from a Nebraska investment group. The head of the investment group told an FBI investigator that the plane purchase was not an approved use of the funds, according to the complaint.
The total cost of the plane was more than $8 million, according to the investigator, $6 million of which was financed by bank loans. The remaining $2 million was allegedly paid “almost entirely” from accounts related to investments in Wagner’s restaurant ventures. The criminal complaint only lists one count of wire fraud, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
But it indicates his alleged diversion of funds for a personal plane was part of a broader pattern related to his investment companies, including WagsCap Food. Wagner “would show off to investors in person and in promotional materials Wagner’s own lavish lifestyle (including personal jets, exotic vehicles, luxury vacations, etc.) to induce investors to believe that he was a successful businessman,” the criminal complaint alleges, “all without disclosing that many of these indicators of success were in fact financed by investor funds he had stolen from the very businesses they were meant to support.
” Wagner allegedly told investors that their money would be used for real estate or restaurant ventures, but instead diverted funds to other failing projects “in order to conceal the fact that he had already squandered or diverted the investors’ money.” Wagner, a Canadian immigrant who played college football for Brigham Young, was one of three investors who purchased the former Missoulian building at 500 S. Higgins in 2021.
The trio, which included Missoula developer Cole Bergquist, initially announced plans to create a multi-story housing development on the property with retail spaces on the ground floor. A concept image from 2021 of what was planned at the Missoulian building site. But two days after the announced purchase, Wagner fired off a series of offensive messages on social media to people in the Missoula community who had criticized the development plans.
His responses to comments in November 2021 included mocking locals who had posted responses to an Instagram video of the proposed development, including anti-transgender slurs. Developer of Missoulian building apologizes for 'heinous' comments Following a swift backlash, Wagner later tried to apologize, calling his comments “heinous” and telling the Missoulian in an interview that he’d had “a few too many margaritas” on a family vacation. "I woke up this morning reading some of the stuff I said, and I thought 'what an asshole,'" Wagner said at the time.
"I felt really bad. A lot of those people were pretty young. Regardless, it was just immature and just stupid for me to say.
" He also told the Missoulian he would be taking a “back seat” on the project to let Bergquist lead the planned development. The building has remained vacant since the Missoulian newspaper relocated to its current office on West Broadway, although Bergquist unveiled a more fleshed-out plan for the property in 2022. Wagner’s arrest last week follows months of unverified rumors circulating online alleging that he’d defrauded investors of their money.
Wagner allegedly solicited the $2 million from Nebraska-based investors to build Hello Sugar restaurant locations. Hello Sugar is the name of a Spokane restaurant that sells mini doughnuts, which has only one location, according to its website. “Wagner used a portion of the Hello Sugar investors’ $2 million to acquire an airplane for himself, and it appears the Hello Sugar investors received nothing,” states the complaint, signed by Carl Lesueur, an assistant U.
S. Attorney for Utah. Wagner is scheduled for an initial appearance Tuesday before Magistrate Judge Daphne A.
Oberg in U.S. District Court in Utah.
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