Jailed Ponzi defendant used Morse code to dictate hit letter, prosecutors say

Prosecutors say a Utah man tried to hire a hit man to kill witnesses in a fraud case against him by dictating a letter from jail by Morse code.

The disclosure came Tuesday as federal Magistrate Paul Warner rejected Jeffrey Mowen’s request to be freed until trial. Warner ruled that Mr. Mowen was not only a flight risk but a dangerous man.

The judge also ruled against Mr. Mowen’s effort to stop U.S. marshals from selling a collection of around 200 cars to pay back investors. But he was given seven days to object to auction prices.

Among Mr. Mowen’s collection: a 1981 DeLorean sports coupe, a 1989 Bentley Turbo, a 1969 Dodge Charger and a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda. Many of the cars have never been driven and some motorcycle tanks never filled with gasoline.

Most vehicles are so clean “you could eat dinner off the engine,” auctioneer Rob Olsen told The Associated Press. “I’ve never seen cars this nice.”

The 47-year-old Mowen was arrested in April in Panama on charges of running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, then indicted in October on additional charges.

According to the indictment, Mr. Mowen solicited more than $18 million from investors, whom he lured with promises of high returns, some as high as 33 percent a month, in what turned out to be bogus foreign currency trading and real estate leveraging programs.

To dupe investors into thinking their investments were paying off, he used funds from newer investors to make payments to earlier investors, the indictment claims.

In the latest charge against, Mr. Mowen, prosecutors say he used jail phones to try to dictate a snuff scheme to a hit man. Last year, Mr. Mowen was accused of trying to hatch a similar plot. According to Utah officials, the investment manager tried to persuade a fellow Davis County jail inmate to kill four witnesses in the fraud case to keep them from testifying at trial. Mr. Mowen has since pleaded not guilty to the charge.