A former Oregon certified public accountant who stole about US$4.5 million from his clients, including Olympic snowboarder Daniel Kass, to support his “Playboy” lifestyle and marijuana business has been sentenced to more than four years in prison.
Witnesses told a federal judge on Thursday that they were duped by Nathan Wheeler’s personable manner only to learn that he had bilked their life savings, the Oregonian reported.
Prosecutors say he stole more than US$900,000 from Kass and misappropriated the trust fund of two porn shop heirs.
He also bought his fiancee an engagement ring using the investments of a retired law enforcement officer, prosecutors said.
“I was working for the American dream, but that dream became a nightmare when I met Nathan Wheeler,” said Kass, who won silver medals in the halfpipe in the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics.
Kass had started a sports apparel business in Portland in 2001, but said he could no longer support it and had to close. The 37-year-old now lives with his mother in California “all because of Nathan Wheeler.”
US District Judge Karin Immergut said that Wheeler displayed an “utter disregard for others,” using lies to lure people who trusted him with their retirement savings and their future.
Wheeler, 43, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and attempted tax evasion last year.
In court, he agreed with a lot of the testimony against him, saying he cheated them to fund his lifestyle of “nightlife, booze, drugs and money.”
He said he has been in counseling, got remarried and is focused on his family.
“From 2010 through 2015, my word was garbage,” Wheeler said. “I’ll be sorry and ashamed for the rest of my life.”
The investigation began when the Oregon Liquor Control Commission looked into Wheeler’s medical marijuana growing enterprise, which was much larger than the state’s medical marijuana program allowed.
Wheeler received US$143,390 from out of state for illegal distribution of marijuana, prosecutors said.
He persuaded clients of his accounting firm Bridge City Advisors to invest in real estate, promising a high rate of return. Often within hours of his clients wiring him money, he would divert it for his own use or to support his pot business, they said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier