SALT LAKE CITY — A former Utah County Commissioner and a businessman accused of impersonating high-ranking LDS Church officials to further questionable land deals pleaded not guilty to fraud charges Friday.

Ex-commissioner Gary Jay Anderson, 68, of Springville, and Alan Dean McKee, 56, of Benjamin, were charged in February with three counts of communications fraud and one count of engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity, all second-degree felonies.

McKee, whose company was once named Utah County Business of the Year, was ordered to stand trial on the allegations following a preliminary hearing in June. Anderson was bound over in the case three weeks later.

Both men entered not guilty pleas Friday. However, while Anderson was allowed to leave the courthouse following the hearing, McKee was taken into custody on a warrant issued Thursday in a new fraud case against him.

McKee was charged Thursday with communications fraud and theft, both second-degree felonies, in the new case. Bail will be considered at a hearing Wednesday.

Anderson returns to court Sept. 23.

Anderson and McKee are accused in the first case of attempting to get Minnesota-based Ames Construction to invest in a large industrial park in Elberta, Utah County, called the Tintic Rail Line.

The two men are accused of using letters, emails and phone calls to impersonate high-ranking officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to legitimize the project, ultimately pushing Ames board members to pay out between $300,000 and $400,000 from 2012 to 2014, supposedly backing permits to start the project.

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Utah County businessman accused of fraud faces new charges

Prosecutors say that since he was released on bail for fraud charges, businessman Alan Dean McKee has been accused of new but similar crimes.

In addition to the project near Elberta, prosecutors say McKee and Anderson tried to get Ames board member Mark Brennan and Benjamin resident Chet Olsen to invest in farm equipment. They claimed it was excess equipment that the LDS Church was trying to sell.

Brennan invested $250,000 for the equipment, and Olsen paid $755,000 in down payments for the equipment, according to the charges. McKee told Olsen the equipment was being sold through bankruptcy court and was tied up in legal proceedings.

Anderson's attorney, Nathan Crane, has claimed Anderson was also duped by McKee, investing $110,000 from his own retirement funds with the businessman, and was not complicit in the scheme.

In the new charges against McKee, prosecutors say he used a letter purporting he owned a stretch of railroad track in Utah County to get two companies, R&R Equipment and Greenbox Recycling, to remove and recycle items from the line.

Union Pacific records show McKee has never owned the stretch of track, and $70,000 in checks from R&R and Greenbox to McKee have been canceled by the state, charges state.

The allegations date back to August 2015 and continued after McKee posted bail in February.

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