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ST. GEORGE — A former Kane County man who allegedly solicited money from elderly individuals by promising he was on the verge of receiving hundreds of millions of dollars pleaded guilty to the charges during a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court.
Kurt Jurgens Bauer, 56, appeared in U.S. District Court in St. George via video and pleaded guilty to five counts, including three counts of wire fraud and two counts of false impersonation of a federal employee – charges that were filed by federal prosecutors in July.
Negotiations have been ongoing in the case since shortly after the indictment was filed, and during Thursday's hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Dent said the government has agreed to a prison term of between 48-78 months to be served in a federal correctional facility.
If Bauer was sentenced to the maximum on all five counts, Dent said, then he would be looking at more than 65 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $1 million in fines.
According to federal prosecutors, the defendant ran the scheme from 2011 through April 2020, during which he defrauded his elderly targets out of money and property by telling them he was on the verge of receiving hundreds of millions dollars – and in some cases, billions of dollars – funds that were frozen by the District Court in Nevada and required a bond to release.
The defendant began soliciting payments, often weekly, under the guise that the payments would be used to satisfy the bond. He promised his victims a large return after the frozen funds were released by the court "in the near future," according to the indictment.
Read the full article at St. George News.
