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TRADER SENTENCED TO 5 YEARS FOR FRAUD, TAX CRIMES

Pensacola, Florida – Thomas F. Kirwin, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, announced that David A. Owen of Destin, Florida, was sentenced yesterday to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $1.7 million in restitution to his victims as a result of his convictions for commodities fraud, wire fraud, and tax crimes.

Owen, who was indicted in December 2009, operated a commodity pool known as Oasis Futures in Destin, Florida, since January 2005. Owen fraudulently solicited and accepted at least $2,200,000 from the public to invest in the commodity futures market. Owen made numerous false claims to his prospective investors in soliciting these funds, including fraudulently reporting fund profits, falsifying commodity account statements to conceal the true performance of the funds, and failing to disclose his prior convictions for securities and bank fraud. Owen fraudulently held himself out as a Certified Public Accountant. He failed to disclose that his license as a CPA had been revoked in 1989.

Owen’s actions resulted in a loss of more than $1.7 million to the investors of the commodity pool he operated.

Additionally, Owen failed to file federal income tax returns for the years 2005 through 2008. Owen had earned a gross income of approximately $125,573 in 2005, $88,757 in 2006, $98,076 in 2007 and $112,673 in 2008.

As a result of this conduct, Owen was convicted of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and failing to file federal income tax returns following his guilty plea in January of this year.
In addition to the prison sentence and order of restitution imposed by United States District Judge Lacey Collier, Owen was ordered to serve a term of three years’ supervised release following the expiration of his prison sentence. He also was ordered to file correct income tax returns and pay any tax due and owing to the Internal Revenue Service.

This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the State of Florida Bureau of Financial Investigations. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Preisser.