Arizona man charged with defrauding local physician out of $207,000

PHOENIX — A federal grand jury in Phoenix returned an indictment against a Fountain Hills man accused of wire fraud and transactional money laundering.

The indictment alleges that the 45-year-old Jeremie Sowerby scammed an Arizona physician out of $207,000 under the guise of a purported risk-free investment opportunity called “Justice Capital.”

Sowerby convinced the physician that the guaranteed return could be withdrawn in cash or Bitcoin at any time. Instead, Sowerby just stole the money and used it for his own purposes, including an $83,000 cashier’s check made out to an entity he owns and controls, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.

This is not Sowerby’s first offense of the sort, as he was previously charged in September for a similar incident, which also included 42-year-old Luis Ortega.

Sowerby and Ortega were charged with scamming hundreds of victims out of millions of dollars in a cryptocurrency scheme. That case remains pending.

A conviction for wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both. For transactional money laundering, a conviction carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 or both.

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