Alleged white-collar criminal Rick Koerber could soon be facing new charges, prosecutors said Friday during a status hearing in U.S. District Court.
"We expect a superseding indictment within a month," according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stewart Walz, who said the investigation into Koerber's financial affairs is ongoing.
Koerber, 36, a Utah County resident, was indicted in May by a federal grand jury on two felony fraud counts and one for tax evasion.
Koerber taught seminars on real estate investing, and he and others ran a number of companies grouped around FranklinSquires Cos. that received at least $100 million from investors.
The indictment alleges that about half of investor money was used to pay back other investors, making it a Ponzi scheme.
Investigators say hundreds of people, many of them from Utah County, invested in the alleged scam.
Koerber has pleaded not guilty and said most of those people did not invest directly in his companies but rather through third parties. And those third parties, he said, may have made promises he did not know of or approve and may not have even sent the money to FranklinSquires or its affiliates.
Meanwhile, court-appointed defense attorney Jerry Mooney has withdrawn from the case because Koerber has hired his own attorney, Marcus Mumford.
Magistrate Samuel Alba gave Mumford approximately 90 days to familiarize himself with the case and identify the pre-trial motions he plans to file.
No trial date has been set.
