Convicted Swindler Ruled Incompetent

An Oxnard financial planner convicted of swindling investors and facing new, unrelated fraud charges was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial Wednesday.

Wayne Neal Fleischer, 51, will probably be sent next month to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, where he will remain until doctors deem him fit to stand trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Aveis said.

Psychiatrists told Ventura County Judge Vincent J. O’Neill Jr. that Fleischer suffers from bipolar manic depression syndrome.

The Ventura County Grand Jury in February indicted Fleischer along with four Los Angeles residents on charges of grand theft, securities fraud, selling unregistered securities, money laundering and tax evasion.

Fleischer and his co-defendants are accused of selling stocks in a bogus company that claimed to have been involved with financing the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He faces 13 years in prison if convicted on all charges, Aveis said.

Last year, Fleischer was sentenced to seven years in state prison after admitting to operating another, unrelated financial scam out of his Oxnard office. But on Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele agreed to reconsider that sentence, given news of Fleischer’s deteriorating mental condition in jail.

But Aveis said he will ask Steele on Friday to let the sentence stand. If unsuccessful, Aveis said he will appeal Steele’s decision to a higher court.