Scam artist faces decade in prison for Scottsdale restaurant fraud

In 2023, Utah-based businessman Aaron Wagner was making a name for himself in the Valley. 

The entrepreneur projected a lavish lifestyle on social media, posting pictures of private jets, supercars and ribbon cuttings at luxe restaurants. Wagner claimed he managed $1 billion in real estate, restaurants and other investments through his firm, Wags Capital. He was only getting started.

He’d bought a sliver of valuable land in Old Town Scottsdale, where he hoped to build a three-story restaurant and bar. And he partnered with a local hospitality group to build a nightclub in downtown Gilbert.

By 2024, the former Canadian Football League player, who purportedly earned his first million dollars at 26, became known not for his financial prowess, but for allegedly stealing millions of dollars from investors. 

His Valley deals are dead. He made a different deal, with U.S. prosecutors, last month. On Aug. 26, he pleaded guilty in a federal court in Utah to three charges related to bank fraud and conspiring to commit both wire fraud and money laundering. Wagner could face 60 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

In a statement to the court, Wagner admitted that “almost immediately after receiving investor funds in this scheme, we began using the funds to purchase and acquire assets the investors had no legal ownership interest in.”

What happened to Swags in Scottsdale?

Wagner was arrested by FBI agents in October 2024. He and his business partner, Michael Mains, were indicted the following month for wire fraud, money laundering and other financial crimes.

The pair duped investors who believed they were putting their money into an expanding portfolio of restaurant chains, including Crumbl Cookies, Everbowl, Dirty Bird and others under their business Wagscap Food Services LLC, an unsealed indictment said. Wagner and Mains promised some investors a 39% return on their funding to open more Dirty Bird restaurants, even though they knew the few Dirty Bird eateries they’d opened were not profitable.

They told investors that Wagscap Food Services had “a proven track record of profitability and quarterly investor distributions,” Wagner shared in his statement to the court. “In fact, Wagscap Food Services was unprofitable, borrowing from investors in other entities to cover its payroll and operations.”

Meanwhile, the men spent investors’ money on themselves. 

Between October 2021 and February 2022, Wagner spent more than $8 million on a personal plane and properties. He bought a five-bed, six-bath home on 75th and Cholla streets in Scottsdale. He secured the .13-acre Old Town property, which he bought for more than $4.3 million. He then refinanced the Shoeman Lane land to buy a $90,000 Audemars Piguet watch.

The prime Old Town space was formerly home to the shuttered Three Wisemen bar. On that plot, Wagner set out to build Swags, a three-story, high-end restaurant and rooftop terrace where diners could live large on A5 Wagyu and caviar.

There was a catch: Scottsdale zoning only allows a two-story building at that site. The city would have to approve the taller restaurant. 

Swags won approval from Scottsdale’s Planning Commission, but when the proposed restaurant came before Scottsdale City Council in late 2023, an influential Old Town business owner, Shawn Yari, protested the change. He helms the real estate company Stockdale Capital Partners and is associated with Riot Hospitality Group, which is behind Shiv Steakhouse, Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, Maya Day + Night, Cake Nightclub and other Old Town hotspots.

At the time, Yari was building a hotel across the street from Swags and worried the restaurant’s noise would affect guests.

Because of Yari’s protest, a supermajority of the City Council was needed to approve the change. In January 2024, the City Council voted 4-3, one vote short of securing the height change. Without the city’s blessing, Wagner’s vision for his soaring restaurant was doomed.

A controversial project in Gilbert

While Wagner was pitching Swags in Scottsdale, he announced another deal in the Valley in 2023. He partnered with Evening Entertainment Group to open a double-decker location of the beer garden and nightclub, Bottled Blonde, in the heart of Gilbert’s Heritage District. 

The modern two-story restaurant and bar was planned to replace Gilbert’s second-oldest building, a small bungalow built in 1918 that operated as Bergies Coffee for nearly 14 years. Concern grew not only for the fate of the historic Clare House, but also among neighbors worried by the addition of another bar — one known for scantily dressed staff — in the already raucous nightlife district. 

The town’s hands were tied, officials said, because Wagner bought the land in a private sale. Despite a petition signed by thousands and concerns raised at town meetings, all the town could do was ensure the space met building guidelines. 

But Wagner agreed to give HD South, a Gilbert historical society and museum, time to raise funds to relocate the historic house. Each time a deadline and proverbial wrecking ball approached the Clare House, Wagner perplexingly extended it, eventually giving the group until early 2025 to move the house. 

By the fall, however, those deadlines didn’t matter. After the FBI arrested Wagner in October 2024, Bottled Blonde’s owners scrapped the project.

After a tumultuous few years, the historic property will get new life as part of a large indoor-outdoor restaurant created by a neighboring restaurant owner.

Nathan Ares, who ran the brunch restaurant Prep & Pastry next door to the Clare House, met Wagner while the drama over Bottled Blonde was unfolding in Gilbert. When Ares saw the news of his arrest, he reached out to Wagner with an idea to use the land and protect the house.

Ares will open Clare Social House in the former Prep & Pastry space in November and debut a connected “gathering yard” on the land where the quaint bungalow sits back, surrounded by shade trees, in early 2027. 

“We’re just so excited to introduce something exciting and new into an area that’s been the same for so long,” Ares told Phoenix New Times earlier this month. “This property should never have been available. We got lucky.”

Wagner pleads guilty

Late last month, Wagner pleaded guilty to three charges related to bank fraud, conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering. 

He admitted to a scheme securing a bank loan for improvements to a shopping center. Wagner used the money to improve his Utah home, add a “man cave” to a commercial property and pay down $50,000 of debt racked up on an American Express card.

He and Mains also “agreed we would overstate the development costs in order to induce excess investment proceeds,” his statement filed with the court in advance of his plea agreement said. They redirected money to other projects, including the Old Town property.

The pair also created fake debts owed by Mains as a ploy to hide assets from creditors or Mains’ wife.

As part of Wagner’s deal, the feds seized sports cars, including a 2015 Lamborghini Huracan, along with properties and cash. The proceeds from the sale of the Old Town property, more than $4.8 million, are the most valuable of the assets taken as part of Wagner’s deal.

Samir and Alvin Yono bought the Scottsdale property. The Yonos filed a plan with the city to build a restaurant, but the father and son are sticking with just two stories. Right now, the project is on hold while they look for a tenant.

Under the terms of his deal with prosecutors, Wagner is expected to serve 10 years in prison. A judge will consider Wagner’s agreement and sentence at a hearing on Nov. 18.