Utah tech entrepreneur sentenced for fraud

A Utah man whose promised smartphone technology was called " the biggest mobile phone mystery of the 2010s " faces prison time and fines for defrauding investors out of $10 million.

Why it matters: Chad Sayers' "Saygus" smartphones were hailed by tech media — and promoted by the governor's office — for their pioneering video-calling technology .

Catch up quick: Sayers introduced several phone prototypes from 2009 to 2016, promising production would begin soon.

• Meanwhile, he claimed Verizon had certified the phone for years after that certification had expired, federal investigators alleged.

Zoom in: Sayers used those false claims to defraud "approximately 300 investors out of $10 million by lying about Saygus being on the brink of a multi-billion-dollar pay-out," prosecutors wrote in a news statement this week.

• After he was charged in 2021, Sayers illegally solicited more investors while he was on pretrial release, prosecutors wrote.
• That led a federal jury last year to convict him of wire fraud and contempt of court , and he later pleaded guilty to the original securities fraud charge.

The latest: A federal judge sentenced Sayers this week to 29 months in prison for securities fraud, on top of the 41-month sentence for the wire fraud charge. The sentences will partially overlap, totaling 58 months.

• He also was ordered to pay more than $10 million in restitution to the victims.