Former El Dorado County resident Daniel Chartraw, 40, was sentenced today to four years and nine months in prison and was ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution.

Chartraw pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges in January.

According to court documents, between Jan. 1, 2007, and Nov. 31, 2011, Chartraw defrauded investors through false representations regarding a variety of investments, including investments in mines, mining and refinery equipment, oil commodities, precious metals concentrate, and multimillion-dollar certificates of deposit.

In one instance, Chartraw stole $1 million by fraudulently posing as an owner and manager of a company selling “dore” bars, which Chartraw claimed contained precious metals. Chartraw arranged for an investor to tour the company and managed to limit the investor’s interaction with the company’s true owners and prevent discovery of the scheme. When the investor placed $1 million into an escrow account for the purchase of the dore bars, Chartraw used a forged letter to get the escrow company to send the money to accounts he and others controlled.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report