Christopher J. Warren, who fled the country with a fortune in gold and returned with a paltry $70,000 in cash stuffed into the cowboy boots he was wearing, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Sacramento federal court to identity theft and wire fraud related to cheating lenders out of $19 million.

Warren, 29, was one of three men and a woman who skipped the country while under investigation as part of a still-ongoing federal probe of Roseville-based Loomis Wealth Solutions, which authorities say was a front for a Ponzi scheme that spread over five states and clipped investors for at least $100 million.

Warren, who had been feeding information to government agents and attorneys, posted an admission of his evil ways on his company's website Feb. 1, 2009, and disappeared the next day.

The Folsom resident was charged in a criminal complaint three days after chartering a private jet in Las Vegas that took him to Beirut. A week later he flew into Toronto. From there, he took a taxi 100 miles to Buffalo, N.Y., where his odyssey ended in the hands of U.S. border officers.

He was arrested on the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo with Fort Erie, Ontario. In addition to the cash in his boots, he carried $5,800 worth of platinum and phony passports. But there was no sign of $5 million in gold he allegedly had with him when he left the country. He has been in jail since his arrest.

Warren is scheduled for sentencing April 24. He has agreed to a prison term of 14 years and seven months.

As part of his guilty plea, he confessed to bilking mortgage lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker out of more than $7 million, and to fraudulent loans totaling more than $12 million in connection with his employment at now-defunct Loomis Wealth Solutions in 2007 and 2008.

A fact sheet that Warren signed off on, which is attached to his written plea agreement, describes an assembly line at Loomis Wealth Solutions that was churning out bogus loan applications. The document states that Warren worked under the direction of John Hagener, father-in-law of Lawrence Leland "Lee" Loomis, who created and headed Loomis Wealth Solutions.

Loomis and Hagener have not been charged with crimes related to the operation, but they are accused of massive fraud in a civil lawsuit filed in Sacramento nearly two years ago by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

As part of Tuesday's plea, Warren also admitted engaging in aggravated identity theft by fraudulently obtaining passports in the names of real persons who were unaware of what he was doing. He used the stolen identities to purchase gold and travel abroad, he acknowledged.

As for the other investigation targets who left the United States, Garret Griffith Gililland III and Nicole Magpusao were tracked down in Spain and extradited to Sacramento.

The third man, Scott Edward Cavell, fled to Ireland and is still a fugitive. While it has an extradition treaty with the United States, Ireland does not often extradite people wanted in another country on criminal charges, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Carlberg.

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