Man admits he ordered son to shoot him on Idaho road

PORTLAND – A developer convicted in a mortgage fraud scheme has pleaded guilty to additional federal charges after admitting he ordered his son to shoot him in the legs in an effort to collect on a disability insurance policy and delay his prison sentence.

Shannon Egeland, 41, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and willful failure to pay child support.

Egeland was vice president of the now-defunct Desert Sun Development company, which orchestrated tens of millions of dollars in mortgage fraud during Central Oregon’s real estate boom and bust from 2004 to 2008.

A judge ordered him to federal prison on Aug. 1, 2014, to begin serving a 10-year sentence. The day before he was to report, he was wounded in a roadside shooting near Caldwell, Idaho.

Egeland, who had moved to Idaho in 2013, told police he was hit in the head and shot in the legs after stopping to help a pregnant motorist in the middle of the night. It was later revealed the shooting was staged, and he had directed his teenage son to shoot him with a 20-gauge shotgun.

The wire fraud charge stems from a disability insurance policy that Egeland applied for a week before the shooting that caused an amputation.

Besides suffering the disability in a deceitful manner, Egeland lied in the application he sent across state lines from Idaho to Portland’s Standard Insurance Company. He told the company he had not been arrested in the past 10 years.

In addition to the fraud case that netted him a decade behind bars, he had committed two other crimes. In late 2010, he was convicted of selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school. In 2013, he was convicted of theft for stealing $9 worth of items from a store.

Egeland, beyond answering procedural questions, did not make a statement at Wednesday’s hearing in Portland. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Bradford said he planned to recommend a five-year prison sentence, tacked onto what Egeland’s already serving.

U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown scheduled sentencing for Oct. 5, though it could get pushed back because it coincides with the trial she is overseeing for Ammon Bundy and others charged with occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon.