Two Portland-based marijuana business owners Thursday were charged with tax-related crimes.

Nathan Wheeler, 42, of Portland, was charged with one count each of wire fraud and tax evasion. Matthew Price, 32, was charged with four counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns.

Wheeler, a certified public accountant who with others operated Milwaukie-based tax firm Bridge City Advisors LLC, is accused of defrauding clients and investors of more than $4.4 million while evading paying income taxes.

Wheeler also is accused of using investor money to help build and expand his marijuana-grow enterprise. He held an Oregon medical marijuana license to grow and distribute pot, according to prosecutors. Investigators say he sometimes prepared false account statements to keep clients from discovering the unauthorized use of their money.

Three years ago, federal prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint that preserves the government's right to claim property on behalf of those allegedly cheated out of it. Federal investigators raided Wheeler's Happy Valley home in 2014 and 2015, seizing several hundreds of marijuana plants, but no criminal allegations were filed until Thursday.

Wheeler's Bridge City Advisors in Milwaukie is not affiliated with a financial advisory firm with the same name that has offices in Lake Oswego and Portland.

Price, a part-owner and operator of Portland and Eugene medical marijuana dispensaries called Cannabliss, is accused of receiving substantial income from the businesses. He previously operated a legal marijuana farmers' market under the same name.

From 2011 to 2014, he failed to file income tax returns, resulting in a tax loss of nearly $263,000, according to a criminal information filed in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Both men are scheduled to make their first appearances in court April 25. They couldn't be reached immediately for comment.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian