A Florida financial adviser has been indicted in an alleged scheme to promote and operate an illegal tax shelter through which he stole some of his clients' funds, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Stephen T. Mellinger III, of Delray Beach, Florida, conspired with several others to defraud the Internal Revenue Service in 2013 by promoting an illegal tax shelter, according to the indictment returned Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Gulfport, Mississippi, and unsealed Thursday.