Provident Royalties Executives Pledge Guilty in Fraud Scheme
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law Offices:
Brendan W. Coughlin, 46, of Dallas and Henry D. Harrison, 47, of Dallas, who founded and controlled Provident Royalties, Inc. and W. Mark Miller, 59, of Plano, Texas, who served as its chief financial officer and later, as president, have pleaded guilty to an investment fraud scheme and have been ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution.
Between Jan. 1, 2013 and Feb. 3, 2013, Coughlin and Harrison conspired with others to defraud investors throughout the United States. Specifically, Coughlin, Harrison, and other individuals made materially false representations and failed to disclose material facts to their investors in order to induce the investors into providing payments to Provident. Those included statements that funds invested would be used only for the project for which those funds were raised. In truth, funds from investors in later oil and gas projects were being used to pay individuals who invested in earlier oil and projects. Miller knew that the crime had occurred but failed to report it to the authorities and instead took affirmative action — authorizing the lulling payments to investors — to conceal the crime from discovery.
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