Former Houston Trader Pleads Guilty In Gas Trading Fraud
Stephanie Roqumore pled guilty to 2 counts of wire fraud for her scheme to defraud several natural gas companies. Roqumore was a gas trader in Houston, Texas, who defrauded 12 natural gas companies of nearly $8 million from March 2002 to April 2010.
Roqumore was the owner/employee of 3 natural gas trading companies – SRR Energy Management Resources, Inc, d/b/a Gas Energy Management, Inc. (GEM); Gas American Resources, Inc. (GAR); and, Resource American Energy (RAE). She was the only employee of the three shell companies.
She applied for lines of credit from the 12 companies she sought to do business with using fraudulent financial statements she created for the three companies she owned. She used fake CPA documents to create the false financial statements she submitted with her requests for credit. She then purchased natural gas using the lines of credit, resold the the inventory to other companies. She collected the money from the sales and then failed to pay the companies for the gas she had purchased.
Roqumore will appear before Judge Jose A. Moreno, Southern District of Texas, on May 9, 2011. She faces up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine for each count. She will also forfeit $4.8 million in profits she collected in the scheme.
