Paradigm Oil and Gas Inc (PDGO)

[TD105]

Here is another link to Cameron Cravey who is linked to PDGO corporate address at 123 E. Market Street Mabank Texas

http://www.themonitor.net/Archive/01-22-12/frontpage.htm

Jury awards $7.3M in ponzi suit
Eustace couple faces judgement in fraudulent oil and gas scheme
By Pearl Cantrell
Monitor Staff Writer
KAUFMAN–A jury awarded $7.3 million to a group of 22 oil and gas venture capitalists, who feared their money might be unrecoverable. The total award results in recouping their original investment back times six.
The verdict turned against Henderson County residents Cameron Cravey and his wife, Kimberly. According to TaxNetUSA, Kimberly owns a residence on CR 2858 with a Eustace mailing address valued at $653,160.
Kimberly was charged with exemplary damages, totaling $1.1 million. Her husband was assessed $2.2 million in exemplary damages. The amount invested in Cravey’s companies by the investors totals $836,660.90, according to court documents.
The jury is permitted to consider the difference between what the investment was represented to be (a rapid payback with increasing oil prices), and what they actually got, Little explained. It also includes attorney fees and court costs of $200,000 to total the additional $3.264 million award.
The jury in Judge Howard Tygrett’s 86th District Court found that Cameron Cravey, with his wife’s knowledge, had committed theft and fraud, misappropriated funds and intentionally breached his fiduciary duty. In addition, 10 of the 12-member jury also found that the defendants violated the Texas Securities Act in a number of areas and fraudulently transferred assets to a special trust fund in their children’s names.
The trial, the third in a series of litigation started back in 2007, began Jan. 9 and the jury brought back a 70-page verdict Wednesday in Kaufman.
None of the investors were from Henderson, Van Zandt or Kaufman counties.
After a full day of deliberations and reviewing the contents of some 1,500 pages of documents, the jury also found that a third-party defendant, Matthew Boultinghouse Sr., a Dallas resident and a salesman for Cameron Cravey was not responsible for any damages awarded to the plaintiffs.
“I’m confident that the jury reviewed the evidence and paid attention to details. I also feel justice was served in this case,” Plaintiffs’ attorney Mitch Little told The Monitor.
Considered “unusual” by Little, neither the defendant’s attorney, Charles Settle, of Arlington nor his clients were present for the verdict.
Boultinghouse Sr., testified that he started making a minimum of 400 sales calls a day for C. Cravey to secure investors in developing a 600-acre oil field near Wichita Falls in 2004. He described it as a telemarketing effort, after which a brochure went out followed by a Q&A session with C. Cravey and a check sent.
Then in 2005, Boultinghouse went up to the drill site and worked as a roustabout, leaving only after assuring himself that the oil well was now in operation. A short time later, he said C. Cravey reported during a sales meeting that the well had locked up. That’s when questions of legitimacy started forming in Boultinghouse’s mind. “Things didn’t seem to jive,” he said.
Boultinghouse quit the end of 2006, he said.
C. Cravey claimed that Boultinghouse Sr. had a working interest in the project and had sold parts of this to the investors. Boultinghouse represented himself at trial and assured the jury that none of the 1,500 pages of documents supported that claim because it just wasn’t true.
In 2010, the investors, represented by Mitchell Little won a favorable ruling from Judge Tygrett to recoup their original investment and damages, at which point C. Cravey moved for a jury trial and the judge’s ruling was set aside on a technicality.
A new trial was set and jury heard testimony and then in the 11th hour, C. Cravey filed for personal bankruptcy, and once again the investors were put off.
Eventually, the bankruptcy court in Fort Worth threw the case out, and the investors were still left holding the bag.
In the interim, a company from Utah bought the oil field for $6.4 million and funds were wired to the Wells Fargo branch in Kaufman and electronically withdrawn the same day.
Boultinghouse said he spoke with the bank branch manager and confirmed the movement of funds and the appearance of C. Cravey and another associate attempting to open another account.
“The branch manager said she told the men to leave and never come back,” Boultinghouse told The Monitor.
Little immediately filed for a new court date, which resulted in what is likely the second largest jury award in the history of Kaufman County.
The largest award was for $296 million handed down Oct. 21, 1999 in the case of a faulty pipeline explosion that resulted the deaths of two children. The plaintiffs in that case later settled for an undisclosed amount.
In closing remarks to the jury, Little reminded the jury of Beverly Wanke, a 70-year-old retired school bus driver from Crosby, who invested her life’s savings and is unable to pay for her husband’s costly medical care.
“The Craveys are evil,” Little said.
The case now goes to judgment and a final determination on the money and how it is to be paid, Judge Tygrett said.