A. Courtney Cox, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced
today that Bradley K. Clark, doing business as U.S. Oil and gas technologies, based in Wayne County, Illinois, was sentenced on Monday, January 4, 2010, as a result of his conviction on two counts of Mail Fraud involving a scheme to defraud investors in an oil well venture. CLARK was sentenced to two years imprisonment, three years supervised release and was ordered to pay restitution totaling $343,796.
The conviction is the result of conduct from on or about October 2005, and continuing until approximately November 2007, when Clark engaged in a fraudulent investment scheme in which he solicited investors to invest in the reworking of oil wells located in Southern Illinois. Clark falsely represented to investors and potential investors that the investors’ funds were being used and would be used exclusively for reworking oil wells, when in fact, he used a large portion of the investors funds for personal use, to pay salaries, to pay other expenses that were not related to the reworking of oil wells, and to pay investors phony payments, as lulling payments, that were falsely represented to be the proceeds from the sale of crude oil. Evidence proved that sixteen investors in Illinois and Indiana were defrauded of approximately $343,796.18.
The successful prosecutions are the result of an investigation conducted by the Postal Inspection Service and the Illinois Securities Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Norman Smith. People who believe they have been a victim of securities fraud should contact Secretary White's Illinois Securities Department at 1-800-628-7937.
