San Angelo Man Senteced to 78 Months After Defrauding Investors

 

SAN ANGELO, TX – After being convicted of running two fraudulent schemes, a San Angelo man, Stanley Jonathan Fortenberry, 51, has been sentenced to 78 months in prison. Fortenberry obstructed a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation and defrauded investors of nearly $900,000 over a span of four years.

Fortenberry confessed to running an investment company called Premier Investment Fund (Premier), which allegedly raised funds from investors for social media projects. Another company that worked in the country music industry supposedly ran these projects. After lying to investors about where the funds were going and how much profit the company actually made, Fortenberry confessed to pocketing about half of the funds raised for personal use and to the expense of his operation.

In 2013, Fortenberry began raising funds for Wattenberg Energy Partners, which was supposed to setup gas drilling projects in Colorado. The company was set up in his son’s name because he was under investigation by the SEC for misusing the funds from his previous Premier fraud scheme. In order to make the operation work, Fortenberry had sales people call potential investors and ask them to invest in the project. Once again, he admitted to spending the vast majority of the money on himself and on financing the scheme. However, he denied having control or working for that company at an administrative hearing in October of 2014.

According to a press release, Fortenberry pleaded guilty to the fraud and to obstruction of justice. He will go on to serve 78 months in prison and will have to pay $890,310 in restitution. He admitted that the total loss in both schemes to his victims was $887,311.

Subscribe to the LIVE! Daily

The LIVE! Daily is the "newspaper to your email" for San Angelo. Each content-packed edition has weather, the popular Top of the Email opinion and rumor mill column, news around the state of Texas, news around west Texas, the latest news stories from San Angelo LIVE!, events, and the most recent obituaries. The bottom of the email contains the most recent rants and comments. The LIVE! daily is emailed 5 days per week. On Sundays, subscribers receive the West Texas Real Estate LIVE! email.

Required

Most Recent Videos

Post a comment to this article here: