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Stivers was sentenced to 85 years in state prison on Jan. 31, 2014, in Hood County 

State District Court. The Texas State Securities Board and the Hood County District 

Attorney’s Office prosecuted Stivers.

No Way to Treat Your Clients

Kenneth Wayne graves

 essentially sold himself to some of his clients. The former Corpus 

Christi investment adviser sold an investment contract that was supposed to pay between 

2.5% and 5% of the monthly gross income of his firm, Warren Financial Services LLC (WFS).
Graves was hardly in a position to make that promise, however. He failed to disclose that 

a large portion of client accounts at WFS had been sold to another firm, reducing the 

number of accounts from which Graves’ firm could collect management fees—fees that 

were supposed to generate returns for investors. Graves also didn’t disclose that previous 

investors in the WFS income scheme didn’t receive their promised returns.
The case grew out of the Texas Securities Commissioner’s 2014 administrative order 

revoking the registrations of Graves and WFS. The order found that in connection with 

the sale of the investment contracts, Graves made unauthorized withdrawals of “advance 

management fees” from clients’ custodial accounts, underpaid investors, and for many 

months didn’t make any payments at all to some investors. The order also found that 

Graves charged fees that were much higher than the 2% annual management fee listed 

in WFS’ management agreement.
In one instance, Graves recommended that a client purchase $70,000 of the WFS  

investment—an unsuitable investment because the amount comprised the vast majority 

of the retirement assets WFS was managing for the client, who said she couldn’t afford 

to lose any of the funds.

Graves pleaded guilty in Nueces County State District Court to misapplication of 

fiduciary property and no contest to securities fraud. He was sentenced Sept. 3, 2015, 

to concurrent seven-year state prison terms and ordered to pay $517,158 in restitution. 

Texas State Securities Board enforcement attorneys served as special prosecutors,  

having been appointed by the Nueces County District Attorney’s Office.

Repeat Offenders Aren’t a Good Bet for Investors

Investors paid millions of dollars to Always Consulting Inc. (ACI) of Richardson for 

fractional interests in oil and gas rights and investment contracts for drilling programs, 

including a project in Osage County, Oklahoma. The company promised investors it  

had political connections within the Osage Nation Reservation—and the financial  

resources—to launch the project, called the Rattlesnake Springs Drilling Program.
ACI also touted the expertise of its executives. The company claimed that Chairman 

david Kevin Lewis

 had 25 years of investment and management experience in the 

industry, and that 

Bruce Kyle griffith

, the president and CEO, started his 20-year career 

in the oil and gas business as a private pilot and worked his way up. The reality: Neither 

man had any legitimate experience in the industry and between them had racked up a 

passel of criminal convictions and regulatory orders.