Oil Company Pays $20,000 Fine, Will Make $1.5 Million Refund Offer to Investors

Feb 21
2020

Woodland Resources LLC, the oil and gas company once led by a Fort Worth oilman with a history of regulatory sanctions and running companies into bankruptcy, paid a $20,000 fine to the state and will offer to refund $1.49 million to investors in two of its drilling projects. 

Under the terms of an Agreed Order and Undertaking entered by Texas Securities Commissioner Travis J. Iles on Feb. 20, Woodland will offer refunds to 27 investors who purchased interests in either of two oil well projects in Seminole County, Okla. Those investments total $1,497,519.

Woodland constered to the entry of an order that found it violated state law by offering unregistered securities for sale and by not being registered to offer securities in Texas.

The company said it is no longer associated with Fort Worth oilman Michael E. Patman, a former Woodland Resources principal who sold investments in Woodland’s oil and gas projects.

Read more about Patman’s history and Woodland Resources: Gusher of Debt: Texas Oilman Concealing Bankruptcies, Fraud, Sanctions 

As Patman offered Woodland securities to potential investors in 2018 and 2019, he claimed he had a long record of success in the oil industry. 

Patman's success, however, centered on racking up state regulatory violations and leading companies into financial ruin.

The Texas Securities Commissioner in 2006 found that Patman and an oil and gas company violated the Texas Securities Act by offering unregistered securities.

In 2004, the Pennsylvania Securities Commission barred Patman and a company he led from offering or selling securities in the state for one year unless they met certain conditions and paid the state’s investigative and legal costs. 

Texas took a second action against Patman in 2019. The Emergency Cease and Desist Order,  which also named Woodland Resources and two company salesmen, Jeremy “JB” Yowell and Brett Kroh, was entered to stop the offering and sale of unregistered Woodland securities.

The 2019 order found that Patman wasn’t disclosing his previous state regulatory sanctions to Woodland investors. 

Neither did Patman tell potential investors that two companies he had previously led went into bankruptcy and that he owed millions of dollars to investors who had successfully sued him for fraud. 

Kroh and Yowell cooperated with the investigation into Patman.

The 2019 order against Patman – and its findings that he committed fraud – is now final.