Sep 24
2012
2012
Richard M. Plato, a disbarred lawyer with three prior criminal convictions, was convicted Sept. 24 in U.S. District Court in Houston on five counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy related to an oil and gas scam.
Plato owned Momentum Production Corp. in Baytown, which sold approximately $6.2 million in promissory notes purportedly backed by Momentum's interests in South Texas oil and gas leases.
Plato in fact ran a Ponzi scheme, paying some early investors with money from later investors, according to the superseding indictment of him.