$2 million oil well scheme in Texas and Montana lands 80-year-old in prison, feds say

An 80-year-old man accused of defrauding investors in a Texas and Montana oil well scheme is going to prison, federal officials say.

A judge sentenced Kenneth Thomas White to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

White is accused of raising $1,850,000 to fund five oil well drilling projects he either didn’t own or that didn’t exist, officials say. His victims bought “investment units” at $50,000 each.

“Mr. White raised nearly $2 million with his fraudulent scheme,” Ismael Nevarez Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Office of IRS Criminal Investigation, said in a news release. “He victimized clients by providing them false reports and enticing them to increase their investment by issuing royalty payments with funds from new investors.”

White used the funds to purchase a lease on a house in Arizona, a new Hyundai Genesis and Cadillac Escalade, dental work and hair implants, among other items, officials say.

He concealed from investors a similar scheme in 1993 for which he served over 15 years in prison, officials say. He was released in 2009 — less than three years before he began the most recent scheme, officials say.