A Dallas man named Dennis James Rogers, II, has admitted to defrauding investors to the tune of more than $27 million in bogus oil, gas, and water rights deals, in what authorities have detailed as a sustained effort to bilk would-be investors to finance his luxurious lifestyle, as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton announced, per the U.S. Department of Justice.
On Tuesday, 35-year-old Rogers pleaded guilty to two counts of securities fraud after orchestrating a series of elaborate frauds including one scheme that occurred in August 2019, where he successfully conned an investor identified by the initials J.I. to hand over $10 million for an investment that promised a fifty percent return, but instead of purchasing fuel as promised he used the money on various personal luxuries a clear act of deception. Ten months following the initial scam, Rogers hoodwinked investors S.W. and D.W. for multi-million dollar investments in a fictitious auction of a large international fuel company's stock, purportedly in Brownsville, Texas; another game in Rogers's arsenal of fraudulent tactics.
With a storyline that proved consistently mendacious, Mr. Rogers promised a lucrative opportunity in water rights connected to a dairy farm in New Mexico. He even conducted a call between an investor and a purported member of the dairy farmer's family as part of the ruse to bolster the deception, securing an additional $11 million under pretenses even though there was never a relationship with the farmer, nor a contract for water rights as cited by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Rogers's conviction was the culmination of a thorough investigation by the FBI's Dallas Field Office and led to statements by officials like FBI Special Agent in Charge Chad Yarbrough who emphasized the FBI’s commitment to rooting out schemes that defraud unsuspecting individuals, which was echoed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcus Busch's diligent prosecution efforts, Rogers now finds himself on the cusp of a potential ten-year federal prison sentence with a hearing scheduled for December 18, before U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade, completing a chapter in a cautionary tale of greed and betrayal.
