SEC Accuses Two Dallas "Oil and Gas" Men of Luring Investors Down a Dry Hole

Late last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission went to Dallas federal court to accuse 62-year-old Harmut Theodor Rose and 47-year-old James Patrick Reedy of swindling about 300 folks out of at least $10 million. According to the complaint, from August 2003 to August '05, Rose and Reedy ran a...

By Robert Wilonsky

May 11, 2009

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Late last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission went to Dallas federal court to accuse 62-year-old Harmut Theodor Rose and 47-year-old James Patrick Reedy of swindling about 300 folks out of at least $10 million. According to the complaint, from August 2003 to August '05, Rose and Reedy ran a couple of outfits -- Geo Companies of North America and Geo Natural Resources -- that they told would-be investors were successful gas and oil ventures, when they were, for the most part, anything but.

The twosome raised much green promising black gold -- even though, according to the SEC's lengthy complaint, Rose and Reedy's own geologists "advised against completing" most of the pitched projects. And, says the SEC, "Several of the wells were dry holes." The feds accuse the twosome of several counts of fraud in the detailed narrative, some of which reads like excerpts from Glengarry Glen Ross, especially the part about how coffee is for closers.

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