CLAIRMONT MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO MAIL FRAUD RELATED TO OIL WELL VENTURE

A. Courtney Cox, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinios, announced today that on July 31, 2009, BRADLEY K. CLARK, age 42, of Clairmont, Illinois, pled guilty to a two-count Indictment charging Mail Fraud in the Fraudulent Sale of Unregistered Securities. The defendant faces a potential maximum sentence of up to forty years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to $500,000, mandatory restitution, and upon release from prison a term of supervised release of up to three years. Sentencing is currently scheduled for January 4, 2010.

As part of the plea the defendant admitted that from on or about October 2005, and continuing until approximately November 2007, in Wayne County, BRADLEY K. CLARK, d/b/a U.S. Oil & Gas Technologies, Inc., an Illinois corporation, engaged in a fraudulent investment scheme in which he solicited investors to invest in the reworking of oil wells located in Southern Illinois. BRADLEY K. CLARK falsely represented to investors and potential investors that the investors’ funds were being used and would be used exclusively for reworking oil wells, when in fact, BRADLEY K. CLARK used a large portion of the investors funds for personal use, to pay salaries, to pay other expenses that were not related to the reworking of oil wells, and to pay investors phony payments, as lulling payments, that were falsely represented to be the proceeds from the sale of crude oil. BRADLEY K. CLARK in connection with this scheme defrauded sixteen investors in Illinois and Indiana of approximately $343,796.18.

The charges are the result of an investigation conducted by the Postal Inspection Service and the Illinois Securities Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Norman Smith. People who believe they have been a victim of securities fraud should contact the Illinois Securities Department at 1-800-628-7937.