United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

1100 Commerce St., 3rd Fl.
Dallas, Texas 75242-1699

Telephone (214) 659-8600
Fax (214) 767-0978

FORMER STRUBE PACKING COMPANY (SPC) EMPLOYEE
SENTENCED TO 40 MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON
ON CONSPIRACY CONVICTION

Jeffrey Wayne Hooker Ran Financial Operations for SPC -
Defrauded Company of More than $1 Million

Jeffrey Wayne Hooker, who ran the financial operations at Strube Packing Company in Rowena, Texas, was sentenced Friday in federal court in Lubbock, Texas, by the Honorable Sam R. Cummings, United States District Judge, to 40 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $1,093,589.69 restitution, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper. Judge Cummings also ordered Hooker forfeit three vehicles. Hooker, age 41, of Urbana, Illinois, was ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on June 2, 2006.

Hooker pled guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property and money laundering. Hooker, along with co-defendant Jon (John) Walter Miller, were charged in an indictment returned last July by a federal grand jury in Lubbock. Miller’s case has been transferred to the Middle District of Florida to be prosecuted.

The Strube Packing Company (SPC) was a custom slaughter house specializing in sheep and goats. Prior to 2004, SPC had been in operation for approximately 30 years. SPC would purchase sheep and goats from various suppliers and would then process andsell the meat, hides and by-products to various buyers throughout the United States. Prior to May 21, 2004, Al Strube, III, (Strube), son of the founder of SPC, was the principal owner/operator of SPC.

Jon (John) Walter Miller was a Florida resident who purchased and took control of SPC from Strube on May 21, 2004. Jeffrey Wayne Hooker was an associate of Miller’s who, at Miller’s direction, took over the financial operations of SPC including installing new accounting computer programs. After starting to work at SPC, Hooker resided in the apartment Miller rented in San Angelo, Texas, after he bought SPC. Hooker and Miller met each other when they were serving federal prison sentences at the Federal Correctional Institution at Lexington, Kentucky.

According to court documents, from May 2004 to July 2005 Miller and Hooker defrauded SPC and the suppliers of livestock and goods and services to SPC of approximately $1,062,874.33 by draining SPC’s assets by continuing to order and receive, without the intention of paying for, livestock and goods and services and continuing to process and sell the livestock and keeping the proceeds from such sales for themselves instead of for payment of legitimate business expenses.

It was a part of the conspiracy that the defendants ran a “bust out” scheme whereby the assets of SPC would be drained by continuing to order and receive, without the intention of paying for, livestock and goods and services and continuing to process and sell the meat and hides and keeping the proceeds from such sales for themselves instead of for payment of legitimate business expenses.

Miller represented that he had money to invest in the business, obtained control of SPC by agreeing to buy the stock of SPC and making a $5,000 down payment to Strube and entering into a lease purchase agreement for the lease of SPC property and buildings. After acquiring control of SPC, Miller made Hooker the office manager and bookkeeper and retained Strube as an employee of SPC.

In order to accomplish their scheme to defraud, Miller and Hooker fraudulently represented that: Miller was very wealthy and had hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in SPC; Miller was an expert in taking companies in trouble and restructuring them and making them profitable and had a 70% success rate; Miller would buy small companies and rebuild them and then sell them and had done this with more than 70 companies; Miller would pay down the indebtedness of SPC; Miller would build up SPC production and invest $350-400,000 to increase production by buying additional livestock; Hooker had previously worked for Miller and had helped him restructure other companies; Hooker and Miller had originally met six or seven years ago and had continued their relationship since and that they had initially met when Miller wanted Hooker to do security work for him; and, suppliers of livestock and goods and services to SPC would be paid in full.

However, instead of investing money in SPC and trying to make the company successful, the defendants systematically looted SPC and defrauded suppliers of livestock and services to SPC. Contrary to the representations and promises made by the defendants, Miller was not a wealthy investor who had successfully restructured numerous small companies but rather was a financial predator who had conducted a number of fraudulent “bust out” schemes whereby, often using a shell corporation, he would acquire interest in a company in financial difficulties for little or no money down and then collect monies owed to the company for the goods sold but failed to pay the company’s creditors leaving the company with debt but no assets, often forcing the company into bankruptcy. Hooker had never previously worked with Miller in restructuring companies and neither Hooker nor Miller ever had any intention in paying the creditors of SPC the monies they were owed.

U.S. Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Roger McRoberts of the Lubbock, Texas, United States Attorney’s Office.

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