How to Commit a $40 Million Deal Flow Fraud. Chris Bentley E:58 Top M&A Entrepreneur

Welcome to the top M&A entrepreneurs today. I have a guest, Chris Bentley. He's a marine, and he's also, uh, the author of this book called Burnie Bellatorium. It is the story of a $40 million fraud and it's prices lessons for investors. So welcome for uh thanks for joining me, Chris. How are you doing today? I'm doing well, thanks for having me on your show, John. I really appreciate it. Yeah, so you and I connected on LinkedIn. I saw that I put out a message looking for uh deal flow, talking about deal flow, and you, you ping me and we, we had a couple conversations, and now we're talking here. Uh, so you were the CEO of a company called Bellatorum which sold oil and gas leases, and what happened there? Can you kind of summarize what Yeah, so, um, you know, in a nutshell, I, I started a, uh, mineral rights and royalties, uh, acquisitions firm, um, and our first few years were very successful, and, um, in 2019, we hit some, some operational internal, you know, challenges that, that, uh, you know, affected our deal flow, and that's why I think relevant topic for your podcast, um. And, and as things, you know, to try to keep the lights on and buy some time, I, I started telling lies and then eventually that, you know, got into to more than just uh ethical violations and then more into legal, you know, criminal uh activity where I was, um, you know, doctoring balance sheets and financial statements and, and, and, uh, actual transactional documents. To try to uh keep the lights on at the company and, um, you know, just eventually. Got to a point where, um, you know, I was like I need to just come clean about this or, you know, you know, or basically relegate myself to a life of, uh, of, uh, lying and unethical behavior, which, you know, and I, so I think you know what I chose and I, I, you know, I came clean, but um. You know, in essence, what I thought was neat about your show and all that is, you know, being in the acquisitions, investment management space, you know, deal flow is everything. Off-market deals, the price you pay for the deals, and that's kind of when we, when I let that, that was our bread and butter when we were wildly successful is getting those off-market deals and generating that deal flow. And I thought, wow, that's, you know, John's show is like, You know, it's very relevant to our story, and I don't really talk about that just the deal flow aspect in the book in in greater detail, but um. But it's very relevant, you know, because had we had our shit together and a deal flow front, you know, I probably wouldn't even be here today, so. Yeah, I, I, the, the part where the, you said you had issues with deal flow, it sounded like it just, well, I got the names wrong, I got the prices wrong, and some of the packages, the uh paperwork was sent to the wrong people. What, why, what happened there? Was it People, the systems in place, or, you know, you talked about General Mattis' uh flat ass rules. Yeah. Well, can you tell me about that? Well, so, so the first part of your question, John, was, uh, you know, about the, the deal flow, right? Like the, the operational aspect of it, all right? And the where, where things went wrong there was just not paying attention to that, right? And um when you run any business, you, you have challenges, especially when you're a new business and you're growing, right? You've got these challenges. Well, The what I think I failed to to give proper attention to was just how important that deal flow was to our success. And so when you're, or when I was allocating my time and energy and effort into where do I put the most effort into my business. I thought that because we had been so successful with sending out these mailers and generating the deal flow, getting the referral system in place, that hey, I've got that, right? Let me focus on these other areas. And so I neglected that. I, I neglected the making sure that there was a just a codified solid data management system, the data that fed the letters and the, the outbound marketing, right? And so, by virtue of neglecting that. I thought it was, you know, hey, it's being done properly, whatever, we'll come to find out, we, you know, whatever new data set we had fed and whatever it was improper, right? So when I to fast forward to your question about the flat ass rules. I feel like, you know, hindsight's always 20/20. Look, but if I can tell any new entrepreneur or fund manager or mergers and acquisitions guy, like, deal flow is everything, right? You've got and and generating deal flow. Look, I had a lot of deal flow by people sending me deals, brokers and people, hey, I got this deal, right? Those aren't good deals because they've already been marked up, people have gotten their fingers on them and everything. Deal flow is generating the off-market deal flow out there shaking the trees, you know, finding stuff that nobody else has access to. That's what we were really good at in 2017, 2018 and where we built our, our track record. Well, because I neglected that part of the business, um, You know, then come in 2019, now I've got $22.7 million and no quality deal flow. So what do I start doing? Start buying bad deals. That I can't flip for a margin or that I can't monetize, you know, in the way that I planned to execute the strategy. And so, um, you know, when you talk about flat ass rules with General Mattis, I mean, you know, to take it back to the military, uh, thing, what, what his flat ass rules were were like certain things like you always have a guardian angel on any patrol you're on. That means that overwatch, right? Like you don't just go walking down the streets of of Fallujah without You know, a guardian angel, as we called it, up on the rooftops watching, you know, moving with you in a place where they have a better field of vision than you. Well, that's one flat ass rule, right? So, take that and equate it to business, you, in my situation with Bellatorum, I could have said, hey, if there's no deal flow, the flat ass rule is, is to stop, doesn't matter what the situation is, if you didn't generate the deal yourself. No go, right? That that's saying hindsight, and I, right, hindsight, but, but look, I already screwed up, like, but I hope that if there's an, an entrepreneur or fund manager or an investor listening to your show that they can say, look, I hope my fund manager or my investment strategy has some flat rules because those are You know, I, I think a lot of times as capitalists and entrepreneurs, we may think like, oh, rigid rigidity or rigid rules, those are bad, they're bureaucratic, they're, we're we're anti-rigidity and flat ass rules, right? But sometimes, especially when you're managing other people's money and your and your success depends on, you know, arbitrage and finding a good deal, you need to have those flat rules and like, Avoiding loss and making money are are two, you know, uh, very high, highly consequential things that you need to, you know, well, let me ask you about that deal flow. Was it, what, what changed about the deal flow? Why did it go down and you felt like you had to go to these on market deals? Was it a change in economics, uh, like the industry up and down, or what was it? So it was a little bit of both. Uh, we, we did not, I had operated, uh, Bellatorum was not a business in 2014 and 2015, but I was in the industry, and those were bad years for oil and gas, right? Like, well, 2015 was, 2014 prices were high, you know, but we were still able, I was still able to make a really good living. Playing in the mineral space in 2014 when prices were high, and then even in 2018 when prices began to like fall really low in 2016 even, right? So, The the economy part, you know, a bad industry, so to speak, is not an excuse because as long as you're finding deals out there, it's all about the price you pay at the right time, right? And we, where I, our, our marketing machine of Getting these letters out, these very personalized letters with the correct salutation, the correct property that we're trying to buy. So for example, John, if you owned, let's say you own mineral rights in Midland, Texas, but I sent you a letter that said, Dear Mrs. Stoddard. Uh, I would like to buy your mineral rights in Glasscock County, Texas. You'd be like, who are these clowns, right? They tear it up and throw it in the trash, right? It's just those were like those are little crucial details that were getting messed up because our, I didn't make sure the data was proper. And then the amount of letters that go out and the time they go out is also important. So if you're sending bad letters out, it's a total wash anyway, right? Like that's, that's deal breaker one, but let's say you're sending good letters out, but you only send 500 of them out. That's still a problem. So let me, let me ask you about that. I don't know anything about the oil and gas and the mineral. Why is it a bad timing? Well, no, it was great timing to send, but not if you didn't send them out. Like January, that was kind of one of my points that I think I talk about in the book is, uh, you know, if you send letters out, at least in my experience in the industry, if you send your letters out right, like literally right before Christmas. Snail mail, they'll get there right after Christmas, and people will start like, OK, I could get some money to kind of just I could sell these assets that I own. And get some money to pay, you know, cause I've got buyer's remorse on my expensive ski vacation and all the money I spent on these Christmas gifts, like, let me monetize one of my assets and sell it to Bellatorum. So it had been my experience always that January was a crucial month to generate the deal flows that we could buy assets off-market assets for very cheap in January. So that's unique to my story, right? To my industry and asset class that I was that I was in, but the same concept could have applied to anything like if you're in housing, you know, real estate, then maybe it's march right before interest rates go up, right? It's gonna be hard to borrow money, right? You have to have your deal flow and marketing machine, you know, whipped. I'll give you an example. One of my friends, another veteran, um, he is in the private equity space wanting to buy small businesses, right? And so his marketing strategy to generate deal flow is much different, but it's still extremely important. You don't want to go to a business broker that has already taken his cut marketing this thing out to everybody. If you wanna buy an off-market business, go out and look for small mom and pop businesses where the owner operator. There's, there's things you need to find. The owner operators ready to retire, monetize their, they're, they're in the business, so there's room for you, there's scalability. You gotta say, all right, hey, there's this 70 year old guy selling. Uh, you know, widgets in, in Main Street USA, but what he doesn't have is a, is a social media presence. He doesn't have a search engine optimized website, blah blah blah, right? So if you're a private equity guy looking to buy small businesses, your deal flow generation is gonna be different, but still it's extremely important because it's all about the price you pay at what time, right? Yeah, and I love the way you say that, uh, asymmetric information, you know, you're Knowing that he doesn't have this, that that this, which could lead to another million dollars top line or bottom line, whatever it is, just doing what you're good at, um, interesting. I, I, I do have to ask this. I know this is just fresh. I'm talking 2021. Uh, are we asking, are you talking about anything that The attorneys, your attorneys just say, you know, don't talk about it, don't say or no, so look, this is a, a unique situation. Uh, I don't know if anybody's ever done what I've done, but I wasn't being investigated. I wasn't, there was no case that, you know, nobody was knocking at my door. I went and turned myself in, and in doing so and in writing the book, you know, I, I, I'm an open book. I know that's a cliche, but you can ask anything you want. I have nothing to hide. I, I'm, you know, I'm just waiting. You know, my attorney cringes when he hears me talk. He just, he says, look, I, this is just, I'm not wired to have my client out saying anything and everything they want, but the one thing I think to answer your question is my attorney is not a defense attorney. I literally hired him to just help me kind of understand the process. There's no, there's no 1-800 Crime Stoppers or call 911 for my situation, right? Like I didn't even know who to turn myself into. So the reason I hired the attorney was just to help me. Hey, who do I call? So this, uh, white collar attorney that I hired here in Houston, he knew exactly who to call, set up the meeting, and then he's basically there to help me like, hey, all right, here's what you can expect when you go to sentencing, here's how you talk to the judge or the, you know, cause you need that, I think, but I'm not paying for a defense, like he's not out there doing legal research to see how he can Get me less of a sentence. I'm willing to accept whatever, you know, you know, God has in store for me. You're just waiting for them to come back with, hey, this is what you've done. These are the charges, and this is the min the max sentence, whatever it is, punishment. Yeah, I mean, it's totally out of my hands, out of his hands. It's all in the hands of the feds and the and the um sorry. Let me, uh, we all, we all have dogs. My dog happens to be at the park, yeah. So just one sec, is this live or are we? Yeah, it's on live. No, it's recorded. So do you edit it at all? Not much, but we'll do that with this. I mean, it, it, I, I, I like to put these out there and it's a, you know, it's a, it's just a live, it's not a live conversation, but it's real, it's genuine, authentic. And people get interrupted by, you know, their wife comes in or the dog or baby comes in. That's cool. I mean, it gets more views. Yeah, all right, well, uh, so I have a, I have curtains supposedly soundproof curtains up over my office door. It's one of those glass French doors. Get your money back on that. Yeah, seriously, I got it. Let me go back to the, the, the instance. So you, you. Obviously done a lot of research on how people psychologies are when they do commit fraud, cause you talked about this fraud triangle, mice, which is stands for money, ideology, coercion, and ego, and the last one, which is ABC, Apple, bushel, that crop, um, where the fraud triangle is. There's 3 parts. There's pressure, the kind of individual feels compelled to private, opportunity, and justification. So, when those letters went out in January, did you feel the pressure that you didn't make the time cycle to do that, and you may have lost the year or what? No, no, not at all. So I thought it was, I thought we could recover. I thought it was a, you know, I think I talked about this in the book, the, the first. The first thing that happened was like, OK, hey, I realized the letters didn't go out and they needed, so I got, you know, rally the troops, everybody, hey, we're not going home today until we get this many letters out, and this and this and this, right? So, kind of got the team on board and we sent letters out. Um, meanwhile, keep in mind I've got people sending me millions of dollars daily, you know, like, they had signed the documents and everything and so. You know, I didn't, I didn't, these are your investors, right, that are, you continually raise money throughout it. I had raised money in the last quarter of 2018, right? So all the agreements are signed and in place. And, and meanwhile, I've got my team, you know, hey, getting ready, we've got this money. They're selling the assets that we owned in 2018, so everything was a fresh start in 2019. So we did that, sold the assets, accomplished all that, the 2018 assets, onboarded, so in January of 2019, I'm onboarding new investors, receiving wires in the bank every day for their subscription, you know, their investments, and then realized, you know, I get my, one of my guys come up to me and like, hey, You know, we didn't get, we only got whatever, 1000 letters out and, and I don't remember what the number was, but it I was like, really? Why? Like, we need to get these letters out, right? And then I also realized that in those 1000 letters there were mistakes, and then then we opened, we're like peeling back the onion and I was like, whoa, this data is wrong. Like I can just tell by, you know, spot checking line items that, you know, there's these, uh, you know, um, whatever, there's mistakes on this data set. So it was like, hey, you guys fixed the data, you guys prep the letters, let's get them out. So, you know, I thought, OK, crisis averted, we get, you know, I think like 5000 letters out in a week and thought it was good. Well, something had happened during the merge of the, of the going from Excel to Word and something, so then those 5000 letters out that we sent out were also incorrect. Was it you try to do that internally and didn't outsource it to somebody, or yeah, correct, we did it internally and that was also kind of one of our Secret sauce previously was that our letters were, I mean, we handwro uh notes on all the letters and I signed them all personally, like, these are, you know, so I ended up eventually getting myself a stamp, so I didn't, you know, my arthritis was kicking in, but I would, it looked like a real signature on all the letters. We trifolded them and put them in normal envelopes or, you know, so it looked, it didn't look like junk mail. So that was a a tedious time consuming process. Well, So then again, you know, this goes if you're asking about the details of going down this thing, right, like where it starts to get uh murky. Going off rails a little bit, yeah, outside the guard rails big time, you know, uh, so. No deal flow. My investors, uh, the way I was set up, I had some bit of transparency with the bank account. Some investors were like, hey Chris, this isn't like last year. Some of the investors that had been with me in the previous, they're like, why is the money still sitting in the account? We see, you know, we see there's no transactions happening, you know, we just see all this money, this $22 million just sitting there. Why aren't you putting it to work? Um, so you, you, the, your investors had transparency on your bank accounts on, on, on the fund bank account, not all my, not, not, not all my, not my operating account where I pay payroll and stuff, but the where the money went for the fund, they could see it, right? at first and um. Anyway, so what I started, you know, I, at that moment, I should have probably said, hey, look, we, I'm just making sure that we put the money to work properly and we've had a a few deals that were, you know, I could have probably without lying, still held off for a little bit, right? But instead what I did was, oh shit, man, like I'm You know, what do I do? So, first thing I do is buy some deals, call, you know, that I, I had, and I paid probably market value, which is not our business model, right? So that was kind of the first baby step one is to pay market value. Um, I'll give you an example like You know, a net royalty acre, you talk about buying land or whatever. I probably paid $10,000 a net royalty acre for these deals that were um And I still had margin in them, but it wasn't the margin we were used to, but it was still only a small, so that was my first step. So I, I think I bought like maybe a million dollars worth of deals out of the 22 by paying that fee. Now it was starting in February, and then it was like still getting these dude, you've only put a million bucks to work, like last year you deployed all our capital within like 45 days. What's going on here, you know. So then I start buying deals. I bought a deal less than arm's length cause I knew I could control it, right? Like I, I moved those. So anyway, I just start, still nothing criminal yet. I think the first criminal thing I did was in May of 2019, and that's cause I had run out of operating capital. Normally, we had flipped stuff by then and I was able to take a profit and fund my payroll. So in May of, uh, 2019, I, uh, I told the investors there was a $6 million deal, when really it was a 5.6, I think I don't, don't hold me to these numbers, but basically I made it look like the, the transaction was more, and I took that, that amount and moved it into my operating account via like a, a, a series of transactions, so it wouldn't be obvious, you know, using, um, Broker fees and all these other, you know, and I was doctoring up the documents to make everything kosher, so that because we did have oversight with a third party administrator stuff, so I lied to them, I lied to the escrow agent and all this to get that money back to Bellatorum so I could pay the payroll with it. So that was the first criminal thing I did, and I thought, look, I, I could, um, it's no big deal, like I can flip all these assets and, and I'll pay it back and nobody will ever know, right? Yeah. So, um, I, I, let me kind of bring up something. You know that study where you place a kid in an isolated room, 5 year old, and you put a cupcake in and, and you tell them, hey, don't eat the cupcake, and the majority of them do, they can't help themselves. I mean, what, what was the part you just said, you know, I, I, I'm just gonna eat the cupcake. Like, why do you think he did that? Well, I mean, uh, was it the, the, you know, yeah, but it was, it was, it's, I think it's more than the cupcake analogy, John. I mean, you think, um. The I, I wasn't going and taking a cupcake for myself, right? Like I, I, um, had employees to get there was a lot that went into my mind and so I think as humans sometimes we try to oversimplify reason and and logic, right? But I, there was a lot of things. I had wildly successful business that was on and upwards successful trajectory. I had a long term vision for like our software development and everything, and it was like, what the fuck, all this is, excuse my language, is falling apart because of a Hiccup, like, I can't go out this way, right? So there's that's ego, right? That's that's ego or hubris, whatever, there's that, but I cared for my employees. I had these veterans. I had guys, I had a guy that moved from Virginia, a guy that two guys that moved from Louisiana, a guy that moved from Arkansas. I had these team members that had moved to work for me from around the country. And, and they literally sold their houses and moved their families and wife and kids, and I'm like, wow, now I'm, I mean really beholden to them somehow, like, yeah, I mean, I felt like I was, right? I think a lot of people might have said, well, screw it. Like I mean, I even had one of my friends like, why did you do that? Like, who cares about them? You, you gotta like, why did you do all this, you put yourself at risk and you did all this, and you know, um. You know, and then, then the industry started going down in mid 2019, and then COVID came and it was like, and I kept digging a deeper and deeper hole, and all the while I thought, I always had a plan of how I could make everybody whole and still not do wrong by anybody, like even the even the final investors, right, that would have kind of I would have brought in a large capital uh commitment, but even then I had a plan for how to make them profitable as well, but then it was just like, and I think I told you this on the phone. When we were talking about this, it's like this whole thing, all my success would have been built on lies or some part of it at, at the end, and I don't, I couldn't have lived with that, you know. Well, that last one you tried to raise like $100 million and you only brought in a couple of million dollars. What, what, what happened there? Why did it, was it the economic, so that one was definitely about timing and and targets, right? Like meaning um. Trying to raise money during an election year with the negative oil and gas, I mean oil and gas, you can't mail stuff out during an election year. I've done that before and it just, well, it lost well yeah, I mean my cap raising my capital raising efforts were not male, uh, for the most part it was out, but people weren't having in-person conferences as much and you know. And meetings like getting my meetings were, were very difficult. Towards the end, once, once people were starting to go back to their offices and talk about investing, I mean, you remember 2020 was a dumpster fire. Like it was, I mean, like, nobody's gonna pay taxes, gotta figure out how to do this, yeah, yeah, yeah. So trying to raise capital in 2020 was just a nightmare, but I started towards the end of the year. Some people were starting to be like, hey, you know what, I can't sit on the sidelines anymore. And this is what I was alluding to is like, I could have kept going for a few more months and probably got $100 million in. That the lies I was having to tell, the, the, the pressures to keep the thing going, and the, I mean, the lies were just, uh, you gotta think once, once I got to that point. Everything was a lie. Literally telling my kids, um, You know, they're like, hey dad, how was your day? You know, I'm like, oh, it was fantastic, you know, like trying to be positive and upbeat for them. That's a lot, right? Telling my wife, like, uh, you know, making small talk, everything just, every ounce of my energy to try to be positive and be the, hey, this CEO of a Business that's supposed to look like it's doing good, doing well. The, my whole being was a lie. But the smile on my face, the, the, you know, just everything, right? Like, do you have, I'm just curious. I mean, uh, FBI investigators are skeptical by nature. So, do they have a reason to believe you're telling the truth now? And you have like a champion that said, well, he's come clean. He's, he's, he's fighting for me. I, I don't know. I don't know. I, I handed over all my computers. I mean, we're supposed to be the, the most. Advanced nation in the world with the most uh qualified. I mean, look, I was in the Marines for 14.5 years and I've seen what our capabilities are, and the Marines are like usually the least equipped branch of the military, and I know that we have some pretty sophisticated technology. I got out in December of 2013, so one has to assume it's even better nowadays. I mean, if I'm not holding anything back. I literally handed over my cell phone, my computers, my, you know, all the bank accounts, you know, all the, the, the statements and told them exactly what I did. And so if they're skeptical, I mean, it's not. I don't know what you can't, you, you bared face to everyone. There's, yeah, it's you know what about the employees? I mean, there's some people that you formed relationships with, I mean, are they accepting of it? Are they understanding and they're moving on? You know, uh, I think a few are accepting of it, and, and they, uh, a couple actually like appreciate, have, you know, just, just to have told me, hey, I know, thank you for not, uh, throwing me to the wolves in the middle of 2020, like, how could I go from making $120,000 a year. In 2020 to the, to the federal, you know, that COVID relief of, you know, you can't go from being an oil and gas professional and then to making $400 a month on unemployment. Like everybody is like, oh why did they had all this unemployment and what you like, OK, that works if you work at Starbucks or or Chick fil A or something, maybe, you know, but to go from making 6 figures to $40 a month with a wife and kids to support. Um, you just don't, that doesn't work for people. I mean, that's life changing, right? Like, um, in a negative way, life changing, you know, and so that was what I was thinking and so to answer your question more directly, yes, I've had a couple be like, hey, you, you put the company on your back. I mean, by the way, I lost my house, my, I sold my, my, I made my wife sell her vehicle too, like she had a nice Toyota, you know, SUV. Told her to sell that. I sold my truck. I put that money in the company to pay payroll. And then so it was like, I think one thing a lot of readers and people don't understand from the outside looking in, and maybe even employees is like, I, yes, I committed fraud and it doesn't make it OK. I lost, you know, I, I lied to make a lot of this happen, but I wasn't just putting other people's money at risk. I put my entire life and livelihood at risk to keep this thing going, and And, you know, my wife didn't know what I was doing, but she also made sacrifices. Like I, I said, hey, I need to sell your car. I'll get you a, I'll get you a little cheaper car. We can share a car for a while. Like that's, we actually shared a car, uh, you know, and just, but we bought I bought a little cheap truck and um And got her a used vehicle and we sold those vehicles and I was able to, I mean it was literally just a band-aid, but I thought it could buy did you tell your wife? When? Yeah, oh, she got the email with everybody else. She was sitting at a soccer game. Um, sitting next to one of our largest investors who I, who I, you know, their grandson is best friends with my son, and um, She got the email like everybody else, so I didn't know how else to tell like I didn't want her to be, you know. At all at fault for what I did, so she never could know anything, right? And so, um, that was, you know, people are like, surely your wife knew or your your best friend there somebody had to know and I was like how could I tell anybody this, like, how could I You know, anyway, I, I mean, I, people who say that must, I, I, you know, I can't empathize with them because I don't have those type of relationships where I, uh, would feel OK going, hey man, I, you know, let me tell you, I was, I'm committing fraud right now. What do you think I should do? Like, who do you tell that to besides maybe a pastor or a lawyer or psychologist, I don't know, but, you know, um. Yeah, so she found out via email. Yeah, and it she was uh I hate to say this, but it close to divorce for not revealing that or yeah. Yeah, I mean, the first. Few months, I was couch surfing, you know, like I went and stayed with some relatives in East Texas, then I went to um Florida to stay with some relatives and, you know, just not knowing what was gonna happen. I, I was letting the FBI know this obviously, like, hey, I need to go here, here, here, and, you know, we're, we're together now. We're, we are renting the uh upstairs of her parents' home, um. And you know, she's working and our life is definitely much, much different now, and there's a lot of uncertainty, um, but to her credit, she's still with me. Um, you know, I don't know, it's not like that's a guarantee, right? She says you can say one thing, but if I get sentenced to 25 years in prison, like that might change, you know, so. Well, what is the, uh, I'm sure you've looked into that for fraud and white collar crime. What is the sentence for? So, I mean, the, the, the range is extremely ridiculous. Like it could be probation at the best case scenario or uh 25 years at the worst case, because of the dollar amount, the number of investors affected, you know, um. So, and, and my lawyer says it's unlikely they would do this, but technically they could stack it. So if they charge me with multiple crimes. And let's say each of them has a max sentence of 25 like our my top of each other, yeah. So, um, you know, that, I guess that could be my worst case scenario is, you know, the rest of my life in prison. And I know there's a few investors that, that have said they think I deserve that. I mean, I, the investors that I still talk to, there's a WhatsApp group that they all have to communicate, like who's suing me or who and whatever, and, and they've said, hey man, look, this guy thinks you, you know, you should spend the rest of your life in prison or this person thinks that um You know, so they're trying to sue you, but you can't get, uh, you know, water from a rock or blood from a turnip. I mean, what, well, that's the thing. Nobody's, I only a couple of people have sued me, and maybe it's just so that they were first to the punch in any sort of possible restitution. But yeah, I'm, I'm surprised that I haven't been sued by every investor, um, or some sort of class action lawsuit against me. I mean, the investors that did sue me, I didn't fight it. I signed it. I said, I'm not, you know, you got a default judgment against me, and I'm not gonna lie. Like, yeah, I, I committed fraud and you can sue me for that, you know, you can sue me for the damages or losses you incurred, um, and I won't fight it, like, so. Um, is that a, is this a federal case or a local state district attorney case? Uh, as of right now it's federal, but they haven't done anything, so I don't know. So there's no federal agent calling you, asking you questions. Well, yeah, so I, I have the last time I had a meeting was with the SEC and the Department of Justice in March. And, you know, I still don't know what's gonna happen. Like I, you know, I don't know what the charges are gonna be, I don't know anything. Like they, I sent them an email the other day that said, hey, you know, I'm willing to face anything. I'm not asking you for a plea bargain. Like, all I'm asking you for is some Idea of the path forward and like, can we get the show on the road, basically. And um, no response. I mean, I never get a response. I've sent them several emails over the last year and and some change, but, uh, hey, I mean, I don't know what to do, you know, as far as that's concerned. I, like I said, it's mainly for my wife and kids to give them some closures like the selfish part of that, and then for the investors too, I mean, They deserve some sort of justice, you know, like to know that the legal system is working on their behalf and to, in a lot of their eyes from what the comments I've seen on that WhatsApp group is they feel like, wow, what, you know, you can just get away with fraud and you're out still enjoying freedom, you know. Yeah, now this book that you wrote and it's published like one at a time through Amazon. I mean, did you have a fund set up to for the investors to recoup or? Well, yeah, so, um, all the proceeds will go to the investors. I just set up a um a separate bank account that I'm not accessing, you know, I mean, technically if I wanted to, I guess I could access it, but I've actually given one of the investors view access to the account so that they can see I'm not touching it. And so all the proceeds from the book will get, you know, the Amazon will direct deposit to that account and I'm just gonna leave the money in that account and the investors of the feds or whoever, you know, um, can manage it how they See appropriate, but, you know, um, I'm not gonna touch it. Yeah. Curious as the last half of your book is, is, is kind of putting, uh, checks and balances in place for something to be like a cautionary tale for the next person to happen. And as matter as many checks and balances you put into place, it still seems to happen. Uh, you know, people do that because we're imperfect human beings. What was the intention of doing this? Is this a kind of like that guy that used to write bad checks, Catch me if you can, to say, I mean that guy ended up making millions of dollars per year teaching corporations how to look for bad checks. Yeah, I guess, I mean this, this, the main focus, like the main reason for this book was to try to help a way um to make the investors whole, right? Well, you can't just write a book and assume that it'll sell. There has to be actually valuable information in there for people to buy it, right? So I feel personally, That the lessons in here are valuable and actionable for investors and entrepreneurs. If, you know, the second half of the book or that maybe the 2/3 if you will, there's a part for investors and then there's a part for managers or entrepreneurs, right? And those rules, I, I think. You know, you're never gonna create a perfect scenario in any situation ever, right? If you're playing sports, if you're doing whatever, there's always, but the more boundaries, the more difficult you can make it for yourself or others to get, you know, the color outside the lines, so to speak, then, uh, the better, you know, like for me. Every case is different, but in mine, like a way that would have kept me from being able to do this, or at least made it extremely difficult, would have been timings after wires went out, right? Like wire went out, I better have had paperwork. To show the validity of that wire transfer within an hour, right? Like even within an hour would have, you know, and to know if I'm the one that's doing orchestrating this whole thing and I'm keeping it in silos. I mean, the way I did that is sometimes, you know, I'm I'm out. Busy, busy, busy, right? So I can send a wire from my phone, but I can't doctor a PDF document from my phone. So like if I'm flying to New York, sitting at the airport and I send a wire out. I just tell my third party administrator, hey, I'm out of the office. I'll, I'll fax you or I'll scan and email you that paperwork on Saturday, right? Then I go into the office Saturday morning and do my dirty work when nobody's in the office and email all the people, Hey, sorry I was traveling this week, blah blah blah, right? Well, if I would have not had that liberty to do that. And that's on me. I want to make it clear, it's not the third party administrator's fault. It's not the escrow agent's fault. It's nobody. Yeah, that's an opportunity in that triangle, yeah. So, but if I would have put the boundaries on myself. Then, and once it's in an operating document, that's what you have to follow, and, and you can do that to yourself, right? It may not, it may be uncomfortable at first, like, man, am I handcuffing my ability to to operate, but, you know, you, you can know now readers can read this story and say, hey, if I'm messing, if there's, if there's any potential for nefarious means, then, then let me put some boundaries on that. You don't need to put boundaries on something is like, hey, uh, you know, do I buy in Glasscock County or Midland County? I mean, like you don't wanna, you know, you don't wanna put too much red tape on your operating on the way you operate your business, but when it comes to financial and other people's money and investment reporting, I mean, absolutely, or or if it's filing your taxes or your payroll stuff, like anything that You know, if you're operating a business, you need to put some boundaries on anything that could go awry and potentially put you in a precarious position, you know. Yeah, what does that say about the individual? To say that we need to put it because is it, you know, you know how to cheat or steal because you've been cheated or stolen off. Well, you know, you brought up the point earlier, right, about the fraud triangle, and, you know, look, good people make bad decisions all the time, so it's not as simple as oh you're a thief and you're not like you can leave, you know, you get a a good person that you Your whole life, like you never would have thought this person would even consider picking up a $100 bill off the ground and not running after the person in front of them and saying, hey, you dropped this, right? But there's people, you never know if, if the stars align, and they've, you know, they're laid. On their rent and things are bad, they just got laid off. They may put that $100 bill in their pocket and go buy groceries for their family, right? And kind of same thing, like, you don't, you never know what your circumstances are gonna be in the future, right? You, you just, you have no idea. I didn't know that the industry was gonna go, I didn't know when I came back that I was gonna have a deal flow problem. I didn't know the industry was gonna go down in 2019. I didn't know that COVID was gonna come. If I would have had a, in case of emergency break glass kind of boundaries in place. And that's what I was forced to do. We wouldn't be sitting here today, John, like it, and I think those are important to to to govern yourself. I mean, the stoics all talked about it, the Bible talks about it. I mean, no matter what your religious or, you know, moral philosophy is. In history, there are so many examples of human beings putting boundaries on themselves because they didn't, you know, they didn't know how they do things. It's just like a You know, if you're a married man. You know, maybe you don't want to go hanging out with single women, right? You like, you just don't even put yourself in that position. Like in a, in a, in an intimate setting, right? Like we, we talked about that in in uh in my Bible study uh recently and it was like, you know, you just don't put yourself in positions where you can make bad decisions. Maybe if you want to test yourself, but like, why, why even go through that, right? Well, I, I, I also think there's a part, you know, Seneca talks about. stoicism, the premeditation of evils, like we suffer more often in imagination and in reality. Something that was going through your head like, oh my God, shit is gonna be worse if I don't fix this. Yeah, absolutely. I mean that. And you fixed it how you thought, right, well, it ended up failing at fixing it, but I absolutely thought that the outcome I was shooting for was gonna be much better than if I had said, hey guys, I've already spent some of your money, but Here's the rest of it back, and I shut down my business and lay off the employees and all those things, right, that I should have done and let's call it February of 2019 or January of 2019, you could, we could argue about exactly which step would have been the right time to break the glass and, you know, say, hey guys, sorry we're done here, but Um, You know, it was I thought that the better, you know, the better solution was to try to figure out a way to make it work, you know, to make it successful. So, um, What's obviously you're an entrepreneur and now you have a strong duty to make it right. I'm curious what's next. I's like, is it a movie, Netflix movie or what? I don't know, would this be a movie that you'd, uh, you'd watch on Netflix? Uh, I, I think they can do it. They're so hungry for content that, uh, one of those channels, HBO or whatever could do it. Yeah, I mean, You know, I, I, it would be if that would be a way, I mean, look, $40 million I just learned last week that um like the SEC is separate from the FBI and the investors, right? So I know I owe the investors, let's call it $40 million right? That that number could actually be different cause there were, there were actually real assets and some of the entities and there's royalty income being produced from the oil and gas that was being produced. So, you know, but let's just call it $40 million. Well then, the SEC from what I learned last week is they have a number that they're saying, hey, those losses, those are just losses. You don't, you know, we're gonna say you owe. $9 million because that was the fraudulent or criminal or the, you know, wrong activity was $9 million. So you owe $9 million to the investors, but hey, we're also gonna fine you $9 million. And so that's on top of it. So then now I'm gonna owe the SEC $9 million and the investors $9 million from the SEC, but then there's gonna be the judgments and the liens, so. You know, from what my lawyers told me is like, hey, it could be $50 or $60 million that you owe every, you know, total, and um So to answer your question, I, I fully intend to at least making an effort to try to pay that back. And so, um, that's gonna take something like a movie or a uh uh an invention or something that can be sold widely, and I have some ideas, but um. You know, I, I gotta know what the path forward is because if they're gonna put me in prison for 25 years, then, you know, then I, I won't be able to execute that plan, you know. So what do you do? I this is my last question, what are you doing to You know, lighten the burden of your guilt. How do you stay? Um to your family and child. Well, I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, in a way this has been From a spending time with my kids standpoint. This last year has been better than any previous year. I drive them to school every morning. Um, I get to go to more of their soccer games. I mean, I just recently, um, quit the job I was working, um, and not quit, like, just quit for no reason, like, cause I thought that I was gonna be moving forward with the case. I You know, I'd gotten a phone call. I, I was the general manager of a thrift store, so I didn't want to leave them, you know, hey, I'm gone all of a sudden. So I trained my replacement and then thinking that I'm, you know, gonna have official charges coming any day now and start to move this process forward, well, and then now it's been crickets, and that was like about a month ago. So I already trained my replacement, he's there, he took over, so now I'm gonna be looking for work again, I guess, but it's hard to find employment. When this is hanging over your head, cause a lot of people, they're like, hey, we, we're not judging you, we're willing to hire you, but not, not in anything meaningful if we don't know what, you know, you're gonna go to jail. I'm, I'm referring to spiritually, actually. Oh, I mean, You know, it to lighten the guilt, I mean, I think coming clean was a big You know, I, I feel guilty. I still feel guilty, don't get me wrong, but the, the, it's not a debilitating feeling of guilt anymore. I've come clean. I've done everything I can now. It's in the hands of the feds and so, um, you know, and it's not having to tell a lie is a huge weight lifted off, you know. My shoulder, I, I joke with my wife and say, hey, I'm never telling a lie again, so do not ask me if those, you know, those green colored jeans you like to wear look good on you, cause I don't think they do it. I'm not gonna tell you they do, you know, so, um. Well, there's white lies, right? It's like, does that make me look fat? But um, Chris, I wanna, I wanna thank you for spending time with me, uh, top M&A entrepreneurs. I mean, this is a, uh, cautionary tale of building a business, acquiring leases, uh, $40 million fraud, and this is open. I mean, you're at any moment, somebody calls you up and you're Gonna hear some kind of information that could, uh, you know, say, hey, this is, you know, I could do it, or oh my God, it's Yeah, yeah, I wanna thank you, man. I wanna thank you thank you for having me on, John. I appreciate it. I, I hope, uh, your listeners will buy the book and help towards the, uh, restitution efforts and, and leave some reviews, honest reviews, you know, if you, some, I'd like to hear some feedback. I've, uh, we just launched less, you know, I think about a month ago, so, um, exactly a month ago, so, you know, um, getting some more reviews and feedback would be great. Yeah, so thank you very much, Chris. I appreciate it. Thanks, John. All right. Cheers.