Patrick Lanier, Stock Sale Scheme, Texas 2004

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Table of Contents

Austin Lawyer Sentenced to 17 Years in Stock Sale Scheme

Austin lawyer Patrick Lanier, 67, has been ordered to federal prison after a jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and other crimes related to a stock sale scheme that bilked over 500 victims out of millions of dollars.

Lanier, who represented fugitive Harris ‘Butch’ Ballow in proceedings before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2004, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $37 million in restitution.

Ballow, a fugitive from justice for over five years, controlled a corporation used to bilk investors, many of whom lived in Canada, out of millions of dollars. Lanier served as a lawyer for that corporation and assisted Ballow in selling shares of stock in public companies acquired and controlled by Ballow while he was a fugitive.

Evidence presented in Lanier’s trial showed that Ballow used multiple aliases, including John Gel, Tom Brown, and Marty Twinley, and acquired a British passport in the name of Melvyn John Gelsthorpe, to hide his true identity and sell stock to unsuspecting investors without revealing his past convictions for fraud and money laundering.

Lanier traveled to Mexico to meet Ballow and provided legal work for Ballow under his various false names to consummate Ballow’s fraudulent transactions. The scheme involved selling stock in publicly-traded corporations, including E-SOL International Corp., Medra Corp., Deep Earth Resources Inc., and Aztec Technology Partners Inc. (now known as Ultimate Lifestyles Corporation).

Lanier’s sentence is the latest development in a case that has been ongoing for over a decade. Christopher Harless, 62, of Georgetown, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2015. Ballow was sentenced to 10 years for money laundering and ordered to pay $10 million in restitution.

The case serves as a reminder of the importance of holding individuals accountable for their roles in large-scale financial crimes. The victims of Lanier and Ballow’s scheme will receive some measure of justice with Lanier’s sentence, but the full extent of the damage caused by their actions will likely never be fully known.