Ellis Wamsley IV Gets 54 Months for FAIM Investment Fraud

Ellis Wamsley IV, 47, of Grand Prairie, Texas, was sentenced to 54 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $1,850,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to engaging in a monetary transaction with property derived from specified unlawful activity. The sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle, marks the fall of a man who once presented himself as a pillar of economic development, but instead used his position to bleed an investor dry.

Wamsley, CEO of the FAIM Economic Development Corporation, formed the entity in 2003 but didn’t face justice until his 2016 guilty plea. Alongside co-defendant Kevin Kenard Howard, 34, of Duncanville, Texas, Wamsley orchestrated a scheme that preyed on M.R., owner of Company R in Flower Mound. Promising high returns through a joint venture, they lured M.R. into wiring $2 million to a FAIM brokerage account at Charles Schwab in August 2010 — money that was never safely invested.

Within a month, Wamsley moved $1,791,703 of the investor’s cash to a Merrill Lynch account he controlled — one M.R. couldn’t access. From there, the fraud escalated. Rather than report mounting losses, Wamsley directed Howard, his handpicked financial consultant, to lie. Howard became the voice of deception, sending emails falsely claiming the account balance had swelled to $2.4 million — then $2.5 million — while the real funds were hemorrhaging.

Those lies were deliberate and repeated. Between October 2010 and August 2011, Howard, with Wamsley’s approval, sent multiple lulling emails designed to mislead and stall M.R. The truth? The investments were failing — and Wamsley was looting the account. From October 2010 through April 2012, he funneled over $1.7 million into FAIM business accounts and spent it on personal luxuries, including a $40,024 2008 Cadillac Escalade for Howard and a $41,764 Escalade for a family member.

Howard, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in May 2016, faces up to 20 years in prison and will be sentenced on December 8, 2016. Prosecutors say he was more than just a messenger — he was a willing participant in the fraud, acting at Wamsley’s direction but making conscious choices to deceive. His fate now hangs in the balance, but the blueprint of the crime was drawn by Wamsley.

U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas emphasized that the case sends a message: fraud dressed up as economic development will be stripped bare. Wamsley must surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on November 30, 2016. The $1.85 million restitution is a ghost of the trust he shattered — and a number that likely won’t fully cover the damage done.