BULLETIN: Feds Charge Former Parole Officer, Saying She Facilitated Texas Swindler In ‘Massive Scheme To Defraud Investors’
BULLETIN: A former Texas Department of Criminal Justice parole officer has been accused of honest services wire fraud and federal programs bribery, amid allegations she developed an “improper relationship” with one of her “assigned parolees” and enabled him to pull off a massive oil-and-gas swindle.
Nichelle Derricks, 37, of Cedar Hill, Texas, “secretly used her official position with TDCJ to enrich herself and others by soliciting and receiving cash payments, gifts, furniture, household goods and items, food and beverages, and other things of value from the parolee in exchange for favorable official action benefitting the parolee,” the U.S. Department of Justice said this morning.
A Dallas Observer Blog is reporting that the parolee was Alan Todd May.
In June 2010, the PP Blog reported that May was captured by the U.S. Marshals Service in San Francisco. He was wanted by the U.S. Secret Service and also was under investigation by the SEC for his multimillion-dollar “Prosper Oil & Gas Inc.” swindle.
May had a long criminal record and was described by the SEC as a “felon.” In 2010, the U.S. Marshals Service said May had assumed “multiple identities to evade apprehension.”
May pleaded guilty to wire fraud in December 2010. In February 2012, he was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Although the Justice Department did not reference May by name in its news release today, the agency said this (italics added):
The indictment further alleges that Derricks repeatedly allowed the parolee to violate the terms of his parole by, among other things, permitting him to travel outside Texas without prior, written approval and by allowing the parolee to engage in prohibited financial transactions. According to the indictment, such favorable treatment allowed the parolee to facilitate a massive scheme to defraud investors through an oil and gas company founded and operated by the parolee while he was on state parole.
