Gary Landon Davenport, dba Southwest Family Trust Service, Financial Marketing Service and Liberty Marketing Service, Russell Reeves, dba Enterra Marketing Service, Richard Earl Russell and Gregory Monroe Roberts

UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

LITIGATION RELEASE NO. 16773 / October 18, 2000

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION v. GARY LANDON DAVENPORT, dba Southwest Family Trust Service, Financial Marketing Service and Liberty Marketing Service, RUSSELL REEVES, dba Enterra Marketing Service, RICHARD EARL RUSSELL and GREGORY MONROE ROBERTS Civil Case No. 7:99-CV-185-R, USDC, NDTX (Wichita Falls Division)

Fourth Defendant Sentenced in Elder Fraud Scheme

The Commission announced that on October 13, 2000, Judge James Nowlin, United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas, sentenced Gregory Monroe Roberts to a term of 37 months in connection with his conviction for securities and mail fraud. Roberts is the fourth defendant to be sentenced for an investment scheme targeting senior citizens that had been ongoing since 1992. In addition, the Court ordered Roberts to pay $2,605,936 in restitution to the victims of the fraud. Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, had previously sentenced the other defendants in the scheme. Gary Landon Davenport, the alleged ringleader of the scheme, received a term of 20 years, Russell Dane Reeves received a term of 108 months and Richard Earl Russell was sentenced to a term of 52 months.

Previously, on September 9, 1999, Judge Buchmeyer granted the Commission's request for a preliminary injunction in a related civil action. The Commission's Complaint alleged that approximately 100 elderly individuals were defrauded of over $2.5 million in the scheme. The indictments of the four defendants followed on October 20, 1999. Under the guise of providing estate and financial planning services, the defendants solicited information about the senior citizens' assets and investments. Upon obtaining this information, the defendants encouraged the senior citizens to liquidate their retirement investments and to invest the proceeds in phony promissory notes offering higher rates of return. In fact, according to the Commission's Complaint, the issuers of the notes had no real business and the defendants misappropriated, or stole, most of the elderly investors' funds.