A Texas real estate promoter has been sentenced to 20 years in state prison for securities fraud and theft for swindling investors.
The jury only needed 15 minutes to convict Everett Craig Williams. He was also ordered to pay $189,000 in restitution to investors who didn’t know the money they thought they were putting into real estate was actually going to pay Williams’ personal expenses.
Williams sold investment contracts and promissory notes issued by Favor Ministries Inc. that were supposed to generate profits from real estate deals.
He sold securities in a real estate investment program without telling investors he owed millions in civil court judgments, unpaid child support and judgments against him in bankruptcy court. Nor did he tell investors that in previous investment programs he sold he lost a significant portion of the money people had put up.
