Without a doubt, as a speaker and long-time consultant on ethical behavior and the prevention of corporate fraud, I know that unethical behavior will not magically cure itself. Given a lack of oversite, a strong need or needs and a rationalization (no matter how preposterous), a fraudster will have no compunction over committing unethical acts until caught.
An excellent example of this observation is 31-year-old Stewart Kile Williams of Sweetwater, Texas, who has taken unethical behavior to a whole new level.
Fearless
Williams is fearless. I don’t mean to imply that fearless is the same as courageous; it is only that he never developed an ethical sense of right and wrong. He was so positive in his boldness and unethical mission, he hoodwinked others into funding him.
In 2018, Williams pleaded guilty to a cattle ranching scheme. We will call this “Fraud 1.” The fraud took place in November/December 2018. He allegedly stole between $2 million to $3 million from a ranch through the sale of livestock that never took place.
How is something like that done? Williams was working for a cattle farm in Decatur, Texas. He told his boss that he was approached by another ranch who (according to court documents) “wanted to buy millions of dollars’ worth of steers.”
The deal was a fake. Williams was close to making millions in commissions.
“Williams even went so far as to set up a phony cell phone and email address in order to pose as the owner of the ranch he claimed wanted to buy the cows…Williams was ultimately caught when his boss went to the other ranch to demand payment and, when the owner there said he knew nothing about the deal, called the phony cell phone and forced Williams to admit he was behind the whole thing.”
His boss pressed charges and Williams went to trial. He faced more than five years in jail and was ordered to make restitution.
Almost disbelievingly, during the same period he was out on bail, he created “Fraud 2.” In that fraud he decided to form a trench-digging service for the oil drilling industry. The silver-tongue orator scammed companies into paying for trench digging services that never took place. He invoiced those companies up to $12 million.
How is something like that done? It was a remarkably similar scam:
“Williams submitted false invoices for work purportedly done for a pipeline company in Texas’s Permian Basin. Williams was alleged to have similarly created a phony cell phone number and email addresses to pose as a supervisor at the company he claimed to be doing work for. He then submitted 38 phony invoices and was paid $12.3 million by the finance company, who was left holding the bag when they tried to collect from the pipeline operator.”
When the courts discovered the “two for one” fraud, Williams was then ordered to pay nearly $7.5 million in restitution, bringing the total restitution to nearly $10 million. They also tacked on 9 years in jail time, bringing his sentence to 15 years.
When the Smoke Clears
Stewart Kile Williams “doesn’t look like” a scam artist, but more like an All-American football linebacker. That’s my first point. Fraudsters don’t “look” like fraudsters. When he committed his first scam, he was in his late twenties. That’s my second point. There is no age.
Unless victims commit to due-diligence people like Williams will play them for suckers.
As to how he was raised, it is hard to say. Because a kid was in scouting or sports is no guarantee of much of anything. Ethical behavior must be taught – and reinforced. He was without conscience. He probably didn’t start out that way, but it is now the outcome of his life – so far.
What we know of Williams is that he went out and bought a “McMansion.” He bought hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction equipment and luxuries. He forgot that it was necessary to pay for things by working for them. He forgot that every choice has a consequence.
He will not leave jail until his mid-forties, and he will be saddled with paying the state a great deal of money. He will have a tarnished reputation and his future prospects for employment is greatly diminished.
Running two concurrent scams must have been one hell of a joke at the time. He is probably not laughing very much at present.
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