Ray gets 10-year sentence

Published Thursday, March 27, 2008

By Chris Butler

A federal judge sentenced a Bridgeport woman to 10 years in prison last week after she pleaded guilty in November to stealing more than $6 million from an island resort in South Florida while she was an employee.

The woman must return the stolen money, and prosecutors are searching for her assets. Prosecutors already know that some of those assets are in Wise County.

Susan Gail Ray, 52, the owner of the 175-acre Dream Cross Ranch near Boonsville, must return $5.8 million of stolen money to the Gasparilla Inn of Boca Grande, Fla., located about 100 miles south of Tampa. Ray may have used some of the stolen money to buy the ranch, authorities said.

"The government is still looking for about $4.8 million in Ray's assets," said Kathy Colvin, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office of North Texas.

Ray pleaded guilty in November to one count of money laundering. Prosecutors said she stole money from the resort and put it into her own bank accounts while employed as the resort's comptroller. Ray was arrested last year.

An attempt to reach a representative from the Dream Cross Ranch was unsuccessful and a telephone number is no longer in service.

Gasparilla Inn

According to its Web site, the Gasparilla Inn is an almost 100-year-old resort on the Gasparilla Island on the Gulf of Mexico.

The resort is owned by the family of William Stamps Farish III. Farish's grandfather was the founder of Humble Oil in Texas and is close friends with the family of President George W. Bush. When George H.W. Bush became vice president in 1980, Farish was chosen to manage Bush's blind trust.

Ray began working as the resort's comptroller in 2000. Between October 2002 and January 2007, prosecutors said she stole more than $6 million from the resort. Ray was responsible for calculating payroll and transferring payroll funds from the company's bank accounts. She submitted payroll figures to the Gasparilla Inn, then, after receiving approval, drafted new bank transmittal forms that contained fraudulently inflated payroll figures. Ray then submitted the forms to a Florida bank and told bank employees to transfer that money from the Gasparilla Inn's general account to its payroll account, prosecutors said.

Ray wired that money from the Florida bank into her personal bank accounts in both San Antonio and Tampa. She then withdrew money from those banks and put it into her bank account in Weatherford. Ray used the stolen money to purchase horses and a ranch in Texas, prosecutors said.

Assets

Ray said in a civil deposition earlier this month that she didn't have any assets. The deposition was part of a civil suit filed against her by the owners of the Gasparilla Inn.

The Financial Litigation Unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas is investigating Ray's assets and has already located several, including five homes in Charlotte County, Fla., valued at a total of $776,128, as well as four businesses, including the Dream Cross Ranch in Wise County.

Earlier this month, an anonymous person told the FBI that Ray was hiding assets at a property owned by someone at an unspecified location. An FBI agent traveled to that property and found a climate-controlled horse trailer. The property owner said Ray and another man brought the trailer to his property and asked him to keep it there. The trailer was registered to the Dream Cross Ranch, which Ray bought in 2005.

The FBI agent also traveled to an unspecified location in Wise County to look at 50 acres of land that Ray's father was trying to buy, although the property owner told the agent he "has primarily been dealing with Susan Ray," according to a status report on Ray's civil deposition. The agent found 50 horses, a tractor, two portable trailers, pipe fencing and four portable horse shelters on the property. One of Ray's former employees told the agent that Ray kept the portable horse shelters as well as some fencing on her Dream Cross Ranch before she had it moved.

Sheriff David Walker told the agent that Ray removed the fencing from the Dream Cross Ranch after the government indicted her. The owner of the property also said the horses on his property belonged to Ray and that she brought them there.

The federal government is asking that anyone with any information about Ray's assets call the U.S. Attorney's Office Financial Litigation Unit at (817) 252-5200.