LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The CEO of a bankrupt southern Kentucky oil company was indicted Wednesday on federal charges that he failed to pay more than $1.6 million in taxes over two years and with making false statements to a licensed gun dealer.
The charges against Anthony L. Young of Knob Lick, who runs Young Oil in Metcalfe County, are the latest in a long-running legal saga enveloping the businessman and his company.
Young ran Young Oil Corp. as it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2009, two months before Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate issued an order finding that the CEO and his company committed fraud and violated the Kentucky Securities Act.
Young and the company owe the state a $20 million judgment. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Joan Lloyd suspended attempts by the state to collect the judgment in November 2009 because of the pending bankruptcy case.
Court records did not list an attorney for Young.
Young is charged with failing to pay $496,000 in taxes for the 2005 calendar year and $1,167,000 in taxes for the 2006 calendar year. In the gun case, Young is charged with having a person identified only as "K.B." buy a .45-caliber pistol for him in June 2010, while Young was addicted to cocaine and oxycodone. But the man failed to disclose to the dealer that Young would take possession of the weapon.
The Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions sued Young Oil and froze its assets in 2008 after receiving investor complaints. Young Oil raised nearly $20 million from investors through the sale of 57 partnerships from 1997 through 2008.
State officials said Young was misusing and misappropriating investor funds and production revenues from his oil and gas operations. During the trial in 2009, state attorneys said Young and his company sold unregistered securities and misled investors about the profitability of the wells, the costs to drill and other essential information about Young Oil's offerings.
Wingate found that Young omitted material information to investors and defrauded them in connection with the sale of securities.
". Mr. Young used his profiteering scheme to purchase a Lear Jet, an $86,000 Corvette, and various vacations to the Caribbean," Wingate wrote in his findings. "Additionally, Mr. Young sponsored a racing company and lived a lavish lifestyle, all at the expense of misinformed investors."
Young is also being sued by the federal bankruptcy trustee, who alleges that Young improperly transferred assets from the company as it went bankrupt, thereby depriving creditors of possible assets to collect as the case winds on.
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