Former El Paso trader pleads guilty to reporting false gas prices

Former El Paso trader pleads guilty to reporting false gas prices

Houston (Platts)--14Oct2004


A former El Paso gas trader has pleaded guilty in a federal court in Houston
to false gas price reporting. Dallas Dean, one of four former El Paso
employees that recently agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with a US Dept of
Justice investigation into false price reporting, entered his plea Wednesday
at a hearing before US District Judge David Hittner, US Attorney Michael
Shelby said Thursday. Dean pleaded guilty to one count of false reporting. He
admitted that he sent an e-mail on Aug 30, 2000, to Inside FERC's Gas Market
Report, a Platts' publication, "containing a list of what purported to be
fixed-price physical natural gas trades," Shelby said. Similar hearings are
expected next week for the remaining traders charged, William Ham, Donald
Guilbault, and Christopher Bakkenist. Dean, who is scheduled to be sentenced
in January, faces a maximum punishment of five years in federal prison,
without parole, and a $500,000 fine.

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