3 charged in a conspiracy related to bad oil, gas leases

Oklahoma City federal prosecutors have charged three businessmen in a wire fraud conspiracy after they allegedly split thousands of dollars in proceeds derived from bad oil and gas leases.

The men are accused of retaining lease bonuses paid by SandRidge Energy on oil and gas leases with bad titles and then keeping the proceeds instead of returning the bonuses.

Charged with conspiracy are Joel Matthew Eilerts, Brian Steven Eischeid and Robert Samuel Kerr IV. The alleged conspiracy took place between December 2012 and August 2013, according to prosecutors.

Defense attorney John W. Coyle III said Kerr isn’t denying the allegations and plans to enter a plea of guilty “in the coming days.”

“This is a very sad day. Sam is so remorseful about his actions, especially the pain he has caused his family,” Coyle told The Oklahoman Friday.

Eilerts also isn’t denying the allegations and plans to enter a plea of guilty soon, defense attorney C. Merle Gile said.

“I don’t think that he understood that some of the stuff that he did was against federal law . ... But he does now,” Gile said.

Calls made to Eischeid and his attorney were not immediately returned Friday. All three men were charged in separate cases Thursday.

Eilerts, 38, of Oklahoma City, worked for SandRidge in the land department at the time of the alleged conspiracy, prosecutors reported. He also is charged with wire fraud, accused of accepting kickback payments from Eischeid’s and Kerr’s companies in exchange for referral of SandRidge business.

“In total, Eilerts received at least $324,000 in kickback payments resulting from the scheme,” prosecutors wrote in the charging information.

Eischeid, 34, of Norman, owned Keystone Land & Minerals during the alleged conspiracy, according to prosecutors. Kerr, 38, of Oklahoma City, owned R.S.K. Land and Energy Resources, prosecutors reported.

“Although Eilerts was prohibited from using his position at SandRidge for his personal gain, ... Eilerts failed to disclose to SandRidge that he personally profited from the company’s business relationship with (Eischeid and Kerr),” according to prosecutors. “When Eilerts, in his position as land manager, signed check requests authorizing lease bonus payments from SandRidge to Keystone, he failed to disclose

to SandRidge that a portion of those payments would later be kicked back to his company for his personal benefit.”

By no later than March 2012, Eilerts began hiring Eischeid and Kerr as third-party brokers to purchase oil and gas leases and conduct title work on behalf of SandRidge, according to prosecutors. In December 2012, Eilerts asked Eischeid and Kerr to acquire an oil and gas lease on behalf of SandRidge on a 160-acre tract in Alfalfa County, prosecutors reported.

Eilerts advised them

that SandRidge was willing to pay up to $1,100 per acre as a lease bonus, according to the charge. Eilerts also provided them with a report showing that a mineral owner possessed 80 net mineral acres on the property, prosecutors reported.

Eischeid then executed an oil and gas lease between the mineral owner and Keystone, with the intention of assigning the lease from Keystone to SandRidge, prosecutors reported. Thereafter, SandRidge issued an $88,000 check to Keystone, representing the maximum lease

bonus payment, according to the charge.

Eischeid later discovered the mineral owner didn’t own any interest in the property and advised Eilerts it was a “bad lease,” prosecutors reported. In January 2013, Eischeid mailed an $88,000 cashier’s check from Keystone to Eilerts at SandRidge, according to the charge.

A few weeks later, Eilerts told Eischeid to pick up the previously mailed check, and Kerr advised Eischeid to do what Eilerts said, according to prosecutors.

Thereafter, the three

men “agreed not to return the $88,000 lease bonus payment ... to SandRidge,” prosecutors reported. Instead they “agreed to split the proceeds among themselves,” prosecutors allege.

Prosecutors also allege the men split the proceeds from a $120,000 check obtained by Keystone from SandRidge through another bad lease in July 2013.

SandRidge terminated Eilerts in June 2014, prosecutors reported. At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Eilerts owned Murray Street Investments and Double Negative

Energy, according to prosecutors.

At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Kerr, an attorney, had been suspended from practicing law after entering an Alford plea to a misdemeanor obstruction offense. He had been accused in a 2007 scheme to bribe an Edmond police officer. He got his law license reinstated in 2015, records show.

The maximum punishment for conspiracy is five years in federal prison. The maximum punishment for wire fraud is 20 years in federal prison.