Three men pleaded guilty this week in Houston to one count eachof wire fraud charges related to the bilking of hundreds ofthousands of dollars from the Coastal Corp.

Seventeen other charges were dropped by federal prosecutorsagainst Robert Rossi, Kyler Lunman II and Steven Soule in exchangefor their guilty pleas to the wire fraud charge. The other chargeswere for commodity fraud, money laundering and conspiracy and werefiled in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texasin Houston.

Original allegations were the three, along with an unindictedcoconspirator named Tommie DeMarco, cheated Coastal out of $700,000between December 1993 and January 1995. DeMarco was planned to bethe government’s star witness at a trial scheduled for this week.

The indictment said Soule began stealing trades from Coastal,working with DeMarco, a former employee of Refined Energy. Alsoinvolved in the ruse was a company called Hold Trade Inc., whichwas controlled by Lunman. Punishment is expected to be set May 26.

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