A former marketing for Fourwinds Logistics testified today in the fraud trial of State Senator Carlos Uresti that he was instructed to use computer technology to create phony images to potential investors, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Uresti is on trial on eleven charges of misleading investors about the financial condition of the fracking sand company, which declared bankruptcy the year after Uresti joined to lure investors.
The marketer said he would 'pull images off the Internet,' to show, for example, fleets of trucks filled with fracking sand that were ready to make their way to customers, to give investors the idea that the firm was healthy. He said the images would change from day to day, and Uresti never asked why the images appeared to be different. He said he would also Photoshop bank statements to falsify Fourwinds' financial position.
When asked why he didn't leave the company, he said the CEO threatened to shoot him in the head with a pistol he carried around. He said the CEO also threw a football at him in the office as a joke.
Prosecutors are trying to demonstrate that not only was Fourwinds Logistics a phony company, Uresti should have known there was something wrong with the operation.
Previous witnesses have testified that Fourwinds offices were staffed with hookers, that 'provocatively clad women' greeted would be investors in the lobby, and the staff was frequently drunk in their offices by 10AM.
Uresti is expected to claim that he was brought in to use his prominence to attract investors, and had no contacts with the inner financial workings of the company.
Later this week, investors who were drained of all of their cash by Fourwinds are testifying.