AP: Texas

01/05/2006

Associated Press

The former chief financial officer of Patterson-UTI Energy pleaded not guilty Wednesday to fraud charges accusing him of swindling millions of dollars from the oil and gas drilling company.

Jonathan Dwane Nelson, 36, a former executive of Snyder-based Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc., was scheduled to go on trial in February. Nelson is accused of using a "bogus invoice scheme" to bilk millions from company coffers, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported Wednesday in its online edition.

Authorities allege he sent the money to companies he controls and then spent it on an airplane, an airfield, a cattle ranch, homes, vehicles and a truck stop.

Nelson was named in a federal criminal complaint in November that accused him of falsely certifying a mandatory Securities and Exchange Commission report. A day before the complaint, the SEC filed a civil lawsuit against Nelson, alleging he embezzled nearly $70 million from Patterson over a five-year period.

Court motions also seek to recover more than $4 million Nelson transferred to his estranged wife and $500,000 given to his attorneys.

Nelson is under house arrest at his parents' home in Lamb County.

Patterson-UTI Energy is the second-largest land-based oil and gas drilling rig fleet in North America. The company provides contract drilling services to oil and natural gas operators in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and other states and in western Canada. It also has exploration and production operations in Texas and New Mexico.