Jury Convicts Ex-FBI Agent of Secret Probation Scheme

A retired FBI agent who convinced a Granbury woman she was on “secret probation” and conned her out of more than $700,000 was convicted at trial of eight federal crimes, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton announced today. His coconspirator who also carried out the “secret probation” scheme was convicted as well.       

William Roy Stone, Jr., 64, was indicted in May 2021. After 12 days of trial and just 4 hours of deliberation, a jury convicted him of  one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, five counts of wire fraud, one count of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity, and one count of false impersonation of a federal officer.  Coconspirator Joseph Eventino DeLeon, 64, was indicted in December 2021. The jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

“Mr. Stone used his imposing status as a former FBI special agent to manipulate, intimidate, and steal from his victim,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton. “Federal agents should be pillars of integrity. When they fail to meet that standard, we will not hesitate to hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.” 

According to evidence presented at trial, Mr. Stone convinced his victim, C.T., that she was under “secret probation” for federal drug crimes in “Judge Anderson’s court in Austin, Texas.”

He and Mr. DeLeon told the victim that the fictious federal judge had appointed the two of them to administer the conditions of her six year “secret probation”. They required her to text them written reports of her daily activities, and to compensate them for their supervisory services, as well as any expenses they incurred. Copies of the multiple six figure checks she wrote them were admitted into evidence at trial. Over the course of eleven months, C.T. gave Mr. Stone more than $700,000 and Mr. DeLeon more than $50,000.

Mr. Stone and Mr. DeLeon insisted that C.T. was prohibited from disclosing her probation status to anyone, and would risk imprisonment and loss of her children if she did not comply with the terms of her probation.

In recorded phone calls introduced into evidence at trial, when C.T. began to question the situation, Mr. Stone assured her everything he’d done was “legit.”  

C.T.: What I’m saying is, all of that stuff was to compensate you for all the stuff that you did for me, you know. 
STONE: Okay, then.  Okay.  We don’t need to discuss that anymore.  It’s over.  It’s done.
C.T.: Well, I’m just trying to let you know that I feel like that’s a huge order.  I mean, I feel like I could have got, like, the best attorney in, like, the world for $100,000.
STONE: Well, you know what, we can’t change the past, now can we?
…

 C.T.: I’m not stupid, Bill. I may have been, you know, blinded because I thought that somebody in your position wouldn’t ever do what you did to me.
STONE: I never did anything.
C.T.: You took advantage of me based upon who you were in society.
C.T.: I even looked up Judge Anderson in Austin and the Anderson that pulls up... There’s not one, Bill. There is not one. There is not a Judge Anderson in Austin.
STONE: Bye.

In order to further convince her the probation was real, the defendants monitored her cell phone communications, conducted physical surveillance of her, stated they had discussed C.T.’s probation with a psychiatrist, enlisted another person to impersonate the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration “Intelligence Center” in a message inquiring about C.T., and even placed spoof calls between Mr. Stone, C.T., and the fictitious Judge Anderson.

They urged her to distance herself from her family, claiming her family members wanted to take her inheritance away from her, and persuaded her to transfer her inherited assets out of a trust and into an account under her own name. At one point, they allegedly claimed Judge Anderson would discharge C.T.’s probation if C.T. agreed to marry Mr. Stone. Mr. DeLeon even carried a weapon in C.T.’s home while purportedly providing “protective services” for her. 

Mr. Stone now faces up to 158 total years in federal prison. Mr. DeLeon faces up to 20 years in prison.

The Texas Rangers and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation. Mr. Stone retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in October 2015.  The Bureau provided valuable assistance during the trial. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jenna Rudoff, Donna Strittmatter Max, and Marcus Busch are prosecuting the case with the support of Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Miller and Appellate Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Pryor; Assistant U.S. Attorney Dimitri Rocha is handling the forfeiture. U.S. District Judge Ada Brown presided over trial.