A North Texas man is being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly spending more than $755,000 he made from his marijuana business on gambling, luxury items like designer watches and clothes, rent for his home and other personal expenses.
Robert Ty Cornoyer, 56, formerly of Dallas, Southlake and Arlington, said in a complaint filed by the SEC on May 10. Cornoyer could be forced to pay thousands of dollars in civil penalties, repay investors and face trial on the charges.
The SEC has declined to comment further on the lawsuit, and the latest court documents show that Cournoyer has not yet been assigned an attorney.
Cournoyer was a manager for Green Equity, a Colorado-based limited liability company that was formed in November 2017 to manufacture CBD-infused products and hand sanitizers during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. He later partnered with another unnamed Colorado-based company, helping it find and bring investors into Green Equity.
According to the SEC complaint, by October 2018, another Colorado company had purchased the bottling plant that was supposed to produce the CBD-infused products that Cournoyer was promoting to investors. Green Equity helped acquire the building, but another Colorado-based company owned the bottling plant. But by 2019, the plans for the bottling plant had been scrapped.
Still, according to the SEC complaint, Cournoyer continued to pitch green equity to potential investors. He raised more than $1.2 million between March 1, 2019 and Feb. 2, 2022, funds that were supposed to go to a now-closed bottling plant.
The SEC alleges that at least $755,000 of the investors’ funds was used for gambling, rent, and luxury items like designer clothes and watches. He also withdrew thousands of dollars and began gambling full-time by 2020.
According to the SEC’s complaint, at the time, Cournoyer falsely claimed to have a law degree from the University of Florida and promoted himself to investors as a credible source of information. In investor presentations, he claimed GreenEquity was operational, when in fact the company had not conducted any business since 2019.
The green equity deal signed by Cournoyer in July 2020 said the funds would be used to “expand the bottling plant; [and] As a general business expense.”
However, in April 2020, Cournoyer emailed investors saying he needed more funding to get the hand sanitizer facility “up and running.” By January 2021, he falsely represented to at least one investor that production for the hand sanitizer facility was underway and that he was working with casinos to sell hand sanitizer and CBD coffee, according to the SEC.
He claimed to have 25 years of experience in private equity, but did not mention that the SEC had previously charged him with fraud and barred him from engaging in penny stock offerings or from associating with brokers and dealers in previous cases. Cournoyer also filed for bankruptcy in September 2022.
During this time, Cournoyer never had a personal bank account, according to the SEC. Rather, he chose to use GreenEquity’s bank account, which he controlled solely. The SEC said that Cournoyer sometimes spent investor funds on gambling or designer clothing on the same day he received them.
The SEC alleges that between June 1, 2019 and June 30, 2019, Cournoyer spent thousands of dollars of investor funds at the Mirage and Bellagio casino hotels in Las Vegas and at a Panerai luxury boutique, as well as at a Hugo Boss in Dallas.
According to the SEC, he repaid the investors $5,000.
