SEC sues North Texas man for gambling and squandering $755,000 from hemp investment biz

A North Texas man is being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for spending over $755,000 from his hemp business on his personal lifestyle including gambling, luxury items like designer watches and clothes and rent on his personal residence.

Robert Tye Cournoyer, 56, was formerly a Dallas, Southlake and Arlington resident. He may have to pay thousands of dollars in civil penalties, be forced to repay investors and could go to trial for his alleged crimes, according to a complaint filed by the SEC on May 10.

The SEC did not respond to an interview request from The Dallas Morning News and an attorney has not yet been assigned to Cournoyer, according to the most recent court documents.

Cournoyer was the manager of Green Equity, a Colorado-based LLC formed in November 2017 that was supposed to make CBD-infused products and hand sanitizer at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. He later partnered with another unnamed Colorado-based business which would help Cournoyer find and reel investors into Green Equity.

By October 2018, the other Colorado business acquired a bottling plant that was supposed to make the CBD-infused products that Cournoyer had touted to investors, according to the SEC complaint. Though Green Equity helped acquire the building, the other Colorado-based business owned the bottling plant. But by 2019, plans for the bottling plant had been scrapped.

Still, that didn’t stop Cournoyer from pitching Green Equity to potential investors, the SEC complaint alleges. He raised more than $1.2 million between March 1, 2019 and February 2, 2022, which was supposed to go to the already defunct bottling plant, creating CBD-infused products and hand sanitizer production.

Instead, the SEC claims that at least $755,000 of the investors’ money went to gambling, rent and luxury items like designer clothes and watches. He also withdrew thousands of dollars and had begun gambling full-time by 2020.

At the time, Cournoyer publicized himself to investors as a trustable source by falsely claiming he obtained a law degree from the University of Florida, the SEC complaint said. During investor presentations, he would claim that Green Equity was operable when in reality, it hadn’t done any business since 2019.

A Green Equity subscription agreement signed by Cournoyer in July 2020 stated that funds would be used “for the benefit of expanding the bottling plant, [and] for general expenses for corporate endeavors.”

However, in April 2020, Cournoyer emailed investors saying he needed more money to get the hand sanitizer facility “up and running.” By January 2021, he falsely claimed to at least one investor that production at the hand sanitizer facility was underway and that he was working with casinos to sell his hand sanitizer and CBD coffee, according to the SEC.

He claimed 25 years of experience in private equity, failing to mention that the SEC had previously charged him with fraud and barred him from having involvement in penny stocks offerings and from associating with any brokers or dealers in a previous case. Cournoyer also filed for bankruptcy in September 2022.

During this period, Cournoyer never had a personal bank account. Rather, he opted to use a Green Equity bank account which he had sole control of, according to the SEC. Cournoyer would sometimes use investor funds on gambling and designer clothes on the same day he received money from investors, the SEC said.

Between June 1, 2019 and June 30, 2019, Cournoyer spent thousands of dollars from investor funds in Las Vegas at the Mirage, the Bellagio and Panerai luxury boutique, the SEC claimed. He also allegedly spent thousands at a Hugo Boss in Dallas.

He repaid investors $5,000, according to the SEC.

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