{"id":26609,"date":"2024-07-12T23:38:46","date_gmt":"2024-07-13T05:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-businesswoman-enters-federal-plea-agreement\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:42:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:42:57","slug":"farmington-businesswoman-enters-federal-plea-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-businesswoman-enters-federal-plea-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington businesswoman enters federal plea agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Teresa
Teresa McCown, 55, of Farmington was arrested on federal fraud charges on Feb. 6 in Farmington.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Farmington business woman accused of failing to pay more than $2.1 million in oil and gas royalties entered a plea agreement Thursday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

Teresa McCown, 55, admitted that as the owner of M&M Production & Operation, Inc. and Shoreline Oil & Gas Co., she violated federal royalty and management and enforcement and committed wire fraud.<\/p>\n

This resulted in the Jicarilla Apache Nation, Navajo Nation and federal government losing $2.19 million in taxes and royalties for oil and gas produced on federal and Indian leases between 2017 and 2023, according to court records.<\/p>\n

In court, McCown stated M&M Production & Operation, Inc., had \u201c17 federal leases with 35 associated wells\u201d and \u201csix Indian leases with six associated wells,\u201d which were within the jurisdiction of the BLM\u2019s Farmington Field Office.<\/p>\n

McCown also stated M&M Production held \u201cone federal with one associated well\u201d and \u201csix Indian leases with 19 associated wells\u201d all within the jurisdiction of the BLM\u2019s Rio Puerto Field Office.<\/p>\n

Shoreline Oil and Gas Co. held \u201cthree Indian leases with 15 associated wells\u201d within the jurisdiction of the BLM\u2019s Rio Puerto Field Office, McCown stated.<\/p>\n

McCown stated that as the lease operator, she was the one \u201cresponsible for the accounting and reporting of mineral production from leased lands, and I am responsible for the payment of royalties to the mineral interest owners for my companies\u2019 shares of the gas and minerals removed from the leased lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

She admitted \u201cthrough my companies, I falsely reported gas extraction amounts and other times failed to report them at all and subsequently failed to pay due royalties and interest. During the periods that I failed to pay royalties and failed to correct my violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of this, McCown was \u201cassessed notices for noncompliance and civil penalties for failures to accurately report oil and gas extraction,\u201d and she stated, \u201chave not taken any corrective action.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her plea,\u00a0McCown\u00a0admitted to filing more than \u201c400 incorrect reports on Indian and federal leases\u201d and \u201cthere are approximately 1,000 missing or unfiled OGOR reports for at least 32 leases or agreements,\u201d which McCown falsely reported gas extraction amounts, and failed to pay due royalties and interest,\u201d according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

As part of her plea agreement,\u00a0McCown\u00a0agreed to \u201cliquidate personal properties in Farmington and Rio Arriba County, an RV, and two motor vehicles\u201d of which she will use the proceeds for restitution she owes, court records state.<\/p>\n

McCown\u00a0will be on conditions of release pending her sentencing, and she faces up to 20 years in prison. When released she\u00a0will be subject to up to three years of supervised release.<\/p>\n

The Department of the Interior, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Energy Investigations Unit investigated this case.<\/p>\n

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Flores is prosecuting the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McCown admits to owing $2.19 million in oil and gas royalties<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79409,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26609\/revisions\/79409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26609"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}