Oklahoma City Home Builder Sentenced to Prison and Ordered to Pay $941,475.60

OKLAHOMA CITY – GREGORY L. COBBS, 60, of Oklahoma City, has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for committing wire fraud, announced Robert J. Troester of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.  He has also been ordered to pay $941,475.60 in restitution to ten victims.

On August 20, 2018, Cobbs pleaded guilty to a one-count information that charged wire fraud.  According to the information, Cobbs was a custom home builder doing business in Oklahoma as GL Cobbs and Company, LLC.  The information explains that Cobbs promised an Oklahoma couple living in The Netherlands that he would assist them in purchasing a lot and custom home in 2014.  He is alleged to have caused the couple to sign a purchase agreement and wire him $100,000 but then to have used $95,000 of that money for purposes other than delivering the promised home.  He also allegedly induced the couple to send him more money, for a total of over $200,000.  According to the information, shortly before the couple was to receive their home in 2016, they learned that Cobbs had not purchased the lot as promised and had paid only $15,000 toward the construction cost.

Today U.S. District Judge David L. Russell sentenced Cobbs to 24 months in prison.  After release from prison, Cobbs will serve three years on supervised release.

Judge Russell considered not only the victims described in the information, but similarly-situated victims whom Cobbs defrauded.  The court concluded Cobbs’s fraudulent scheme caused losses of over $940,000 to ten separate victims.  At sentencing, two victims not referenced in the information described the manner in which Cobbs defrauded them and the effect of his crimes.

This case is the result of an investigation by the FBI Oklahoma City Division and the Yukon Police Department.  It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kerry A. Kelly and William E. Farrior.