Man Convicted of Siphoning Oil Worth $4 Million

A Morongo Valley man was convicted in Los Angeles federal court Tuesday on 11 counts of tapping an interstate pipeline and stealing more than 10 million gallons of crude oil, worth an estimated $4 million.

Jurors deliberated seven days before finding Mose Allen Geter, 44, guilty of conspiring to steal the oil from a tap placed on an underground pipeline in the desert northeast of Beaumont.

The prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attys. Fred Heather and Maurice A. Leiter, described the crime as one of the largest crude oil thefts in U.S. history.

The oil was stolen between 1981 and 1985 from a pipeline carrying crude from Long Beach to Red Mesa, Utah. The line, which pumps 50,000 barrels a day, is owned by Four Corners Pipeline Co., a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Co.

Investigators discovered that the oil was being tapped from the pipeline, carried by a buried pipe to a desert shed on 40 acres leased by Geter, secretly loaded onto leased tanker trucks and sold to independent Long Beach area refineries. The theft was discovered by a pipeline engineer who was investigating reports of loss of pressure on the line.

A federal grand jury in December indicted Geter; his two sons, Mose Allen Geter Jr. of Palm Desert and Christopher Darrin Geter of Palm Springs; and Konrad Edi Praeger of Morongo Valley.

James Wade Stone, who died earlier this year in St. Louis, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. Stone, a former Indio resident, was accused of setting up oil companies to market the stolen crude.

Another defendant, Milo Janis, was indicted later. He pleaded guilty, became a government witness and awaits sentencing. Geter’s son, Christopher, also pleaded guilty and faces sentencing Monday. Praeger received a four-year prison sentence on his guilty plea. Trial for Mose Geter Jr. is scheduled June 10.