Left inset: Debra Mae Carter (KDFW/YouTube). Right inset: William “Doc” Gallagher (Texas State Securities Board). Background: Gallagher’s retirement planning firm, Gallagher Financial Group Inc. (KTVT)
A Texas woman behind a plot to take $31 million from more than 170 senior citizens will spend the rest of her life in prison instead of the huge ranch she dreamed of retiring to with her Texas Christian “Money Doctor” Ponzi schemer lover.
Debra Mae Carter, 65, learned her fate on Tuesday for her role in the scheme hatched by William “Doc” Gallagher, who’s serving three life terms after being convicted of masterminding the plot, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release. Carter, who represented herself at a trial marked by numerous delays — one caused when she checked herself into a hospital — was found guilty on July 8 of money laundering.
“These were hard-earned retirement (dollars) which … got put into her account over and over again,” Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Lori Varnell said. “She is a blight on society. She’s just a liar. That’s what she does.”
A victim, Brenda Wilkerson, 84, said she and her late husband invested their inheritance with Gallagher, and now she will be paying her mortgage until she dies.
“Debbie Carter deserves life in prison,” Wilkerson said. “She has ruined so many lives. … It’s despicable.”
Gallagher targeted an audience of retired Christian investors through his books such as “Jesus Christ, Money Master” and over the airwaves on his Dallas radio show, officials said.
In a 2022 column for the Texas District & County Attorneys Association, Varnell, who prosecuted both cases, described Gallagher as a religious con artist who marshaled the “will of God” for his benefit and likened him to the now-deceased Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, who also bilked investors out of millions.
“What Madoff did to those of the Jewish faith, William Neil ‘Doc’ Gallagher did to Christians in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” Varnell wrote. “Gallagher spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy ‘bantering’ spots with well-known and beloved Christian radio hosts to publicize his investment scheme, and they always ended with him saying, ‘See you in church on Sunday!’”
The victims were traumatized.
“Some victims had to retire later than they planned because of his lies, and others recruited their children and friends to invest because of their good experience with Gallagher and his caring notes, cards, and gifts on birthdays,” Varnell wrote. “The victims referred friends to him saying, ‘He prayed with me over this decision.’”
While Gallagher raked in the money, authorities said Carter laundered much of it through rental homes, land, and fake charities. Tarrant County prosecutors said they seized about $200,000 in gold and silver from her travel trailer.
Gallagher was arrested in Dallas County in March 2019. He pleaded guilty to theft, money laundering and securities fraud after being found to have received up to $29.2 million from about 60 investors from December 2014 to January 2019. He was sentenced the following year to 25 years in state prison and ordered to pay nearly $10.4 million in restitution to the victims of the long-running fraud he operated from his retirement planning firm, Gallagher Financial Group Inc., authorities said.
In November 2021, Gallagher was sentenced in Tarrant County to three life sentences, plus another 30 years behind bars, on charges including forgery, securing the execution of a document by deception, theft of property, and exploitation of the elderly, authorities said.
“Gallagher’s main role in the scheme was to bring in the money; Carter’s role was to make sure it was not recovered by the victims,” the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office wrote in the news release. “The two ultimately planned to retire to a huge ranch together.”
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