Collierville Commodity Trader Sentenced to 51 Months for $2,000,000 Investment Fraud Scheme

Memphis, TN – A federal judge in Memphis sentenced a Collierville resident to more than four years in prison for running a fraudulent commodities investment scheme which lost investors over $2,000,000. United States Attorney Kevin G. Ritz announced the sentence today.

According to information presented in court, between January and November 2022, Donald Wray Rodgers, 55, lied to more than 50 investors in multiple states about the performance of his unregistered commodities trading fund, Three Brides Trading. Rodgers doctored monthly performance statements to mimic fund growth; in reality, the fund was depreciating due to Rodgers’s bad trades. The fraud victims ran the gamut of income levels, from bank executives to landscapers. Rodgers’s deception was finally uncovered in November 2022 when victims made calls on their investments that Three Bridges Trading Fund did not have the funds to cover.

Rodgers pled guilty to wire fraud on December 18, 2023. On March 21, District Judge Thomas L. Parker sentenced Rodgers to 51 months in federal prison followed by one year of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system.

The FBI Memphis Field Office investigated this case.

United States Attorney Ritz thanked Assistant United States Attorney William C. Bateman III, who prosecuted this case on behalf of the federal government, as well as law enforcement partners who investigated the case.