Tulsa Businessman Bill Bartmann Dead At 68

Tulsa businessman Bill Bartmann died Tuesday.

Bartmann became a billionaire in the 1990s when he built his debt-collection business, Commercial Financial Services, into a colossus.

It all came crashing down in 1999 when CFS declared bankruptcy.

CFS pioneered the practice of bundling bad debt and selling bonds based on that debt.

The company employed about 3,900 people in Tulsa and Oklahoma City at its height. It ran into financial problems in 1998 when anonymous allegations emerged that the company was inflating its collection rates and was selling bad accounts to a firm controlled by a CFS executive.

The company filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in 1999 and a federal grand jury indicted Bartmann on 58 counts in 2002.

A jury acquitted him on all counts in December of 2003.

Bartmann later launched another company and became an author and self-declared consumer advocate.

8/13/2015 Related Story: Tulsa Businessman Launches 'First Of Its Kind' Online Financial Company

He was 68 years old.