A former energy executive in California who took part in an US$1 billion solar power fraud scheme that bilked billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s company and many others was on Tuesday sentenced to six years in federal prison and ordered to pay US$624 million in restitution.
Robert Karmann, 55, was chief financial officer for DC Solar, a company based in Benicia, California, that sold mobile solar generator units mounted on trailers.
The company marketed the generators between 2011 and 2018 as being able to provide emergency power for cellphone companies, or to provide lighting at sporting and other events.
However, the company executives started telling investors they could benefit from federal tax credits by buying the generators and leasing them back to DC Solar, which would then provide them to other companies for their use, prosecutors said.
The generators never provided much income and the company ran a Ponzi scheme, in which early investors were paid with funds from later investors, prosecutors said.
The company eventually stopped building the mobile generators altogether and at least half the company’s claimed 17,000 generators did not really exist, they said.
Among those suckered by the business were Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
DC Solar founder Jeff Carpoff was in November last year sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay US$790.6 million in restitution for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
His wife, Paulette Carpoff, 47, has pleaded guilty to federal charges and is to be sentenced next month.
Prosecutors said the Carpoffs used the money to buy and invest in 32 properties, more than 150 luxury vehicles, a subscription to a private jet service, a semi-professional baseball team, a NASCAR racecar sponsorship and a suite at the new Las Vegas Raiders stadium.
One other man was sentenced to three years in prison last year, and three others pleaded guilty to criminal charges and await sentencing.
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