California former solar company exec sentenced to prison for ‘billion-dollar Ponzi scheme,’ prosecutors say

A former government of a California-dependent solar ability enterprise was sentenced Tuesday to nearly a ten years in prison for his part in what prosecutors say was a “billion-greenback Ponzi scheme.” 

Alan Hansen, 51, of Vacaville, pleaded guilty in 2020 to conspiracy and funds laundering rates, the U.S. Attorney’s Office mentioned in a assertion. 

FILE: McGregor Scott, the U.S. Attorney for the Japanese District of California, solutions queries in the course of a information conference in Sacramento Calif., Friday, Jan. 24, 2020.  (AP Image/Wealthy Pedroncell, File / AP Newsroom)

Hansen, labored for DC Photo voltaic, a firm centered in the San Francisco Bay Place that marketed cell photo voltaic generator models. The business touted the flexibility and environmental sustainability of the cellular solar generators, saying that they provided unexpected emergency electric power to cellphone towers and lighting at sporting and other activities, prosecutors claimed. 

Business executives started telling buyers they could reward from federal tax credits by buying the turbines and leasing them back again to DC Photo voltaic, which would present them to other companies for their use, prosecutors said.

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The generators in no way presented substantially money, and prosecutors say the corporation ran a “billion-dollar Ponzi plan,” in which early buyers were compensated with resources from later investors. 

The enterprise inevitably stopped making the mobile turbines completely, and prosecutors say at least half of the firm’s claimed 17,000 turbines did not exist.

Hansen had previously labored for a telecom corporation that did company with DC Solar. In that role, he approved $1 million from co-conspirators at DC photo voltaic to fraudulently indication a phony leasing deal for the generators, prosecutors explained.

Then Hansen joined DC Solar, exactly where he signed fake agreements relating to the earlier deal, in accordance to courtroom documents.

In addition to his eight-year prison sentence, Hansen was also ordered to spend virtually $620 million in restitution.

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Other defendants have pleaded responsible to prison offenses related to the fraud plan and have been sentenced or are scheduled for sentencing.

The Linked Push contributed to this report.