Central Valley man pleads guilty in $9 million green energy cow manure Ponzi scheme
Maintained two residences
A Porterville, Calif. man pleaded guilty today at U.S. District Court to fraud after he was found to have developed a Ponzi scheme that promised to turn cow manure into green energy.
Ray Brewer, 66, of Porterville, and Sheridan, Montana, pleaded guilty today to wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft charges. Brewer was arrested in November 2020
According to evidence compiled in an investigation by investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Social Security Administration, Brewer stole $8,750,000 from investors by claiming to build anaerobic digesters on dairies in Fresno, Kern, Kings, and Tulare Counties, as well as other counties in California and Idaho.
Anaerobic digesters are large machines that use microorganisms to break down biodegradable material and turn it into methane. The methane can then be sold on the open market as green energy.
After Brewer received the investors’ money, he transferred the funds to multiple other bank accounts that he opened in the names of different entities, his family members, and an alias. He used false descriptions for the transfers and did so to conceal the location, source, ownership, and control of the money before using it for personal expenditures. These expenditures included two plots of land that were 10 or more acres each, a 3,700-square-foot custom home, and new Dodge Ram pickup trucks.
In some instances, Brewer purported to refund investors all or some of their money. The refunds, however, came from newly received money from other investors who had not authorized Brewer to use their money in this way.
Brewer will be June 26, 2023 and faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for the wire fraud conviction. He also faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine a of $500,000 or twice the amount of money involved for the money laundering conviction, whichever is the greater. Finally, he faces a mandatory two years in prison, consecutive to other counts, for the aggravated identity theft conviction.
