Cease me when you’ve heard this one earlier than: A man embezzled practically $9 million by convincing buyers he was turning cow poop into inexperienced vitality—after which not constructing any of the machines in any respect.
On Monday, 66-year-old Raymond Brewer of Porterville, California pled responsible to costs that he’d defrauded buyers. Court docket information present that Brewer stole $8,750,000 from buyers between 2014 and 2019 with guarantees to construct anaerobic digesters, or machines that may convert cow manure to methane gasoline that may then be bought as vitality, on dairies in varied counties in California and Idaho. However as a substitute of really constructing any of these digesters, Brewer spent it on stuff like a brand new home and new Dodge Ram pickup vehicles.
In keeping with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of California, Brewer was a prolific scammer. He took potential buyers on excursions of dairies the place he mentioned he was going to construct the digesters and despatched faked paperwork the place he’d signed agreements with these dairies. When buyers requested how issues had been going or for updates on the development of the digesters or how the digesters had been working, Brewer despatched over “pretend building schedules, pretend invoices for project-related prices, pretend energy technology stories, pretend RECs, and pretend footage,” in addition to cast contracts with banks and pretend worldwide buyers. He should have been nice at Photoshop!
A part of the enchantment of the rip-off was in what’s often called Renewable Vitality Credit (REC), that are credit issued by the federal authorities signifying that renewable vitality has been produced on a website; these credit can then be bought to firms seeking to offset their fossil gas emissions. Brewer informed his buyers that he’d get them 66% of all of the income from these credit.
5 years is a hell of a very long time to vow of us cash and never ship—which is why the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace has described Brewer’s setup as a “Ponzi” scheme, as a result of he started repaying outdated buyers with cash he was scamming off of latest ones. When buyers started to get suspicious, the U.S. Attorneys’ workplace mentioned, Brewer moved to Montana and assumed a brand new identification. He was finally arrested in 2020.
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Some profiles for Brewer’s firm, CH4 Vitality, are nonetheless lively on enterprise directories like PitchBook and meals waste useful resource website ReFED. The corporate was even the topic of a profile on its “work” in native paper Visalia Occasions-Delta in 2016 and was a part of a narrative within the LA Occasions in 2013 on dairy farmers and renewable vitality.
In the LA Times story, Brewer is quoted as speaking in regards to the reluctance of dairy farmers to put in the digesters.
“Brewer mentioned he examined his system in different states, reminiscent of Wisconsin and Idaho, earlier than buying it round with California dairy farmers, whom he mentioned had been very skeptical,” the LA Occasions wrote. “He ultimately signed his first contract with [a farmer]—‘Speak about apprehensive,’ Brewer recalled. ‘That was just a little little bit of an understatement.’”
Our buddy Ray wasn’t completely bullshitting—pardon the pun—in peddling his concepts. Anaerobic digesters are actual machines that do convert animal waste into vitality, and thousands and thousands of {dollars} in federal and state cash have been spent on the know-how. Nevertheless, questions stay round just how “green” this energy is and whether it’s worth the investment.
Brewer shall be sentenced in June and faces as much as 20 years in jail.
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