One of three scam artists behind a $54 million ponzi scheme was sentenced to prison for her role in the biggest ‘green energy’ scams in US history, according to NBC New York.
Troy Wragg and Amanda Knorr in their Mantria Corp. offices in 2009
35-year-old Amanda Knorr of Hellertown, Pennsylvania received just 30 months in federal prison for a ponzi scheme involving her 2005 startup, Mantria, in which “many people lost their life savings,” according to assistant US Attorney Robert Livermore following Knorr’s sentencing.
Knorr co-founded a company called Mantria Corp., which with the help of a slick-talking Colorado “wealth advisor” raised millions for a supposed clean energy product called “biochar.”
Knorr and fellow Mantria co-founder Troy Wragg both graduated in 2005 from Temple University and within four years had raised $54 million from hundreds of investors. Most of the investors were wooed through seminars run by Wayde McKelvey, of Colorado.
Their pitch about producing biochar, however, turned out to be completely baked, according to prosecutors, and eventually proved to be a giant Ponzi scheme. –NBC New York
According to federal prosecutors, Mantria never came close to producing biochar at their Tennessee facility. At seminars run by “wealth advisor” Wayde McKelvy of Colorado, investors were told a different story. “These investors, husbands and wives nearing retirement, retirees looking to invest their savings, and other small-time prospectors, were wooed by the idea of big profits from clean energy: getting rich and saving the world,” according to the report.
McKelvy was convicted in October on charges of wire fraud and securities fraud, and is currently appealing his conviction. Wragg’s sentencing is set for June.
Co-conspirator Wayde McKelvy
“Instead of high returns, the over 300 victims of this fraud unwittingly invested in uninhabitable land and a bogus trash-to-green energy business idea based on bogus scientific methodology, said US Attorney William McSwain last October after McKelvy’s conviction.
The fraudsters were honored by former President Bill Clinton in a 2009 ceremony for the Clinton Global Initiative before the scam came to light. After Mantria was first charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for selling millions in unlicensed securities in 2009, the case was known as “the biggest green scam” in the history of the United States, according to the report.
Troy Wragg, right, on stage in 2009 with former President Bill Clinton during a ceremony of the Clinton Global Initiative.
Photo credit: Youtube via NBC New York
Of the $54 million thought to have been invested in Mantria, $17 million was returned to early investors to keep the Ponzi scheme going, while misleading new investors into thinking the venture was hugely profitable. By the time they were shut down by the SEC in 2009, Mantria had just $790,000 of the remaining $37 million.
Wragg, in an interview with Metro newspaper in 2009, said he didn’t spend lavishly despite the influx of millions to his company.
“I live in a 1,200-square-foot [home],” he told Metro in the only interview he has given. “I don’t drive a Lamborghini.”
But the newspaper noted that he did drive around in a Mercedes SLK350 with a “MANTRIA” vanity license plate.
A class action lawsuit filed in federal court eventually recovered about $6 million for victims of the scheme. Another $800,000 was placed in a receivership, overseen by a Colorado accountant John Paul Anderson. –NBC New York
Anderson – the accountant tasked with dispersing funds recovered in the class action lawsuit, has yet to distribute the money which remains in receivership.
HT/ozspeaksup
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
wasn’t Solyndra a bigger Green Energy scam?
Yes, about $500M IIRC.
You can just look at the Wayde McKelvy guy and tell he’s a car-salesman/snake-oil/faith-healer-type fraudster.
…probably in high demand in the green startup biz.
But it gave the investors a good feeling and you can’t put a price on feelings can you so what’s all the fuss about?
Perhaps Wragg should have driven a Tesla instead of the Merc if you really want to be picky. OK OK a Prius and ‘Oh what a feeling!’.
This is true “Climate Justice’.
It’s another day in the afterlife of win-the-day Clintons. Their whole political career was built on the dirty details trailing well behind the front end hype machine.
It’s amazing they never had major federal grants and loans from Obama and associated program-feeder cronies.
Or did they?
A consideration of a 54 million in damages in USA due to a deception scheme consisting as a 30 months prison time sentence at the end,
begs the question of what the sentencing in the same condition will be in the consideration of Nations like China or else…where , where and.what the sentence will be within the clause of damages to the way of life of citizens in these other places in this world could be, other then within the consideration USA tolerance for such as crimes!!!???
Any guesses what the end of such deceptive mavericks will be???
Outside the USA national and institutional grace and tolerance considered as per some strange human merit?
cheers
Let’s do the math: $37 million “remaining” of the $54 million taken in, less the $6 million recovered from the scammers, less the $0.8 million placed into receivership, leaves an total of $30.2 that is currently missing. Assuming that “missing” money has been divided equally among the three main players in this criminal saga and is secreted away in offshore banks, bearer bonds, foreign securities, etc., beyond the reach of law enforcement, each of them stands to have access up to some $10 million after just 2.5 years in a minimum security—more like a country club-style—prison, not accounting for possible earnings on that money in the interim.
Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Famous movie lines updated to green scam era……
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Green Biochar.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in Green Biochar. Think about it. Will you think about it?
All of this talk about Conmen, and I suppose women too, I would recommend our readers to obtain a copy of a very good Science fiction book called “The stainless steel rat”. It says it all, and its a very good read too.
MJE VK5ELL