Clean Energy Advisors – Ponzi Scheme Founder Sentenced to Prison | Goodman & Nekvasil P.A. May Recover Investor Losses
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office:
Christopher B. Warren, 50, of Anthony, Florida was sentenced yesterday to nine years in federal prison for operating a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Don Cochran for the Middle District of Tennessee. Warren was charged in a 12-count indictment in July 2018 and pleaded guilty to mail fraud and securities fraud in December 2018.
In sentencing Warren, U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson remarked that this was a “terrible crime with lies everywhere,” and that there was no excuse for this conduct. Judge Richardson also ordered Warren to pay $15,666,418.67 in restitution.
Warren was the founder and chief investment officer of Clean Energy Advisors (CEA), a company registered in Wyoming with offices in Nashville, Tennessee, Florida, and other locations. Beginning in November 2013 and continuing through September 2017, Warren devised and operated a scheme to defraud investors by offering investment opportunities in solar farm projects purportedly owned by CEA. To attract investors, Warren claimed that CEA owned working solar farms throughout the state of North Carolina and further claimed that Duke Power agreed to purchase the energy produced by CEA’s farms and that he would use the revenue to pay dividends to investors. Warren recruited 60 investors for its private investment funds: Utility Solar IV and Utility Income Fund and made numerous false misrepresentations, including that CEA owned several solar farms and made millions of dollars selling solar energy to utility companies, knowing at the time that CEA had no earnings, no profits, and had no contracts with any utility company. Warren also provided investors with a list of solar farms purportedly owned by CEA, many of which did not exist and others that were actually owned by other entities.
To hide the fraud, Warren created phone audited financial statements and made regular Ponzi payments to select investors. As the scheme was uncovered, Warren told investors he would repay the principal investments pending the imminent sale of the company to a foreign purchaser. In fact, no sale could have ever materialized.
During the course of the scheme, Warren raised approximately $28 million from investors, misappropriated a significant portion of those funds, including using almost $7 million for the personal benefit of himself and family members, and caused investors to lose more than $15 million.
Investors in Clean Energy Advisors May Recover their Losses with Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A.
If you invested in Clean Energy Advisors, Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A. may help you. Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A., a Clearwater, Florida, law firm with a national practice representing victimized investors, has recovered more than $180 million dollars on behalf of victimized investors.
All our cases are handled on a purely contingency fee basis by Kalju Nekvasil, Esq., formerly regional counsel with the NASD, now known as FINRA. Kalju Nekvasil, Esq. has practiced in this area of the law for more than 35 years.
There is no charge for an evaluation of your case. Further, we handle our cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that unless we recover money for you, we charge no attorney’s fee. Unless you recover any money, you pay us nothing, not even the costs and expenses which the firm will advance on your behalf.
If you incurred investment losses in Clean Energy Advisors and would like your case evaluated by a securities attorney (again, there is no charge for an evaluation and all cases are handled on a purely contingency fee basis), please contact us.
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