By Rick Hurd
Bay Area News Group
(TNS)
The last of eight defendants sentenced for committing the biggest Ponzi scheme in California history has received a five-and-a-half-year state prison term, authorities said.
U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd sentenced Ronald Roach, 59, of Walnut Creek on Monday, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Eric Grant of the Eastern District of California. Roach served as the accountant for DC Solar, the company behind a fraud scheme that drew more than $912 million from investors between 2011 and 2018.
Roach as the company’s accountant lied to investors to help DC Solar hide the lack of third-party lease revenue in the scheme, Grant said. Roach and co-defendant Joseph Bayliss, of Lafayette, were the first employees of the company to plead guilty, which they did on Oct. 22, 2019, according to Grant.
Bayliss received a three-year prison sentence in November 2021, and was ordered to pay $481.3 million in restitution. That same month, the company’s owner Jeff Carpoff, 55, of Martinez, received a 30-year sentence and ordered to pay $790.6 million in restitution.
Roach’s plea comes five weeks after Ari Lauer, 61, of Lafayette, received a sentence of 11 years and five months in prison after pleading guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, 12 counts of bank fraud and 10 counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution, Grant said.
“This outcome reflects years of careful, methodical investigative work and a prosecution built on meticulous attention to detail,” Grant said. “None of the eight defendants went to trial but each ultimately accepted responsibility and pleaded guilty. Our office remains committed to holding accountable those who exploit others for personal gain.”
DC Solar manufactured mobile solar generators that were mounted on trailers and claimed the generators were used to provide emergency power to cellphone towers and lighting at sporting and other major events. Investors received generous tax credits because of the solar nature of the panels.
Grant said investors never actually took possession of the generators—a key part of the fraud. Instead, Grant said, the company leased those generators back from investors and claimed to sublease them to third parties to release the revenue. But there was little third-party rental demand for the generators, a fact which Grant said Roach helped to conceal.
In all, Grant said about 94%-95% of the lease revenue on DC Solar’s books were intercompany transfers disguised as new investor money. The actual demand from the third-party end-used demand never exceeded 5%, Grant said.
The FBI raided the Carpoff’s home in December 2018.
The other four who also received sentences in the scandal include: Paulette Carpoff, 52, of Martinez, to 11 years and three months in prison; DC Solar Chief Financial Officer Robert Karmann, 59, of Clayton, to six years in prison and $624 million in restitution; Ryan Guidry, 49, of Pleasant Hill, to six and a half years in prison with a $619,415,900 in restitution; and Alan Hansen, 54, to 39 months in prison.
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