Dc solar company in the eastern district of california

Is DC Solar a Ponzi scheme?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An owner of DC Solar, a Benicia-based company, was sentenced today for a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme— the biggest criminal fraud scheme in the history of the Eastern District of California, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

Where is DC Solar located?

Flush with Geico’s money, DC Solar moved its headquarters, in the summer of 2016, from a back road in Concord to a modern hilltop facility 10 miles north, in Benicia, overlooking the rush of commuters on I-680.

What happened at DC Solar headquarters?

At about 9:30 a.m., the agents swarmed DC Solar headquarters, while a SWAT team broke down the front door of the Carpoffs’ hillside home. Agents found nearly $1.7 million in cash in Carpoff’s office safe. The agents pressed employees for the location of his cars. They were pointed down the street, to a trio of pristinely maintained warehouses.

What if DC Solar succeeded?

If DC Solar succeeded, Carpoff swore, he’d buy them all Harleys. One of the professionals in the room, a financial modeler named Gary Knapp, helped introduce Carpoff to the law firm Nixon Peabody, which had a well-known tax-credits practice.

Would DC Solar defraud new buyers?

DC Solar wouldn’t just defraud new buyers to pay earlier ones. By holding itself out as a legitimate solar company, it would give all of them—new and old—cover to drain millions of dollars of tax credits from the U.S. Treasury. The American taxpayer, that is, would subsidize the scam.

Did DC Solar rob the American people?

Because those corporations had used the investment tax credit to deduct roughly that entire sum from their taxes, DC Solar had effectively robbed the American people. The corporations are expected to return their ill-gotten tax breaks to the U.S. Treasury.