SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – A Bay Area man must pay nearly $620 million in restitution and will serve eight years in prison after admitting to his role in an East Bay solar company's $1 billion Ponzi scheme.
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Alan Hansen, a 51-year-old Vacaville resident, was sentenced on Tuesday, becoming the fourth person tied to Benicia-based DC Solar – which federal prosecutors allege, between 2011 and '18, solicited investors in solar generators that didn’t exist – ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in addition to spending years in prison.
Hansen pleaded guilty nearly two years ago to conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S. and aiding and abetting money laundering. He accepted $1 million to sign a contract with DC Solar that falsely inflated the company’s accounting of mobile solar generator units leased to the telecommunications company he worked for, according to court documents that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California cited in a press release on Tuesday.
That contract was used to attract investors in DC Solar, which prosecutors alleged paid initial investors with money from subsequent ones rather than the generators it touted. Prosecutors said the company claimed to manufacture 17,000 generators, more than half of which didn’t actually exist.
Hansen left his telecommunications role for a more lucrative executive job with the solar company. Jeff Carpoff, the 51-year-old who founded and led DC Solar, allegedly paid Hansen and another person $20,000 to forge the signature of an employee at Hansen's former company. DC Solar used that contract to attract more payments for solar generators.
A judge sentenced Carpoff to 30 years in prison last November, ordering him to pay almost $791 million in restitution. Joseph Bayliss, a 46-year-old Martinez resident, was sentenced a week later on Nov. 16 to three years in prison and $481.3 million. DC Solar’s former CFO, 55-year-old Robert Karmann, was ordered to pay $624 million atop a six-year prison sentence.
Three other DC Solar executives and employees – including Carpoff's wife, Paulette – are set to be sentenced later this month. She faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2020 to conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S. and money laundering.
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