A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to prison for her role in a $54 million Ponzi scheme that was the biggest scam involving clean energy in U.S. history.
Amanda Knorr, 35, was one of three people charged over the green energy scheme that defrauded more than 300 investors from around the country.
Knorr was sentenced on Friday in Philadelphia federal court to 30 months in federal prison.
Knorr co-founded Mantria Corp with her college boyfriend Troy Wragg after they graduated from Temple University in 2005.
A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to prison for her role in a $54 million Ponzi scheme that was the biggest scam involving clean energy in U.S. history.
Amanda Knorr, 35, was one of three people charged over the green energy scheme that defrauded more than 300 investors from around the country.
Knorr was sentenced on Friday in Philadelphia federal court to 30 months in federal prison.
Knorr co-founded Mantria Corp with her college boyfriend Troy Wragg after they graduated from Temple University in 2005.
Authorities said they received more than $54 million from hundreds of investors within four years on false promises of green energy technology that would turn trash into fuel and ‘carbon-negative’ housing developments, neither of which were ever fully developed.
Many of the investors were encouraged to invest through get-rich seminars run by Colorado wealth adviser Wayde McKelvy.
Wragg and McKelvy are also charged in the scheme.
‘Many people lost their entire life savings,’ assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Livermore said after Knorr was sentenced, according to NBC.
Authorities said those involved promised investors huge returns for investments in their supposedly profitable business ventures in real estate and green energy.
According to court documents, Mantria was a Ponzi scheme in which new investor money was used to pay ‘earnings’ to prior investors since the businesses actually generated meager revenues and no profits.
Mantria, which was shut down in 2009 by the Securities Exchange Commission, is believed to be the biggest green scam in U.S. history.
The scam allegedly ran from 2005 until 2009, even after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Wragg and Knorr’s Mantria Corp. They were ordered in 2012 to pay $37 million each.
Two months prior to the scheme coming to light, Knorr and Wragg were both honored by former President Bill Clinton for their so-called commitment to ‘help mitigate global warming’ during a 2009 ceremony for the Clinton Global Initiative.
The company was cited for its plans to develop the biochar technology that it said would sequester carbon dioxide and reduce emissions in developing countries. Wragg appeared on stage with Clinton at the event in September 2009.
Prosecutors say the trio lied to investors, saying their biochar technology and carbon-negative housing in Tennessee made millions of dollars, but they had almost no earnings.
McKelvy, who prosecutors say was never been licensed to sell securities, raised money through his Speed of Wealth seminars in Colorado, Las Vegas and elsewhere, including one that featured a speech from former Broncos quarterback John Elway.
Knorr and Wragg both pleaded guilty after being charged.
McKelvy is currently appealing his conviction and Wragg is due to be sentenced in June.
Ain’t nobody creepin’ in on the governments territory! There’s gold in them thar’ hills, and when I say hills I mean our hills and our pockets.
Wonder how much Al Gore invested? LMFAO How he stays out of prison is a tribute to corruption, that’s for damn sure.