SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Robert A. Karmann, 55, of Clayton, was sentenced today to six years in prison and ordered to pay $624 million in restitution for participating in a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme involving DC Solar, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to court documents, Karmann was a certified public accountant (CPA) that DC Solar hired first as its Controller in 2014, and later as its Chief Financial Officer. DC Solar manufactured mobile solar generator units (MSG), which were solar generators that were mounted on trailers. The MSGs were sold to investors who were given generous federal tax credits, and who were falsely led to believe that there was extensive demand from third parties to lease these MSGs to create a revenue stream. In fact, that demand was virtually non-existent. DC Solar had instead become a fraud scheme that took new investor money to pay older investors, using circular transactions that were fraudulently disguised to look like real third-party lease revenue.
According to court documents, Karmann and the other co-conspirators, including company founder Jeff Carpoff, carried out an accounting and lease revenue fraud using the Ponzi-like circular payments. Carpoff and others lied to investors about the market demand for DC Solar’s MSGs and its revenue from leasing to third parties. Then Karmann, Carpoff, and others covered up these lies with techniques including false financial statements, false operation reports, and false…
