HYANNIS – A Massachusetts man who participated in a scheme to defraud the U.S. government out of about $50 million in tax-free grants intended to fund clean energy projects has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Federal prosecutors say Christopher Condron was also sentenced Tuesday in Boston to three years of probation and ordered to pay $8.7 million, the amount he actually made in the scheme that ran from 2009 until 2013.
Prosecutors say Condron and others submitted fraudulent grant applications to the U.S. Treasury Department on behalf of four different companies, purportedly involved in either biofuel gasification or wind farm projects.
One of the four companies was the Hyannis-based Ocean Wave Energy. The Department of Justice said Condron falsely claimed Ocean Wave had begun to build an $84 million wind farm in Hyannis consisting of 58 small turbines.
Condron requested a grant of $25 million for the project in September 2012.
According to court documents, more false claims were made in support of the grant application which included fabricated details about the company having two small turbines installed in Hyannis aboard a floating barge.
Then in 2013, an attorney involved with the company submitted a claim that one of Condron’s close family members was the supplier of the wind turbines. The family member was not a turbine vendor.
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Additional reporting by Brian Engles, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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