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…
Grant Fraud by Local Clean Energy Company Results in Prison
