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SACRAMENTO – A California man who ran a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme claiming to turn cow manure into green energy has been sentenced to more than six years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California announced this week.
Ray Brewer, 66, stole more than $8.7 million from investors between March 2014 and December 2019, court records show.
The beer scam involved persuading investors to build anaerobic digesters — methane-producing microorganisms that break down biodegradable material — at dairies in several California and Idaho counties, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. This methane “can then be sold on the open market as green energy,” the statement said.
Beer investors were supposed to get tax incentives and 66 percent of net profits as part of the scheme, officials said.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office, Beer gave the investors tours of the dairies.
“Also, the investors altered the agreements with the bank to make it appear as if they had secured millions of loans,” the statement said.
In an attempt to appear to have secured sources of income, beer investors also contracted with several companies to send them fake photos of digesters under construction, authorities said.
The officials said that after receiving the investors’ money, he transferred the money to bank accounts opened in his name, his relatives and various entities.
In some cases, Brewer offered refunds from other investors if they did not allow them to use their money in this way.
Beer assumed a new identity and moved to Montana after the investors discovered the fraud, authorities said.
When he was arrested, Brewer tried to mislead authorities by telling them they had the wrong person.
He also told officers stories about his time in the Navy and how he “saved several soldiers during a fire so they could escape by blocking the flames on his body” — stories he later told were false “intended to curry favor with law enforcement,” the news report said.
Some of the beer purchases made with the stolen money included two lots of 10 or more acres, a custom 3,700-square-foot home and new pickup trucks, authorities said.
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