Tampa Man Sentenced for $3 Million Biofuels Fraud

- by Susan Sal­is­bury, Decem­ber 9, 2014, Palm Beach Post    

A Tam­pa man was sen­tenced today on charges he scammed investors out of more than $3 mil­lion after promis­ing returns on bio-ener­gy crops such as cameli­na that were not even planted

William A. Vas­den Jr. who once head­ed the Flori­da Feed­stock Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, was sen­tenced to four years in fed­er­al prison in a Fort Myers courtrom.

Vas­den was also charged with fraud­u­lent­ly apply­ing for fed­er­al grant funds for alter­na­tive ener­gy projects that nev­er materialized.

The scam was uncov­ered by the Flori­da Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture and Con­sumer Ser­vices dur­ing a top-to-bot­tom audit of out­stand­ing grants and projects con­duct­ed imme­di­ate­ly after the depart­ment assumed respon­si­bil­i­ty of the state’s Office of Energy.

“Our audit exposed sev­er­al cas­es of fraud, sav­ing more than $2.4 mil­lion in tax­pay­er dol­lars,” said Com­mis­sion­er of Agri­cul­ture Adam Put­nam. “Mis­use of pub­lic funds is unac­cept­able, and those who have com­mit­ted fraud will be held accountable.”

In 2010, the state’s Office of Ener­gy, which was housed in the Exec­u­tive Office of the Gov­er­nor at that time, award­ed $500,000 to a Tam­pa-based com­pa­ny, USCJO Inc., and its pres­i­dent, Vas­den, to sup­port a sus­tain­able feed­stock farm in Arca­dia, Fla.

Once the office was trans­ferred to the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture and Con­sumer Ser­vices, the depart­ment con­duct­ed an audit of all out­stand­ing grants and projects to iden­ti­fy fraud. An inves­ti­ga­tion of USCOJ, Inc. uncov­ered fraud, and the depart­ment with­held dis­burse­ment of the funds committed.

The crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, con­duct­ed joint­ly with the Flori­da Depart­ment of Law Enforce­ment, showed that through mak­ing false state­ments about the grant mon­ey, Vas­den had scammed investors out of more than $3 mil­lion. He was indict­ed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2012 for 30 counts of wire fraud and one count of mak­ing false statements.

Ear­li­er this year, Vas­den plead­ed guilty to the 31 charges and was sen­tenced today to four years in prison and three years of super­vised release by U.S. Dis­trict Court Judge John Steele.