Rodney Hailey was accused of selling $9.1 million in credits for biodiesel fuel his company did not produce, and then spending the money on everything from a Rolls Royce Phantom and a Lamborghini to jewelry and real estate.
After deliberating for just over an hour Monday, a jury convicted him on 42 counts, including wire fraud, money laundering and violations of the federal Clean Air Act.
Hailey is the owner of Clean Green Fuel, a Baltimore firm that claimed to produce bio-diesel fuel made from used fryer oil and other renewable sources and sold credits under a federal program designed to help increase production of clean energy sources.
According to the US Justice Department, between March 2009 and December 2010, Hailey sold over 32 million RINs (representing 22 million gallons of bio-diesel fuel) to brokers and oil companies for at least $9 million, when in fact Clean Green Fuel had produced no fuel at all.
According to the criminal information, Hailey did not have a facility capable of producing bio-diesel fuel and his business operation consisted solely of generating false RINs on his computer and marketing them to brokers and oil companies.
The Justice Department says that during the investigation Hailey made numerous false statements to EPA investigators, including that he manufactured the fuel from waste vegetable oil collected from 2700 restaurants.
Hailey now faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
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