San Diegan Charged in $77-Million Mail Fraud

A San Diego man was named Friday in a 15-count indictment that charged that he ran a Ponzi scheme involving solar power companies in which investors lost at least $77 million, federal prosecutors said.

The indictment, returned in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, charged Ernest P. Lampert, 49, with 15 counts of mail fraud. It detailed a scheme that prosecutors contend promised investors federal income-tax credits and rising income from the sale of electricity and thermal energy created by Lampert’s companies.

Lampert operated a Ponzi scheme, using funds from new investors to pay off earlier investors, according to the indictment.

If convicted, Lampert could be sentenced to a maximum of 75 years in prison and fined $1.2 million, U.S. Atty. Joseph P. Russoniello said.

Lampert was president of a company named United Energy Corp., based in Foster City, Calif., that sold devices called “solar energy modules,” prosecutors said. The modules were sold to provide tax credits and income from the sale of electricity and thermal energy, they said.

Investors were invited to install their modules at solar farms owned by another Lampert company, Renewable Power Co., in Borrego Springs, Barstow and Davis, prosecutors said.

None of the modules installed by United Energy worked, prosecutors said, and, in early 1985, the firm went bankrupt. Investors, however, were not informed of the firm’s failures, prosecutors said.