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A fourth business executive faces criminal charges stemming from a federal investigation into a failed multibillion-dollar project to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina, authorities announced Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. Jeffrey A. Benjamin was a former senior vice president for Westinghouse Electric Co., the lead contractor to build two new reactors at the V.C. Summer plant. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. parent company SCANA Corp. and state-owned utility company Santee Cooper spent nearly $10 billion on the project before halting construction in 2017 following Westinghouse’s bankruptcy. He now faces multiple felony counts of fraud, according to an indictment. Benjamin, who supervised all nuclear projects for Westinghouse, received information throughout 2016 and 2017 that the two V.C. Summer reactors were behind schedule and over budget, prosecutors said.

A former Vermont ski resort president pleaded guilty Friday to providing false documents during a failed plan to build a biotechnology plant in Newport using tens of millions of dollars in foreign investors’ money, the Associated Press reported. In exchange for the guilty plea from William Stenger, the former president of Jay Peak Resort, the federal government dropped nine other fraud charges. The 72-year-old faces up to five years in prison. Stenger’s lawyer Brooks McArthur said after the hearing that Miami businessman Ariel Quiros, the former owner of Jay Peak and Burke Mountain Resort, and his advisor William Kelly, were career con men and fraudsters who took advantage of Stenger, who said he had spent his life trying to improve the economic conditions in the Northeast Kingdom region of Vermont. In 2019, Quiros, Stenger and Kelly were indicted criminally over a failed plan to build the biotechnology plant in Newport, Vermont, using millions raised through the EB-5 program. The visa program encourages foreigners to invest in U.S. projects that create jobs in exchange for a chance to earn permanent U.S. residency. The AnC-Bio project was designed to raise $110 million from 220 immigrant investors to construct and operate the biotechnology facility, according to proceedings and documents. There were about 800 investors in a total of eight projects, which brought the promise of jobs to the Northeast Kingdom. The remote area has some of the highest unemployment rates in the state.

A former Vermont ski resort president has reached a plea deal over a failed plan to build a biotechnology plant in Newport, Vt., using tens of millions of dollars in foreign investors’ money, the Associated Press reported. William Stenger, the former president of Jay Peak Resort, has agreed to plead guilty to providing false statements and faces up to five years in prison, according to the deal filed in court on Wednesday. Nine other charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement. Stenger is due in court on Friday. Stenger was expected to go on trial in October and is the third man in the case to reach a plea deal. “The Jay Peak developers, including Mr. Stenger, routinely provided the State of Vermont false, misleading, and fraudulent information throughout the course of our dealings. I am pleased Mr. Stenger has taken responsibility for similar deceptive statements to the U.S. government,” said Michael Pieciak, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation. Miami businessman Ariel Quiros, the former owner of Jay Peak and Burke Mountain ski resorts in northern Vermont, changed his plea to guilty last August on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and the concealment of material information. Nine other charges were dropped. Quiros, Stenger and William Kelly, an advisor to Quiros, were indicted over a failed plan to build a biotechnology plant in Newport using millions raised through the EB-5 visa program, which encourages foreigners to invest in U.S. projects that create jobs in exchange for a chance to earn permanent U.S. residency. The AnC-Bio project was designed to raise $110 million from 220 immigrant investors to construct and operate the biotechnology facility, according to proceedings and documents. The investors could qualify for permanent resident status by investing $500,000 in an approved commercial enterprise. About 169 investors invested about $85 million in the project, in addition to paying $8 million in “administrative fees,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Former Theranos Inc. patients will be allowed to testify at the criminal fraud trial of the defunct blood-testing startup’s founder, Elizabeth Holmes, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The decision by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila blocked a last-ditch attempt by Ms. Holmes to keep jurors from hearing the stories of patients who say they received inaccurate results from Theranos tests. The ruling comes less than four weeks before the scheduled start of jury selection in the case. Ms. Holmes has pleaded not guilty to counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The patient testimony could be a pivotal piece of the prosecution’s case that Ms. Holmes defrauded investors and patients in her attempt to create a revolutionary company that promised to test for a wide range of health conditions using only a few drops of blood from a finger prick. As the Wall Street Journal first reported in 2015, Theranos’s proprietary technology was unreliable and the company often ran tests on commercial analyzers, including some that it modified to be able to use smaller amounts of blood. Patients on a list of potential witnesses in the court record received Theranos test results that falsely signaled a miscarriage instead of a healthy pregnancy, flagged high levels of a prostate-specific antigen that indicated an aggressive cancer, and claimed patients were HIV positive who weren’t.

After three back-to-back miscarriages, Brittany Gould said she turned to Theranos Inc. to know if her latest pregnancy was on track. Then, one of the company’s trademark finger-prick tests indicated she was losing another baby, Ms. Gould said. The Mesa, Ariz., medical assistant recalled dreading the moment when she would have to tell her 7-year-old daughter, who was waiting for a sibling. “Mommy is not having a baby,” Ms. Gould said she told her. Like those of other patients slated as potential witnesses in the criminal trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, Ms. Gould’s test was wrong. Prosecutors have accused Ms. Holmes of defrauding patients and investors by falsely claiming her invention could accurately perform lab tests on just a few drops of blood, the Wall Street Journal reported. The repeatedly delayed trial — postponed once because Holmes was due to have a baby herself — is expected to be one of the most widely watched corporate-fraud cases in years. Scheduled to begin with jury selection on Aug. 31 in San Jose, Calif., the trial features a star-studded list of potential witnesses, including ex-Theranos directors Henry Kissinger and Jim Mattis; ex-Theranos lawyer David Boies; and high-profile investors, including Riley Bechtel, the former chairman of Bechtel Corp., and Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox Corp. and executive chairman of News Corp.
The lineup also could include a handful of previously unknown patients — if the court allows them to take the stand. Ms. Holmes’s lawyers have argued the patient witnesses should be excluded, and they have already had success in limiting the scope of their testimony. A ruling by the judge to eliminate the patients would be considered a big win for Ms. Holmes, and could significantly change the nature of the trial.

U.S. District Judge Ann D. Montgomery has issued an order closing the receivership of Thomas J. Petters and discharging the Receiver in one of the nation’s largest and most complex Ponzi schemes, according to a DOJ press release. Through the efforts of the receiver, the U.S., and related bankruptcy trustees more than $722 million was distributed to victims and creditors. The U.S. commenced the receivership case in October of 2008 to enjoin the ongoing fraud by Petters and the other named defendants and to preserve all assets owned by the defendants for ultimate restitution and forfeiture in the criminal investigations of the defendants, which were pending at the time. The U.S. immediately moved to freeze the assets of the named defendants, including all assets owned by Petters. On October 14, 2008, the court issued the injunction against Petters and appointed Douglas A. Kelley as the receiver of the assets of Petters and the other named defendants. At the time none of the defendants had yet been indicted. The receiver immediately began taking control of the assets and property owned by Petters and the other named defendants. Petters and the other defendants had created a vast web of more than 150 entities over the course of thirteen years — entities that were all propped up by fraud. Some of the entities, however, were legitimate businesses that employed innocent persons.

A noted art dealer was arrested today on federal charges accusing him of embezzling more than $260,000 from the bankruptcy estate of Ace Gallery, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based art gallery, while acting as the estate’s trustee and custodian, according to a DOJ press release. Douglas J. Chrismas, of the Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, surrendered without incident this morning to special agents of the FBI. A federal grand jury charged Chrismas via indictment with three counts of embezzlement against a bankruptcy estate. Chrismas was ordered released on $50,000 bond. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and a September 21 trial date has been scheduled in this matter. According to the indictment returned on March 16 and unsealed today, Chrismas was the president and CEO of Art and Architecture Books of the 21st Century, which did business as Ace Gallery and was located on the Miracle Mile in the City of Los Angeles. In February 2013, Ace Gallery filed a chapter 11 petition in Los Angeles and continued to operate as a bankruptcy estate with Chrismas acting as the gallery’s president, trustee, custodian and overseer of its operations. In this role, Chrismas also had access to the gallery’s property. Chrismas remained in control over Ace Gallery until April 2016, when an independent bankruptcy trustee was appointed to run the bankruptcy estate and Chrismas was removed as trustee and custodian.

Trevor Milton, the founder of Nikola Corp. and onetime executive chairman of the electric-truck startup, was indicted Thursday on securities-fraud charges for allegedly lying to investors about its business making commercial trucks powered by alternative fuel, the Wall Street Journal reported. Milton, who resigned from the company last September, faces two counts of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud, according to an indictment made public yesterday. The 39-year-old faces a maximum 25-year prison term if convicted of the top securities-fraud charge. “In order to drive investor demand for Nikola stock, Milton lied about nearly every aspect of his business,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said yesterday. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil complaint yesterday against Milton.