Ohio man is latest to be sentenced for millions in biofuel credit fraud

Enlarge / SAN FRANCISCO, CA - APRIL 05: Used cooking oil is sucked out of a drum into a grease collection truck on April 5, 2013 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

On Monday, the Department of Justice announced the sentence of Gregory Schnabel, an Ohio man who had been illegally acquiring biofuel credits from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and reselling them. Schnabel is just the latest to be sentenced: filings from Southern Ohio's district court (PDF) detail a handful of co-conspirators, many of whom have been sentenced over the last three years.

The claims against Schnabel outline a complicated inter-state scheme to earn credits from the EPA for producing biofuel that was never produced, that was minimally processed, or that was re-sold for another round of credits. The ill-gotten credits were then sold to buyers under the pretense that the credits were legitimately earned. In Schnabel's case, the Justice Department claims that he helped generate a staggering $47 million in fraudulent credits and more than $12 million in fraudulent tax credits from the IRS.

Schnabel was sentenced to 63 months in prison and was required to pay more than $26 million in restitution.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments