Ray Brewer, 66, of Porterville, California, will serve time in jail for defrauding $8.75 million in investors through a “cow dung-to-green energy system” that was nothing more than a pile of cow manure.
Prosecutors believe that Brewer operated the hoax from 2014 to 2019 in which he falsely claimed to be constructing anaerobic digesters at dairies in Idaho and Fresno, Kern, Kings, and Tulare counties in California. According to the prosecution, he handed them fraudulent lease agreements with dairy owners, false loan agreements with banks, phony contracts with international businesses, and false images of the equipment being built.