Clean energy grant fraud results in 7 year prison sentence

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man who participated in a scheme to defraud the U.S. government out of about $50 million in tax-free grants intended to fund clean energy projects has been sentenced to seven years in prison. Federal prosecutors say Christopher Condron was also sentenced Tuesday in Boston to three years of probation and ordered to pay $8.7 million, the amount he actually made in the scheme that ran from 2009 until 2013. Prosecutors say Condron and others submitted fraudulent grant applications to the U.S. Treasury Department on behalf of four different companies, purportedly involved in either biofuel gasificaton or wind farm projects.