{"id":26826,"date":"2023-12-19T05:58:28","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=26826"},"modified":"2023-12-19T05:58:28","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:58:28","slug":"nikola-electric-truck-start-up-founder-trevor-milton-sentenced-to-prison-after-fraud-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/12\/19\/nikola-electric-truck-start-up-founder-trevor-milton-sentenced-to-prison-after-fraud-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola: Electric truck start-up founder Trevor Milton sentenced to prison after fraud conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The founder of an electric truck start-up that was popular in the US has been sentenced to four years in prison.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Trevor Milton, who led Nikola Corporation, was convicted of fraud last year after a jury found he had lied persistently about the company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His claims helped pump up the firm’s share price, which soared to astonishing heights during the pandemic before crashing due to fraud claims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The 41-year-old wept at the sentencing hearing, maintaining he meant well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Today’s sentence should be a warning to start-up founders and corporate executives everywhere \u2014 ‘fake it till you make it’ is not an excuse for fraud, and if you mislead your investors, you will pay a stiff price,” said Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Milton, who did not have degree, founded Nikola around 2015 and pitched it as a potential rival to Tesla.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It claimed to be designing trucks powered by electricity and hydrogen. In June 2020, Nikola became a public company after it merged with another firm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Within weeks, it was valued at more than $20bn – despite never having delivered a single vehicle – and was soon announcing partnerships with the likes of General Motors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But the hype collapsed as questions grew about the truth of Milton’s statements. A well-publicised report from short-seller Hindenburg Research contributed to the growing concerns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The investigation by federal prosecutors found that Milton had “made false claims regarding nearly all aspects of Nikola’s business” and specifically targeted non-professional investors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Over the course of many months, you used your considerable social media skills to tout your company in ways that were materially false,” said Judge Edgardo Ramos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“What you said over and over on different media outlets was wrong,” the judge added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In one example, a promotional video that appeared to show the truck running on its own power, was actually rolling downhill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The sentencing comes two years after Nikola paid $125m to resolve fraud claims brought by financial regulators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The sentence delivers far less prison time than Milton could have received, given the hundreds of millions of losses described by prosecutors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, ordered to forfeit property, and was required to pay a fine of $1 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He is the latest American entrepreneur to end up behind bars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is also currently serving time in prison while FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried is awaiting sentencing.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The founder of an electric truck start-up that was popular in the US has been sentenced to four years in prison. Trevor Milton, who led Nikola Corporation, was convicted of fraud last year after a […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[305,9994,521,9993],"class_list":{"0":"post-26826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-fraud","10":"tag-hindenburg-research","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-southern-district-of-new-york","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26830,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26826\/revisions\/26830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}