Man who earlier-long-established underwater scooter in lake to test out to evade arrest pleads responsible
Federal prosecutors exclaim that a California man who tried to evade arrest by jumping staunch into a lake with an underwater scooter has pleaded responsible in connection with a $35 million funding fraud blueprint
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California man who tried to evade arrest by jumping staunch into a lake with an underwater scooter pleaded responsible Thursday to fraud, cash laundering and discover tampering in connection with a $35 million funding fraud blueprint, federal prosecutors announced.
Prosecutors exclaim that between 2015 and 2020, Matthew Piercey, forty eight, of Shasta County solicited investor funds and earlier-long-established the cash for loads of internal most and enterprise costs, including the acquisition of two residential properties.
He paid back to merchants about $8.8. million of the $35 million invested, per a observation launched by the U.S. Attorney’s Area of job for the Eastern District of California.
When brokers tried to arrest him in November 2020, Piercey led them on a vehicle dawdle forward of dumping his vehicle and fleeing into frigid Lake Shasta with what modified into later identified as a Yamaha 350LI underwater submersible draw.
“Piercey spent some time out of scrutinize underwater the keep legislation enforcement would possibly perhaps perhaps maybe maybe finest scrutinize bubbles,” federal prosecutors wrote in courtroom documents calling him a flight probability.
He emerged from the lake after about 20 minutes and modified into arrested. The underwater draw modified into a sea scooter, or a motorized draw that pulls customers underwater at speeds of about 4 mph (6.4 kph).
Piercey tried to dissuade merchants and witnesses from responding to mountainous jury subpoenas and after his arrest earlier-long-established coded communications from jail to tell two people to do away with a U-Haul storage locker he had rented, per the Justice Department observation.
An FBI search of the locker turned up a wig and 31,000 Swiss francs, or roughly $37,000.
Piercey faces a maximum penalty of Twenty years in penal advanced for every wire fraud, mail fraud, discover tampering and cash laundering depend. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 4.
