A California man was sentenced to six years in prison Monday for orchestrating a cow manure to green energy scam that collected over $8 million.

Ray Brewer, 66, ran the hoax from 2014 to 2019 in several counties in California and Idaho. According to prosecuting attorneys, Brewer milked $8.75 million out of investors over five years.

Brewer told investors he was building anaerobic digesters that would turn their cow dung into methane that could be sold. He told investors they would be able to keep 66% of the net profit and tax incentives from the methane.

He skirted around investor questions by taking them on tours of dairies where he said he planned to build the digesters, plus showed them fake loan agreements with banks, fake lease agreements with dairies and fake pictures of the machines under construction.

Brewer used the money he schemed out of investors to buy himself new pickup trucks and land.

Once investors became fed up with his lack of results, he paid them off with funds he secured from other investors. He was eventually sued by some of his former investors and lost. He then moved to Montana and assumed a new identity until he was arrested in 2020.

• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.