Updated December 1, 2011 at 4:11 p.m. : Christopher Willson was sentenced on Tuesday to one year and one day in federal prison and must pay $100,000 in restitution to the Federal Transit Administration and $215,138 to the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority by U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel in Boston, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
BOSTON — Christopher Willson, who dazzled Pittsfield in 1999 with promises of bringing 1,000 jobs to former General Electric land, was convicted Tuesday for taking the money and running.
The former chief scientist and business partner with EV Worldwide LLC from 2000 to 2005 was convicted in federal court Tuesday on defrauding the federal government of more than $700,000, according to multiple reports from The Associated Press. The conviction was on six counts of wire fraud.
EV Worldwide received up to $1.35 million in federal grant money to start up a company developing electric batteries for public buses. The company later reeled in additional grant money. However, the money required an equal match.
EV Worldwide was later accused of doctoring paperwork to show that match. The verdict found Willson guilty of obtaining more than $700,000 after submitting 10 fake or inflated invoices that claimed to match the grant money.
Willson faces a maximum of 120 years in prison and will return to court for sentencing on Oct. 6.
EV Worldwide had the city buzzing in the early part of the millennium with the grant money. Pittsfield officials jumped on board with the idea by granting the company an additional $250,000 from the GE Economic Development Fund to move into a vacant industrial building — the GL&V Development Center at 448 Hubbard Ave.
The company was going to develop a nickel-hydrogen battery to feed into what was, at the time, expected to be a booming market in electric and hybrid vehicles under its subsidiary ElectraStor LLC.
The company never got off the ground.
In 2001, residents saw the first signs of trouble when the state began probing the city's grant agreement during an investigation of the city's finances. The other shoe dropped in 2008; then EV Worldwide CEO Michael J. Armitage was charged with fraud and money laundering.
In 2010, Armitage signed a plea agreement admitting to misusing up to $4 million in federal grant money between 2000 and 2006.
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