BURLINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday sentenced former Jay Peak Resort president Bill Stenger to 18 months in prison for his role in a massive financial scandal that defrauded foreign investors and dashed their hopes of permanent U.S. residency.
Judge Geoffrey Crawford handed down the sentence following a daylong hearing in federal court in Burlington. In addition to the prison time, Stenger also faces three years of supervised release and must pay $250,000 in restitution. He is to report to prison June 7.
Stenger pleaded guilty in August 2021 to submitting false information to the government.
He was indicted in May 2019 on criminal charges in connection with a failed project to build a $110 million biomedical research facility in Newport, known as AnC Bio VT.
Despite raising more than $80 million from over 160 foreign investors through the federal EB-5 visa program, regulators ground the project to a halt in April 2016 when they accused Stenger and his business partner, Jay Peak’s then-owner Ariel Quiros, of engaging in a Ponzi-like scheme.
The case rocked Vermont’s political world due to the Jay Peak developers’ closeness to then-Gov. Peter Shumlin and other top politicians in the state — and the Shumlin administration’s continued support for their projects as evidence of malfeasance grew.
Quiros and Bill Kelly, a close friend and adviser to Quiros, were named in the same criminal indictment brought against Stenger. All three reached plea deals with prosecutors. Stenger was the first to be sentenced.
As part of his plea deal, Stenger admitted to submitting a false document to the government related to the AnC Bio project, while the prosecution agreed to dismiss several other charges, including fraud.
Prosecutors asked Crawford to impose a five-year jail sentence for Stenger, the maximum allowed under the plea deal. Stenger’s attorney argued for home detention.
The EB-5 program allows foreign investors who put at least $500,000 into a qualified project to receive permanent U.S. residency provided that investment can be linked to creating a certain number of jobs.