The man who bought the most expensive property in Utah in 2019, a ranch in Oakley for reportedly $32.5 million, was found guilty of lying to investors.
In 2015 Trevor Milton founded the electric truck company Nikola in a Salt Lake City basement after dropping out from Utah Valley University. For a brief period of time, the company’s market capitalization was larger than Ford’s.
On Friday, Milton was found guilty on charges that he duped investors with exaggerated claims about his company’s production of zero-emission 18-wheel trucks.
In closings Thursday, defense attorney Marc Mukasey urged acquittal, saying there was QUOTE “a stunning lack of evidence” that his client ever intended to cheat investors.
In 2020, Nikola’s stock price plunged and investors suffered heavy losses as reports questioned Milton’s claims the company had already produced trucks.
The company paid $125 million last year to settle a civil case against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Nikola, which continues to operate from an Arizona headquarters, didn’t admit any wrongdoing.
In his closing rebuttal argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky insisted the evidence was overwhelming that Milton lied repeatedly to make it seem Nikola had produced operable trucks fueled by hydrogen gas and that the company had billions of dollars in contracts when they didn’t exist.
According to the Wall Street Journal, an investor who sold a Morgan County ranch to Milton testified in the trial that he was convinced to accept Nikola stock as payment through lies about the company’s hydrogen-fuel production technology.
Milton purchased a 2,000-acre property known as Riverbend Ranch along the Weber River in Oakley for $32.5 million shortly after Nikola went public with a valuation over $3 billion.
KPCW reported in April of 2020 that Milton was helping struggling neighbors pay past-due bills during the onset of the pandemic.
Milton now potentially faces years in prison.
