The Solar Company That Went Dark

The feds allege that DC Solar was a Ponzi-type scheme that scammed even Berkshire Hathaway

Jeff Carpoff had a lot to celebrate at his company’s Christmas party last year. The onetime auto mechanic and his wife, Paulette, had started a business about a decade earlier that was doing so well it could count Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. as an investor. Their business, making mobile solar generators, had afforded them lavish goodies. They owned more than 90 cars, from classic Fords to Bentleys, at least 20 properties, and even a professional baseball team in Martinez, Calif.

Now as the year came to a close, here was the rapper Pitbull headlining their party at the swanky Fairmont hotel in San Francisco, according to people familiar with the event. Kyle Larson, a racecar driver once sponsored by a Carpoffcompany, tweeted that the event was the “best holiday party I’ve ever been to by far!!”

A few days later, when FBI agents showed up at the Carpoffs’ front door, their extravagant life came crashing down. It was largely built on an alleged fraud—a Ponzi-type scheme, in essence, said federal authorities in court filings related to corporate bankruptcy proceedings. Their company, DC Solar, is now out of business. Their 4,100-square-foot home in Martinez is in foreclosure. When the agents came knocking that day in late December, they took many of the luxury cars. They also seized a pile of cash— $1.8 million in all—that had been secreted in one of the couple’s offices.