Prosecution urges denial of shorter prison term for Quiros in Jay Peak fraud case

By ALAN J. KEAYS

VTDigger

Published: 01-06-2023 9:44 PM

A federal prosecutor is urging a judge to reject former Jay Peak owner Ariel Quiros’ bid to have his five-year prison sentence reduced in the largest fraud case in Vermont history.

Quiros, through a filing last month by his attorney and a letter he submitted to the court from his prison cell in Florida, argued that he should not have received a harsher sentence than two of his former business partners because his cooperation with the government aided in their prosecution.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Van de Graaf, in a motion this week, contended that Quiros had a chance to make his case at his sentencing hearing last year and shouldn’t get a second shot.

“Congress has made plain that courts lack the authority to change their minds about the appropriateness of criminal sentences after they have been imposed,” Van de Graaf wrote in the filing in U.S. District Court in Burlington.

“Whatever Quiros urged or hoped for prior to the Court’s imposition of his sentence,” the prosecutor added, “that decision is final.”

Quiros received a five-year prison term for his role in a failed project to build a $110 million biomedical research facility in Newport, Vt., known as AnC Bio Vermont. Even though more than $80 million for the project was raised from over 160 foreign investors through the federal EB-5 visa program, the project never got off the ground.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission termed the development “nearly a complete fraud.” Foreign investors through the EB-5 program can gain permanent U.S. residency if their investment of at least $500,000 meets job-creating requirements.

Two other partners in the Anc Bio Vermont project, Bill Stenger, Jay Peak’s former president and CEO, and William Kelly, a key adviser and friend of Quiros, both received 18-month prison terms for their roles in the case.

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A presentence report prepared by the federal probation office calculated that, under advisory sentencing guidelines, Quiros would have faced between 12.5 and 15.5 years in prison had his plea deal not capped his maximum sentence to eight years.

In August 2020, Quiros pleaded guilty to three of the dozen counts against him — conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and concealing of material information.

Judge Geoffrey Crawford, after listening to arguments from both sides at the sentencing hearing, imposed the five-year prison term, which was three years less than the maximum that could have been imposed under the plea deal.

Quiros was the first of the three defendants to enter a plea and he agreed to cooperate with the government in the prosecution of the other two, which he now argues should result in a lighter sentence.

Van de Graaf, at the sentencing hearing, did not recommend a specific jail sentence for Quiros.

Instead, he contended that the sentence should be “substantial” but also take into account the cooperation Quiros provided to prosecutors as the first of the three defendants to reach a plea deal.

Van de Graaf did call for a five-year prison sentence for Stenger at his sentencing hearing, though Crawford only imposed 18 months.

Quiros, 66, is serving his sentence at FPC Pensacola, a minimum-security federal prison camp in Florida. According to the Federal Bureau of Prison’s online listing for incarcerated individuals, the release date for Quiros is set for Oct. 17, 2026.

Quiros, in his letter from behind bars last month, said he was “begging” the judge for mercy, citing, in part, health problems facing him and his wife.

However, Van de Graaf, in his filing this week, points to case law that, he asserts, does not permit such a move at this time.

“Quiros has not collaterally attacked his sentence,” the prosecutor wrote. “Rather, he plainly seeks a change of heart from the Court.”

Neither Neil Taylor, an attorney for Quiros, nor federal prosecutors in Vermont who handled the case could immediately be reached Thursday for comment.

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