Ramesh Nathan told investors his Bay Area spacecraft company had seven offices around the world, employed more than 15,000 people, and generated $30 billion in profit in a single quarter. But, according to the indictment that just led to his fraud conviction, the company had no offices, no workers and no revenue.
A jury on Thursday found Nathan, 43, found guilty of fraud and money laundering after an eight-day trial.
In 2016 and 2017, and possibly earlier, Nathan took about $50,000 from six investors, including U.S. military veterans, his indictment said. He reeled them in with false promises that his San Francisco-based Relativity Research Fund was involved in development of interstellar space travel technology, prototype spacecraft, combustion-free propulsion systems, cutting-edge robotics, and other innovations, the indictment said. Relativity had an office in the city’s Financial District, according to the indictment.
His statement to investors that Relativity had completed the requirements for listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange were also false, the indictment said. So was a statement that the company would merge with another firm, according to the indictment.
“Ramesh Nathan spun fantastic tales about space travel technology and advanced robotics to entice investors into funding his company, but all he had to offer was science fiction,” federal prosecutor Patrick Robbins said after the jury’s verdict in San Francisco U.S. District Court. “He deceived his investors, many of whom were veterans, about a nonexistent business. Then he used the ill-gotten funds to line his own pockets.”
Relativity, Robbins said, was “a nonexistent business.”
Nathan laundered investors’ funds through various bank accounts, prosecutors said. He used the money for personal expenses including travel, and also transferred funds to an overseas bank account, his mother, and his former girlfriend, the indictment said.
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Nathan was arrested in 2019 while trying to leave the U.S., according to court documents.
Convicted of six counts of fraud and two counts of money laundering, Nathan faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each fraud charge and 10 years for the two money-laundering counts, but federal sentencing guidelines make maximum sentences rare. He also faces forfeiture of any property gained through his crimes.
He is to appear in court again June 13.
