Local inventor pleads guilty to $2 million scam

A Canadian Saultite languishing in a U.S. jail cell has 32 weeks to come up with $1 million to avoid prison time for felony crimes.

John Von Stach, an inventor and entrepreneur from Hood Street in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. pleaded guilty in Grand Rapids, Mich. last week to 21 counts of false pretences and conducting a criminal enterprise.

U.S. media reports indicate Von Stach can avoid prison if he pays back $1 million of the $2.2 million he scammed from investors by his next court appearance on Jan. 8, 2020.

Under a deal reached with the Michigan attorney general’s office, Von Stach, 50, could be released as early as Sept. 9 if he can pay back $1.5 million by then.

He's been held for the past year in Kent County, Mich. jail on a $1.5 million bond, WOOD-TV reports.

Von Stach is a local inventor who first appeared in SooToday's news coverage a dozen years ago for promoting a heated frameless windshield wiper and an electric heating band designed to melt ice on driver- and passenger-side windows.

More recently, he's been selling solar-powered generators.

U.S. officials say he ran into trouble when one of his companies, VSP North America, sold generators to dealers across the United States, and then sold the "invoices" to investors at a 20-per-cent discount.

The dealers were expected to pay the full amount of the invoices within 90 days but some investors never received payment.

"It is alleged that the generators sold to dealers were sold on consignment and could be returned if not sold," the Michigan attorney general's office said in a news release.

Von Stach and his company were charged with

• one count of conducting a criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony
• eight counts of false pretenses $100,000 or more, a 20-year felony
• two counts of false pretenses $50,000 or more but less than $100,000, a 15-year felony
• five counts of false pretenses $20,000 or more but less than $50,000, a 15-year felony
• five counts of false pretenses $1,000 or more but less than $20,000, a five-year felony

Von Stach has no criminal record.

He was arrested when he tried to enter Michigan from Canada on June 8, 2018.

VSP North America was run out of a rented mail box in Grand Rapids.