U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan Monday (Dec. 18) sentenced Trevor Milton, founder and former CEO of e-truck company Nikola Corp. (NKLA:NASDAQ) to four years in prison for defrauding investors. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 11-years in the slammer. He will be out on bail pending an appeal.
Ramos also ordered Milton to pay a $1 million fine and forfeit a Utah property. Nikola is currently based in Phoenix, Ariz.
A federal jury in October 2022 found Milton guilty of one count of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud.
Milton, a former door-to-door salesman and college dropout, founded the company from his Utah basement in 2015 and took it public through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) in 2020, raising over $3 billion. The SPAC was run by run by former General Motors vice-chairman Stephen Girsky. Girsky, who became chairman of the Nikola Board, was named Nikola CEO in August, succeeding Michael Lohscheller, who succeeded Milton.
Nikola was temporarily worth $13 billion, making it more valuable than Ford Motor Co. The company’s shares, which opened at $65.90/share not long after it went public, closed at 87 cents on Monday.