The defendant was in charge of an elaborate scheme to gather investments in a non-existent “wind farm” in South Dakota. The defendant was the sole signatory over invested funds solicited from others and could withdraw the funds for the other members of the conspiracy. The defendant set up money drop boxes, ran the “boiler room” where sales people worked, came up with sales pitches, told an investor that a wind turbine had been purchased with the $250,000 that the investor paid when it hadn’t been, oversaw the placement of signage in a field indicating that a “wind farm” was under construction when it wasn’t, and claimed he was merely a consultant paid $125,000 annually even though he transferred over $7000,000 of invested funds to his account over a period of two and one-half years. The defendant plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, as well as wire and mail fraud and was sentenced to over 12 years in prison plus three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution. The defendant appealed his sentence on the basis that the scheme had not resulted in any criminal securities violations as of the start of his prosecution and, thus, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the government didn’t first obtain a referral from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The court rejected the argument and upheld the sentence enhancements. Shumaker v. Reed, No. 13-8073, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 2188 (10th Cir. Feb. 11, 2015).