Former Jay Peak owner Ariel Quiros is once again making a bid to have his five-year prison sentence reduced in the largest fraud case in Vermont’s history.
Quiros is incarcerated at FPC Pensacola, a minimum-security federal prison camp in Florida.
The 67-year-old former Miami investor was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Burlington in August 2022 to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and concealing material information.
Quiros, representing himself in a court filing this week, asked federal Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford to consider the “physical and psychological toll” of incarceration in his bid to reduce his sentence under the First Step Act, a federal law passed in 2018 that aims to promote rehabilitation and decrease the federal prison population.
Quiros wrote that he “has had to deal with suspensions of many prison programs, difficulty in accessing basic health care, lack of educational opportunities, constant lockdowns, minimal family interaction and other hardships.”
Crawford has not taken action on Quiros’ request.
The judge rejected in January 2023 an initial bid by Quiros to reduce his prison sentence. In that request, Quiros contended that insufficient consideration was given to his government cooperation, which he claimed helped to convict two other men in the fraud.
The others — Bill Stenger, Jay Peak’s past president, and William Kelly, a key adviser and friend of Quiros — later reached plea deals with the prosecution and were sentenced by Crawford in 2022 to 18 months each.
Both Kelly and Stenger have since been released, with Stenger serving about half his prison term behind bars and the remaining portion on home detention.
All three men were indicted in May 2019 for their roles in a failed project to build a $110 million biomedical research facility in Newport, known as AnC Bio Vermont. Despite raising more than $80 million for the project from over 160 foreign investors through the federal EB-5 visa program, the project never got off the ground.
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.
