Grand Jury Indicts Northern Nevada Man for Embezzling Nearly $8 Million in Funding From Broadband Infrastructure Project

LAS VEGAS – A federal grand jury returned a 16-count indictment that charged the owner of Uprise, LLC, a former internet service provider located in Reno, Nevada, with felonies in connection with an alleged embezzlement from a federal grant project. Stephen A. Kromer (48) is charged with felony counts of embezzlement of government property, federal program theft, money laundering and presenting a false document, all in connection with his alleged embezzlement of more than $7.8 million from a federally funded high-speed internet construction project near Lovelock, Nevada. According to court documents, Kromer owned Uprise in 2022 when it applied for a federal grant under the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) ReConnect Program, proposing to construct a $36-million internet project that would provide access to high-speed internet to users living or working in rural Lovelock, Nevada, about 100 miles northeast of Reno. As part of the funding for the project, Uprise agreed to contribute $9 million toward the cost of the project. In June 2023, the USDA awarded Uprise a $27 million ReConnect grant to fund the Lovelock Project and required Uprise to deposit its $9 million share of the funding into a separate financial account called the Pledged Deposit Account (PDA) that restricted withdrawals to payments for costs of the Lovelock Project as approved by the USDA. According to the Indictment, Kromer embezzled about $7.8 million of funding from the Lovelock Project by withdrawing the funds from the PDA and depositing them into his personal bank account via 32 wire transfers he made from the account between May and November 2024. The Indictment alleges that with each transfer Kromer caused false accounting entries to be made in the books and records of Uprise to make it appear that the withdrawals were made to pay for the costs of the Lovelock Project when, in truth and fact, they were not. Kromer then submitted the false information to the USDA. The Indictment further alleges that Kromer disguised and concealed the proceeds of the embezzlement by moving the proceeds from his personal bank account into accounts he held at various cryptocurrency exchanges where he converted more than $6.2 million of the proceeds from U.S. dollars into cryptocurrency. Kromer is charged with one count of theft of government property; four counts of federal program theft; five counts of money laundering; five counts of monetary transactions in criminally derived property; and one count of using a false document.