Sanjeev Acharya was sentenced on Wednesday to 18 months in U.S. prison for wire fraud and money laundering.  

Mr Acharya, 58, of San Jose, was charged on September 5, 2025. He pleaded guilty on January 6, 2026, to wire fraud and to engaging in a monetary transaction with property derived from fraud.  

As stated in the plea agreement, Mr Acharya was president and CEO of SiliconSage Builders and several related entities. SiliconSage was a vertically integrated development and construction company that supported investments in numerous large, multi-unit, multi-use real estate projects in the Bay Area. 

Mr Acharya personally solicited investments from investors to fund these real estate projects.

According to the plea agreement, from March 2020 through October 26, 2020, Mr Acharya devised and participated in a scheme to defraud investors. Due in part to COVID-19, Acharya’s business, SiliconSage, was in significant debt and struggling financially.  

SiliconSage required new investments to survive. 

Mr Acharya personally solicited investors to invest in SiliconSage, but he deceived them by not disclosing SiliconSage’s true financial situation. Mr Acharya hid from investors that SiliconSage was in significant debt and faced serious cash flow shortfalls.  

As stated in his plea agreement, Mr Acharya knew SiliconSage was in financial trouble and did not tell investors about SiliconSage’s true financial situation while trying to raise money from them.  

During the period of his fraud scheme, Acharya deceived more than 20 investors, who lost more than $2.2 million as a result of Mr Acharya’s fraud.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer handed down the sentence.

In addition to the prison term, the judge sentenced Mr Acharya to two years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $2,253,219.84 in restitution to victims. 

Mr Acharya will begin serving the sentence on January 9, 2027.