‘Joby Who?’: Firms Distance Themselves From Man Who Signed Puerto Rico’s Failed $5.9B Power Deal

Nine years before his name became linked to the failed $5.887 billion contract to provide temporary power in Puerto Rico, convicted crypto entrepreneur Jobadiah “Joby” Sinclair Weeks had ties to an investment firm in San Juan.

“Vivaris Capital Adds Joby Weeks to the Executive Team.” That was how the Puerto Rico-based investment company began a February 2017 news release announcing that Weeks was joining the firm as a partner.

Although Vivaris Capital LLC President J. Christopher Mizer praised Weeks’ experience and expertise in financial technology at the time, he now says the crypto entrepreneur was never affiliated with the San Juan-based investment firm as either a partner or officer, according to written statements sent by email in response to a request from the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), Jay Fonseca PR and Bonita Radio.

“Weeks brings to the Fund [Vivaris Capital LLC] more than 20 years of experience in operations and sales, working with multimillion-dollar companies in the wellness, financial technology and energy sectors,” the company’s 2017 announcement added.

By then, Joby Weeks and others were already operating the fraudulent BitClub Network scheme, which, according to a federal indictment, ran from April 2014 through December 2019. The scheme cost the investors involved about $722 million.

Weeks pleaded guilty on Nov. 5, 2020, and the agreement between prosecutors, Weeks and his attorneys at the time, Michael L. Yaeger and Simon Gaugush, was signed on Sept. 21, 2020.

To date, no sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Weeks in case 2019-cr-877 before U.S. District Judge Claire C. Cecchi in New Jersey. His sentencing hearing has been repeatedly postponed since March 17, 2021. The most recent date set was June 24 of this year, 14 days after the multibillion-dollar temporary power contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, was signed, but on June 18 the hearing was postponed until further notice.

Nearly a decade after Vivaris Capital’s announcement, its president, Mizer, says Weeks worked with his company only briefly. He did not specify whether that meant days, months or years.

“He briefly worked as a consultant on cryptocurrency matters,” Mizer said in written statements. “Mr. Weeks did not participate in any Vivaris project in Puerto Rico or anywhere else,” he added.

Vivaris Capital LLC is a financial advisory and hedge fund firm with offices on the sixth floor of the Caribe Office Building in Paseo Caribe, next to the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan. In April 2017, the company received a tax decree under Act 20, now Act 60-2019, for the export of goods and services.

Weeks’ name drew attention a few weeks ago when it was revealed that he was the same person as “Jhoby Weaks,” one of the signatories to the temporary power contract with PREPA that would have involved $5.889 billion in public funds. A report by Bonita Radio and the CPI revealed that Weeks was under house arrest when the contract with PREPA was signed. He had been charged in 2019, along with four other people, in connection with the $722 million BitClub Network fraud and with tax evasion. Weeks has been under house arrest since 2020, and photos on his social media accounts show him in Florida since 2025. He is originally from Arvada, Colorado.

Weeks signed the contract on June 10 on behalf of Enchanted Rock, which, along with Power Expectations and Reyes Contractor Group, formed the consortium that was to install equipment to produce 400 megawatts of temporary power to mitigate Puerto Rico’s energy crisis. The signatory, “Jhoby Weaks,” is listed in the contract with a Texas address.

Multiple sources confirmed to the investigative partnership of the CPI, Jay Fonseca PR and Bonita Radio that at least five Puerto Rico government agencies and three federal agencies received referrals to investigate the failed contract. In Puerto Rico, they are the Department of Justice, the Office of Government Ethics, the Office of the Inspector General, the General Services Administration through its Office of Special Investigations, and the Office of the Comptroller. At the federal level, they are the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. These investigations are believed to be proceeding in parallel to the Puerto Rico House of Representatives inquiry, for which Osvaldo Carlo Linares has been summoned to appear Sept. 15 and former PREPA Executive Director Mary Carmen Zapata on Sept. 21.

But How Did Joby End Up at Power Expectations?

Weeks appears to have a personal relationship with Leon Lamle, who identifies himself as Power Expectations’ chief technology officer, according to photos found on social media showing them celebrating Thanksgiving together in 2025.

ERock, Enchanted Rock’s parent company, has said the signature was fraudulent, that the signatory Weaks was never its employee, that it did not authorize him to represent the company and that the title “Caribbean Operations Officer,” used to identify him in the contract, does not even exist within the company. ERock also denied that the @enchantedrockpr.com email domain used for the signature through the DocuSign platform belongs to the company.

In a lawsuit filed against PREPA, Power Expectations alleges that it authorized Weeks to sign the contract as ERock’s representative. It also says it designated Weeks through a corporate resolution to keep the deal from falling apart because, days before the contract with the Puerto Rico government was signed, it noticed a shift in ERock’s position regarding its interest in formalizing the contract. The lawsuit also claims that its memorandum of understanding with ERock authorized Power Expectations to make that designation. No corporate resolution has been filed under Power Expectations in the Registry of Corporations, and the company has not made public any document validating that information.

Osvaldo Carlo Linares, who manages the transaction through his company, Regulatory Compliance Services, or ReComS, hired by the Puerto Rico Public-Private Partnerships Authority, or P3A, said it was not his responsibility to conduct a background check on Weeks as a signatory on behalf of ERock.

Carlo Linares told this investigative partnership in mid-August: “We did the clearance work on the corporation; we did not have to do clearance on everyone who works for the corporation.”

But the report prepared by Carlo Linares and issued by P3A’s Independent Office of Procurement, or 3PPO, on Aug. 14, 2025, did include checks on at least five executives of the energy companies being considered for the transaction, this investigative partnership confirmed.

The report says, for example, of Leon Lamle, identified as Power Expectations’ chief technology officer: “His participation in the Puerto Rico project is not publicly documented, but one could speculate that he may be an investor in one of the LLCs or advise on the project’s financing (given his venture capital investor profile). No negative information was found on Leon Lamle; he has no criminal record or known litigation.”

This indicates that checks were indeed conducted on people at the companies that were going to sign the agreement and that those checks should have included any criminal records of those involved in the transaction, if there were any.

Weeks’ attorney, Ernesto Cerimele, did not respond to a second request for information sent by email by the CPI, Jay Fonseca PR and Bonita Radio.

Bound for Puerto Rico

Vivaris’ president said in writing that Weeks never traveled to Puerto Rico or anywhere else in connection with Vivaris Capital.

The boarding passes suggest that Joby Weeks spent three days in Puerto Rico in March 2017.
Photos provided

But two photos on Joby Weeks’ Facebook page show that the crypto entrepreneur visited Puerto Rico from March 7 to March 10, 2017, just one month after announcing he was joining the Vivaris Capital team. An image of a JetBlue boarding pass posted by Weeks himself indicates that he was traveling from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, to San Juan.

“Anyone in Puerto Rico?” Weeks asked when he posted the photos. In a conversation with a Facebook friend, Weeks said he would be in Puerto Rico for a couple of days.

Another photo of a boarding pass that Weeks uploaded to the social network on March 10, 2017, suggests that his stay on the island ended three days later. This time, his destination was Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a Spirit Airlines flight.

Two years later, he traveled to Puerto Rico with Stephanie Stolba and their daughter. It was a three-day stay, from April 16 to April 19, 2019.

Very Close to Republican Congressman Ron Paul

Weeks also cultivated relationships with high-profile political figures, according to accounts he gave federal agents investigating him that are included in the court record of his case.

A transcript of an interview a federal agent conducted with Weeks on April 19, 2019, at a restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C., states that Weeks was an elected Colorado delegate to the 2008 Republican National Convention. There he met Ron Paul, then a Texas congressman and one of the most influential figures in the party’s libertarian wing. Weeks said that by then he had devoured Ron Paul’s books and was becoming a fan. The relationship even led him to mint silver coins bearing the face of the then-presidential candidate, and he rented a limousine for Paul’s campaign, paying $50,000 for it.

That closeness to the politician continued after Weeks was charged. According to the account of events in the court record, when Weeks appealed his detention order in 2020, Ron Paul signed a letter of support on his behalf that was submitted as evidence in federal court. And in August 2025, the court denied Weeks permission to travel to Lake Jackson, Texas, where Ron Paul was celebrating his birthday. On that occasion, a photo of the politician with Weeks and Weeks’ daughter in Paul’s arms was attached to the court document.

This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.