From 2011 to 2023, Sigora Solar grew from a local startup to an award-winning solar energy powerhouse. And then it collapsed. A fatal boat accident in late 2020 preceded the company's downfall. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi spoke with Bob Leweke about her investigation.
BOB LEWEKE: Randi, WMRA's Jessie Knadler profiled the company as a new startup way back in 2015, but you have discovered that a lot has happened since then.
RANDI B. HAGI: Yes, so Sigora Solar, the renewable energy installer that launched in Waynesboro and quickly grew throughout Charlottesville, the Shenandoah Valley, and beyond, ceased all operations in September 2023, according to an internal email that circulated on social media. In its final months, the Daily Progress reported on countering accusations of embezzlement and defamation within the company and employees' and customers' complaints of paychecks missed, retirement accounts stiffed, and jobs left unfinished.
But before the company started laying off staff, before the courts ordered it to pay out nearly $3 million, and before the founder left the country for, perhaps, the final time – two men died when a boat capsized off the shore of Haiti. After this tragedy, the boat's owner returned to the states to the growing solar company he had left in others' hands, and it completely unraveled in less than two years' time.
I spoke with three former employees and two clients of Sigora, only one of whom was willing to do a recorded interview for this story. We also reached out to Andy Bindea, two other employees, another client, and a supplier that did business with and later sued Sigora, and did not hear back.
Partly sunny beginnings

LEWEKE: Randi, given that you hit some brick walls trying to get people on the record, what were you able to learn about Sigora’s birth and speedy growth?
HAGI: A man named Bogdan "Andy" Bindea founded Sigora Solar in 2011, when he was in his mid-20s. WMRA News reported back in 2015 that the Romanian-born entrepreneur started installing solar panels out of a '97 Honda, and in four years grew the business' revenue from $237,000 to more than $3 million.
But Bindea ran afoul of authorities early on, and pled guilty in January 2014 of one count of embezzlement for taking over $155,000 in U.S. Department of Energy funds administered through Virginia's Solar and Wind Incentive. Bindea admitted to improperly installing used or cheap panels on three projects – two in Waynesboro, one in Lovingston – which received rebates from the Department of Energy. He claimed that two business partners, Ken and Eric Thompson of Ecosphere, LLC, had pressured him to certify the panels were new, and pocketed the rebate money themselves. Prosecutors responded that Bindea "repeatedly attempted to blame others for his criminal scheme." Bindea was fined $12,000, put on probation for a year, and had to replace all the used panels on those three projects.
The company survived that legal stumble. In March of 2015, as WMRA reported, Sigora opened an office in Port au Prince, Haiti. By 2017, according to business filings with the state, a new CEO named Logan Landry had joined Sigora in Virginia, and moved the company's principal office to Charlottesville. Virginia Business reported in 2018 that the company was on track to make $42 million that year, and had added offices in Richmond, Manassas, and Raleigh, North Carolina. Former employees told WMRA that during this time, Bindea was now focused on projects in Haiti and was not involved in the day-to-day operations stateside. A Business Wire press release issued at the end of 2019 touted several accomplishments – including winning part of what they called "the largest solar PPA [or, power purchase agreement] initiative by a local government in Virginia," through which they would install solar panels on government properties in Fairfax County. Sigora was also selected by the media outlet Solar Power World as the "Most Forward-Thinking Contractor" that year.
Also in 2019, Bindea bought a 100-foot supply boat he called the "Bob Rouse," apparently naming it after a co-owner of Sigora Solar who has since passed away.
The Bob Rouse capsizes

LEWEKE: Well, and as you learned, that’s where things started to go tragically wrong for those involved with the company, right?
HAGI: Yeah, so, our understanding of what happened with the Bob Rouse comes from a federal lawsuit filed by an insurance company against Bindea. Both Bindea and the Atlantic Specialty Insurance Company agreed on the basic facts of the accident.
On the night of November 17th, 2020, or in the early hours of the 18th, seven crew members, all Haitian citizens, set out on the Bob Rouse with a cargo of cement from Port-au-Prince to Mole Saint-Nicolas in northwest Haiti. They encountered heavy seas, and the vessel capsized. Five crew members were injured and the other two – Wilkenson Alcide and Excancles Aretus – went missing and are presumed dead. The five survivors and the wreckage were found near Gonave Island on the morning of November 19th. Medical records filed in the lawsuit show that the survivors were treated for contusions, abrasive wounds, spinal sprain, and hypoglycemia at a Port-au-Prince hospital.
Bindea filed a claim with his insurance agency for $1 million. The company then sued him, saying he had misrepresented nearly every detail about how the boat would be operated. Insurance documents stated that Bindea, in his mid-30s, had been operating vessels for 25 years. The Bob Rouse would supposedly be docked in Fort Lauderdale and navigated around Florida, only, crewed by just three employees.
It appears that Bindea had returned to Virginia by January 2021, as a process server visited his home in Charlottesville to deliver the lawsuit. He noted that a woman answered the door and said Bindea was not home "at the moment," but he did live there. She refused to give the process server her name.
The lawsuit proceeded through 2022, and a federal judge ordered that under the policy Bindea purchased, the Atlantic Specialty Insurance Company did not cover what happened in Haiti. However, Bindea claimed he was misled by a third-party insurance broker who had procured the policy with inaccurate information. That man, John Uhr, stopped responding to his own attorney, who hired two private investigators to look for him in Louisiana and New Jersey – to no avail. This disappearance act foreshadowed Bindea's own behavior in subsequent lawsuits against him and Sigora.
The unraveling

LEWEKE: So, how did this all affect the company going forward?
HAGI: Cracks began to show in Sigora's success after Bindea returned to the states. In July of 2021, according to the Tysons Reporter, Fairfax County ended their big solar contract with Sigora 18 months early for unspecified reasons, while continuing the 1.73 million megawatt hour project with other companies.
Big shake-ups followed the next year. According to a lawsuit filed by Sigora's former Chief Talent Officer Heather Burns, her position was eliminated in November 2022, around which time Sigora terminated "nearly half of its workforce." Also terminated were the CEO, Logan Landry, and another executive, Tad Luttrell.
After the three executives and other staff were cut, account records reviewed by the Daily Progress showed that Sigora stopped making deposits into at least one employee's 401(k) retirement account in January 2023, despite taking nearly $1,000 out of each paycheck for that purpose.
Then the rumors began to circulate. Heather Burns' lawsuit states, "shortly after Ms. Burns was terminated, she began to hear from several co-workers that Mr. Bindea was making public statements to third parties including Sigora employees that Ms. Burns, along with two other former executives, had been embezzling or stealing from Sigora." Burns sued Sigora and Bindea for nearly $4 million, claiming the allegations were false and defamatory. Bindea responded in June of 2023, denying many of Burns' claims. But that would be one of the last times Bindea would respond to an American court.
Around this time, Sigora hired Michael Ball as the company's CEO – a role Bindea had been filling since ousting Landry. Ball moved the company's principal office to Staunton, according to state business filings.
An Augusta County judge ruled that Sigora owed one contractor $10,000. A Fairfax County judge ordered Sigora to pay a building materials company over $13,000 in July of 2023, which they were able to obtain by garnishing Sigora's bank accounts. That's the last successful payout WMRA was able to find in court records, even when judges ruled that plaintiffs were owed money.
LEWEKE: And Randi, as you discovered, this all affected not just employees, but those who hired Sigora or had business ties with the company.
HAGI: That’s right. The lawsuits from former clients and business partners started pouring in.
Several clients who had paid up front for solar installations that were never completed or – in some cases, even started – were awarded tens of thousands of dollars. One client WMRA spoke with said Sigora even owned up to the fact they owed the homeowner nearly $40,000, but they still haven't received a cent. One case in Nelson County was dismissed due to "no funds," according to the court docket, despite Sigora owing the man $25,000. The property owner of Sigora's Staunton office evicted the company in August 2023 and was awarded nearly $60,000. The company ceased operations altogether that September.
The largest monetary judgments each topped a million dollars. A Charlottesville judge ordered that Sigora owed RLR Properties $1.1 million in membership interest payouts that the late Bob Rouse had willed to the organization. An Albemarle County judge ordered that Sigora and Bindea owed Capital Lighting & Supply nearly $1.5 million for electrical materials the company purchased on credit.
All told, WMRA found 16 lawsuits in eight different courts in which Sigora was found liable for paying back customers and business partners. The combined judgments total $2.9 million. That doesn't include any money owed to former employees, some of whom told WMRA they believed was futile to fight for in the courts. And some lawsuits, like Burns' defamation case, fizzled out after Sigora's closure. An Albemarle County judge issued a show cause order last February, after Bindea had failed to provide his address or contact information. The plaintiff's attorneys said they hadn't been able to get in touch with Bindea, and they dropped the lawsuit a few months later.
"Unknown when he will return"

LEWEKE: Wow. Randi, I guess this all leaves us with the question of, for customers who paid for solar panels that were never installed, and suppliers who went unpaid … what recourse do they have now?
HAGI: Yes, and also, to the extent that Andy Bindea is responsible for these debts, how can he be held to account? The courts would have to be able to find him, first.
Wood-Mizer LLC, which sells portable sawmill equipment, filed a lawsuit against Bindea in May of last year for just over $29,000. A sheriff's deputy tried to serve a summons at Bindea's home near Poplar Ridge, south of Charlottesville. The deputy noted in court filings he was "unable to serve – he [Bindea] is out of country per property caretaker – unknown when he will return."
The 12-acre property had been for sale then. After the price dropped from $1.65 million to just under a million, the listing was removed in July 2024. According to county tax records, the home eventually sold in September for $750,000.
Could criminal charges be filed in the wake of all these unpaid judgments, and Bindea's purported flight from the country? Jim Hingeley, the Commonwealth's Attorney for Albemarle County, wrote in an email that he "would not be in a position to comment." I also reached out to the state Attorney General's office, which has a consumer protection division, but was not granted an interview by the time this story aired.
As far as the defunct company's ability to make amends, you can get electricity from the sun, but you can't get blood from a stone.
LEWEKE: Randi, thank you for researching and shedding some sunlight on this amazing wealth of information.
HAGI: Thank you, Bob.
Editor's note, 4:42 p.m. After recording this story, WMRA heard back from the Office of the Attorney General with the following information:
The office has received complaints relating to Sigora. They do not comment on investigations. Consumers with judgments against a licensed contractor who has gone out of business may be eligible to file claims with the Contractor Transaction Recovery Fund, depending on their circumstances.
With Sigora in bankruptcy, consumers with outstanding loans may wish to consult with their own attorney.
The office has previously investigated another solar company that went out of business – Pink Energy, also known as Power Home Solar. Criminal fraud prosecutions, however, would be handled by the local Commonwealth's Attorney.