My Letter to Mike Bloomberg:
I posted quite a while ago something was amiss with Mr. Steffy's coverage of IPM, in a serious and fundamental way. I've been investigating this for a couple months now, including research and interviews on how Steffy created the "Friendship" articles. On a phone interview with Mr. Steffy, his basic responce is to alternate between agreeing the timing of his articles has favored the shorts and casting suspicion on his editor for the release dates as well as slanted editing of his "even handed" work and his other tact: playing dumb. He tries to give a golly, gee, I didn't know/understand some of the most basic background to the mining/exploration arena including assays. He is extemely convicing at playing dumb, too, and I bought it at the time I gave him my first interview, chastizing his twice previous ommissions of IPMs involvement with Behre-Dolbear, getting his assurance it would not be ignored again... which it then was, on his 3rd IPM article, and hit right off the bat on his first for Naxos.
At the end of the day, I was left with the following conclusion about Mr. Steffy: Either he is corrupt and intentionally collaborating with stock promoters/shorters, or he is incredibly incompetent. Either way it didn't seem he belonged at Bloomberg, and I set about researching and documenting his collusion/incompetence.
As more evidence came to my attention from many sources including other investors here on SI, it has become apparent that Mr. Steffy knew exactly what he was doing.
The following letter was faxed to Mike Bloomberg last friday, with a hard copy delivered by Federal Express on Tuesday. I'll be following up with Bloomberg, and here on SI, as this unfolds, though Boomberg may remain silent while they investigate internally. I can assure everyone it will not escape their attention. This is just the tip of the iceberg!
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October 24, 1997
Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg LP
499 Park Avenue, 15th floor
New York, New York 10022
via facsimile
Dear Mr. Bloomberg:
I am writing to you on a matter of some urgency. While it involves one small company in which I am a shareholder, there are far broader implications as it reflects on the integrity of your fine organization. Due to the sensitive nature of this issue, I believe it must be addressed from the top. I recognize you are the CEO of a major corporation therefore your time is precious. Allow me to lay out briefly who I am and why you should invest the five minutes it will take to read this letter:
I am a professional screenwriter with five produced motion pictures, the last for Tri-Star which your reporter Loren Steffy named when he quoted me in a Bloomberg wire article a few months ago. It is this reporter's agenda I would like to discuss as I doubt it is also Bloomberg's.
There is a growing body of evidence which suggests Mr. Steffy is using his position with your company to benefit professional stock "shorters". I will provide this at your request, but the matter of urgency regards the article Mr. Steffy is at this moment preparing. The current target: International Precious Metals (IPM) and one of its long-time shareholders Frank Stauffer. I believe this will be Mr. Steffy's fifth or sixth article in less than eight months with an
obvious bias against this small company.
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Frank Stauffer is a shareholder-activist, part-time Internet stock promoter and desert prospector. Mr. Steffy will claim another "angle" as being the topic of the story, such as Internet stock promotion. However, his true objective will be to tarnish IPM. As if prescient, for one or two days before this story hits your wires, several short NASDAQ Market Makers including the Fiero Bros. will be furiously selling shares of IPMCF as they have before Mr. Steffy's other
articles.
What is particularly disturbing about this current situation is the following:
1. Mr. Steffy's investigative reporting may be prompted by false and distorted information provided by Mr. Stauffer's ex-girlfriend, Cindy-Lou Miltimore. Mr. Steffy, who despite repeated invitations could never find time to travel to Arizona to conduct due diligence with IPM's management and scientists was able to make it to San Diego to interview Ms Miltimore at a time of severe emotional distress.
2. The precise timing of Mr. Steffy's previous IPM articles have always been remarkably convenient for the shorts. In my phone conversations with Mr. Steffy he has acknowledged this and attributed it to his editor. Definitive laboratory assays are due any day now, and another defamatory article by Mr. Steffy would be especially damaging to shareholders at this time. The drilling, processing, transportation and lab selection for the assay work I mention were all done under the joint and constant security of two of the worlds most prestigious mining engineering firms: Behre Dolbear and Bateman. Banks have loaned billions on BD's reserve calculations. Bateman
is the largest mining engineering firm on the planet. The results of this dual audit will be incontrovertible and I repeat they are due any day. I urge you to call Mr. Barnard Guarnera, the president of BD, who is personally in charge of the IPM account, and verify this for yourself.
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3. If Mr. Steffy truly wants to cover Internet stock manipulation regarding IPM and the other small miners working on micro-fine refractory ores in the southwest, he would be better served focusing on "The Desert Fox". This individual led a relentless campaign falsely branding IPM as a scam. Months ago, I uncovered and exposed him to be none other than Mason Coggins, director of the Arizona Department of Mines and Minerals. This incident has led to IPM filing suit and Mr. Coggins, his partner Nyal Niemuth and AZDOMM are now under a permanent Superior Court injunction barring them from further
comment on IPM. Interestingly, Mr. Coggins name was familiar to me, as he and Niemuth were the sole source of Mr. Steffy's first IPM article, which at it's core proclaimed the company a scam. This article came on the heels of the stocks greatest rally and immediately sent it reeling. Teams of individuals like Mr. Coggins as well as "short" brokers continue to work the Internet under pseudonyms, spewing out blatantly false and negative propaganda, while gaining credibility by foreshadowing weeks in advance with uncanny accuracy
negative press that appears in Forbes, Barrons and on Bloomberg! Certainly these topics should at least compromise half of the article Mr. Steffy is working on? If he is true to past performance they will either will be glossed over or omitted.
In conclusion, I urge you to take immediate action on this upcoming article and review Mr. Steffy's coverage of IPM in general. As for the bigger picture, I am looking forward to presenting you solid evidence of the collusion between Mr. Steffy and one particular short broker. On the Internet, this broker took credit for Bloomberg articles written by Mr. Steffy, and even e-mailed one investor a
detailed outline of an articles' content weeks before publication.
I can lead you to the smoke Mr. Bloomberg, but it will take your integrity to determine if in fact there is fire.
Sincerely,
Lew Green |
