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Gold/Mining/Energy : USSE - What a scam! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: 1Coffeehound who wrote (176)7/15/2011 7:12:56 PM
From: scionRespond to of 226
 
I think it's more likely that the judge will grant the motion for summary judgement.

Extract -

This cause is before the Court on the plaintiff Securities and Exchange Commission’s Motion to Continue the due date of the Pretrial Order and Trial Date (docket entry 86). Having carefully considered the motion, and being fully advised in the premises, the Court finds as follows:

In its motion, the plaintiff states that there has been no ruling on plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment in this matter, and without the Court’s guidance on the Motion for Summary Judgment, the parties would expend unnecessary time and resources preparing for trial. The plaintiff states that it will be better able to prepare for trial once the Court rules on the Motion for Summary Judgement and determines the scope of issues to be tried.

The Court expects to issue a ruling on the plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment within seven (7) days from the date of this Order. The Court shall, therefore, deny the Motion to Continue. If, upon the receipt of the Court’s ruling, either side requires additional time to prepare the Pre-Trial Order, they may request it.


Accordingly,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the plaintiff’s Motion to Continue Due Date of Pretrial Order and Trial Date (docket entry 86) is DENIED.

SO ORDERED, this the 14th day of July, 2011.

Doc 87 PDF file
viewer.zoho.com



To: 1Coffeehound who wrote (176)7/21/2011 7:39:49 PM
From: scionRespond to of 226
 
The undisputed evidence in this case establishes the core misrepresentations that USSE had a “fully operational plant in production” and was “ready for Green Fuel production.” The undisputed evidence also proves other repeated misrepresentations: that USSE had engaged a prominent investment banker; that a prominent industry figure had joined its board; that USSE had purchased its production facility in Natchez; that USSE had patented technology; that USSE owned patent pending technology; that USSE sold fertilizer in April 2007 and was a revenue producing company; and that USSE had developed an OD-66 certified product that it would begin shipping in 72 hours. The core misrepresentations are supported by undisputed collateral facts that USSE could not produce 6,000 gallons of fuel per day as Rivera repeatedly claimed; that USSE’s equipment had never been continuously operated for more than four or five days; and that USSE had no reasonable basis to claim that it could produce fuel for $0.50 per gallon. Rivera’s attempt to create an issue of fact as to whether USSE could produce five gallons of fuel from each bushel of soybeans fails because Boone’s affidavit fails to address the undisputed fact that the biocrude from the Rivera Process, even in the mini-reactor, contains some percentage of water, which might be higher than 25%. The Response offers no evidence to contradict the testimony of Brent (Rivera’s trusted plant manager), Smith (the chemical engineer), and Mazer (Rivera’s almost constant companion for a year) that the USSE equipment never produced as much as half of 6,000 gallons per day, that the USSE biocrude output contained significant amounts of water that had to be removed to produce any fuel, that USSE never had a product to sell and that the USSE equipment was experimental and never operated continuously for longer that four or five days.

Each of these material misrepresented facts establishes a violation of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, as alleged in the complaint. Together, they stablish repeated material misrepresentations to USSE investors that allowed enough USSE shares to be sold for Rivera to continue falsely promoting the company.

Doc 88 PDF file
viewer.zoho.com



To: 1Coffeehound who wrote (176)7/22/2011 1:06:18 PM
From: scionRead Replies (1) | Respond to of 226
 
SEC Wins Summary Judgment Against Biofuel Scammer

Jul. 22 2011 - 10:05 am
blogs.forbes.com

The long, strange career of would-be biofuels pioneer John H. Rivera came to an end yesterday when a federal judge in Mississippi granted the Securities and Exchange Commission a summary judgment against Rivera, barring him forever from the penny-stock business.

From the beginning, the facts behind SEC vs. Rivera were almost too good to be true — for a journalist. I came across Rivera when I was poking into the the profusion of green-energy scams in late 2006 that sprang up in first flowering of biofuels mania. Rivera was a small-time hustler who had a history of promoting tires-to-energy schemes, among other things. He saw his main chance arrive when biofuels became a national priority. Faster than you can say “unregistered stock,” he whipped together a publicly traded outfit called U.S. Sustainable Energy Corp.

You gotta give the man credit: He was committed to his version of reality. In an interview Rivera would have been smarter to have skipped, he tried to convince me his magical process could convert soybeans into biodiesel at a rate that defied the laws of physics and chemistry. When I told him I had already consulted the leading experts in the exact process he claimed to be using, and they said his numbers were nonsensical, Rivera simply told me the experts were wrong.

The SEC followed a year after my story with a lawsuit accusing Rivera of penny-stock fraud.

The recitation of facts shows just how much a determined scamster can get away with in the public markets, especially when the SEC only pursues a fraction of these cases. One SEC lawyer told me the agency simply can’t justify the expense of going after penny-stock swindlers, since even a clear-cut case like Rivera’s can occupy a trial lawyer’s time for months or even years.

In Rivera’s case, he told bold-faced lies about how he had souped up a centuries-old process called pyrolisis to produce millions of gallons of biodiesel. He also put out a press release saying he’d secured the backing of a major investment bank — false — and that he’d recruited a director named Dr. David Crow, who promptly ordered Rivera to retract the announcement when he found out about it.

The biggest mystery in the Rivera case is why it didn’t involve John Stanton, the Tampa penny-stock promoter who provided financial backing to Rivera and many other dicey operations. Stanton put out press releases promoting USSE and lent the company $3.3 million. When I got him on the phone, briefly, he explained he didn’t back Rivera’s USSE but another company that just happened to have the same name. He couldn’t explain the public company’s filings identifying him as a backer, and quickly ended the interview.

Stanton’s name isn’t mentioned in the Rivera summary judgment. Nor are the names of any of the shady brokers and intermediaries who allowed Rivera to sell millions of shares in USSE during its prime. Instead of focusing on whether a longtime hustler with a history of making grandiose statements about his scientific process could really defy the laws of physics and chemistry, the SEC should have spent its time figuring out who facilitated the sale of so much worthless stock on the open market.

The summary judgment says Rivera could be ordered to disgorge his profits from the scam and pay fines and pre-judgment interest at an Aug. 8 hearing. It would be interesting to know how much money others made on the spread between what Rivera got for his shares and what the suckers on the other end ultimately paid.

blogs.forbes.com