Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Business Wire Falls for April Fools Prank, Sues FBNers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonkie who wrote (2699)	5/26/1999 5:19:00 PM
From: s martin	Respond to of 3795

EX-PRESIDENT ON TRIAL Inventor bolsters case againt NVID By Michael Pollick STAFF WRITER TAMPA -- An inventor whose company owns the rights to a licensed disinfectant was the final witness against the former president of NVID International, the Sarasota company that brought in hundreds of investors by claiming it was on the verge of marketing such a product. Inventor Paul Simmons told the jury Wednesday that obtaining a license to sell a disinfectant in the United States requires ''a whole list of tests'' that could easily cost $250,000 and take two years. Matthew Klenovic, NVID's former majority shareholder, has already testified that NVID performed no such tests before touting a disinfectant as a potential billion-dollar product to potential investors. Klenovic has pleaded guilty to federal charges in the case. He testified against former NVID President Robert Bunte in Bunte's federal trial here on charges of fraud and money laundering. According to prosecutors, investors lost more than $3 million in NVID stock after it was revealed that the company had no miracle product. The case has been described as one of the most widespread abuses of the Internet for a stock scam. Bunte, who wrote most of the news releases for NVID when it was engaged in its stock-selling frenzy, had depicted the company's disinfectant product as being close to marketable for a wide variety of uses. The company's announcements, starting in November 1995, were published electronically by the Business Wire and were seen by many potential investors on the Internet. They were released when NVID was illegally selling $3.3 million worth of new stock directly to investors, in violation of limits set by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The product had potential, NVID said, as a surface disinfectant in hospitals and food preparation plants, as a veterinary wash, to make oysters safer to eat, and to keep honey bees from dying from fungus and mites. In a release dated November 1996, Bunte said the company was only a few months away from winning approval from the Environmental Protection Agency for one version of Microsafe as a veterinary wash. Other releases suggested approval was soon to follow for uses that would be regulated by the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. Bunte, through other releases, made it sound as if Microsafe had been patented when the company had merely applied for an easy-to-get provisional patent that lasts one year and does not require the company to reveal its formula. Testimony at the trial has suggested that the company never made an application to any agency for approvals. Attempting to show a stark contrast between NVID and another firm, Veridien Corp., prosecutors put Simmons -- the inventor of a Veridien disinfectant called Virahol -- on the stand. Virahol had a valid U.S. patent and a license from the EPA before its owners went public in a stock offer. According to Simmons, it required 80 attempts to get the formula right for Virahol. After that, he testified, it took about two years to win EPA approval to sell the product. Attorneys will make their final arguments today. Bunte faces 17 felony counts, including money laundering, which alone can result in a 10-year prison sentence. However, the court can decide to run sentences concurrently, drastically reducing the time served. ''If he is convicted, he also faces forfeiture of any assets purchased with diverted funds,'' said Laura Royal, senior financial investigator with the West Central Florida regional branch of the state Office of the Comptroller. The assets involved would be mainly Bunte's home, and possibly furnishings or autos, she said. SARASOTA (FLA.) HERALD-TRIBUNE -- MARCH 12, 1998