MorningLightMountain's Grab-Bag (fka )

[MorningLightMountain]

"""Soybean-Oil CEO, Wife Face SEC Charges By Colin Dodds
July 29, 2008

The SEC has charged a Natchez, Mississippi man with running a scam intended to take advantage of investors’ desire to get in on the alternative-energy business.

The regulator charged John Rivera, 58, and his Nevada corporation U. S. Sustainable Energy Corp. (USSE) with fraud. It also named Alice Price, 61, as a relief defendant.

Under Rivera’s direction, USSE issued misleading press releases about the company's business prospects and its technology to convert soybeans into biofuel. It allegedly did so from October 2006 to February 2007. According to the Commission, Rivera made similarly false and misleading oral statements regarding USSE, al as part of a pump-and-dump scheme that netted him at least $721,000.

Rivera allegedly told investors that USSE owned patents or pending patents that enabled it to produce biofuel for $.50 per gallon. The Commission charges that Rivera also falsely claimed that USSE had contracts for the sale of its product, which it could produce in a fully operational plant.

But the lies to investors didn’t end there. Rivera also said that USSE's technology, combined with the technology of another company with which it had agreed to merge, would be worth between $9 billion and $12 billion.

All of those lies served to artificially inflate USSE’s stock. After each press release, Price, who lived with Rivera at the time, sold USSE stock at Rivera’s direction. Rivera testified that, though they are not married, he considers Price to be his wife. Overall, she sold roughly 2.6 million shares of USSE stock.

In its complaint, the SEC is seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest, civil penalties against USSE and Rivera. It is also after a penny stock bar, an officer and director bar against Rivera, as well as permanent injunctions against future violations. In naming Price as a relief defendant, it seeks disgorgement of her ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest.

With gas prices rising in recent years, and now over $4 a gallon across the country, a number of scam artists have seized on the opportunity to rip off investors who are looking to take advantage of the situation. In May, the SEC shut down a massive, $156-million scam that promised access to the energy business. The 21 defendants named had allegedly offered and sold interests in 22 separate joint ventures to acquire and re-work existing oil-and-gas wells and create a pipeline in Kansas.

Also in May, the Commission brought charges against Icon World Corporation and SUNCO Resources, claiming they were fronts for a scheme that had ripped off investors to the tune of $1 million.

The energy scams became common enough that the SEC published a warning to investors about them last year."""

http://www1.cchwallstreet.com/ws-portal/content/news/container.jsp?fn=07-29-08