Those checks are loans to the company. The loans are secured by a blanket lien on the company's assets. If Heddle wants to collect those notes he has to liquidate the collateral.
IMO, Heddle made the loan and took control as CEO in an attempt to recover as much as possible of his earlier investments in the company. I also suspect that he feels some personal obligation to friends and family who invested on his advice and he is trying to help them out, too.
Do we know what the late summer 2013 check was for? Was that the 3 million? If yes, I guess we'll find out in the Q4 numbers how much is left and maybe what they got for it but they apparently need more and need more quick.
Yesterday's claim that "financing is the buy signal" doesn't ring true to me.