Industrial Heat Files Motion to Dismiss Rossi Lawsuit

Ultrasure, how dare you??

Didn't you just read that Mr. Weaver only hopes to bring LENR as quickly as possible to the masses, and that Rossi prevents investment in the field by sucking up all the funding?

Why did IH recommend not to listen to any communication not vetted by them, and why are you not a verified user, reverse-hypeman heckler Doobie Waiver?

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better understand the culture of Tom Darden and Mr Weaver, read carefully the following links:

What's shown here? Does it involve Dewey Weaver? What are these stories about?

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The Pennsauken project
nytimes.com/2005/10/30/nyregio…eal-new-jersey-style.html
nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/…bpoenas_are_issued_f.html

The first is an investigative journalist writing a piece of polemic, it is not ordinary sober reporting. It uses words creating "story" that are not rooted in fact. It's an analysis of a case, Vineland Construction Company v. Township of Pennsauken. and it repeats allegations from the plaintiff as if they are evidence of something bad. "The ultimate backroom deal." The plaintiff, in 2004, obviously prosecuted the case as if something was slimy or sleazy, including subpeonaing emails, which then showed that ... Cherokee partners was lobbying. Shocking, I know. A company proposing a billion dollar redevelopment plan met with politicians! They made donations to political organizations! The rats!

This was a losing strategy. What was the situation?

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Vineland Construction says the township, after supporting its proposal to redevelop its piece of the Pennsauken waterfront, surreptitiously shunted it aside in late 2003 at the behest of Cherokee. Unless the judge rules otherwise, the township may now take Vineland's property by eminent domain and sell it to Cherokee.

The lawyer for Vineland, Lloyd D. Levenson, said in his closing statement, "This was a backroom deal with front room justification."

Lawyers for Cherokee and the township say there is nothing wrong with municipal officials sidelining one developer in favor of another, even without a bidding process, and nothing nefarious about lobbying.

So what happened? Well, Vineland lost. This went to appeal, and it's covered on http://www.hillwallack.com/?t=40&an=15660

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In the reported case of Vineland Construction Co.v.Tp.of Pennsauken, there was no dispute over the issue of whether the plaintiff’s property was eligible for redevelopment. However, the plaintiff did contest the proposition that only the master redeveloper chosen by the town could develop any of the lands within the designated area in need of redevelopment. Two of the three Appellate Division judges hearing the appeal ruled that the municipality’s choice of the master redeveloper was lawful, and that it was also lawful for the municipality to decide that only the master redeveloper (not the plaintiff property owner) could develop the land pursuant to the redevelopment plan. However, one Appellate Division judge dissented, in a most interesting opinion. That judge would have held that, given the opinion in Gallenthin and the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in Kelo v. City of New London, it was unlawful for the municipality to prevent the plaintiff property owner from developing its land pursuant to the redevelopment plan. The dissenting judge noted that there was no reason, under the facts of this case, why the plaintiff’s land could not be developed by someone other than the designated master redeveloper.

The legal issue here was whether or not the town had the right to make a choice. The majority opinion was that they did. Now, how is this relevant here? Well, of course, Cherokee Partners was the choice of the town to be the master developer. About Cherokee, the journalist writes:

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The Petty's Island plan infuriated environmental advocates, and at first they had an ally in the state's environmental commissioner, Bradley M. Campbell. But Cherokee, a North Carolina company that in the last half-dozen years has also been awarded contracts to clean up and redevelop contaminated sites in the Meadowlands, Camden, Elizabeth and other urban areas, had its own allies in Trenton.

Journalists love stories about what could be political corruption. Gets people fired up. The background is a political battle. Why were "environmental advocates" "infuriated"? That isn't stated. Regardless, when the town decided it would take Vinelands property by eminent domain, Vineland protested that this was due to political corruption. This is not the way to get a town to do what you want, I'd suggest. You'd better have proof, not just innuendo! Nothing described in the journalist's story, if established by evidence in the trial, would rise to the level of proof. Suspicion, yes, but it does not take much to create suspicion!

What happened then? The next linked story is from 2010.

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Jersey Statehouse in Trenton. Federal authorities have issued subpoenas seeking documents from the N.J. Senate Democratic office. Federal investigators have subpoenaed documents from the Senate Democratic Office and Pennsauken Township seeking records and communications concerning the developer of two failed Camden County redevelopment projects.The probe is focusing on Cherokee Investment Partners of Raleigh, N.C., according to two officials with knowledge of the subpeonas. The firm was also behind the defunct plan to build homes and a golf course atop landfills in the Meadowlands.
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Pennsauken Administrator Ed Grochowski said the township received a federal subpoena a week ago seeking records on the defunct Petty’s Island redevelopment project and Cherokee, its developer. Grochowski said today he clarified for federal investigators that Petty’s Island was just one piece of the former waterfront redevelopment project, and promised to comply with their request. "We are assembling all sorts of documents and sending them to Newark,’’ he said.

Cherokee proposed $2 billion worth of development on Petty’s Island on the Delaware River in Pennsauken. The oil firm Citgo eventually donated the island, which was used for fuel storage, to New Jersey last year after the developer pulled out.

Cherokee also was spearheading the redevelopment of the Cramer Hill development in the city of Camden. Cherokee proposed a $1.2 billion plan centered around a golf course, which would replace an unused municipal landfill, according to Camden After the Fall, a book about development in the city. But the community eventually mounted fierce resistance to the plan, especially because 1,200 families would need to be replaced.

The city approved Cherokee’s plan but it eventually was abandoned. Now a newer, cheaper plan is currently in the works. Camden spokesman Robert Corrales said that the city also received a subpoena from federal investigators, but had no further details. "All I can do is just confirm it," he said.

Cherokee also was behind the failed EnCap redevelopment for homes and a golf course over Meadowlands landfills. Federal authorities are already probing the EnCap project and issued subpoenas to the governor’s office last year.

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To someone who wants to toss mud, "subpoenas" means someone is guilty. Something Bad happened. Unfortunate word "replaced," about families. "Relocated" would be the word. It's hard to find good help.
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So then, Encap. What does "behind" mean with respect to this? The driver of the plan, or a venture capital company that supported it? Venture capital companies support risky plans, that's what they do. Many of these fail, not just a few. But the ones that succeed, if the company is competent, more than make up for that.

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[...] EnCap (Owned by Cherokee Investment Partners) bankruptcy in 2008 nj.com/news/ledger/topstories/…kruptcy_filing_risks.html

EnCap was an ambitious redevelopment project in Bergen County, New Jersey. The story is poorly written. How much state and county money was at risk? Different figures are given. However, let's summarize it as "a lot." However, in a bankruptcy, the assets of the company will generally be sold. The headline says $50 million in state funds are at risk. But the losses are possibly much greater, because there were private investors. Like Cherokee Partners. Because of the sums involved, I'd expect there to be serious investigation. The story is claiming lack of oversight. Whether or not there was anything corrupt involved, though, is not actually alleged. Projects fail on Planet Earth. Even big projects. It looks like the issue here was unexpectedly high cost for "fill material" for landfills, at least that is what EnCap was claiming. The story, as could be expected, points out that

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The public relations bills included $31,000 for a reception at the 2004 groundbreaking, $13,000 for "novelty items" and $1,000 for centerpieces, according to state records. Some of the invoices submitted by EnCap were so vague it's not clear whether they were for legitimate, cleanup-related expenses, according to the inspector general.

Is that all? If someone submitted fraudulent invoices, they are in big trouble, personally. One is protected as an officer of a corporation from prosecution for errors of the corporation, but not against prosecution for criminal acts, and knowingly submitting a fraudulent invoice would be criminal.

Cherokee apparently lost money with EnCap. This proves what? That they can lose money? Underneath all this is the suspicion that they did something Wrong. They used corrupt influence to get the State to fund EnCap. But Cherokee was in the business of encouraging and funding environmental clean-up, which is expensive and risky. This is SOP.

So one more link just underscores this:

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http://www.postandcourier.com/…e/20160208/PC05/160209426

The mortgage would be a secured loan, so WestRock may recover most of their loan out of the sale of the property (which they will bid on, according to the story). Cherokee may have lost $50 million if there are no other major assets. So what does this show? It shows, again, that Cherokee can lose money on a project. Were they breaking a sweat?

http://fortune.com/2015/09/27/…-energy-nuclear-reaction/

Cherokee Partners is, according to Fortune, a $2.2 billion private equity fund. Another story, bloomberg.com, claims that their minimum investment is $25 million. That is 1% of their assets.

This is a great story, by the way, on cold fusion. Very clear. The best I have ever seen in major media. Starts out with the usual media introduction, cold fusion rejected as utterly bogus long ago, then it corrects that. Dardenhad his head on completely straight in that interview. I'm impressed. Darden has done his homework.

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the readers will understand.

Sure they will. If they read and understand context. If they are looking for confirmation of their ideas of Evil Rich Corporation, they will find it, but only by supplying a great deal that is not in the stories themselves, and that misses massive relevant facts. Cherokee has made losing investments. When they do that, they generally invested in a company. The company goes bankrupt. They lose their investment, but not beyond that. This is how corporations, and "LLCs" work. You risk your investment, but not beyond that. Those who lend money to a corporation, or who deal with a corporation know this.

Sometimes chicanery is involved. Corporation takes out big loans, pays huge salaries and fees to someone involved, and then goes bankrupt. Sometimes the corporate veil can then be pierced. But if the salaries and fees were reasonable, under the circumstances, not. Nothing in the present lawsuit approaches anything like that. There is no bankruptcy. Collecting $89 million could be difficult, if IH cannot raise more capital, and there would be a risk that IH could go bankrupt if that is awarded, and this would be a practical certainty if the fraud charges remain and are sustained, but that's extremely unlikely. Cherokee invested, we know this, in multiple LENR ventures. Rossi was, apparently, the largest, but now that this went sour, there would be more movement toward other efforts.

By attacking IH, Planet Rossi is attacking LENR, attempting to damage the major current investor in the field, out of loyalty to Rossi, apparently. Rossi himself, for reasons that have been explained, has probably blown his own work out of the water, if there was anything to it, which remains possible. LENR is still attractive to those willing to take risks, but ... there is no need to focus the risk on Rossi personally, and Rossi does not own all the cold fusion IP, and his patents are questionable based on prior work (Piantelli et al). Large investments are almost always made through corporations, for very sound reasons. Rossi has shown that he is not a trustworthy partner, his Complaint demonstrates that, amply. We don't need anything more.

Deal with Rossi at your own risk. IH stands to lose more than $11.5 million on Rossi. (They spent a lot more than what they paid to Rossi). However, I assume, they gained a lot of experience in the study of LENR, and likely a better understanding of possible pitfalls. So the jury is out on all this. Darden and IH gave Rossi the full benefit of the doubt, that's obvious from the Rossi story. They bent over backwards to accommodate his demands. And balked at $89 million, for something that, it's appearing, had become useless to them.

Some on Planet Rossi are saying that Rossi did not disclose the full IP, and that this is why IH could not confirm Rossi's claims in their own experiments. Somehow they miss that, if so, Rossi did not fulfill on his obligations under the Agreement, and therefore IH doesn't owe him the $89 million, and might owe the return of the $10 million for that IP. And this would be so even if the ERV report was positive and even if the GPT showed Wonderful COP.