dChan
Anonymous ID: c3aaf3 April 8, 2019, 6:33 p.m. No.6103107   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>3172 >>3204 >>3214 >>3419 >>3498

Bill Clinton Honoree Thrown In Jail Over "Biggest Clean Energy Scam In American History"

 

One of three scam artists behind a $54 million ponzi scheme was sentenced to prison for her role in the biggest 'green energy' scams in US history, according to NBC New York. 35-year-old Amanda Knorr of Hellertown, Pennsylvania received just 30 months in federal prison for a ponzi scheme involving her 2005 startup, Mantria, in which "many people lost their life savings," according to assistant US Attorney Robert Livermore following Knorr's sentencing.

 

Knorr co-founded a company called Mantria Corp., which with the help of a slick-talking Colorado "wealth advisor" raised millions for a supposed clean energy product called "biochar." Knorr and fellow Mantria co-founder Troy Wragg both graduated in 2005 from Temple University and within four years had raised $54 million from hundreds of investors. Most of the investors were wooed through seminars run by Wayde McKelvey, of Colorado. Their pitch about producing biochar, however, turned out to be completely baked, according to prosecutors, and eventually proved to be a giant Ponzi scheme. -NBC New York.

 

According to federal prosecutors, Mantria never came close to producing biochar at their Tennessee facility. At seminars run by "wealth advisor" Wayde McKelvy of Colorado, investors were told a different story. "These investors, husbands and wives nearing retirement, retirees looking to invest their savings, and other small-time prospectors, were wooed by the idea of big profits from clean energy: getting rich and saving the world," according to the report. "Instead of high returns, the over 300 victims of this fraud unwittingly invested in uninhabitable land and a bogus trash-to-green energy business idea based on bogus scientific methodology, said US Attorney William McSwain last October after McKelvy's conviction.

 

The fraudsters were honored by former President Bill Clinton in a 2009 ceremony for the Clinton Global Initiative before the scam came to light. After Mantria was first charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for selling millions in unlicensed securities in 2009, the case was known as "the biggest green scam" in the history of the United States, according to the report.

 

Of the $54 million thought to have been invested in Mantria, $17 million was returned to early investors to keep the Ponzi scheme going, while misleading new investors into thinking the venture was hugely profitable. By the time they were shut down by the SEC in 2009, Mantria had just $790,000 of the remaining $37 million.

 

Wragg, in an interview with Metro newspaper in 2009, said he didn't spend lavishly despite the influx of millions to his company. I live in a 1,200-square-foot [home]," he told Metro in the only interview he has given. "I don't drive a Lamborghini." But the newspaper noted that he did drive around in a Mercedes SLK350 with a "MANTRIA" vanity license plate. A class action lawsuit filed in federal court eventually recovered about $6 million for victims of the scheme. Another $800,000 was placed in a receivership, overseen by a Colorado accountant John Paul Anderson. -NBC New York.

Anderson - the accountant tasked with dispersing funds recovered in the class action lawsuit, has yet to distribute the money which remains in receivership.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-08/bill-clinton-honoree-thrown-jail-over-biggest-clean-energy-scam-american-history

 

*Why do I get the sense that this money was put right into the pockets of CGI…hmmm

Anonymous ID: c3aaf3 April 8, 2019, 6:43 p.m. No.6103226   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>3243 >>3295 >>3315 >>3328

Pompeo bars 16 Saudis from US over murder of Jamal Khashoggi

 

Sixteen Saudi nationals believed to be involved in last year's murder of Jamal Khashoggi have been barred from the U.S. along with their families, the State Department announced Monday. A statement said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is "publicly designating" these individuals under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2019. That section of the law “provides that, in cases where the Secretary of State has credible information that officials of foreign governments have been involved in significant corruption or gross violations of human rights, those individuals and their immediate family members are ineligible for entry into the United States," the State Department said. “The law requires the Secretary of State to publicly or privately designate such officials and their immediate family members."

 

The sixteen Saudi nationals named by the State Department are: Saud al-Qahtani, Maher Mutreb, Salah Tubaigy, Meshal Albostani, Naif Alarifi, Mohammed Alzahrani, Mansour Abahussain, Khalid Alotaibi, Abdulaziz Alhawsawi, Waleed Alsehri, Thaar Alharbi, Fahad Albalawi, Badr Alotaibi, Mustafa Almadani, Saif Alqahtani, and Turki Alsehri. They are the same people who, in November, were targeted by Treasury Department human rights sanctions, in addition to Mohammed Alotaibi, Saudi Arabia's consul general in Istanbul at the time of the murder, for being “involved in the abhorrent killing" of Khashoggi. The sanctions were administered under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, a federal law targeting international human rights abusers. Any interests or properties that any of them had within U.S. jurisdiction were blocked. Khashoggi, a Saudi activist and dissident who wrote for the Washington Post, was murdered at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2, 2018.

 

Following a meeting with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in January, Pompeo said: “Our expectations have been clear from early on: Every single person who has responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi needs to be held accountable.” Pompeo said the royals “both acknowledged that that accountability needed to take place.”

 

“You should know that the United States continues to work through its fact-finding process as well. That is, our efforts to uncover the facts surrounding this. And then, consistent with the president’s commitment to hold everyone accountable, we continue inside the United States government to do that as well,” Pompeo said at the time. The Senate voted unanimously in December to blame “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Khashoggi."

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/pompeo-bars-16-saudis-from-us-over-murder-of-jamal-khashoggi

Anonymous ID: c3aaf3 April 8, 2019, 6:59 p.m. No.6103420   🗄️.is đź”—kun

Democrats to introduce anti-right-to-work bill

 

Congressional Democrats are planning to introduce legislation that would invalidate all right-to-work laws, stripping employees in 27 states of the right to decide whether they wish to join or otherwise support a union. The legislation, dubbed the "Workers’ Freedom to Negotiate Act" includes several other changes that would benefit unions. A House Education and Labor Committee spokesman confirmed that Democrats plan to unveil the bill in a matter of weeks.

 

Right-to-work laws prohibit union-management contracts that obligate all employees to either join a union or to pay one a regular "fair share" fee. The fees supposedly cover the costs of the union's collective bargaining on behalf of the workers and are automatically deducted. The worker has no say in the matter. Unions in right-to-work states typically suffer membership losses and depleted treasuries due to the laws.

 

A draft version of the Democrats' legislation would rewrite the National Labor Relations Act to make fair share fees legal in all states. A summary of the bill circulated Monday as party of a "dear colleague" letter by committee Chairman Bobby Scott, D-Va., and others on the committee said that: "[t]o prevent free-riders from benefiting from the representation and services unions must render without paying their fair share for those services, this legislation allows employers and unions to enter into a contract that allows unions to collect fair-share fees that cover the costs of collective bargaining and administering the agreement."

 

The legislation would also increase penalties on businesses for labor rights violations, roll back existing limits on worker strikes, and make forming unions easier. "The NLRA has few tools to deter persistent violations — such as firing workers who support forming a union. This has contributed to the erosion of union density, which has decreased from 33.2 percent of the total workforce in 1956 to only 10.5 percent in 2018," said Scott in the dear colleague letter. The legislation is unlikely to be taken up by the Republican-controlled Senate.

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/democrats-to-introduce-anti-right-to-work-bill