Irvine : Judge Sets Trial Date for Fraud Suit by Company
A federal judge in Los Angeles has set a June 17 trial date for a fraud suit filed by the Presley Cos. of Irvine against a Beverly Hills businessman involved in promoting an energy device during the mid-1970s.
U.S. Dist. Judge Laughlin Waters set the trial date for the five-year-old civil suit filed by the Presley Cos. against the late Morris Mirkin. The suit alleges that Mirkin defrauded the company by not revealing all the facts about a hydrogen converter he was promoting in the mid-1970s. The Presley Cos. invested $500,000 in the device and widely promoted it as a cheap, efficient form of energy. The device was later proved to be a fraud by a battery of scientists.
About 5,000 angry Presley stockholders sued the Presley Cos. in 1978, claiming that publicity surrounding the device caused the company’s stock price to rise from $3 per share to $20 before it fell back to $10.
Settling the shareholders’ suit cost the Presley Cos. $4.4 million, which it hopes to recover from Mirkin’s estate, according to Presley Cos. attorney Robert Ericson.
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