Suit Filed by Partner of Sponge Inventor
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SANTA ANA — The tangled finances of the Newport Beach inventor of the contraceptive sponge, whose rise and fall ended in suicide in 1991, were further complicated Wednesday by a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
The suit charges that Bruce Vorhauer, who developed the sponge in an Irvine warehouse 11 years ago, was induced to sell his company by a $100,000 loan he kept secret from his partner.
Vorhauer, suspected of burning his yacht in June, 1991, to collect insurance money to shore up his crumbling finances, killed himself that fall near the lakeside home he built in Montana.
In the suit, T.A. Dobbie Jr. of Newport Beach asserts that when Tustin-based Cathlab, the company the two men owned, was sold to Dallas-based American Biomed Inc., Vorhauer received an inducement in the form of a $100,000 personal loan. Because of that loan, which was unknown to Dobbie, Biomed received favorable terms in the sale, the suit alleges.
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