CEO of Mamtek charged with theft, fraud in Moberly, Mo., case

St Louis Post Dispatch ^ | September 18, 2012 | AP

[Uncle Chip]

MOBERLY, Mo. • The CEO of a failed artificial sweetener company was charged Tuesday with theft and securities fraud in Missouri for using bond revenues to avoid foreclosure on his Beverly Hills, Calif., home and for failing to tell the truth about the company's troubled operations.

The charges announced by Attorney General Chris Koster cap a yearlong investigation into Bruce Cole, who was chairman and CEO of Mamtek U.S.

The company received $39 million in bonds from Moberly, Mo., and authorization for up to $17 million of state incentives to build an artificial sweetener factory in the city which Gov. Jay Nixon said would eventually employ more than 600 people. But construction was halted on the partially complete facility after Mamtek missed a bond payment in August 2011.

The charges filed in Randolph County Circuit Court on Tuesday allege that Cole used a sham company called Ramwell Industrial Inc. to invoice Mamtek for more than $4 million of purported engineering-related services. Immediately after Mamtek received the bond revenues in July 2010, Cole wired $700,000 to his wife's personal bank account, the charges allege. She then used part of the money to make a mortgage payment and avoid an impending foreclosure on their Beverly Hills home.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The CEO of a failed artificial sweetener company was charged Tuesday with theft and securities fraud in Missouri for using bond revenues to avoid foreclosure on his Beverly Hills, Calif., home and for failing to tell the truth about the company's troubled operations.

Jon Corzine/MF Global, PFGBest, Sentinel Management Group and myriad other Obama crony capitalists get to commingle investor funds. Why can't he?

[Tax-chick]

The company received $39 million in bonds from Moberly, Mo., and authorization for up to $17 million of state incentives to build an artificial sweetener factory in the city which Gov. Jay Nixon said would eventually employ more than 600 people.

They could have just divided the $56 million among 600 randomly-chosen Moberly residents.

[Uncle Chip]

It’s a little town of 14,000 people out in the boondocks. Who in their right mind would underwrite $39 million in bonds for this deal. It has bankrupted the city and could and should bring down the careers of a lot of those who hyped this fiasco.

[martinidon]

Guess which party Gov Jay Nixon belongs to......

[Uncle Chip]

YEP.

So then why isn't the GOP LT Governor screaming bloody murder. And why isn't the GOP candidate running for Governor making an issue out of this???

The CEO of Mamtek shouldn't be the only one indicted. A lot of people were involved in this scam and a lot of public officials failed to do their diligence for someone to underwrite a bond of that size for Moberly Missouri.

[Tax-chick]

My father was born in Moberly.

The crook should go to jail, but the politicians ought to hit the ground hard, too. The money, of course, is vaporized ... gone the way of the hundreds of millions “loaned” to Solyndra or spent on “shovel-ready projects.”