USWF Mystery Stock
United States Wind Farming, Inc.
A continuing saga…
– U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois Eastern Division –
Case: 1:05-cv-04259
As a full time caregiver for my wife with Parkinson’s Disease I have come to enjoy reading even more so than I did as I pursued several formal university degrees. I especially enjoy a good mystery and an author who keeps my interest as he (she) guides the protagonist through the various twists and turns of the plot. I tend to read murder mysteries but I read other things as well.
I am a member of a small stock club that several colleagues and I formed in 1984. Over the years our ranks have swelled and shrank. In the Covid pandemonium we resorted to Zoom meetings. Lately we have resumed meeting in Logos Cafe.
In the springtime of 2004 one of the members presented a stock to the club with great enthusiasm. It was a new company that had as its purpose to exploit the relatively new and growing technology of wind turbines for power generation. I do not remember his presentation but I assure you he was very excited and we bought into his enthusiasm for United States Wind Farming, Inc. (Amex: USWF). With a name like that we were ahead of our time in making America great. Mom and apple pie! We need some of that. It was super cheap which should have been a clue but, alas, it was not. We purchased 10,000 shares. It cost us $270.00 (USD).
Below is 2004 information gleaned from an internet site [https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/200…]. Search for USWF. Many old records pop up from many sources.
U.S. Windfarming, Inc. Operates as America’s Only Publicly Traded Wind Energy Company
A Paradigm Shift in Energy Production and Distribution for the United States
June 28, 2004 23:37 ET | Source: U.S. Wind Farming, Inc.
__________________
CHICAGO, June 28, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) — U.S. Wind Farming, Inc. (Pink Sheets:USWF) is an emerging public renewable energy developer and operator establishing Small Distributed (15-Megawatts) Wind Turbine Agricultural Renewable Energy Cooperatives on farmers’ properties nationwide. U.S. Wind Farming, Inc. is “America’s only publicly traded wind energy company.” The Products and Resources USWF expects to utilize the resources of GE Wind Energy, a division of General Electric, to provide the industry’s finest available 1.5 — 2.5 megawatt wind turbines. GE’s Wind Turbines are UL Rated for 30 years (soon to be 50 years), with factory-authorized maintenance service packages available. GE Wind Energy is one of the world’s leading wind energy companies and wind turbine suppliers. With over 6,100 worldwide wind turbine installations comprising more than 4,000 MW of capacity, the company’s knowledge and expertise spans more than two decades.
USWF expects to utilize Rosendin Electric, Inc. for construction, operation and maintenance of the projects. Rosendin Electric has been the industry leader in high voltage work over the past 40 years specializing in Major Wind Turbine Farms design/construction/maintenance nationwide. USWF expects to utilize Vaisala Group to employ a state-of-the-art Wind Resource Monitoring Program utilizing technologies such as Ultrasonic Wind Sensors, Acoustic Interferometer Tomography and Radio Acoustic (“Doppler Scattering”) Sounding Systems. USWF expects to coat the propellers, nacelles and towers of its wind turbines with a specialized material from Applied Research Corporation. Applied Research has developed a proprietary Continuous-Filament Basalt Fiber and Ceramic Resonance Composite Coating for the wind energy marketplace worldwide. This Continuous-Filament Basalt Fiber and Ceramic Resonance Composite provides considerable ultra violet radiation and corrosion protection ensuring reduced maintenance for these components during the 30-50 year life span of the wind turbines.
The Future
USWF enlists farmers to “Harvest the Power of the Wind” by installing these 15-Megawatt Small Distributed Wind Turbine Agricultural Renewable Energy Cooperatives on their properties creating a 30-year annuity paid to the farmer without disturbing their ongoing agricultural operation. Each Cooperative will typically produce enough electricity to run roughly 4,500 typical homes and can provide the farmer with up to $100,000 in annual income for 30 years. Each Cooperative provides USWF with over $800,000 in net revenue annually or over $24,000,000 for the course of the 30-year fixed-rate renewable energy contract. USWF anticipates installing 180-megawatts of renewable power generation each year providing an additional $9 million in net revenue each year. USWF negotiates with the nation’s electrical utilities for fixed-rate 30-year contracts to purchase the Agricultural Renewable Energy Cooperative’s electricity generated from “Harvesting the Power of the Wind” on each farmer’s property. The Cooperatives harness the energy from the wind and sell it to the agricultural community’s local electrical utility and other major utilities seeking renewable energy to meet their renewable energy and fixed long-term non-fossil fuel requirements. By utilizing these Small Distributed (15-Megawatts) Wind Turbine Agricultural Renewable Energy Cooperatives, the farmers will strengthen the Electrical Infrastructure, while providing clean energy, and reducing dependence on foreign oil and gas. Each Agricultural Renewable Energy Cooperative provides its member/investors a fixed-rate 30-year tax-free income of 7% per annum utilizing State and Federal Tax Credits, Renewable Energy Production Tax Credits and Green Credits.
US Wind Farming, Inc.’s President and CEO, William Telander, was recently featured on the new Sunday morning financial show filmed at the American Stock Exchange called “Let’s Talk Stock.” “The show is dedicated exclusively to public companies that bear looking into,” says producer Bernard Cerrone. On every show, a variety of movers and shakers are on board to give investors insight into what they are up to. U.S. Wind Farming, Inc. offers a very informative web site (www.uswindfarming.com) with links to this show and further information regarding this paradigm shift in energy production and the delivery of that power in the future.
Lord have mercy! Let me get some of that pie! Why did we not check with Cramer first? The fact that they intended to glue rocks to the turbine blades might have forewarned us (been a clue).
It dipped to $0 fairly rapidly and remained there for more than a decade. Not one member of the stock club was concerned. After all in real money it cost us $270 initially. Last year at the height of the initial pandemonium in about March of 2020, this happened:
What the hell happened? In 2021 it got better. For awhile in the early part of the year our initial investment of $270 was worth a little over $110. Was this the new Gamestop?
I love a good mystery. Friday is the day I do laundry, poke around and balance the checkbook, listen to Jazz on Iheart Radio via Alexa, and read whatever novel I am interested in. Today I remembered that I wanted to figure out whatever happened to USWF and more importantly, why is it now trading on the market?
When I found the article I printed above it lead me to other things. The site www.uswindfarming.com produced a blank response from the world wide web of all knowledge. This google search also produced a response from the Wall Street Journal website. I like to read their paper. I have been a subscriber for several years. (The local paper, like so many, has become a subset of the U. S. A. Today behemoth and is good for the Comics and puzzle page and, for Cheryl, the obituaries that are reprinted from Legacy.com.) I often forget how much business information I can get from them as a subscriber. The chart depicted above is from them. So is this one.
So what is going on here? A mystery that is what. Did I say that I like a good mystery? Mysteries are the basis of all science.
Often a mystery starts with a prologue. The prologue is often not identified as such but one can discern that by acuity and skill if one reads enough. It sets up the story for the rest of the characters. Think of the story above as the prologue. The next piece is the story development.
Scam Wizards
Author Don Bauder, City Lights https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2005/aug/18/…
Publish Date Aug. 18, 2005 (downloaded 8/27/2021 from http://www.sandiegoreader.com)
___
San Diego — This is a tale of an author and an alchemist. One writes books about corporate governance, and the other says he can make mercury into gold. That’s a feat that alchemists and assorted mystics of the Middle Ages, who claimed they could transform base metals into gold, couldn’t have pulled off.
The author, San Diego attorney Michael D. Spadaccini, and the self-proclaimed alchemist, former San Diegan and jailbird William L. Telander, are among a group of companies and individuals charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with running a “hype and dump” fraud. Allegedly, they were selling unregistered shares of Illinois-based Wind Farming, which supposedly was selling energy windmills to farmers but mainly was a fantasy pumped up by a publicity machine.
The charges were filed in late July. Last week in federal court in Chicago, the company agreed to a permanent injunction barring it from breaking securities laws. Preliminary injunctions were instituted against Telander, San Diego penny stock peddler Anthony M. Necoechea, and companies that had been set up to sell U.S. Wind Farming stock. Telander’s assets have been frozen, and he has resigned as head of the company. He is now in Napa Valley.
In the early 1990s, Telander was running a supposed foreign currency trading operation, Southwest International Exchange, from the basement of his grandmother’s house on Eagle Street. He promised annual returns of 25 to 41.6 percent to investors from San Diego and Orange counties and assured them that their funds reposed safely in Switzerland. This pitch was similar to that of J. David Dominelli, whose Ponzi scheme had rocked the community less than a decade earlier.
Alas, history did a rerun. Telander’s investors didn’t get their money. In 1994, he admitted to defrauding 380 victims of $11 million. He was sentenced to 37 months in prison and served half the term, later finding his way to the Chicago area.
Telander admits that some of his Southwest International Exchange investors’ money went into his so-called Philadelphia Project, named for an experiment that Albert Einstein had run decades earlier in that city. Telander provided the funds to a Texas A&M University chemistry professor, John O’M. Bockris, to experiment with modern-day alchemy in his laboratory. They claimed they turned lead and mercury into gold; skeptics cocked their eyebrows. Telander fed the university $200,000. A friend of Telander’s, Joe Champion, helped in the lab. Champion landed in jail too. Champion “was cleaning out my bank account — $35,000 a day,” claims Telander, but Champion went to the slammer for an unrelated charge of passing a bad check.
Texas A&M was embarrassed. In Texas, the butt of a dumbbell joke is almost invariably a “Texas Aggie.” One professor said Bockris’s research had turned into “a typical Aggie joke.” Another said Bockris was “a disgrace to science” who was “consorting with known stock swindlers to support his sleazy so-called research.” The Aggie professors were particularly suspicious, because Bockris had been involved with questionable science before. He had declared that cold fusion – purported nuclear fusion at or near room temperature — was “the greatest discovery in energy of the century.” Cold fusion has been touted but not convincingly demonstrated.
The university investigated the $200,000 gift and vindicated Bockris, but the faculty was unappeased. Bockris has since retired and could not be reached for comment. [He died in 2013] However, he wrote an online paper defending the whole adventure. Telander has not lost his enthusiasm, as a wide-ranging interview reveals. “We did positively prove we could convert mercury into gold,” he insists. “But it was a political hot potato.” He says that one time in Mexico officials of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation told him he had to go see Interpol, the international criminal police organization. “There were guys on the roof with machine guns,” claims Telander. The alleged Interpol sleuth said the Chamber of Mines of South Africa was told that “your technology will destroy the whole precious metals industry. I can’t believe somebody hasn’t taken you out.”
Back in the early 1990s when investors couldn’t get their money, they were told that U.S., Swiss, and South African officials were secretly tying up Telander’s assets because they fretted that the Philadelphia Project would toss the world into financial chaos. Few investors bought the alibi. [another good conspiracy theory gone awry.]
Now hear this: Telander asserts he has a process for extracting high-priced metals such as platinum and palladium from the tailings of closed-down mines. What’s left over “can be turned into an excellent replacement for portland cement,” he asserts. “The only waste we have is salt.”
But he has a problem attracting capital: “I have to be careful how I raise money because of my past.” He claims to have developed a very special mineral: “We can stop a 44-magnum bullet at ten inches,” he avers. Both of these purported inventions are now controlled by U.S. Wind Farming, he says. “The SEC [has] no idea of these assets.”
The filing by the Securities and Exchange Commission mentions windmills — not purported platinum extraction from mine tailings. The agency charges that Telander put “fraudulent and misleading” press releases on the company website. For example, the company said in a press release that it had a $10 million grant from the Polish government to develop a wind farming cooperative. There was no such agreement, says the agency. And he never told investors that he had previously gone to the hoosegow and been permanently enjoined from committing securities fraud.
According to the agency’s complaint, Spadaccini and other individuals set up companies with names like Mad World Capital, Kyoto Capital, Oronex, and Ashlin Capital to sell unregistered shares in Wind Farming. Spadaccini was selling the shares to get fees for his work in the adventure, says the agency. Telander issued the companies 150 million shares in the year ended March of 2005. More than 60 million were sold to the public at prices from effectively zero to around five cents, says the commission. Necoechea alone sold 22 million unregistered shares to the public through an unregistered firm he controlled, according to the agency. He is not a registered broker with the National Association of Securities Dealers. Regulatory filings indicate that a Tony Necoechea twice failed his brokerage exams in the 1990s while with Desert Mountain Securities, a penny stock brokerage that handled the stocks promoted by Melvin Lloyd Richards, a San Diego stock tout who ended up in prison.
After four days trying to reach Necoechea’s lawyer, I gave up. Spadaccini has written several business books, including The Complete Corporate Guide and The Essential Corporation Handbook. The books show executives how to fill out government forms —
something he is charged with not doing. His online report, LearnAboutLaw.com, dishes out corporate legal advice. “I love your column, but I don’t want to be in it,” he says. He will only say, “I don’t think forming an entity is a crime. I represented Wind Farming but not the individuals from April of 2004 to November of 2004. I did not know about the felony until everything was under way.”
I’d love to know one thing: were the investors told that Wind Farming controlled this wondrous technique for extracting platinum and palladium from old mine tailings? Or about the mineral that can stop a 44-magnum at ten inches? Anybody believing such stories would pay $5000, not 5 cents, for the stock. But sources such as Dan Gregus, assistant regional director of the SEC in Chicago, aren’t talking.
As punishment for his 1990s Southwest International Exchange scam, the federal government ordered Telander to pay $6.7 million to investors. But he figures he owes them $15 million. He is confident he will pay them back. How? “Further exploitation of the technology from the Philadelphia Project,” he says.
Oh.
Our stock club bought our shares for 2.7 cents each so if it had crept up to 5 or 6 cents a share I might have agitated for selling half to get our money off the table. I did not. Or I do not recall bringing that up.
There is more to the middle of the story. Mr. Telander did file for patents in 2005 and 2008. The patents were granted in 2007, 2010, 2011. These are included here.
Basalt particle-containing compositions and articles for protective coatings and ballistic shield mats/tiles/protective building components
Patent number: 8043982
Abstract: It has been found that basalt particles, when combined with a resin binder and a reinforcing material, such as fiberglass, provide unexpected strength, fire-resistance, radiation
impermeability, and projectile shielding for ballistic armor/shields, fire-resistant building panels, construction blocks and protective coatings on substrates. The armor panels can be worn, as in a bullet-proof vest, or can be used as a shield to protect a vehicle, aircraft or other structures as projectile penetration-resistant and fire and radiation resistant materials.
Type: Grant
Filed: November 3, 2008
Date of Patent: October 25, 2011
Assignee: U.S. Wind Farming, Inc.
Inventor: William Telander
Basalt particle-containing compositions and articles for protective coatings and ballistic shield mats/tiles/protective building components
Publication number: 20100285269
Abstract: It has been found that basalt particles, when combined with a resin binder and a reinforcing material, such as fiberglass, provide unexpected strength, fire-resistance, radiation impermeability, and projectile shielding for ballistic armor/shields, fire-resistant building panels, construction blocks and protective coatings on substrates. The armor panels can be worn, as in a bullet-proof vest, or can be used as a shield to protect a vehicle, aircraft or other structures as projectile penetration-resistant and fire and radiation resistant materials.
Type: Application
Filed: November 3, 2008
Publication date: November 11, 2010
Applicant: U.S. WIND FARMING, INC.
Inventor: William Telander
Basalt particle-containing articles for ballistic shield mats/tiles/protective building components
Publication number: 20070224401
Abstract: A spaced, multi-layer article of manufacture comprising a first layer comprising about 10% to about 80% by weight basalt particles, about 2% to about 50% by weight reinforcing fibers, and about 5% to about 50% by weight of an adhesive resin binder; a second layer comprising about 10% to about 80% by weight basalt particles, about 2% to about 50% by weight reinforcing fibers, and about 5% to about 50% by weight of an adhesive resin binder; and an intermediate spacing layer that separates the first and second layers.
Type: Application
Filed: July 7, 2005
Publication date: September 27, 2007
Applicant: U.S. WIND FARMING INC.
Inventor: William Telander
One could make a case for rocks of some sort, particularly basalt being able to stop bullets. Anyone who has watched Gunsmoke or the Rifleman on black and white television knows this.
None of this leads us to understand where the sudden up tick in trading that has occurred in the midst of the Pandemonium years. I do not have a TikTok account. I have a Facebook Account and a Twitter account. Mr. Telander has not posted on Twitter since 2009.
Only three tweets came from the twit.
A search for John Bockris turned up of all things a Wikipedia entry. – Bernhardt Patrick John O’Mara Bockris (5 January 1923 – 7 July 2013)[1] was a professor of chemistry, latterly at Texas A&M University. During his long and prolific career he published some 700 papers and two dozen books. His best known work is in electrochemistry[2][3] but his output also extended to environmental chemistry, photoelectrochemistry and bioelectrochemistry. In the 1990s he experimented with cold fusion and transmutation, topics on which his unorthodox views provoked controversy.
Feel free to chase the Wikipedia links. Other links:
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/taubes-fraud-depiction/taubes-fraud-depiction.shtml
https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/utilities/otc-uswf/us-wind-farming?r=/user/profile#health
https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/USWF/financials
My story is getting muddled here. There is fraud in the air. The SEC says so. Search of the SEC site with Edgar produces no information. The WSJ site has some financial date dating back to the 1990s. But fear not, the plot can only thicken from here.
The very last filing with the SEC occurred in 1998 and this was a late notice to them stating the quarterly numbers would be late. It is late. There is no more filings for USWF. The previous quarterly filing states that:
FORM 10-QSB SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549
[X] QUARTERLY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the quarterly period ended August 31, 1998 OR
[ ] TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the transition period from __________ to __________
Commission file number 01-10076
APPLIED RESEARCH CORPORATION
(Exact name of small business issuer as specified in its charter)
Colorado
———————————
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)
86-0585693
———————–
(I.R.S. Employer Identification Number)
8201 Corporate Drive, Suite 1110, Landover, Maryland 20785
(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)
(301) 459-3773
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)
(Former name, former address and former fiscal year, if changed since last report)
Check whether the issuer (1) filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Exchange Act during the past 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes [X] No [ ]
As of October 15, 1998, the Company had 6,311,083 shares of its $.01 par value common stock outstanding.
Ah Ha! You say. United States wind Farming, inc. is not the name of the company at all. The real name is Applied Research Corporation. Mystery solved! Not so fast.
https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersunsolicitedquotationshtm.html – says that if someone approaches you and says I got this hot stock. It could be the next Amazon. Beware, it could be a scam.
And from the OTC website – Warning! Unsolicited Quotes Only
Investors should be aware that no firm is making a market in this stock on OTC Link. All prices reflect unsolicited customer orders and investors may have a difficult time selling this stock. Click here for more info on Unsolicited Quotes.
USWF appears to be a publicly traded private company. Can there be such a thing? Or a publicly traded wholly owned subsidiary of a private company. In any case it is still traded as a Pink Sheet entity. In many of the documents there is much issuing and trading of shares — 100,000 shares @ $10,000 for example but the company shows no business of any kind. Odd is it not?
The stock is active but the the company is not. Who would buy such an entity?
Still searching for clues at the scene of the crime – Joe Walsh.
There is a legitimate company called U S Wind. I suppose uninformed buyers might be trying to buy shares in this private company.
But wait there’s more: (from Form 10-KSB filed May, 1998)
Applied Research Corporation was organized under the laws of the State of Colorado on March 26, 1986, as Dollar Ventures, Inc., for the primary purpose of engaging in a merger with or acquisition of, one or a small number of private firms. On December 29, 1987, Dollar Ventures, Inc. acquired 100% of the outstanding shares of common stock of Applied Research Corporation, a Maryland corporation, in exchange for 5,000,000 shares of Dollar Ventures, Inc. common stock. The acquisition was legally classified as a reorganization. For accounting and financial reporting purposes, the transaction was treated as a reverse acquisition at book value.
Following the acquisition, Applied Research Corporation (the original Maryland corporation) changed its name to Applied Research of Maryland, Inc. (“ARM”), and Dollar Ventures, Inc. changed its name to Applied Research Corporation (“ARC”). Applied Research of Maryland, Inc. was a high technology company specializing in research and development, design and fabrication of sensors and instrumentation, technical support services and software development. As a result of continuing operating losses, on April 2, 1996, ARM filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. On June 19, 1997, the majority of the operating assets of ARM were sold. On July 30, 1998, ARM’s Plan of Reorganization was approved by the Bankruptcy Court, and ARM emerged from the Chapter 11 process. See Item 6. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
ARSoftware Corporation (“ARS”), a Maryland corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of ARC was formed in April, 1992, to diversify ARC’s business by developing niche markets in the computer software industry. The objective of ARS is to develop and distribute scientific and technical software to academic, commercial and federal, state and local government entities. ARS is currently reselling existing products under licensing agreements.
Colorado’s Secretary of State has ARC no longer as an incorporated entity. Nor does the Maryland Secretary of State.
The original principles of the USWF story [ U.S. WIND FARMING, INC., WILLIAM L. TELANDER, MAD WORLD CAPITAL GROUP LLC, TEMPLAR FINANCIAl LLC, TIME LIMIT CAPITAL, LLC, RAYMOND J. MCNAMEE, 20th CENTURY JACKSON EQUITIES, INC, ASHLIN CAPITAL LLC, KYOTO CAPITAL GROUP, LLC, CHARLES S. FLEMMING, ORONEX, LLC, MICHAEL D. SPADACCINI, Defendants. ] and one or two of the entities are all still alive living in modest accommodations in various parts of the country. America is a great place to be.
The mystery is still that. Why did the shares suddenly start trading? Part of that answer is that the shares have been traded as OTC Pink Sheet offerings all along. Lately the quantities for offer increased dramatically. Our little stock club owns 10,000. Perhaps we should attempt to sell and see if there is a price blip. (smiley face here). After all we seem to own 0.15% of the company, I think.
Adjunct_Wizard 