The president of Positive Energy Electric Co., and one of my sponsors, was fined $100,000 by the state Banking Department for bank fraud involving a mortgage about seven years ago when he was in the mortgage business.
A spokesman for the department confirmed the fine against Joseph Ventura this week, which a reader tipped me off about after I wrote a column on Positive Energy being our newest sponsor.
Department spokesman James Heckman – responding to my request for details – said that two years ago his agency ordered Ventura, who runs the Middlebury-based company, to pay a civil fine of $100,000. Positive Energy claims to have about 40,000 residential and commercial customers in Connecticut.
“In August 2008, the department made a criminal referral to the Chief States Attorney’s office, but was advised the closing took place in 2003 and was now outside the one year statute of limitations,” Heckman wrote me.
In November 2008 his department referred the fine to the state Attorney General’s office for collection.
“The only tangible asset was an automobile that would have cost more to confiscate and sell than it was worth,” he wrote me. “In March 2009 the agency wrote off the fine.”
The history of the legal action, its details, can be found here.
Ventura declined to discuss the allegations, but claimed that it is on ongoing issue that he is appealing.
“This is an ongoing, unsettled matter. Allegations are not defined as guilt.
The only thing I will say on this matter is that I am fighting this matter.
Per my Attorney, I have been advised to not make any further comment until this matter is resolved,” Ventura wrote me.
Well, unfortunately that comes as news to the state Banking Department which says it has no record of any appeal by Ventura.
Ventura had no immediate response to that statement.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by George Gombossy, Mike Springer. Mike Springer said: RT @ctwatchdog: Positive Energy Electric President Fined $100,000 For Bank Fraud http://bit.ly/9iwWo4 via @AddToAny [...]
[...] Former Courant consumer columnist George Gombossy has maintained for months that he was fired because he would not allow pressure from advertisers sway his reporting. Today, as if to illustrate the difference between his web site CTWatchdog.com and the ethics of his former employer, he reports on the offenses of one of his sponsors. [...]