News
May 30 2008
Orr gives Congress the vapors
Any penny-ante huckster can con a few suckers with a fuel-additive scam.
William Orr conned Congress.
He also shafted Bob Schaffer, GOP candidate for Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat.
In 2002, Orr received a $3.6 million congressional earmark to test his "Vapor Phase Combustion" ideas.
He'd already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors, claiming success.
"Prudential Bache has agreed to do our project and operating financing on a multiyear staged basis for approximately $1 Billion +/-, which would include relationships with Exxon, Enron and the like," he wrote to potential investors in 1999. "This is great news!"
None of this was true, according to federal prosecutors.
Orr was convicted Wednesday on 22 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, making false statements to the government and to investors, and failing to file tax returns. He faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The other side of the story — which apparently didn't resonate with the jury — is that Orr is a victim of political skulduggery.
"He's a very creative, eccentric inventor who has got a lot of brilliant ideas about fuel additives and global climate change," said Orr's defense attorney Paul Grant.
Orr had sued the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming onerous new rules to reduce the sulfur content in gasoline were unnecessary given the efficacy of his Vapor Phase Combustion. That suit was dismissed in 2004.
Unfortunately for Orr, the EPA was assigned to oversee the $3.6 million earmark he'd won from Congress to test his fuel additive. The EPA decided Orr was improperly spending the earmark on himself.
Grant argued the agency simply used its position to retaliate against Orr, but the jury didn't buy it.
"It was a horribly unfair trial," said Grant, who plans to appeal the verdict. "The government managed to get convictions on counts where they offered no evidence."
Schaffer, who served on the board of Orr's congressionally funded National Alternative Fuels Foundation, is not saying a peep.
His spokesman, Dick Wadhams, said Schaffer was not paid for his nearly six months of service beginning in October 1994.
"As soon as he was alerted to the problems, he resigned from the board," Wadhams said.
Schaffer joined the board at the behest of his longtime political associate Scott Shires, a notable GOP operative.
Shires pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in the case. His sentencing is slated for June 23. He faces up to a year in prison and a $25,000 fine.
If Schaffer and the members of Congress who put up the $3.6 million earmark are indeed Orr's victims, it's hard to imagine how they could be such easy marks.
Years before Orr set his sights on them, he was allegedly fleecing guys like Larry Potthoff, a Franktown general contractor, who told me he lost about $13,000 to Orr beginning in the mid-1990s.
"He kept sending letters, saying he's talking to Saudi Arabia . . . and on and on and on. But you could never get him on the phone. . . . He used Scott Shires as his go-between guy," Potthoff said. "I called several times and told him I wanted my money back. No response."
Al Lewis' column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at blogs.denverpost.com/lewis, 303-954-1967 or alewis@ denverpost.com.
William Orr conned Congress.
He also shafted Bob Schaffer, GOP candidate for Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat.
In 2002, Orr received a $3.6 million congressional earmark to test his "Vapor Phase Combustion" ideas.
He'd already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors, claiming success.
"Prudential Bache has agreed to do our project and operating financing on a multiyear staged basis for approximately $1 Billion +/-, which would include relationships with Exxon, Enron and the like," he wrote to potential investors in 1999. "This is great news!"
None of this was true, according to federal prosecutors.
Orr was convicted Wednesday on 22 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, making false statements to the government and to investors, and failing to file tax returns. He faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The other side of the story — which apparently didn't resonate with the jury — is that Orr is a victim of political skulduggery.
"He's a very creative, eccentric inventor who has got a lot of brilliant ideas about fuel additives and global climate change," said Orr's defense attorney Paul Grant.
Orr had sued the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming onerous new rules to reduce the sulfur content in gasoline were unnecessary given the efficacy of his Vapor Phase Combustion. That suit was dismissed in 2004.
Unfortunately for Orr, the EPA was assigned to oversee the $3.6 million earmark he'd won from Congress to test his fuel additive. The EPA decided Orr was improperly spending the earmark on himself.
Grant argued the agency simply used its position to retaliate against Orr, but the jury didn't buy it.
"It was a horribly unfair trial," said Grant, who plans to appeal the verdict. "The government managed to get convictions on counts where they offered no evidence."
Schaffer, who served on the board of Orr's congressionally funded National Alternative Fuels Foundation, is not saying a peep.
His spokesman, Dick Wadhams, said Schaffer was not paid for his nearly six months of service beginning in October 1994.
"As soon as he was alerted to the problems, he resigned from the board," Wadhams said.
Schaffer joined the board at the behest of his longtime political associate Scott Shires, a notable GOP operative.
Shires pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in the case. His sentencing is slated for June 23. He faces up to a year in prison and a $25,000 fine.
If Schaffer and the members of Congress who put up the $3.6 million earmark are indeed Orr's victims, it's hard to imagine how they could be such easy marks.
Years before Orr set his sights on them, he was allegedly fleecing guys like Larry Potthoff, a Franktown general contractor, who told me he lost about $13,000 to Orr beginning in the mid-1990s.
"He kept sending letters, saying he's talking to Saudi Arabia . . . and on and on and on. But you could never get him on the phone. . . . He used Scott Shires as his go-between guy," Potthoff said. "I called several times and told him I wanted my money back. No response."
Al Lewis' column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at blogs.denverpost.com/lewis, 303-954-1967 or alewis@ denverpost.com.
