Universal Expression: The Search for Scapegoats

In my entry in this blog for June 30 I wrote about a company called Universal Express. I wrote about it because the company, for some time now, has been chiefly a vehicle for separating fools from their money, and because its chief executive, Richard Altomare, was an especially good example of shamelessness. Altomare actually compared himself to Rosa Parks.

"I am sure that Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony and others, who questioned previously accepted 'legal' practices, were vilified, criticized and even demonized prior to the truth finally surfacing," he was saying in late June. A neat way, as I noted at the time, to deflect accurate accusations of criminality. http://cfaille.blogspot.com/search?q=Universal+Express

There is more to report. The court, in the person of Judge Gerald Lynch, appointed an examiner, Jane Moscowitz, to take control of the assets, itemize same, protect them, and make reports. Ms Moscowitz made her first report September 28. You can read it for yourself at this URL: http://materialevidence.angelfire.com/master.pdf

She reports that upon her appointment as receiver, she found that the company had a bank account with $83,000 in it, but a biweekly payroll obligation of $112,000, excluding the payroll to Mr. and Mrs. Altomare. Accordingly, she assembled the employees and told them there was no money to continue paying them. She asked for their contact information and told them they could leave.

"After I left the area where they were assembled," she wrote, "Altomare told the employees that there were sufficient funds to cover payroll but that I had simply chosen not to pay them."

Mr. Altomare appears to have treated employees with the same consideration that he always treated investors -- all he did for either was to find them scapegoats for his con game. There's more here:

http://www.hedgeworld.com/news/read_news.cgi?section=dail&story=dail14366.html

True believers are coming at last to see the nature of the scam. One such true believer had created an online petition complaining of attempts by the nasty Securities and Exchange Commission to "destroy him, our company, and our fair market system."

But said true believer no longer believes. He's added an note to the page with that petition, saying: "As author of this petition, in good conscience I can longer support Mr. Altomare or Universal Express, or any of the other defendants. I have sadly come to the conclusion, based upon what I have read from the court appointed Receiver in this matter, that shareholders were abused. I withdraw this petition. My intentions were good, but I feel betrayed."

Maybe Mr. Marten, the creator of that petition, can turn his betrayal to good effect by better recognizing, and warning others of, the fact that we live in a sad time, when there's many a Bull Connor who wants to compare himself to Rosa Parks.