“And?”
“When I first asked the other servers, before trying my manager, only a couple got excited, and we couldn’t do it with only a couple. Some of us have second jobs, you know? And school. And even when we close at two, it’s maybe not till three, sometimes four, that we get the place cleaned up so we can go home.”
“Got it. So, what happened then?”
“I told Miss Morgan and she said she was inviting anyone in the bar to come up to her condominium for an after-hours party. Including us servers, which shows you how generous she was.”
“Did you go?”
Wolfe frowned, shook his head.
“Thought about it,” he said, “but management doesn’t allow us to hang with guests.”
“Do you know who did go up?”
He shook his head again.
“I was busy closing up the bar—wiping down bottles, cycling glasses in and out of the dishwater, the usual. People closed out their tabs and went out the door, but I can’t say who actually went with her. I heard that city councilman saying he was exhausted and had to go home.”
“And this was all at two, you say?”
“Starting at two, when I turned up the houselights. The stragglers trickled out by two-fifteen or so. Miss Morgan was among the first ones to leave, before the lights went up.”
The video stopped.
Krowczyk said, “He adds nothing past that point. McCrory should anytime now have all the surveillance video taken of the condo lobby, going back to twenty-one hundred hours, and from the hotel.”
“Okay,” Payne said. “You find anything on Austin or Benson?”
Krowczyk shook his head.
“Not really. Austin has only a website for his wealth management firm. And it shows only the most basic contact information with a line that says, if I recall exactly, ‘We offer investment and philanthropic advisory and strategic planning services for foundations, endowments, and individuals.’ That’s it. Nothing in-depth. And he has zero personal social media stuff.”
“What about Benson?”
“He has a personal page, which appears to have been more or less inactive for about the last year. And beside a basic website, NextGenRx.com, he has a business social media page that’s essentially a promotional site for the medical device. It doesn’t allow anyone to post anything on it. So there’s no paths to follow there.”
“What about Camilla Rose Morgan?”
“Ah, now, she’s the total opposite. She has social media pages for herself personally and for her charities. And they are packed with activity. Her picture is everywhere. Here, I’ll show you the Camilla’s Kids Camp website as an example.”
The video interview of Harvey Wolfe was replaced.
“Now, that’s impressive,” Payne said. “It shows that more than five hundred thousand people follow her camps on social media.”
“There’s a reason for that. Just look at all they do,” Krowczyk said as he clicked on the link to the camp calendar and read the screen. “Week one is for kids with cancer. Week two is diabetes. Then heart problems. Sickle cell. Asthma/Airway. Arthritis/Hemophilia. Spina bifida. Immune deficiency/kidney. Epilepsy. That’s a lot of sick kids.”
“The half million are ones who have attended and/or want to attend,” Harris said. “The kids who get picked pay nothing to go.”
“What’s this Founder’s Message video link?” Payne said, pointing. “Can you play it?”
Krowczyk clicked on the box and the screen changed to show Camilla Rose, clad in crisp khaki shorts and a white T-shirt and ball cap logotyped CAMILLA’S KIDS CAMPS, smiling and waving with both hands at the camera. Behind her, on a wooden pier jutting out into a river lined with moss-draped trees, a half dozen children in wheelchairs held fishing poles. Her voice came from the computer speakers.
“Hi, I’m Camilla Rose Morgan. Welcome to Crystal River, Florida, home to one of my four ACC-accredited camps for children with extreme medical challenges. Every week at these twenty-million-dollar wonderlands, kids come to experience the excitement of the expected—and the unexpected.
“Our state-of-the-art medical facility features a full-time physician and nurse, plus volunteer doctors and nurses who specialize in the disease of each week’s group of campers. And our superb staff counselors, one staffer for every three campers, are true professionals who have passed a rigorous vetting process.
“While parents do not attend—that would distract from the experience—they do know that all campers’ needs are constantly monitored. Campers are provided their daily medications and any procedures, from chemo to dialysis, then they head out for a full day of sun and fun.
“Here on the Gulf Coast, for example, there’s fishing, boating, swimming in the Olympic-sized pool, horseback riding on the beach, craft workshops, and much more. After dinners, we gather round the campfire for singing and skits and laughs.
“Lots and lots of the latter, as laughter is the best medicine. Just ask the campers themselves.”
“Reminds me a great deal of Boy Scout camp . . .” Payne said.
They watched the image of Camilla Rose being replaced by a shot of what looked to be a girl of maybe ten or twelve holding out her right arm as she made a video recording of herself. She had a sweet, engaging smile and bright eyes that gleamed like the tiny diamond studs in her earlobes. And she had a very bald, very shiny head.
Payne added, “Except without the terminally ill kids. Guess the chemo got her hair.”
The little girl said, her voice squeaking with emotion, “I just had to say thank you for the best time I have ever had in my whole life! I didn’t know it was possible to do all the fun things you taught me. I learned so much about staying strong and getting better. Thanks to you, no matter what, I’ll always be a Camilla’s Can-Do Kid!”
Payne felt his throat tighten, and he caught himself wiping his eye.
“Wow,” he said, after he cleared his throat. “Powerful. And another example of why my gut says she didn’t jump. She said those kids were her calling in life.”
“I hear you,” Harris said, clearing his throat, too.
Payne looked at him and noticed he showed signs of also having had moist eyes.
Harris picked up on that and shrugged. “I’m a sucker for sick kids—what can I say?”
“She’s got more of these camps on the coasts of California and North Carolina,” Krowczyk said, “and one up on the Delaware River outside New Hope. That’s eighty mil total, if each one’s worth the twenty she said. What’s going to happen to them now?”
“I’m guessing that their board of directors would carry on the mission,” Payne said as he felt his phone vibrate. “As long as there’s the money, that is. Which likely makes tomorrow’s fund-raiser all the more critical.”
He checked the smartphone’s screen and saw that Daffy Nesbitt had replied: “I heard the terrible news about Camilla Rose. And, yes, I knew her. Why do you ask? It was from the fund-raising last year for the hospital. Chad was involved through the company. I thought she was delightful. Such a big, kind heart. We had plans to attend her gala tomorrow. Oh, and did you know Terry is coming back in town for it? With that horrid actor from here.”
And another positive note for Camilla Rose, Payne thought.
Daffy can be cutthroat. She would not praise her unless she really meant it.
Payne gestured with the phone.
“Well,” he said, “a back channel pretty much just confirmed that Stan Colt will be in town for the Camilla’s Kids fund-raiser. Oh joy.”
“Yeah, he’s on the dignitary list,” Harris said, then tapped a couple keys on the notebook computer next to Krowczyk’s. “Meant to tell you on the phone that it came in while you were gone. Got it here. It’s short.”
Payne leaned over to look at the list. It detailed each VIP’s biography and contact info
rmation and itinerary.
“Not as many as I’d expected,” Payne said, tapping the keyboard’s down arrow while scanning the scrolling screen. “A few actors; three, no, four pro athletes; and a mix of politicians. All with egos off the charts. I want no part of holding their hands.”
Payne stood straight and looked between Harris and Krowczyk.
“Okay,” he said. “So, what else? What was that WAG?”
“Right,” Harris said. “Krow here, digging through the data points, found one bit of data—”
“Datum,” Krowczyk interrupted. “Data is the plural form.”
“Datum that eventually led him to a really interesting article.”
“And that datum led to other data,” Krowczyk said, “all of it open-source info.”
Payne looked at him.
“You said something about a suicide?”
“That’s right, Sarge,” Krowczyk said, pointing toward the screen with his half-eaten sponge cake, yellow crumbs scattered across the keyboard of the four-thousand-dollar computer. “But first you should see some of these from the chat room on one investor website. They’ll give you an interesting perspective.”
“Remember how this guy Benson was the head cheerleader for his start-up?” Harris said.
“Yeah,” Payne said.
“Well,” Krowczyk picked up, “he also berated his stockholders and anyone else who did not blindly worship the company. For the Benson case file, I put together a ton of those comments. These are just a few examples.”
The Camilla’s Kids website was replaced by one filled with multicolored lines of text, each date-stamped posting a different hue. At the top it read PLEASE LOG IN HERE TO COMMENT ON NEXTGENRX.
“Okay,” Payne said, “so tell me exactly what this is we’re looking at. Looks like some sort of Internet electronic bazaar.”
“It’s definitely got a carnival atmosphere,” Krowczyk said. “This is one of the chat rooms on the Investors Insider website. It has chat rooms for practically every stock and investment topic, and they’re mostly used by day traders, though, in reality, anyone can post.”
“That one says it was posted by Bull$Ball$,” Payne said. “How do you know who’s who?”
“You really don’t,” Krowczyk said. “While some people actually use a name, most are obviously made up, and there’s no way to really know if those using what look like real names are actually who they say they are. Some, in fact, can be trolls.”
“And these particular trolls are doing what here?”
“Actively trying to talk up, or down, a stock for their own gain. It’s a lot like the free-for-all posting in a reader comment section that follows online newspaper and magazine articles. Except here there is money involved.”
Payne read a few, then said, “Well, it’s not exactly the black art of the old Soviet disinformation. But it looks like it’s in the same vein. Remarkable how many are clearly pushing an agenda. ‘This stock is poised to shoot through the roof. I just bought more at this low price.’”
“Yeah,” Harris said, “while other posters are simply looking for answers, like that one from Tulsa Annie asking if the approval of the company patents, quote, is within the reasonable time frame of similar other patents, unquote. Want to bet what a troll’s answer to that was?”
“Classic Salesmanship 101,” Payne said. “‘Tell your customers what they want to hear.’”
Krowczyk watched, and waited, as they read the rest of the page, and then tapped the keyboard to produce a new page on-screen.
“Okay,” he said, “so now get a load of this exchange.”
Charley411
RE: MarketMaven post# 22110
Post # 22116 of 22809
“Hang on for the next big announcement,” you say?
Are you kidding me? That’s what NGRx’s mouthpiece said last time and the only thing that happened was a five-cent run-up in share price, followed by a bigger drop after the profit takers were done.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . . is not going to happen.
1) There is no proof of a marketable product. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
2) There are inexplicable spikes in share price, suggesting market manipulation, and
3) Then there’s the mysterious death of the chief scientist.
I’ve had enough of this horseshit con job.
NGRxSocialMediaGuru
RE: Charley411 post# 22116
Post # 22117 of 22810
There’s damn sure no smoke and mirrors. You and everyone else making these baseless claims are absolute fucking morons if you can’t see the upside to this! And there is no market manipulation — otherwise, you imbecile, don’t you think the shares would be even higher?
The world-changing product is there! The patents are filed! This is the BEST time to be buying!
Shareholders who hold a long position will be aptly rewarded. It will be HUGE! The rest of you, go ahead and SELL. Then go to hell. Because the smart investors will snap up your shares!
“So we’re assuming that that guru is someone connected with the company,” Payne said, “as opposed to a troll using a bogus name.”
“From all I’ve read—and I’ve read countless exchanges just like that,” Krowczyk said, “I’m convinced it is Benson. That business social media page of his I mentioned that’s essentially a promotional site for the medical device? A number of items that appear on there—and only he or someone who works for him can post on it—have also appeared here, word for word.”
“Amazing,” Payne said, shaking his head. “On a public forum, calling people who invest in your company morons—and worse—it’s really a bizarre bazaar.”
“There are plenty of other examples in the file that I compiled. And he was well known for losing his temper,” Krowczyk said.
Payne exchanged glances with Harris.
“That’s what John Austin said about him,” Payne said.
“Benson never took anything off anyone,” Harris said.
“What’s with the mysterious death?” Payne said. “Is that the suicide?”
Krowczyk nodded.
“After I picked up on that datum, I made a WAG and dug further,” he said, then tapped the keyboard to produce another new page on the monitor, “and got this.”
Payne whistled softly as he scanned the news article:
Death of Pharma Scientist Ruled a Suicide
Police Investigation Determines Dr. Zhong Han, Found Dead in His Garage, Succumbed to Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
By Jessie Dalehite
Business Staff Writer, Miami News Now
WEST PALM BEACH, Jan. 2nd—Police homicide detectives today closed the case on the death of Zhong “Charley” Han, Ph.D., forty-five, declaring his death three weeks ago in nearby Riviera Beach was in fact a suicide. The ruling had not been unexpected. From the beginning, Dr. Han, a biochemist engineer, was said to have left a detailed note.
“The evidence always pointed to this being a tragic case of one taking his own life,” Jeffrey Murray, the lead homicide detective on the case, said. “The forensic evidence, including the authentication of the suicide note, finally bore it out. Our condolences and prayers go out to the deceased’s family and friends.”
A family spokesman, Samuel Nguyen, addressing reporters outside the Hans’ waterfront residence in Riviera Beach, said that Dr. Han’s widow, Mrs. Ann Han, age forty, would have no comment.
“Not now or later,” Mr. Nguyen added.
Mrs. Han as recently as two weeks ago had been actively courting media attention concerning the circumstances leading up to her husband’s death.
Mr. Nguyen, when asked, said that “no comment” would include not releasing what Dr. Han had written in the suicide note. He did confirm that the note, written on NextGen
Rx stationery, had been found under the windshield wiper blade of a Lexus SUV in the garage of the Han residence.
Dr. Han, having been awarded numerous patents in the pharmaceutical industry by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO), was well regarded. Before his separation from NextGenRx six weeks ago, Dr. Han had been the chief scientist at the small company.
NextGenRx is a two-year-old start-up focused on the manufacture of medical devices and their technology. While it began with a modest venture capital investment, NextGenRx now is publicly traded in the OTC Markets Group. Of its 2.5 billion common shares, 600 million currently are traded.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth R. Benson declined repeated requests for comment on the ruling of suicide of his company’s former number three officer.
However, in postings on at least one Internet chat room website, InvestorsInsider.com, a post using the screen name NGRxSocialMediaGuru has consistently, and at times in a caustic manner, denounced all who have suggested that the results of Dr. Han’s clinical trials could not be duplicated.
The company’s stock, which rose from an initial low of a half cent, had been trading last month at an all-time high of ten cents per share.
The rise in price had followed the release of what turned out to be Dr. Han’s final patent application, and, the next day, news that Luoma Biologika GmbH of Germany, which manufactures and sells ophthalmic devices, had entered into a co-licensing agreement with NextGenRx.
The stock price plummeted by half on the news of Dr. Han’s separation from the company. It then fell even further, to two cents, after his death, when Mrs. Han went public with the accusations that Dr. Han had been coerced into endorsing papers containing falsified data from the clinical trials.
When first contacted last month, CEO Benson stated, “I consider Charley a friend, in addition to being a coworker. The sad fact of the matter is, unfortunately, he has suffered from some long illness and has rarely been able to even come to the office. His work suffered tremendously, to the point where he was unable to complete tasks, even remotely from home. We deeply regret that he decided that separation from NextGenRx was the best thing for him. He has made a lasting impression on this company and its game-changing medical devices.”
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