Power peddler courts schools

                       Company pitches generator of free electricity to
                       Berwick, Central

                                     By SUSAN SCHWARTZ

                                       Press Enterprise Writer

                       BERWICK -- A company claims it can build a generator
                       that makes free electricity, and it offered the school
                       district big money to help sell the machine to local
                       residents.

                       All the district had to do was let the firm use school
                       letterhead, mailing lists and cheap postal rates, and the
                       company would pay the district $1,000 for every resident
                       who signed up.

                       But even the marketers say a working generator has not
                       yet been built.

                       And Dennis Lee, billed as the inventor, has served time in
                       California state prison for fraud involving another alleged
                       free electricity generator, officials say.

                       Lee's legal troubles are the result of large oil companies
                       that are trying to smother an invention that could make
                       them obsolete, said Paul J. Pavelco Sr., vice president of
                       JACCAR Marketing in Walnutport, north of Allentown.

                       However, Joseph Garcia, a retired Bloomsburg University
                       physics professor, said the generator couldn't possibly
                       work because it violates the laws of physics.

                       The Berwick and Central Columbia school districts
                       received pitches about the Hummingbird Motor and
                       Sundance Generator, and Berwick at one point set up a
                       meeting with Pavelco to learn more.

                       Berwick Superintendent David Force said he was
                       intrigued when he received information and a video from
                       Pavelco in March. Maintenance personnel who looked
                       over the information said it could work, he added.

                       He said he canceled the meeting after learning more
                       about Lee and his company, Better World Technologies.

                       The offer

                       Pavelco said his company is handling the marketing for
                       Long Enterprises, one of Better World Technologies'
                       dealers.

                       In the letter, Pavelco asked for the district's permission to
                       use its letterhead, mailing list and non-profit postal permit
                       number. In return, Pavelco promised to give the district
                       $1,000 for every person who signed up for a buyers club
                       that would entitle the person to receive an electric
                       generator.

                       Once 1.6 million people sign up for the program, Lee will
                       unveil his working models at 487 places across the
                       United States, the letter said.

                       "One of the largest National Church organizations" would
                       have a pastor and television camera at each location, the
                       letter said. The church group would broadcast the
                       demonstration across the country. All 1.6 million people
                       would then have the chance to sign up 10 friends, each of
                       whom would have to pay $1,000.

                       Pavelco said Lee will not say what national church is
                       involved.

                       "They don't want those people hounded," he said.

                       Once the demonstration is finished and the original 1.6
                       million people have registered their friends, Better World
                       Technologies will have enough money to finance its
                       generator business without having to borrow money, he
                       said.

                       He also said the group's customers would be a powerful
                       voting bloc that would prevent oil interests from using the
                       government to stop the program. That's why Lee won't
                       show a working model until the full 1.6 million people have
                       signed up.

                       Pavelco said he doesn't know how many people have
                       signed up so far.

                       "We're at least a third of the way there," he said.

                       Magnet power

                       Pavelco's letter said he had sent the offer to 203 school
                       districts in eastern Pennsylvania, 195 school districts in
                       western New Jersey, and 50 college and university alumni
                       associations. Many districts expressed interest, he said,
                       although he would not say how many had contacted him.

                       Harry Mathias, superintendent of Central Columbia Area
                       School District, said he received information from
                       Pavelco, but didn't respond.

                       "It was one of those things that sound too good to be
                       true," he said. "It's like the sweepstakes. It didn't sound
                       right, and we didn't want to pass it on to the public."

                       Postal problem

                       The company's offer includes several problems.

                       First, school districts are not legally allowed to lend their
                       non-profit postal permit number to anyone, said Kevin
                       Walsh, Berwick's postmaster.

                       That number allows the district to mail letters for as little
                       as 12 cents per letter, instead of the 23 cents per letter
                       charged for-profit companies that buy postal permits,
                       Walsh said.

                       Pavelco said that as long as he uses the school
                       letterhead, he can use the school's postal permit.
                       However, the permit application says the school cannot
                       mail material on behalf of any person or organization that
                       is not authorized to mail at the non-profit rate.

                       Second, several states have charged Lee with consumer
                       fraud for other efforts to market energy-saving devices.

                       Lee sold people $5,000 marketing plans, which were
                       supposed to show them how to build and sell the heat
                       pumps, said Bob Meyers, supervising attorney with the
                       major fraud unit for the Ventura County district attorney.

                       Pavelco said Lee was totally exonerated of all charges.

                       He said Lee would be unable to respond directly to
                       questions because he is in California promoting his
                       program. Instead, he referred a reporter to Lee's Web
                       page at UCSOFA.com.

                       In a radio broadcast archived on the World Wide Web,
                       Lee said he was never given a trial and was never
                       convicted. He said the Supreme Court refused to hear his
                       appeal, and allowed the state of California to "kidnap"
                       him.

                       "I can only imagine the politics involved," Lee said.

                       However, Meyers said Lee never had a trial because he
                       pleaded guilty to eight felonies. He said Lee later
                       appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was
                       denied at all levels and finished serving his sentence in
                       1993.

                       "We constantly receive inquiries about him from all over
                       the media," Meyers said.

                       Lee and his sales efforts have been featured on CBS,
                       "Good Morning America" and in USA Today, he said.

                       Washington state

                       Chris Jarvis, a spokesman for the attorney general in
                       Lee's native state of Washington, said his office won a
                       cease-and-desist order against Lee and his wife, Alison
                       David, in 1985 for misleading customers in an effort to
                       sell a solar energy system. Among their alleged untrue
                       claims was that local utilities and the federal government
                       would pay for the systems.

                       Lee said he later won permission from the IRS to have
                       customers receive a tax credit for installing his system.

                       In 1999, the Washington Department of Financial
                       Institutions won another cease-and-desist order against
                       Lee for selling a perpetual motion machine that was
                       supposed to create free electricity from the air.

                       Martin Cordell, an enforcement attorney with the securities
                       division, said Lee was running full-page ads in USA
                       Today promoting seminars about his generator. Cordell
                       said people were told that for $275 they could buy
                       certificates of beneficial interest in ITEC, which Lee said
                       would build and service the machines.

                       "But perpetual motion machines don't exist," Cordell said.
                       "It's modern-day alchemy."

                       Cordell went to Lee's seminar to serve the order on him.
                       Before the show, he went on stage in search of Lee, he
                       said. He saw part of a demonstration machine, but was
                       not allowed to examine it, he said.

                       The Better Business Bureau of Northern New Jersey
                       reported that Better World Technologies has an
                       unsatisfactory record. People attending the group's
                       seminars told the bureau that Lee's claims bordered on
                       being fraudulent, and that some people in the audience
                       who vocally accepted his results may have been planted
                       in the crowd.

                       Skeptical critic

                       In 1996, he and some engineering and skeptic friends
                       went to one of Lee's shows.

                       "It was all we could do to keep from laughing out loud," he
                       said. "But then we saw all these people who wrote checks
                       for $10,000 for one of his dealerships. That haunted me."

                       Lee has sold a string of products, Krieg said, including a
                       camera that supposedly could see through concrete and
                       several free electricity products.

                       "The stuff he sells is unworkable, non-existent or cheaper
                       elsewhere," he said.

                       Over the years, Lee has become more sophisticated,
                       Krieg said. He now has people sign disclaimers when
                       they buy products from his companies. Those disclaimers
                       sign away the customers' legal rights, he said.

                       Krieg said Lee once bilked Pat Robertson out of
                       $150,000 in a plan to buy discount buyers cards. The
                       cards were supposed to give customers discounts at
                       stores. But the idea never got off the ground, he said.

                       Spokespeople at Robertson's Christian Broadcasting
                       Network did not return a call seeking comment.

                       Today, Lee uses the lingo of born-again Christians to give
                       himself more credibility, Krieg said.

                       In a catalog Pavelco sent to the Berwick district, the
                       introduction said, in part, "We believe God gives vision
                       and knowledge for us to share with others, to lift them up
                       and improve the world in which we all live."

                       Krieg said Lee sold a number of dealerships, which now
                       sell his electric generators and other products.

                       The dealers, he added, can be sincere. After all, some of
                       them paid $10,000 for the right to sell the products.

                       Pavelco said Lee has demonstrated his technology in
                       Washington, D.C., and Boston. People were allowed to
                       test the equipment there, he said.

                       When asked why Krieg was not allowed to test the
                       equipment, he said that perhaps Krieg didn't get in line
                       fast enough.

                       On March 7, Lee was invited to the Kansas legislature to
                       talk about his generators, Pavelco said.

                       "If he was a scam or a fraud, would he go to Kansas?" he
                       asked.

                       But the Topeka Capital Journal reported Lee was asked
                       to stop his presentation after legislators realized he would
                       not demonstrate anything, but had only a prepared
                       speech discussing the government conspiracy that he
                       said was preventing his technology from getting onto the
                       market.

                       Stan Clark, chairman of the Kansas Senate Utilities
                       Committee, apologized to the legislature for inviting Lee.
                       Clark said he expected information on renewable
                       resources.

                       Claims of innocence

                       On March 28, Lee called the Press Enterprise and asked
                       for more time to respond to the allegations against him.
                       He said he had received copies of written questions and
                       allegations only the day before, although they had been
                       sent by overnight mail to Pavelco on March 22.

                       Lee said his companies had never received any
                       complaints from any customers. When told about the state
                       regulators' accusations, he said Alexander Graham Bell
                       was also arrested for selling something that didn't exist
                       when he first marketed the telephone.

                       "You do what you want to do," he said. "You think if
                       enough people talk bad about someone, they should be
                       totally disregarded."

                       He said all cease-and-desist orders he had been served
                       involved things he wasn't doing. He questioned the right of
                       the Better Business Bureau to issue an unsatisfactory
                       report about him.

                       He said physics experts had no right to say his machines
                       didn't work because they had never seen one.

                       He accused a reporter of trying to protect the oil and
                       electric companies, and would not acknowledge
                       questions or slow down long enough to listen to questions.

                       "I don't care what you write in your stupid thing," he said.
                       "What you write just helps me sort out who has a brain
                       and who doesn't.

                       "You have no interest in the truth. Go ahead and write
                       what you want."

                       He hung up without leaving a phone number.

                       Susan Alley, president of the Berwick school board, said
                       directors were all suspicious of Pavelco's offer. Director
                       Wayne Strausser was particularly skeptical, she said.

                       "He called it hogwash," she said.

                       "We figured we'd just have him come in and do a
                       presentation," she said. "We as a district, just like regular
                       consumers, get bombarded with offers."

                       Reporter Susan Schwartz covers the Berwick area. Call
                       her at 752-3646 or e-mail her at
 
 

                              susan.s@pe-online.com.

n
                                              ©Press Enterprise, Inc.

     Record number: 6901
     Slug: Power peddler courts schools
     Headline:
     Brief: Company pitches generator of free electricity to Berwick, Central By SUSAN SCHWARTZ Press Enterprise Writer
     BERWICK -- A company claims it can build a generator that makes free electricity, and it offered the school district big money to help
     sell the mac
     Creator:
     Priority: WebFrontPage
     Project ID:
     Category: Local
     Last Modified Date: 12:45:23 AM Tuesday, April 17, 2001
          Long: Tuesday, April 17, 2001
          Short: 4/17/01
          Abbrv: Tue, Apr 17, 2001
          Time: 12:45:23 AM
     Creation Date: 11:54:16 PM Monday, April 16, 2001
          Long: Monday, April 16, 2001
          Short: 4/16/01
          Abbrv: Mon, Apr 16, 2001
          Time: 11:54:16 PM
     Publication: Press-Enterprise
     Publication Date: Tuesday, April 17, 2001
          Short: 4/17/01
          Abbrv: Tue, Apr 17, 2001
     Publication Page: 1

A CLOSER LOOK AT CLAIMS OF DENNIS
Eric's FAQ page concerning examining Dennis Lee's amazing claims (read before asking me ?'s )
Eric's Page examines claims by Dennis Lee that the government suppresses inventors
Tom Napier's investigation of Dennis (excellent!)
Tom Napier's Free Energy FAQ page (new!) and Milton's Free Energy review
Tom Napier makes a scientific evaluation of Dennis's machine
Interesting Quotes From Dennis's Literature
A funny article about Dennis in Skeptical Inquirer and a review of my speech about Dennis

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Eric's History of Perpetual Motion and Free Energy Machines
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Eric's Page examining Psychology of fringe inventors
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What about strange claims involving BROWNS GAS?This is found at http://www.phact.org/e/dennis.html  created 9/23/96, last updated 3/31/01

I'm a skeptical electrical engineer fascinated by the 100's of people who have claimed to have free energy.  I saw Dennis Lee's full page ad for energy independence and apparently paranormal devices. For the sake of the world I wish such extraordinary claims were possib
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