After a four-day jury trial, Jordan A. Shaw, Esq. of Zebersky Payne Shaw Lewenz, LLP and Jon Jacobson, Esq. of Jacobson Law, P.A. secured a jury verdict on behalf of their Clients, William and Jessie Soffin. The jury found for the Soffins on “Count 1 – Negligent Misrepresentation” against Clean Coal Technologies Inc. (30%), its former CEO, Douglas Hague (40%), and its former Director of Investor Relations, C.J. Douglas (30%), and awarded the Soffins $405,153.36. The jury also found for the Soffins on “Count 2 – Fraud” against Douglas Hague and C.J. Douglas, awarding the Soffins another $405,153.36, jointly and severally between the two Defendants. The lawsuit, styled Soffin v. Clean Coal Technologies, Inc. et al. Case No. 50-2010-CA-028706, alleged that Clean Coal Technologies, Inc. along with Douglas Hague, and C.J. Douglas, committed fraud and negligent misrepresentations, causing financial injury to the Plaintiffs.
Specifically, the lawsuit alleged that Soffins were damaged after they purchased more than 15 million shares of restricted stock in Clean Coal Technologies, Inc., a small-cap clean energy company, in 2008, based heavily on Douglas Hague and C.J. Douglas’s repeated assurances that the stock’s restrictions (preventing public market sale) would be lifted on February 18, 2009. On February 18, 2009, however, and for more than a year after, the Defendants refused the Soffins requests to lift the restrictions, while insiders like the Defendants sold 38 million of their own personal shares in private transactions. By the time the Defendants finally allowed the Soffins to remove the restrictions and sell the stock in 2010, Clean Coal Technologies, Inc. stock had dropped 98%.
The trial, which lasted four days and included a five-hour jury deliberation, was a collaboration between the two firms. Jon Jacobson started the trial with an outstanding opening statement and then completed the day-and-a-half long direct examination of Mr. Soffin. Zebersky Payne Shaw Lewenz, LLP Partner, Jordan A. Shaw, completed the adverse direct and cross-examination of Defendant Douglas Hague, as well as the cross-examination of Clean Coal Technologies, Inc.’s current CEO Robin Eaves; he then finished the trial with a persuasive, hour-long closing argument.
