Art Dula Sued Over Alleged Fraud Regarding Excalibur Almaz
Art Dula is facing another lawsuit alleging fraud connected with Excalibur Almaz, a company that has been seeking to use old Soviet space station hardware for commercial purposes.
The lawsuit, Takafumi Horie v. The Law Offices of Art Dula, which was filed Nov. 10 in a Harris County district court, alleges that attorney Art Dula convinced Takafumi Horie that he could set up a commercial space transportation program to carry people and cargo into a low Earth orbit by using Russian-made Almaz class space craft.
The lawsuit also alleges that Art Dula used his position as trustee for the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust [Heinlein was a prolific science fiction author who was famous for writing about manned space exploration] to “get new business.” The lawsuit also alleges that Dula took $49 million of the investor’s money and put it into his IOLTA account for Horie’s “Japan Space Dream” business. But according to the petition, that business was only to remain a dream.
“Dula never intended to engage in a commercial space program, and in fact continually misrepresented, concealed facts and defrauded his client Takafumie Horie d/b/a Japanese Space Dream,” according to the petition which alleges fraud, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty among other things.
The petition alleges that Horie learned the investment was a “sham” when he learned that Dula had allegedly sold a Russian spacecraft at auction that “was only suitable for display in a museum, and not as a potential flight vehicle as had been falsely represented to plaintiff Horie from the beginning.”
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This is not the first lawsuit against Dula alleging fraud in connection wit Excalibur Almaz.
9 responses to “Art Dula Sued Over Alleged Fraud Regarding Excalibur Almaz”
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This is also the second time that Art has been sued on the basis of (at best) overcharged imaginations about what someone thought they were guaranteed to get. More likely, it’s the “at worst” case: trolling from cash from someone they think is vulnerable. .
I’m not surprised in the least. Excalibur Almaz has looked like a ‘scam’ operation for years now.
Old hardware with no intention or ability to fly anything, yet they still kept on selling dreams to the easily fooled.
It takes more than museum pieces with a fresh coat of paint to be a commercial space player.
That is offensive. Art Dula may be a dreamer, but he’s also a realist and NOT a scam artist. He and associates were well aware of what it would take to rehab old hardware. They were aware that what they were proposing was a significant challenge, and if others chose to delude themselves rather than understand it, it was their problem. Now _they_ are trying to scam Dula and his associates.
I agree 100 percent! Any type of space venture has a high bar to over come and individuals who invest in such ventures should recognize it.
I see it as a half baked and underfunded attempt to grab some CCDEV cash. New Space is possibly the worst investment quagmire ever. Dreamers and crooks don’t mix easily (not specifically pointing at EA). You can be pretty certain that only a minute percentage of New Space companies will ever turn a profit (some are only in it for investments and never planned to turn profitable). It’s simply too easy to say ‘space’ and have people throw money at you. Kinda reminds me of the late 90s when saying ‘dot-com’ had the same effect.
Except there are a lot fewer investors and most generally have such deep pockets want to run the show much like Sir Richard Branson. But from the legal perspective they also have enough funds to be considered “experienced investors” which means the court will be skeptical of their claims of being taken.
Offensive? No, their talk and lack of walk speak for themselves.
And given that they have started selling off their precious hardware – http://www.parabolicarc.com… – Yet still keep trying to sell their vision? No, I think I’ll stand by my words.
Art Dula seems to be a well liked and respected individual in the space community, but the blinders that some have regarding his involvement in Excalibur Almaz should be taken off.
Horie alleges the purchase contract explicitly prevents Dula from modifying the craft. If this is true, then these are nothing better than museum pieces and Dula is indisputably a scammer.
It’s interesting that the plaintiff was convicted of securities fraud. An ironic twist perhaps?