Fraud
Rumors of fraud began to emerge and the California Securities Commission began an investigation. Although Clifft said he still believed in the project and said that he was promised $3 million in royalties once the Dale went into production, he only received $1,001, plus a $2,000 check, which bounced. Carmichael went into hiding and was featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries which detailed the fraud behind the Dale as well as the fact Carmichael was wanted. She was eventually found working under an alias in a flower shop and was arrested shortly after the episode's airing. Elizabeth Carmichael, as a result, went to prison. Unverified sources from the Museum of Hoaxes website state that she died in 2004 of cancer, while other sources from the same site indicate she may still be alive and living in Austin, Texas with a daughter.
Read more about this topic: Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word fraud:
“There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)