Saturday, October 15, 2022

New Book on Trevor Milton Fraud Conviction Has Nikola Whistleblowers, Trial from Inside

 

ReviewPatreon Maxwell Book Schulte Book
Books - Guardian - Honduras - NY Mag

LITERARY SDNY Review, Oct 14 – In September and October 2022 Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola Motor was put on trial for fraudulent claims about NKLA's hydrogen trucks.

On October 14, Milton was found guilty on three of four counts.

   Now, published hours after the verdict there is a book by Matthew Russell Lee, who live tweeted and reported on the trial daily, and put questions to Milton and his lawyers in Foley Square outside.

    The author was each day in the courtroom of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Edgardo Ramos, and venturing farther afield to investigate leads exclusively give to him and Inner City Press and by Nikola whistleblowers.

   As the trial wound down, SDNY-admitted lawyer Matthew Russell Lee published descriptions of documented destroyed within Nikola, and guilty knowledge by officials still at the company.

   Material from those whistleblowers, the trial and even some more speculative and literary excursions featuring recurring characters Kurt Wheelock and Michael Randall Long, featured in the Ghislaine Maxwell book "Maximum Maxwell" as noted by New York Magazine, here, made its way at the speed of the Internet into the new book

"Hydrogen Heist: The Trial of Nikola's Trevor Milton: On Fraud, Guilty of 3 of 4 Counts; From Musk and Tesla Wannabe to Convict in SDNY, by Matthew Russell Lee

  E-book here; paperbook forthcoming. 

    This review will leave it to others to find over-reaches and typos. For his reporting, Lee was banned from the United Nations in 2018 by SG Antonio Guterres, whose Media Accrediation chief Melissa Fleming has ignored appeals from a UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and, pro bono, the law firm of Quinn Emanuel.

   One might surmise that history leads to some of the book's (over?) identification with the defendant.  

    A full scope instantaneous view of and taking off from trials like US v. Trevor Milton seems to be Inner City Press' project here.

And here it is.


Hydrogen Heist by Matthew Russell
                                  Lee

 ***


Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.