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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Scientist Says Lies Aim to ‘Wipe Out’ His Work

CHICAGO (CN) - A Russian scientist says the sapphire-growing company he founded has fabricated SEC filings about its "proprietary" growing methods and company history, ultimately tainting his reputation and life's work. In a federal lawsuit, he says the false circulations have stripped him of his accomplishments and caused him "great embarrassment."

Dr. Radion Mogilevsky, president of Emerging Material Technologies, says he introduced a high-quality sapphire-growing method to the United States called the Kyropoulos method through his company, S&R Rubicon. The first sapphire crystal was grown commercially in the United States in 1999 using this method, he claims.

Sapphire crystals are grown for use in LEDs, memory storage and nuclear techniques.

Mogilevsky claims S&R Rubicon eventually became Rubicon Technologies, of which he was a 30 percent shareholder around the time he started EMT. Shortly thereafter, he says Rubicon board members began to concoct lies.

Rubicon allegedly omitted his contributions and published a "phantom history" which credits a "chief scientist" named Elena Dobrovinskaya for bringing the Kyropoulos method to the United States from Russia, Mogilevsky claims. But he says Dobrovinskaya was never more than a sales associate at Rubicon, and says he finds it "absolutely puzzling why and how [she] became to be so glorified" in the publication. He adds that Rubicon has insinuated multiple founders in its publications and diminished the extent of its beginnings, calling Mogilevsky's 40 employees and 25 ovens a "small venture."

Rubicon further circulated materials stating that its "crystal growth has many trade secrets and has been trademarked." But Mogilevsky claims that there is no trade secret, and that "all companies growing sapphire crystals utilize the same method." In fact, he adds, "the whole world uses the same process; the very same process Dr. Mogilevsky brought to the U.S. in 1998."

Mogilevsky says he fears that Rubicon's lies have caused "EMT's customers and prospective customers to question the quality of the product EMT manufactures and markets," and that Rubicon has ruined his "reputation as a leader of the global community of crystal growers."

"[W]ith each story and with each presentation, my reputation and great contributions are being wiped out as if though they never existed," the scientist claims.

Mogilevsky is suing for alleged defamation, fraud, breach of a separation agreement, deceptive trade practices and SEC violations. He seeks $100,000 in damages.

His attorney is Jane Mogilevsky of Mogilevsky Law.

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