S.C. Court Grants Judgment to $RMCP Revolutions Medical and Its CEO
CHARLESTON, SC--(Marketwired - July 01, 2013) - Revolutions Medical
Corporation (RMCP), a Charleston, S.C.-based medical device and
software applications company, and its Chief Executive Officer, Rondald
Wheet, have been awarded more than $20 million in a default judgment
against Phillip Maurice "Marty" Hicks. A special referee for the South
Carolina court awarded the company $3.6 million in compensatory damages
and $1.5 million in punitive damages. Wheet was awarded $12,010,000 in
compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages.
The
Charleston County Common Pleas Court found Hicks liable for Internet
defamation in September 2011 after he was defaulted as a sanction for
disobeying a court order requiring him to participate in discovery in
the case. In his decision, the special referee took into account the
malicious intent and duration in which Hicks waged his cyber smear
campaign against Revolutions Medical and Wheet. He also found that Hicks
intentionally interfered with a grant the company was to receive from
the Department of Defense in September 2010 to supply its patented
RevVac™ safety syringes to its HIV/AIDS Prevention Program.
"This judgment sends a clear message to our shareholders and the market
that there are legal and financial consequences when you commit libel,"
states Wheet, who also serves as the Company's Chairman of the Board.
"Looking at the bigger picture, small public companies are vulnerable
and can fall prey to these 'short and distort' campaigns waged by
individuals, hedge funds and traders. Not only can these campaigns
violate securities laws, they can also do severe harm to companies by
eroding shareholder value, making it difficult to raise capital,
increasing costs and legal expenses, delaying the execution of business
plans, stunting job creation, and stymieing the entrepreneurial spirit
of small American businesses -- all so they can profit by their
actions."
According to Mount Pleasant attorney Stephen Bucher
of Bucher Legal LLC, the $20 million awarded in this case should serve
as a warning to anyone who thinks they can hide behind an alias to
conduct a cyber smear or engage in Internet bullying. "The use of cyber
consultants with data mining skills combined with some good old
fashioned legal investigation almost ensures that those engaging in
these illegal activities can be found," states Bucher who represented
the plaintiffs in this case. "The era
when someone could use the cloak of anonymity of the Internet to
destroy reputations and lives is over. There is no cloak of anonymity.
We're coming for you."
Bucher adds, "I admire Wheet for his persistence in this case. He was willing to do what it took legally to take down Hicks."
Wheet notes that he and his company plan to pursue every available legal avenue to collect on this judgment against Hicks.
About Revolutions Medical Corporation
Revolutions Medical is a safety medical device and software application
company. Its proprietary technologies and products include: the RevVac™
safety syringe, safety blood drawing device, the RevColor™,
RevDisplay™, and Rev3D™ software tools that are compatible with standard
MRIs and standard Picture Archiving Computer Systems (PACS) and
prefilled auto-retraction vacuum safety syringes.
For additional information, please visit Revolutions Medical corporate website:
http://www.revolutionsmedical.com/
To be added to the Revolutions Medical investor email list, please email:
investment@revolutionsmedical.com with RMCP in the subject line.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
The information contained herein includes forward-looking statements.
These statements relate to future events or to our future financial
performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and
other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity,
performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future
results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or
implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue
reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and
unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases,
beyond our control and which could, and likely will, materially affect
actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any
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strategy and liquidity. We assume no obligation to publicly update or
revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the
reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated
in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes
available in the future.
Contact:
Revolutions Medical Corporation
Investor Relations
Phone: (843) 606-9461
