New Solar Ventures has signed a lease with the state to hold some of the land and has paid about $6,280 in a check drawn on a Wells Fargo account in Arizona. In July, the group said it was experiencing delays as it awaited the results of a feasibility study.

Assistant Land Commissioner Jerry King said that the state has already had questions about the ability of Solar Torx to raise the funds but that it has not yet done a formal background check.

The current hold lease means the companies cannot do anything with the land. Before any lessee could break ground, King said, the Land Office would require financial information, including bank statements, as well as bonds. It requires the same of its 18,000 other land lessees, which include multiple oil and gas interests and three wind farms.

"We've had questions all along, but that doesn't mean we won't go forward," he said. "We're not going to judge anybody, but before this goes anywhere from a holding lease, they'll have to do it the same way anybody would."

Former business associates and attorneys, in Journal interviews and in court documents, say Surber is a "promoter" who has problems paying his debts.

"People have written to us, very upset how they lost money with Mr. Surber in one way or another," he said. "He's made zero, I mean zero, attempts to ever pay one dollar."

"He raised quite a bit of money from a couple partners and myself, and we have yet to see the return of it," he said, estimating his total loss in the deal, including court costs, at more than $325,000. The judgment, and several similar court decisions, was renewed in 1995 when Surber declared bankruptcy.

"I'll tell you what, anyone who is loaning money to him over there now has a lot to learn," Luke said in an interview. "He told us he had all this collateral, that we just needed to loan him this money. He's a good promoter type, but nothing ever follows (through)."

Surber's former wife, Mary Katherine, filed suit against him for unpaid child support twice- once the year they divorced, 1988, and again in 1990. Her attorney, Randall Kries, continues to renew the judgments, which total more than $200,000, every five years, despite never having received any of the money.

Court documents from Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix allege that, in 1994, Surber, acting within his capacity as a licensed insurance broker, applied for a $10 million life insurance policy on his own life from Hartford Life and Accident Insurance Company.

He named his own corporation, at the time called Walker Townsend Company Inc., as owner and beneficiary of the policy. The court alleged he directed his sister, Joy Sue Fry Roth, an employee of Walker Townsend, to write checks on the company's account to pay for the policy, despite the account not having sufficient funds. The first check, for $221,021, bounced, as did a second check.

Meanwhile, Surber had collected an insurance broker's commission of $124,166 for selling the policy to himself. Hartford Life alleged he did not return the commission even after the policy was canceled due to the bounced checks.

When interviewed by the Arizona Insurance Department about the incident, he said that he knew the bank account had insufficient funds but that "he was expecting a large business transaction to be completed which would have enabled him to pay the premium," according to court records.

Surber and his sister were each charged with two counts of forgery and one count of theft. Surber's sister was later dismissed from the case as an innocent party to fraud, and Surber later pleaded to a single count of forgery. The court found no prior felony convictions for Surber.

Patricia Wildermuth, then of the Arizona Attorney General's Office, recommended in court documents that Surber serve a year in jail and indicated that "the defendant had been involved in shady business dealings in the past."

Sandy Yaffi, of the Arizona State Department of Insurance Fraud, said in court documents that her office was very familiar with Surber and that he "makes a habit of living off other people, defrauding them of money and never repaying them. This includes his sister."

When he applied for early work release from jail, his probation officer, Joann Roskoski, wrote that she was opposed to work release for fear "he would return to running his own business, and possibly victimizing others."

New Solar officials have not detailed the specific technology they plan to use in the New Mexico project but say they have purchased patents for solar panel devices that could produce energy at 8 cents to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. Industry averages for photovoltaic power run between 15 cents and 25 cents per kilowatt-hour.

The group says its plant will have a 300-megawatt solar generating capacity- enough to power thousands of homes during daylight hours. That would make the project the world's largest solar generation facility.

In July, Balch said that an early round of investment for the project had fallen through but that Solar Torx was continuing to meet with what he called "Wall Street people."

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona, a real estate investment firm run by Surber and a partner received $3.3 million from a California retiree to invest.

The investment firm, Sansea, sent the money to Wilcher, who had said she had a high-yield investment program that involved investing in foreign currency.

Prosecutors said the payments the victim received, via Sansea, came out of her original investment- in other words, she was repaid with some of her own money.

Wilcher was accused of using a nonprofit foundation, Life Foundation Trust, as a money-laundering device. Life Foundation Trust purported to help the needy with food and other assistance.

Sansea said it was innocent of any wrongdoing and in 2001 agreed to a stipulated judgment that it owed the California woman just less than $300,000.

As part of the deal with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Sansea officials agreed to testify against Wilcher, who was found guilty of federal money laundering charges in April. She is in prison awaiting a mid-September sentencing.

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