Untold Life and Death of Charles Haley, Jr.
By Rod Sanborn, Community News Reporter

     When former San Pedro energy entrepreneur and midnight land developer Charles Joseph [“Chuck”] Haley, Jr. died in the bathroom of the L.A. Federal Courthouse last year, his cause of death was listed as “undetermined,” after autopsy and toxicology tests were performed. Only later did lab tests results show 12 micrograms per milliliter of cyanide in his blood.
     According to Dr. Cyrus Rangan, of the Los Angeles Public Health Department’s Toxics Epidemiology Program, “12 micrograms [of cyanide] per milliliter is very high. Potentially four times the lethal dose.” What was odd was that no one noticed that this might be Haley’s cause of death until this reporter asked for a copy of the LA County Coroner’s report.
     Haley was facing 22 counts of wire, securities, tax, and mail fraud. Had he lived and been convicted of all 22 counts, he might now be serving up to 189 years in federal prison. It is unclear whether other people might have been implicated in the proceedings.
     According to Lieutenant Ed Winter, of the L.A. Coroner’s Department of Operations Investigation Bureau, Haley’s cause of death is still “undetermined,” but “the investigation is [now] continuing due to the circumstances of the case.”
     Haley’s death has apparently ended PowerCom’s bankruptcy case, and millions of dollars have vanished into thin air, leaving PowerCom’s former employees and shareholders high and dry.
     Haley’s grandiose plans to build PowerCom into a “national provider of wholesale and retail renewable-only electricity, natural gas and communications with thousands of billing customers” unwound rapidly “like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.” Haley lived a luxurious lifestyle, like the millionaire playboy in the Thomas Crown Affair, using the $1 million he had obtained from more than 50 individuals in Southern California and elsewhere. At one time, according to former employee Rick Mledek, Haley’s various operations were bringing in $250,000 per week, and money was funneled through CleanGen, a power company in Nevada that Mledek says, “never seemed to do anything.” PowerCom appeared to be generating so much cash that, at one point, Haley even offered to pay $1 billion for Enron’s “green” division.
     But Haley’s assurances of huge profits from windmills in the Mojave Desert and Central Valley turned out to be empty promises.
     Haley’s motivation for his activities is not known; what is clear is that the indictment charges Haley with creating a Nevada corporation, 1Network.com (now out of business), to reduce his tax liability, and using another Nevada-based dummy corporation, CleanGen, to siphon money out of PowerCom and into his own bank accounts.
     While his telemarketers were selling investors on the PowerCom’s profitability, the company had fallen behind in its debts, reporting a loss of $6.6 million to the IRS. The German firm P & T Technology had not yet signed the contracts which investors were being told would bring $200 million, but which were only for $1.6 million.
     The pain and anger of huge financial losses still remain for former shareholders and employees of PowerCom Energy, as shown by their comments at www.powercomenergy.com/powercom/default.asp.
     Perhaps no one felt the pain of Haley’s activities more than Rick Mledek, who was hired in February of 2001 as PowerCom’s Vice President of Capital and Finance. Mledek, who is blind, moved to Los Angeles from Atlanta because Haley promised him high pay and full benefits in Haley’s impressive PowerCom building, then located on West Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles. Mledek says that, when he first visited Haley’s offices, Haley knew he was coming and even had his business cards ready—printed in black and white instead of color.
     Within weeks, Mledek became suspicious of the “boiler room” operations upstairs, and stopped all funding from his institutional investors. Haley and his attorneys were furious, and threatened to sue Mledek. On March 15, Mledek was fired, along with nearly two-thirds of PowerCom’s workforce, as Haley “cleaned house.” According to Mledek, PowerCom was within 60 days of receiving up to $100 million in funding from three major New York Financial Institutions, one of which, Mledek states, was “the world’s largest.”
     Individuals in the Paseo del Mar area close to Haley’s former residence have stated, under conditions of anonymity, that the FBI recently contacted them concerning the case. However, the Assistant U.S. Attorney who handled the case claims that the FBI is not pursuing the case and has turned it over to local authorities. This, however, has been a repeated theme with this investigation, as authorities have repeatedly denied or avoided admitting anything about this case up until the date the indictment was served and Haley was arrested.
     Because of the quantity of cyanide in Haley’s body, only two possibilities exist: he either committed suicide or he was murdered. Suicide might save him the embarrassment of facing his victims; murder would keep his case from ever going to trial and protect anyone who might have benefited financially from Haley’s activities.
     It is not apparent that the ongoing investigation will reveal the truth. The case of the strange life and death of Charles Haley remains like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, leaving his former neighbors and investors only guessing what he was really up to.