An early draft

The GnXperts
RUSSIAN CON ARTISTS WHO TOOK AWAY LOREN'S MUSEUM

With love, my ass! The Russian confidence artists, Maria, Igor Anatsko, and Anatoly, not only bilked Loren out of a milion dollars, but also several other people, as they were indicted for over $10,000,000 worth of frauds!

I never had the pleasure of meeting the GnXperts, but Loren did around 2001. A Chicago Reader article mentions that Loren met the GnXperts when they visited the museum and told her they were working on a system which would enable viewing of true three-dimensional holographic movies and suggested that they could make the first presentation of it to the scientific community at her museum. Without Bob around to see through them, she was ripe for the pluckings.

Here is the earliest evidence of Gnxpert's involvement, wherein advisory board member David Wender smells something rotten in Denmark on June 19th, 2001.

A week later David Wender again warns Loren to proceed cautiously.

This may be the Tech Overview Wender is referring to or maybe not, being undated.

Here is the Confidentiality Agreement mentioned in the e-mail above.

The Gnxperts really know how to schmooze Loren in a fax sent on July 21st, 2001.

They might be winning David Wender over looking at his letter of the 22nd.

And Loren was busy gushing over them on the same day!

David diplomatically resigns himself to the sidelines on the 27th.

On August 8th they ask her for a letter of recommendation on official looking letterhead, and Loren obliges them on Holographic Design Systems and Museum stationery on the 10th (but page 2 is missing).

Here are the business cards of the Gnxperts, undated.

Loren takes out a loan from Broadway Bank for a $1M using the Museum as collateral on September 19th, 2002, in spite of warnings from the vice president and senior loan officer, .Alexi Giannoulias. He warned her to watch her step in a letter, "It is Broadway Banks opinion that you seek the guidance of counsel" and "there is concern on the bank's part due to the past credit history of the other three co-borrowers. All three of them had significant problems in the past with their finances, and non of them currently has satisfactory credit. In addition, we have discovered that two of the borrowers, Mr. Anatsko and Ms Chychula, have been reported for suspected fraudulent activity on the 'Fraud Finder Alert' supplied by Chex Systems." ("Losing Her Museum", Chicago Reader, February 18, 2009)

Loren snaps the 3 of them as a Christmas event at Gallery 1134, perhaps she celebrating the many "Happy Holo-Days" yet to come, but these characters had other ideas.

Loren set them up in an office in a room that I had known as the classroom, which kind of implies the School of Holography/Chicago wasn't holding classes any more.

Here is the earliest Update found in the Gnxpert files, dated August 27th, 2003.

Here is their Prototyping Update from September 10, 2003.

And another from a week later.

A Progress Report from October 4th, 2003 boasts some big shot customers, Brunswick Bowling balls and Mattel Toys!

The GNXPERTCOLOR logo appears in color on the next week's Progress Report.

They add a header of applications on November's Progress Report.

Not too much new on the last update of 2003.

Evidently Loren has swallowed the updates hook, line and sinker wishing holiday cheer.

"2004 WILL BE A GOLD MINE!" boasts the first Update from this year.

April's Update looks similar to January's.

Gnxperts diversify with GNXSHIELD, an anti-piracy system for DVD's. Undated, but probably from Spring 2004, as they tested it on May 12, 2004.

And even more diversification in this undated "Market Ready BY-PRODUCTS" Update

Loren's patience will be rewarded once the orders promised on the Update of June 1st, 2004 start rolling in.

Wonder if the Gnxperts made any holograms with this Liti kit ordered on September 30th, 2004?

Get your "Holograms for the Holidays" at Gallery 1134 advises the Chicago Tribune of November 21st, 2004.

Gnxpert's 2004 Annual Report predicts an unbelievable amount of cash flow!

Loren finally smells a rat in this rough draft from April 28th, 2005.

But they must have kissed and made up if you can believe this fax of May 3rd.

Funny how the Gnxpirates claim their Anti-Piracy tests were successful in this e-mail of May 13th.

Did this meeting ever take place on May 25th?

Loren's Post-It note of 10/12/05 was found on a hilarious web pass around on Managerium.

A view of the Gnxpert office in what was formerly the School of Holography's classroom, and a close up of their blackboard. The date on the blackboard is 11/1/05, and the close up was photographed on August 12, 2015!

The last checks found from Gnxperts were dated January 16, 2006.

So this note from Loren to her son may have come after the above. She really fell for them!

On June 16, 2006 the Chicago Sun-Times published a story of how Alexi Giannoulias could not remember details of the loan he gave to Loren Billings.  For more details on Giannoulias see the Reader article below, and details of the court’s rulings on the December 24th, 2009, listing below. Alexi replied to the Sun-Times in a letter, (which is in a pay to play archive), but starts out with "The June 16 Sun-Times article that discussed a lawsuit filed against Broadway Bank and a loan it issued to Loren Billings in 2002 needs further clarification. The lawsuit, filed by Billings' son, Terrence Kasprzak, is fraught with factual errors and baseless claims.
First, the lawsuit alleges that Ms. Billings, who served as president and executive director of the Museum of Holography, was mentally incompetent when she applied for the $1 million loan in 2002. We never noticed any signs..."

Jesse White, Secretary of State of Illinois, issues a Temporary Order of Prohibition to the GnXperts, for fraud in the sale of securities, committed on a married couple. (Not Loren, Bob had died 10 years previous.)

Here's a real tear-jerker: "Losing Her Museum" by Ling Ma in the Chicago Reader of February 12, 2009.

And some replies to the above article in the Chicago Reader a week later.

The United States District Court indicts the Gnxperts in August, 2009.

Maybe this was the envelope the big check arrived in.

Everything you would have ever wanted to know about Alexi Giannoulias, who was the loan officer who approved the million dollar loan to Loren which the Gnxperts (and some contend he was in cahoots with them) swindled from her in the December 3rd, 2009 issue of the Chicago Reader.

Here's one heck of a Christmas present in the ruling handed down by the Appellate Court of Illinois on Christmas Eve, 2009.

Another indictment unsealed December 30, 2010 in U.S. District Court in Chicago accuses 62-year-old Maria Chychula, 38-year-old Vitaliy Baka and 41-year-old Igor Anatsko of Gnxpert of running a variety of fraudulent activities through several businesses between May of 2001 and October of 2009. (Alternate link if above doesn't work.)

The “3 Chicago ‘entrepreneurs’ accused of $4M fraud” are the ones who were involved with GnXpert in an AP wire story posted by Chicago Breaking Business on January 6th, 2011.

Hard to believe after that indictment "Igor Nanocult" publishes to YouTube a "Gnxpert Color Cii-Lite Demo", GnxScope Endoscope" and the very bizarre "Call me Genie" on May 11th, 2012.

One of the GnXperts, Maria Chycula’s, conviction was upheld, on July 2nd, 2014.

Igor Anatsko somehow got out of the country, and if there is any doubt that he is not a nice guy, check out this screen shot of his FaceBook page:

How did Loren get mixed up with them? My theory is that it was John Hoffmann who put the two parties together. When we used to hang out, I would tell him of an experiment I had tried in my home lab, and he would always counter with, "Oh yeah, I tried that, it works OK, but I've got something that's even better, but I can't tell you, as either he was applying for a patent or it was to be published in a paper. So when I heard that the Russians got all this research money for their hare-brained scheme, I would have thought John would have burst that bubble.

Another, more damning fact is that John told Bob Hess, in a phone conversation, that if only Loren had taken out another mortgage for $1.6M, the Russians would have acheived their goals.