CHARLESTON, S.C., Sept. 1, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Revolutions Medical Corporation (OTCQB:RMCP) ("Revolutions Medical" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that today, the Company obtained an order from the South Carolina Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Common Pleas, finding that Philip Maurice "Marty" Hicks ("Hicks") is liable for defaming the Company, its Chief Executive Officer, Ron Wheet, and its President, Tom O'Brien, by engaging in a cyber-smear campaign.
According to the Company's complaint, Hicks, aka Tazmanian353 or Taz, made a series of false and defamatory statements about the Company and its employees on Yahoo! Finance and Raging Bull message boards between January 2006 and September 2010, including that Mr. Wheet "lied in official documents" and made unspecified "fraudulent misleading statements," and the Company itself was a mere "shell company" without any legitimate operations that had registered "no patents." The complaint alleged that these statements were false and defamatory because, among other things, the Company owns valuable patents (either granted or pending) for its auto retractable safety syringe and certain medical imaging technology. The Company's Chief Executive Officer, Ron Wheet, described the order as a "great victory for our shareholders."
The order was entered as a sanction against Hicks based on his refusal to give deposition testimony, answer interrogatories, produce documents or otherwise comply with his discovery obligations in the litigation.
The Company also wishes to comment on pervasive short selling of its stock. As previously noted by Buyins.Net, a provider of Regulation SHO compliance monitoring and short sale trading statistics, approximately 17.36 million shares of the Company's stock have been shorted since August 2009, and short selling has comprised approximately 36% of daily trading volume. Although Hicks' evasive tactics prevented the Company from obtaining evidence in the litigation against him, other information possessed by the Company leads it to suspect that Hicks' message postings may be part of a "short and distort" campaign intended to injure the Company and its shareholders and to generate profits for short sellers. The Company has compelling evidence that Hicks communicated with short sellers and his postings were then used to perpetuate false information to the investment community.
Based on entry of the order, the Company intends both to pursue monetary damages and file complaints with the South Carolina Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding possible violations of state and federal securities laws by Hicks and other short sellers.
About Revolutions Medical Corporation
Revolutions Medical is a safety medical device and software application company. Its products include the RevVac™ Safety Syringe (FDA cleared), safety blood drawing device, the RevColor™, RevDisplay™ and Rev3D™ software tools that are compatible with standard MRIs and standard Picture Archiving Computer Systems (PACS).
For additional information, please visit Revolutions Medical corporate website: http://www.revolutionsmedical.com
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FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
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