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An alleged super shady scammer is making national headlines. Yaron Oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley, received a whopping $69.1 million from New York state so he could do his part to help with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Buzzfeed News reports however that Oren-Pines, however, took a page out of fraudulent doctor Malachi Love’s page, and seemingly LIED about his ability to deliver ventilators to the coronavirus ravaged state. Officials are now reportedly scrambling to recoup the money.

According to the site, when Dingy Dorito sent an unhinged tweet to Ford Motors to “make ventilators NOW”, the engineer who specializes in mobile technology only has 75 Twitter followers, responded, and apparently got Trump’s attention.

“We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT.”

Oren-Pines allegedly has NO experience in government contracting or medical devices but somehow got $69.1 million so he could make 1,450 ventilators — “at an astonishing $47,656 per ventilator, at least triple the standard retail price of high-end models.”

Now Buzzfeed News reports that an official confirmed that not a single ventilator has been delivered via the engineer who was White House recommended via its coronavirus task force.

“The guy was recommended to us by the White House coronavirus task force because they were doing business with him as well,” said the New York state official. “I think everyone was genuinely trying to help each other out and get supplies.” The New York official added that he was unaware of whether Oren-Pines got a federal contract; federal databases show no record of any such deals.

 

As for the man in question himself, he’s offering no comment—of course. 

Reached by telephone, Oren-Pines said “neither me nor my company is providing any comment on this,” and then hung up. He did not respond to subsequent text messages.

The White House is denying recommending him.

“After this article was published, a spokesperson for Pence, Katie Miller, said in a statement that “The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract and was not involved in it at all.”

 

Mess, mess, mess.

All of this underscores the fact that states have been hard-pressed for ventilators and personal protective equipment during the pandemic and are desperately trying to meet the demand for them. As previously reported celebs like Rihanna have been personally helping. The pop star sent New York state personal protective equipment and donated $5 million to COVID-19 relief efforts via her Clara Lionel Foundation before matching an additional $1 million donation from Jay Z.

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