West Virginia political and economic development leaders were misled by the head of a Morgantown-based group of companies and those firms into providing them tens of millions of dollars of support and undue promotion by claiming resources and financial backing they didn’t have, according to a federal court filing last week.

But those leaders are being quiet in response to the filing, which contends that Simon Hodson, founder of Omnis Energy, misrepresented the value of and backing behind his business ventures leading up to the West Virginia Economic Development Authority’s November 2023 approval of a $50 million forgivable loan for Omnis affiliate Quantum Pleasants LLC to support its not-yet-achieved conversion of the coal-fired Pleasants Power Station into a hydrogen production facility

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