The Mysterious Mister Tien

And they found the perfect company to help spin their trash into gold: Kinsei Sangyo of Japan had advertised garbage-gassing units so clean and so green that only wisps of what looks like water vapor float from the stacks. Cleveland would be the first city in the U.S. to showcase the Kinsei technology — a new toy to wave in front of jealous neighbors.

So Cleveland Public Power called the only company licensed to sell Kinsei units in the U.S.: Princeton Environmental Group, based in New Jersey and headed by a man named Peter Tien. He made wonderful promises: a $180 million gasification plant would employ 90 to 120 Clevelanders. A Kinsei manufacturing facility would be built here, and Cleveland would become an epicenter for plant design and manufacturing across the country.

In order to witness the gasification majesty in action, the city paid for a junket to Asia in August 2009. For Tien, the trip marked the ideal opportunity to trot out another enviro-happy sales pitch: Could your fine city use some LED light bulbs too?

Tien, it turned out, also represented Chinese LED maker Sunpu Opto Semiconductor — and did he have a deal for Cleveland: For the low price of 10 years' worth of LED bulbs, Sunpu would build an LED factory on our shores, complete with 350 new jobs.

With visions of trash and light-bulb supremacy dancing in their heads, city officials delightedly forged ahead with Sunpu Opto. East Cleveland-based GE, which happens to specialize in light bulbs, was not as delighted. Neither were other U.S. LED companies, who were curious why they never had a shot at such a contract.

Outrage ensued, the city asked for contract bids, and in the end, Sunpu Opto didn't even try to compete — the company couldn't live up to the promises Tien had said it would. Neither could GE or anyone else, for that matter.

Yet in the midst of Cleveland's Great LED Fiasco of 2010, city leaders signed a $1.5 million no-bid contract with Tien's Princeton Environmental for preliminary designs and an EPA permit for a Kinsei gasification plant. The money is held in an escrow account, and Tien earns his cut once the EPA permit is approved.

But if the LED incident wasn't enough to sprout doubt about Tien's promises, recent gasification dealings should.

Scene obtained a string of e-mails between Cleveland Public Power and Tien indicating that trouble started last spring. Not only did Tien ask for a contract modification allowing him more time to produce the required design reports; he requested a $600,000 advance on his $1.5 million so he could pay his subcontractors.

"Transparency of process with a clear and well-developed timeline and milestones is what I need from you in order to remain confident of your ability to deliver on the contract," CPP Commissioner Ivan Henderson replied to one such request from Tien in April.

The city didn't hand over the cash, but it did extend Tien's deadlines. Now, with the EPA permit en route to approval, the city and CPP seem to have cooled to Tien's advances.