Wes Bucey, an ex-felon and moderator for the controversial Elsmar Cove site, died in December 2024 at the age of 81.
Bucey had been convicted in 1988 on federal money laundering charges after he was arrested for running a financial scam through his home-based Huguenot church, where he alleged to be a “minister.” The court found he used his church to launder drug trafficking proceeds; additional counts were then laid against Bucey after he attempted to tamper with the resulting Grand Jury. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. It is not clear how many years he served.
Upon his release, Bucey engaged in decades of professional fabrication, calling himself the “Prophet of Profit” and claiming successful careers in at least eight different industries, including aerospace, medical devices, investment banking, theater, and nursing homes. His only verifiable business after prison was an appraisal company.
Bucey soon befriended the original owner of the Elsmar Cove quality management website, Marc Smith. Smith had launched a defamation campaign against Oxebridge only days after the company announced its formation in January of 2000. Bucey ingratiated himself to Smith by joining in on the defamation, at one point claiming he could “destroy” Oxebridge through a targeted defamation campaign. Bucey then contributed to defamation on the Elsmar site, along with DNV’s Director of Aerospace, Sidney Vianna. Vianna was found to have stolen at least seven copyrighted works from the Oxebridge site and republished them on the Elsmar site; when caught, Vianna was stripped of his role as DNV’s representative to the IAQG and was reassigned outside of the certification body’s aerospace division.
Oxebridge later sued Smith for defamation and ended up paying a settlement for damages. He then voluntarily shut down the Elsmar site, telling the court he had “retired.” A week later, Smith used a series of fake accounts to falsely claim that the popular site had been shut down by Oxebridge, resulting in more defamation. Smith adopted the fake name “John Peachfarm,” pretending he had bought the site from himself. Bucey played along with the charade, and Oxebridge was flooded with death threats and hate mail. A second suit was launched against Smith, with Bucey and Vianna named in the filings. Smith died in 2022, making the lawsuit moot.
Bucey remained on as an Elsmar moderator under the site’s new owners, PQ Systems. The site was found to be still hosting material copyrighted by Oxebridge. Rather than rein in Bucey and the moderators, PQ Systems implemented code on the site that replaces any mention of “Oxebridge” with the word “redacted.” Any discussion of Oxebridge is still banned on the site.
Even until his death, Bucey still claimed to be a successful business entrepreneur, financial expert, and consultant.
