Telander is a California businessman who made headlines in 1992 by giving $200,000 to Texas A&M for research on turning Mercury into Gold. Despite the absurdity of this project in alchemy, the university (specifically, Professor John Bockris) happily took the money. It later emerged that Telander was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and had been charged with fraud in connection with an international currency trading scam. He was convicted and sent to jail in Arizona.