Joe; You can read all about the Brass Core investigation on the club website ... and the reasons taken for Mel's expulsion by the elected club officers.

The fact is that there was an official complaint filed with respect to the brass cores and Armin is right .... there was NOT much support for Mel. There appears to be not much support for the current ebay seller of the Bugsy chip either. The differences between the two examples are not comparable to what Mel was charged with... and the ebay seller has not been officially charged with anything from what I read in this thread.