the he is oren pines of san jose. his linkedin shows a background as an engineer for firms such as google. dao tran works with him at a networking company they co-founded and confirms oren pines has no experience in the medical field. did he ever have any experience with ventilators, did you ever talk about something like this? >> no. we didn't. we haven't talked about that. >> i need 30,000 ventilators. >> reporter: the month of march was tense and chaotic. new york governor andrew cuomo scrambled to find ventilators for the coming surge of coronavirus patients. >> how can we be in a situation where you can have new yorkers possibly dying because they can't get a ventilator? >> reporter: three days later, president trump tweeted general motors must start making ventilators now, ford get going on ventilators fast. oren pines tweeted we can supply icu ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. have someone call me urgent. within days state of new york had wired oren pines $69 million out of an $89 million contract. >> new

they're still arguing over the last $10 million oren pines has not returned. i emailed his lawyer, called his cell phone and knocked on his door today. no response. an email was quoted he sent to officials in new york. he said this ordeal has been worse than death itself and he has not done anything wrong. for the i-team, dan noyes, "abc7 news." >> dan, thank you. >>> to check out all of the work the i-team has done digging into issues during the coronavirus pandemic, go to our website, abc7news.com/iteam. >>> let's talk about the total number of coronavirus cases in the bay area. it now tops 10,000. this is a graph charting the cases since march for the greater bay area. our nine counties and five surrounding counties. it includes people who have recovered, not the number of people who are currently sick. today, monday, may 11, is the 56th day of the shelter in place in the bay area. and we learned today it's possible san francisco won't interphase two next week. phase two means some restrictions are relaxed and more businesses can reopen. liz joins us live t

oren pines tweeted we can supply noninvasive. have someone call me urgent. state of new york had wired orren pines $69 million out of an $89 million contract. >> new york officials jumped on it and said that federal officials had been vetted. >> reporter: sharing tonight's by line in the times, a team of volunteers chosen by jared kushner vetted orren pines and closed the deal even after he made unusual demands. >> anyone wishing to do business with him had to sign a contract within four hours of getting a quote, that the payment had to be paid up front and that was nonnegotiable. >> reporter: but no ventilators materialized and wells fargo froze orren pines account. new york canceled the order and demandedity money back. they're arguing over the last $10 million from the state that orren pines still has. he has not returned my calls to his cell or his home. last weekend, what happens happened to me personally over the last few days is worse than death itself. i have done nothing wrong. all i wanted was to help new york state and the process got thrown under

three days later, new york state paid oren-pines 69 -- wait for it -- million dollars and the payment for 1,450 ventilators, at least triple the standard retail price of high-end models not a single ventilator ever arrived. state officials said new york entered into the contract at the direct recommendation of the white house coronavirus task force. this is insane i mean, we're talking about a guy who is the most powerful person on earth. there is literally a law that allows him to compel companies to make ventilators and he's combing through his twitter replies like he's putting a band together "oh, okay. this guy's got his own amp that could really -- that could really come in handy if we had somebody with their own amp. trump had the chance to act early to prevent both a public health crisis and an economic one, and instead he chose to ignore and downplay the threat, or as he put it yesterday at the white house -- >> this plague should never have happened it could have been stopped but people chose not to stop it. >> oh, people chose not to stop it why so coy pray tell, donald, who