First, Saar, etal, thank you for the excellent off-forum support to diagnosis and solve this issue.
Resolution: The error was generated because of a lack of permissions on the file system. Per Saar's, suggest, "Try to give the user full access in Windows file/folder permissions on the “api” folder located under the Gemini web application."
I granted the user Full Control and the exception was no longer being thrown.
Saar and the rest of the CounterSoft Tech Team, thanks again for the great support !!!
Cheers.