JEE WAR not getting deployed with tomee-maven-plugin 7.0.2

I am using TommEE org.apache.tomee.maven plugin version 7.0.2 to deploy a JEE WAR to a TomEE 7.0.2 running on a seperate JVM process ( not embedded within Eclipse ). I am am very familiar with tomcat7:deploy task. However equivalent tomee:deploy fails with different messaged.

1. If I use as-is, it complains with message:
The parameters 'path' for goal org.apache.tomee.maven:tomee-maven-plugin:7.0.2:deploy are missing or invalid.

2. If I provide a path within configuration it fails with message:
Caused by: org.apache.openejb.OpenEJBException: Creating application failed: /LOCAL_FS_PATH/Eclipse/workspace/jee-examples/target/jeeexamples##0.0.1: addChild: Child name '/jeeexamples##0.0.1' is not unique.

My webapps directory is empty. I had initial difficulties with deployment but I was able to deploy a tomee.war and able to proceed. Not sure if it helps, but I have added following based on posts to system.properties ( I dont know all the implications yet but I have added to go past while I learn more ). Not sure if I am contributing to the problem.

system.properties
===============
tomee.remote.support = true
tomee.serialization.class.whitelist =
tomee.serialization.class.blacklist = org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.,org.apache.commons.collections.functors.,org.apache.xalan,java.lang.Process
openejb.system.apps = true

1. 1. tomee.version=7.0.2
      <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.tomee.maven</groupId>
      <artifactId>tomee-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>${tomee.version}</version>
      <configuration>
      <tomeeVersion>${tomee.version}</tomeeVersion>
      <tomeeClassifier>plus</tomeeClassifier>
      <tomeeHttpPort>${tomee.port}</tomeeHttpPort>
      </configuration>
      </plugin>

Command line usage:

mvn -X -e -file ${PROJECT_LOC}/pom.xml -settings ~/LOCAL_M2_PATH/.m2/settings.xml clean install tomee:deploy -Dmaven.test.skip=true