David R. Lewalski, the Florida man who ran a $30 million commodities Ponzi and fraud scheme known as Botfly LLC and persuaded at least one investor to pony up cash to pay for his defense, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Elements of the Lewalski caper were reminiscent of elements of the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, which also operated from Florida. Vile language was directed at investigators in both cases, and Lewalski urged victims not to cooperate with authorities. One person gave Lewalski $50,000 to pay for a lawyer — after Lewalski jetted to Europe on a private Gulfstream IV a day after Florida investigators implicated him in a Ponzi scheme, according to court filings.
ASD President Andy Bowdoin also is asking his members to pony up for his defense to Ponzi charges. A number of ASD members have urged fellow members not to cooperate with authorities.
After his European junket, Lewalski eventually came back to the United States and ensconced himself in a swanky hotel suite overlooking Central Park in New York while pretending to be elsewhere, according to court filings.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service alleged that Lewalski complained to investors he defrauded about “recent ‘Orwellian’ totalitarian tactics” employed by U.S. investigators in Ponzi scheme cases, instead of accepting accountability for his fraud.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer joined U.S. Attorney Robert E. O’Neill of the Middle District of Florida in making the announcement about Lewalski’s prison sentence.
In September, Breuer joined with U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. of the District of Columbia in announcing that $55 million had been returned to ASD victims. The U.S. Secret Service seized the money in August 2008.
Bowdoin called investigators “Satan.” Other ASD members called them “Nazis” and “goons.”
In the Botfly case, Lewalski described a victims’ advocate a “c[$%!]” and a “Nazi,” according to court filings. In one rant, Lewalski allegedly said, “So f[$%!] her what a bitch.”
Court documents also allude to a woman who allegedly was called an “FDLE chick” and described by Lewalski as “nuts” and a “bitch.”
FDLE is the acronym of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which assisted in the state and federal probes of Lewalski.
BULLETIN: The Los Angeles Times is reporting (link below) that James Fayed has been formally sentenced to the death penalty for arranging the brutal slashing death of Pamela Fayed, his estranged wife and a potential witness against him.
James Fayed, 48, is an emerging figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case. Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia said in December 2010 that E-Bullion was used to forward money to ASD, which the U.S. Secret Service described as a massive international Ponzi scheme that used multiple payment venues to amass at least $110 million.
Erma Seabaugh, an ASD member who used E-Bullion, was an ASD trainer, according to the government. Records in Oregon show that Seabaugh, whose assets were seized in the ASD case, was operating a purported “religious” nonprofit firm from Missouri. The purported religious entity was known as Carpe Diem.
Seabaugh’s assets were seized in February 2009, during a period of time in which the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf was launching and ASD President Andy Bowdoin was morphing into a pro-se litigant and trying to undo his January 2009 decision to submit to the forfeiture of $65.8 million seized by the Secret Service from 10 Bowdoin bank accounts in August 2008. AVG had close ASD ties, according to members.
E-Bullion has been linked to multiple Ponzi schemes, including Legisi, Gold Quest International and FEDI. The FEDI scheme has been linked to Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, also known as Michael Mixon. Ali Alishtari pleaded guilty in 2009 to financing terrorism and fleecing investors in the FEDI scheme.
FEDI participants could expect to receive payouts deemed “rebates,” according to documents obtained by the Ontario Securities Commission from a FEDI promoter who simultaneously was promoting a mysterious business known as the “Alpha Project.” ASD also used the word “rebates” to describe its payouts, according to court filings.
Ali Alishtari, like ASD’s Bowdoin, contributed money to Republican causes and heralded a purported GOP award for his business acumen, according to documents.
Seabaugh used ASD’s advertising “rotator” to promote an apparent “pyramid scheme” known as StreamlineGold.net, according to federal court filings. Like ASD, Legisi and GoldQuest International, StreamlineGold.net was promoted on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
Pamela Fayed was stabbed 13 times in a Greater Los Angeles parking garage on July 28, 2008. The Times reported today that James Fayed was seated on a nearby park bench “texting” on his cell phone while his alleged accomplices carried out the slaying.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy described James Fayed as “one cold, calculating human being,” according to the Times. Kennedy formally imposed the death sentence yesterday. The jury that convicted James Fayed in May recommended the sentence.
From the Times (italics added):
The only person within earshot who didn’t react was the victim’s estranged husband who was sitting on a nearby bench “texting on his cellphone, like he doesn’t have a care in the world,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy said Thursday, moments before sentencing James Fayed to death for the contract killing.
Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez: Source: U.S. Park Police.
Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez has been charged by the FBI with attempting to assassinate President Obama by firing repeated rounds from a car at the White House after dark and then fleeing the Veterans Day shooting scene in Washington.
Ortega-Hernandez, 21, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, also is known as Oscar Ramiro Ortega. He was arrested in western Pennsylvania on Wednesday and made a preliminary court appearance in Pittsburgh yesterday. The case against him was filed in Washington, and he’ll be returned there to face the charges. (Demonstrating that it’s a small world and that judges have overlapping duties and encounter cases of all types, the arrest warrant for Ortega-Hernandez was issued by the same U.S. Magistrate Judge in the District of Columbia who issued the seizure warrants in the August 2008 AdSurfDaily Ponzi case. Meanwhile, the U.S. Secret Service is involved in the Ortega-Hernandez prosecution, as is the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. The Secret Service and Machen’s office also are prosecuting the ASD case. )
An FBI agent who prepared the affidavit noted that investigators had found witnesses at the shooting scene — and also had interviewed Idaho witnesses who know Ortega-Hernandez. One witness, according to the affidavit, told investigators that the suspect had come to believe that the government was conspiring against him.
The same Idaho witness told investigators that Ortega-Hernandez wanted to “hurt” Obama and referred to him as “the anti-Christ.” Another witness, relating a conversation about Ortega-Hernandez, said that Ortega-Hernandez had been heard expressing that he “needed to kill” the President.
Yet another witness told investigators that Ortega-Hernandez claimed Obama was “the devil” and that that Ortega-Hernandez was “preparing for something” and would not stop “until it’s done.”
Ortega-Hernandez, according to the affidavit, told the witness that Obama “needed to be taken care of.”
Investigators said a witness told them that Ortega-Hernandez owned a black gun with a “huge butt” — and that the gun was missing from the bedroom of Ortega-Hernandez when he left Idaho last month driving a black Honda Accord. The gun was described by another witness as a black “AK-47-like gun” with a “scope-like thing” on top.
A witness in Washington observed shots being fired toward the White House “through the passenger-side window” of a dark car that had stopped in front of her. The car then sped away, according to the account of the witness in the affidavit. Another witness described hearing approximately eight sounds of a “popping noise” coming from the car and observing “puffs of air” coming from the passenger side.
Ironically, police found the car abandoned on the lawn of the U.S. Institute of Peace. A witness in that area said the operator of the car fled on foot after trying to restart it. Inside the car, a black Honda Accord in which Ortega-Hernandez was one of two registered owners, investigators found a Romanian Cugir SA semiautomatic assault rifle with a large scope, three magazines loaded with cartridges and “several additional boxes” of ammunition.
They also found a hooded jacket emblazoned with the letters “LA, ” a baseball bat, brass knuckles, and a sales receipt from a Walmart in Fairfax, Va. The receipt was dated Nov. 11 — the day of the shooting — at “approximately” 5 p.m. Investigators went to Walmart and retrieved the surveillance video, which revealed Ortega-Hernandez had been inside the store wearing the “LA” jacket at roughly 5 p.m., according to the affidavit.
Authorities did not describe what Ortega-Hernandez had purchased at Walmart.
Investigators discovered that police in Arlington County, Va., had encountered Ortega-Hernandez and his car about six hours earlier — at 11 a.m. — after receiving a report about a suspicious person. Arlington police recorded the plate number of the Honda Accord and took photos of Ortega-Hernandez.
Although Arlington officers sought permission to search the car, Ortega-Hernandez refused, the FBI said in the affidavit.
Six hours later, Ortega-Hernandez was at the Walmart — and four-plus hours after that, he was opening fire at the White House after dark and speeding away, according to the affidavit. Sunset in Washington on Nov. 11 occurred at approximately 4:57 p.m. ET. The shots rang out at approximately 9:04 p.m., according to the affidavit.
Investigators found nine spent shell casings in the car, according to the affidavit. Because Ortega-Hernandez apparently was wearing the “LA” attire prior to his alleged 5 p.m. Walmart visit, it seems possible that one part of the ongoing probe will focus on what he purchased at the store and what he did for the next four-plus hours before opening fire.
Investigators found “several confirmed bullet impact points” at or above the second story of the White House, according to the affidavit. The First Family’s living quarters are on the second and third stories.
Although the President was not home at the time of the shooting, the White House is occupied around the clock. Whether other members of the First Family were home is unclear. What is clear is that investigators believe Ortega-Hernandez had contempt for the government in general and Obama in specific — and opened fire on the White House from an automobile and made sure he had plenty of ammunition and a means of getting away
Two assistant U.S. Attorneys from Machen’s office supervised the preparation of the documents that led to the issuance of the arrest warrant for Ortega-Hernandez. The FBI agent who prepared the affidavit has more than 15 years’ experience in law enforcement and was assisted in the early hours of the probe by the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Park Police and other agencies, according to the affidavit.
David R. Lewalski, the Florida man who ran a $30 million commodities Ponzi and fraud scheme known as Botfly LLC and persuaded at least one investor to pony up cash to pay for his defense, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
