UPDATED 1:33 P.M. ET WITH LINK TO INDICTMENT: AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming is facing new federal-felony charges.
Leaming, 56, originally was arrested in November 2011 by an FBI terrorism task force on charges of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi scheme case.
Prosecutors now say he faces charges in addition to the ones originally filed and will be arraigned on the charges tomorrow in Tacoma, Wash.
Among the new charges are concealing a person from arrest, being a felon in possession of a firearm and using a false and fictitious instrument, the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington said.
Leaming is among at least six purported “sovereign citizens” recently charged or convicted of crimes in the western section of the state.
Timothy Garrison, 60, of Mount Vernon, Wash., was sentenced yesterday to 42 months in federal prison for a tax scam that cost the U.S. government more than $2.5 million.
Like Leaming, Garrison’s activities included filing false liens. He also made “threats to ‘arrest’ law enforcement officers,” prosecutors said.
“No one is above the law,” Durkan said. “[Garrison’s] scheme now creates a hardship for those who put their trust in Mr. Garrison – they have big tax bills to pay. His further abuse of the legal system with fraudulent liens and so-called ‘arrest warrants,’ is a dangerous mix for our law enforcement officers who are trying to keep our communities safe.”
A convicted felon prior to the charges for which he was sentenced yesterday, Garrison assisted in the filing of more than 50 returns with false or fraudulent information, prosecutors said.
When Leaming was arrested in November, he was found with two federal fugitives from Arkansas, along with firearms, prosecutors said.
UPDATE AT 1:33 P.M. ET. Here is a link to the indictment, which also names alleged Leaming associate David Carroll Stephenson in a count of retaliating against a federal judge or federal law-enforcement officer. Stephenson currently is serving time in an Arizona federal prison in an earlier case, and prosecutors said he’ll be brought to Washington state on the new retaliation charge against him. He is referenced in this November 2010 PP Blog story on a Leaming email sent to ASD members. Stephenson also is referenced in this November 2011 Leaming story about certain communications allegedly directed at U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts at the behest of Stephenson.
The indictment describes the weapons allegedly found with Leaming and describes the fugitives by their initials. The PP Blog previously confirmed that the fugitives were Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen, who were wanted in an alleged mail-fraud caper involving envelope stuffing in Arkansas.
The pitchman hosting a 90-day anniversary call yesterday for Text Cash Network introduced fellow TCN pitchman Joe Reid as an “absolute legend.”
“In this industry, folks, facts tell, and stories sell,” a pitchman identified as “Eddie” said in remarks introducing Reid.
“This gentleman is a legend — an absolute legend in the industry,” Eddie said. “This gentleman makes money. This gentleman makes BIG money. He’s made millions and millions of dollars over the years in the network-marketing industry . . .”
But “Eddie” said nothing about Reid’s involvement in Data Network Affiliates (DNA) and One World One Website (OWOW), bizarre and crashed opportunities linked to Reid business associate and fellow MLM huckster Phil Piccolo amid claims that affiliates were not getting paid. Piccolo also has been linked to TCN.
Among other things, DNA claimed it could help the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children, later claiming it offered a “free” cell phone with “unlimited” talk and text for $10 a month.
DNA appears to have assisted in the rescue of no children, but it did complain that the AMBER Alert program had a bloated budget. It later removed its cell-phone offer, claiming it had been duped into making the offer by a huckster. OWOW, for its part, claimed it had products that cured or treated cancer — while also claiming a “magnetic” product helped prevent leg amputations and helped produce tomatoes that would grow to twice their ordinary size — all while assisting dairy herds in producing more milk. (Use the search button in the upper-right corner of the PP Blog for more info on DNA and OWOW and their series of ambiguous and confounding offers.)
As he is doing now for TCN, Reid led cheers in videos or conference calls for DNA and OWOW. (TCN is using the same conference-call software as DNA.) While researching an offer by OWOW, the PP Blog was advised by the Des Moines Police Department (Iowa) that certain addresses that appeared in online promos for OWOW were nonexistent. Lower in this story, you’ll find a reference to something the Boca Raton Police Department reported after the PP Blog asked it to visit a local building.)
An Emerging Bromide
Despite “Eddie’s” assertion that “facts tell,” he provided no substantiation of his claims about Reid and offered no information on Reid’s DNA/OWOW ties, apparently preferring instead to focus on the “stories sell” part of his emerging bromide.
Reid’s story yesterday offered platitudes that “exciting things are happening” at TCN, with Reid adding that the purported text-advertising firm had “tremendous leaders” who’d created “great excitement.”
Reid, whose TCN cheerleading appeared to be somewhat subdued during the call, then passed the call back to Eddie.
Without providing any factual foundation and again apparently defaulting to the “stories sell” part of his bromide, Eddie again assured listeners that Reid was a “legend.” He added that TCN had set all of the following records:
Fastest to 10,000 members.
Fastest to 20,000 members.
Fastest to 50,000 members..
Fastest to 100,000 members.
Fastest to 200,000 members.
“And most recently, folks, we were the fastest company to 300,000 members — in under 90 days.”
Participants who weren’t excited about those numbers need to check their “pulse,” Eddie ventured, predicting later that there would be “seven-” and “six”-figure earners.
Like DNA and OWOW, strange events and incongruities have marked TCN’s existence.
The TCN Photo Mystery
Despite oddities such as the existence of a promotional photo that shows TCN’s name affixed to a glistening office building in Boca Raton and a public statement by the Boca Raton Police Department that the name is not affixed to the building, Eddie asserted that TCN is a company that “makes sense.”
TCN Tax Claims — After Similar DNA Claims
TCN also may be playing with fire by wooing recruits with claims about the purported tax advantages of joining.
“What about the tax benefits that you receive from owing a home-based business?” Eddie asked yesterday’s conference-call listeners. “You can literally bring home 3, 4, maybe $5,000 — up to $7,000 a year in tax benefits. So many people are completely unaware that, just by being a part of a home-based business, they can save thousands of dollars every year by being a part of a home-based business.
“Guess what? Join us with Text Cash Network and start saving today . . .” Eddie instructed while focusing on the purported tax advantages.
Screen shot: Like DNA, TCN puports to operate a "processing center" in Boca Raton.
Another oddity associated with TCN and DNA is that both firms
Screen shot: Like TCN, DNA purports to operate a "processing center" in Boca Raton.
claimed to operate “processing centers” in South Florida, but the addresses appear to be rental services.
Meanwhile, both TCN and DNA have OWOW — another Piccolo-associated entity — in common somewhere in the food chain.
The earliest promos (early November 2011) for TCN appeared on OWOW’s website.
Like DNA, OWOW appears to be a defunct corporation that continues to produce a website that sometimes goes missing and sometimes is rerouted to other sites.
The management structure of TCN, DNA and OWOW also has been murky, with all three firms claiming to be operated by top professionals while simultaneously publishing ambiguous information. Some TCN promoters, for instance, have claimed TCN is owned by “The Johnson Group.”
Promos that originated through OWOW, however, added an ampersand and extra proper noun, declaring that TCN was owned by the “Johnson & Johnson Group.”
Affiliates of TCN, DNA and OWOW have complained publicly about not getting paid. All three firms have explained away those concerns in largely the same fashion: that payments have come or will come once a series of launches and prelaunches and website adjustments are completed.
Each of the schemes spread in part through social-media sites such as YouTube and Facebook.
One poster on a Facebook TCN site dubbed the “Text Cash Network- Official Group Page” complained today that “power line stats” are not working.
“It stopped on the 12/28/2011,” the poster claimed.
On another Facebook site — one dubbed simply “Text Cash Network” — a poster spammed an offer for JSS Tripler. Promoters of JSS Tripler are under investigation by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
