SPECIAL REPORT: AdSurfDaily/Zeek Pitchman Todd Disner Gave Thousands To Gingrich, Romney After Soliciting Money To Sue The United States; Records Show Tax Liens Of More Than $405,000 Dating Back To 1999

EDITOR’S NOTE: ASD was a multilevel-marketing scheme that planted the seed it paid a return of 1 percent a day on top of two-tiered affiliate commissions totaling 15 percent for recruiters. Federal prosecutors described the purported “opportunity” as a Ponzi scheme based in the the small town of Quincy, Fla., and operated by recidivist securities felon Andy Bowdoin.

UPDATED 9:46 A.M. ET (NOV. 18, U.S.A.) A Florida man who claimed in a November 2011 lawsuit against the United States that AdSurfDaily was not a Ponzi scheme doled out thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and organizations in the following months, records show.

The man, ASD promoter Todd Disner of Miami, joined with fellow Miami resident and suspended Connecticut attorney Dwight Owen Schweitzer in suing the United States as pro se plaintiffs after soliciting donations from fellow ASD members to fund the lawsuit earlier in 2011, according to records. As the lawsuit proceeded, Disner and fellow ASD promoter Schweitzer raised the prospect in court filings that the seizure of ASD’s database in a 2008 case brought by the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia could lead to the ASD duo’s prosecution for tax evasion.

A federal judge tossed the lawsuit in August 2012, but Disner and Schwetizer are appealing. They have accused the judge of “sophistry.”

Both Disner and Schweitzer have been engaged in continuous litigation against the United States for more than a year. Neither has been charged with a crime. After their days promoting ASD, Disner and Schweitzer went on to promote Zeek Rewards, an ASD-like,  1.5-percent-a-day “program” with accompanying commissions that triggered probes by both the SEC and the U.S. Secret Service. On Aug. 17, the SEC accused North Carolina-based Zeek of operating a $600 million Ponzi-and pyramid scheme that potentially swindled more than 1 million investors.

Zeek operator Paul R. Burks did not contest the SEC’s civil allegations and consented to a judgment in the case. Records show that Burks gave $2,500 to the campaign of GOP Presidential hopeful Ron Paul between 2011 and early 2012.

On Dec. 26, 2011, only weeks after the Disner/Schweitzer lawsuit was filed against the government, Disner provided a donation of $1,000 to the GOP Presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich (Newt 2012), Federal Election Commission records show. The Gingrich donation by Disner appears to have been his first to a national candidate or organization. The FEC database, for example, shows no donations from Disner between Jan. 1, 1990, and Dec. 25, 2011.

Disner matched the Dec. 26 donation with another $1,000 to Gingrich in January 2012, according to FEC records.

Separately, records in Miami-Dade County show that the IRS filed a tax lien against Disner for $101,723 on Aug. 1, 2006. Included in that sum was $95,015.97 allegedly owed from 1999, and $6,707.77 allegedly owed from 2002.

ASD, operated by the now-convicted and jailed Andy Bowdoin, launched just weeks after the IRS filed the lien against Disner. Two years to the day after the lien was recorded in Miami-Dade, the Secret Service seized $65.8 million from 10 Bowdoin bank accounts.  A raid of ASD’s headquarters followed four days later. Bowdoin later was charged criminally with operating a Ponzi scheme. Among the allegations against Bowdoin was that he had used money from the ASD Ponzi scheme to make a donation to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Bowdoin, 77, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in May 2012. In August, he was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison. Prosecutors said he was at the helm of a $119 million Ponzi scheme and promoted other MLM fraud schemes even after his December 2010 arrest.

On Nov. 21, 2007, according to records, the IRS filed another lien against Disner in Miami-Dade totaling $294,940.89. This lien was for the 2003 and 2004 tax years. The IRS filed yet another lien against Disner on Oct. 22, 2008. This one sought $8,661.36 for the 2000 and 2001 tax years.

All in all, records show three tax liens against Disner for the combined sum of $405,325.99.

Whether Disner has cleared the IRS liens is unclear. What is clear is that, in June 2012, he raised the prospect in court filings that he could be prosecuted for tax evasion because of the seizure of ASD’s database in 2008. Records in the Zeek case, meanwhile, show that the Zeek database also has been seized.

Records suggest that, with Gingrich out of the GOP Presidential race by May 2012, Disner switched his support to Mitt Romney, who went on to become the party’s nominee. Romney ultimately lost in the general election to President Obama, a Democrat seeking a second term.

Gingrich, a former Georgia Congressman, is a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

On June 25, 2012, Disner gave $1,000 to Romney for President Inc., according to FEC records.

Just days earlier — on June 18, 2012 — Disner and Schweizer claimed in federal court that the government’s Ponzi case against ASD was a “house of cards,” despite Bowdoin’s guilty plea and acknowledgment that he had operated a Ponzi scheme and that ASD never had operated lawfully after its 2006 inception.

A month later — on July 17, 2012 — Disner gave $200 to the Republican National Committee, according to FEC records.

Exactly a month after that — on Aug. 17, 2012 — the SEC filed an emergency action in federal court that accused Burks of presiding over a massive fraud scheme that effectively extended across the world.

Within days of the SEC action, Disner — who previously solicited money to sue the United States for alleged misdeeds in the ASD Ponzi case — participated in a conference call with self-described Zeek “consultant” Robert Craddock, who himself was soliciting money for some sort of court action against the SEC or the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek case.

Nothing has been filed by Craddock to date. During one call, Craddock dropped the name of former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, claiming McCollum as a “friend.” McCollum is a Republican. In 2008, while attorney general, McCollum accused ASD of operating a pyramid scheme.

Some ASD members reacted by suggesting that McCollum and a Florida TV station that carried the news of the ASD lawsuit should be charged with Deceptive Trade Practices.

Despite Craddock’s claim after the SEC action that McCollum’s law firm SNR Denton had become the attorneys for a Craddock and a group of Zeek members, SNR Denton appears to have decided not to represent Craddock or his group.

FEC records show that Disner gave $1,500 to the Republican National Committee in September 2012.