A claim was made yesterday in a now-deleted Surf’s Up post that AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin “would not sell us out and he has stood his ground firm since August of 2008.”
It was a lie by Bowdoin through a shill. The source to prove the lie is Bowdoin himself. Bowdoin has acknowledged in his own court filings that he previously was “cooperating” with prosecutors and investigators so he “could possibly avoid a prison sentence.”
Bowdoin, in fact, advised a federal judge in his own sworn court filings that one of his meetings with the government “lasted three days.” Another meeting lasted at least one day. Bowdoin advised U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer that he had “revealed significant information against my interest.”
The meetings were held in December 2008 and January 2009. Bowdoin’s affidavit implies that the December meeting was the one that lasted three days. So, Andy Bowdoin met with the government for a period of at least four days and revealed “significant information” against his interests and presumably the interests of others — and now Bowdoin, through his Surf’s Up shills, is trying to tell the membership that “he has stood his ground firm since August of 2008.”
It was all there in black and white at Surf’s Up yesterday — until it was deleted, of course.
There was no mention of the proof to the contrary: Bowdoin’s sworn affidavit.
Two Whoppers Since September
This was the second time since late September that Bowdoin has lied to the membership. During a Sept. 21 conference call, Bowdoin told listeners that the tens of millions of dollars seized in the wire-fraud, money-laundering, securities-fraud and Ponzi scheme case belonged to the members. The U.S. Secret Service listened to this call, transcribed it and presented it to the judge.
The trouble with Bowdoin’s claim that the money belonged to members is that he told Collyer in three sworn documents he signed on Aug. 13, 2008, that the money belonged to him and his companies.
Bowdoin now is trying to have Collyer disqualified from the case. It is not the first time an effort evolved to force Collyer to step down. Curtis Richmond, an ASD member who has declared himself a “sovereign” being in other cases and has attempted to have judges and litigation opponents jailed, also tried.
A Devil In The Details
Here is how Bowdoin, the purported “Christian,” sought to rally members in August 2008:
“This is an attack of Satan because we were helping tens of thousands of people around the world,” members quoted Bowdoin as saying in describing the forfeiture case. “But we are more than over-comers, and we get our strength from God. And with God all things are possible. And we’re on our way to a miracle folks. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that we’ll be back in business, stronger than ever. It’ll take all the doubts away from all these people about being a Ponzi, because it’ll be proven that we are NOT a ponzi.”
Of course, the same Andy Bowdoin solicited testimonials from the membership to assist in his battle to retain his money before all of the facts of the case were in. Thousands of trusting members — many of whom identify themselves as Christians and have described Bowdoin as a grandfatherly Christian — provided testimonials.
Only later did they find out that Bowdoin was “advertising” a failed, dissolved business in his own rotator to qualify for “rebates” and that Bowdoin had told the Secret Service that ASD had $1 million in a bank on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua in an account under a different name.
Let’s walk that one back: ASD, a purported “advertising” business, was so effective that even a company that no longer exists could make money. Prosecutors later said that Bowdoin paid an an employee to surf for Bowdoin’s son, so the son could make money.
Bowdoin apparently forgot to tell his own attorneys about the Antigua money. Prosecutors reminded him of it, though, after Bowdoin filed for emergency release of $2 million in seized funds, saying ASD could not pay its rent or hosting bills.
On or about June 10, 2008, less than two weeks after a May 31 ASD “rally” concluded in Las Vegas with Bowdoin talking about his relationship with God, Bowdoin’s wife and her son, George Harris, used money from two ASD Bank of America accounts and opened an account at a separate bank.
More than $157,000 of the opening deposit was used to pay off the mortgage on the Harris home in Tallahassee. In the following days, ASD money was used to buy jet skis, a Cabana boat, marine equipment and two automobiles, according to prosecutors.
Flash forward two months to August 2008 — and Bowdoin’s remarks that ASD had been on the receiving end of an attack from “Satan.”
“[O]n Friday August 1st we had a 9/11 but it was about 30 times worse,” ASD members quoted Bowdoin as saying on Aug. 12, 2008.
On the very next day, Aug. 13, Bowdoin signed the sworn affidavits saying the ASD money belonged to him and his companies.
Bowdoin did not mention the cars, the jet skis, the boat, the marine equipment and the paid-off Harris mortgage at the time. He did not tell members that he was paying an employee to surf for his son. His core message was to inundate the offices of investigators and lawmakers with letters that told the recipients what a poor job they are doing, how unfair they are being, that people are hurting because of the actions prosecutors had taken the previous week in freezing certain ASD assets.
Only 15 days prior to Bowdoin’s invocation of “Satan” on Aug. 12, 2008, ASD money was used to purchase a Lincoln luxury sedan for $48,244.03. About 16 days after Bowdoin invoked Satan and compared the Secret Service to the 9/11 terrorists, Bowdoin sent a check for $100 to his victims in an Alabama securities scheme a decade earlier.
At the time, the victims were owed about $45,000, about $3,244 less than the purchase price of the Lincoln.
God As A Stage Prop
Yesterday will go down in history as one of the oddest days in ASD’s odd history. Bowdoin, through a shill, told the troops he was still fighting the good fight. The Surf’s Up missive implored members to “get a little excited folks!â€
“Andy explained a few things to me of which I cannot share them all, but I can say that the government attorney’s ‘have’ finally admitted to some things that are totally in our (ASD) favor,†the email from the shill claimed.
Bowdoin, according to the email, just knew ASD would be back better than ever. The email did not reference a fresh ruling from Collyer that Bowdoin no longer even had standing in the forfeiture case.
In fact, the email treated the membership as simpletons. It did not acknowledge the proffer letter Bowdoin had signed in the case, his meetings with prosecutors in which he provided information against his interests, his acknowledgments that ASD was operating illegally, his cooperation with the government, his decision to submit to the forfeiture in January 2009 to maximize his chances of avoiding prison time.
What the email did was insist that Bowdoin had stood “firm” since August 2008, despite the overwhelming proof to the contrary. Indeed, the same man who invoked “Satan” and the 9/11 terrorists to destroy the reputation of the agency that guards the Treasury and the life of the President of the United States — the same man who tried to destroy the reputation of his defense counsel — is the same man who now is trying to have a federal judge removed from the case.
Collyer can’t be fair, Bowdoin says — and he apparently says it with a straight face, just as he did when he said this on May 31, 2008, in Las Vegas:
“We need to have an attitude of gratitude with God.
“And I always say, ‘Thank you, God, for developing me into a money magnet.’ And I see myself as a money magnet in attracting money and, I say, attracting large sums of money.â€
Only 11 days later, the money was deposited to pay off the Harris mortgage.
