BREAKING NEWS: Bowdoin, Acting As Own Attorney, Files Motion To Dismiss AdSurfDaily Forfeiture Case
Andy Bowdoin.
UPDATE 4:13 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) Andy Bowdoin, acting as his own attorney, has filed a motion to dismiss the AdSurfDaily forfeiture case.
At the same time, Bowdoin appears to have filed a motion to reverse his earlier decision to submit to the forfeiture of certain property seized by the government.
Bowdoin’s filing, however, does not appear to contest the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars seized by the government in August. It appears to apply to property seized from members of his family in December and from Golden Panda President Clarence Busby.
It is possible that a document is missing from the case file or has yet to be added. The petition to reverse the forfeiture, as filed, references only property seized in the December forfeiture action.
Today’s Bowdoin filings are dated and signed Feb. 25, 2009, exactly one day before AdViewGlobal (AVG), an autosurf that defines itself as an offshore company and shares common management with ASD, announced it was going underground by forming a private association.
Incredibly, AVG makes the claim it is not associated with ASD despite the presence of common management, common promoters and at least one common employee, Chuck Osmin. Osmin testified for ASD at the Sept. 30-Oct. 1 evidentiary hearing. Gary Talbert, a former ASD executive who is now the chief executive officer of AVG, filed a sworn affidavit in the case.
George Harris, Bowdoin’s stepson, is listed as a trustee for the AVG private association. So is Talbert. Property was seized from Harris in the December forfeiture complaint.
Harris is the son of Edna Faye Bowdoin, Andy Bowdoin’s wife.
Andy Bowdoin said his decision to submit to the forfeiture was made under “severe duress” and was a “grave mistake and error.” He accused the government of “fraud, trickery and deceit.”
Meanwhile, Bowdoin has filed a motion to suppress evidence, saying he was illegally interrogated by the U.S. Secret Service. Bowdoin claimed agents did not advise him of his Miranda rights — the right to remain silent.
In his motion to dismiss, Bowdoin said the court was obligated to dismiss because it lacked jurisdiction. Bowdoin said the case should be viewed as a quasi-criminal matter, not a civil case.
“There was no probable cause even to file a complaint in this instant case,” Bowdoin asserted.
Why Bowdoin filed the documents as his own attorney isn’t clear. But the documents have the hallmarks of documents filed by inexpert litigants belonging to underground legal “associations” that purport to help nonlawyers navigate tricky waters.
AdSurfDaily and AdViewGlobal recently have been linked to such underground associations. One of them is Pro Advocate Group, which says it can help nonlawyers and nondoctors establish private “associations” that enable members to practice law and medicine without a license.
Bowdoin’s pleadings, in general, are much more respectful than documents other litigants acting as their own attorneys recently have filed in the case.
Unlike Curtis Richmond and others who used the Richmond litigation blueprint, Bowdoin, for instance, does not accuse the judge and prosecutors of crimes and demand a specific result in a compressed time frame at the peril of prosecution.
But he did accuse the government of trickery, saying the Secret Service “did not follow the supreme law of the land” in its treatment of him.
“One cannot break the law in an attempt to ‘uphold the law,'” Bowdoin said.
Moderators of the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum have hinted for days that something special was coming in the case. If this is it, “special” means that Bowdoin now is acting as his own attorney and citing English Common Law as one of his resources.
How much Bowdoin spent on the lawyers previously handing his case is unknown. His earlier decision to surrender to the forfeiture, however, imperiled ASD promoters who made money. It would be hard for them to claim they were entitled to keep proceeds of what prosecutors said was a $100 million Ponzi scheme when Bowdoin himself surrendered claims.
Prosecutors, however, always have had the option of litigating against Bowdoin’s promoters no matter what Bowdoin did.
ASD members have reported in recent days that the Secret Service has seized the bank accounts of some individual ASD promoters, including people who also are promoting AdViewGlobal. Bowdoin has been under pressure from members who were unhappy about his two-month silence.
He did not tell members about a second forfeiture complaint filed against ASD-connected assets in December. Nor did he tell members about his January decision to surrender the money. Both issues created problems for ASD promoters.
Read Bowdoin’s motion to dismiss.
Read Bowdoin’s motion to reverse his earlier decision to forfeit property.
Read Bowdoin’s motion to supress evidence.
Oh Great!!! now it will take even longer to get this settled… Do you really think this will happen… :(
Think I need some excederin….LOL…
Wait it looks to me like he just wants his possessions back not all the money he collected.. so if that is the case why are the kool-aid site people so excited????
the kool-aider are saying that if Andy wins this all the money comes back. Now the mods are playing Lawyers!!!! first a con man now, andy thinks he’s an attorney!! my god!!!
Some of the posters on the Advocates have noticed that Andy has NOT asked for the 93$milion back, though they seem to think if he wins this, the rest will be returned too.
It still remains to be seen if the Judge admits this to her docket.
This sounds like yet another convoluted step to delay the inevitable
Hi alasycia,
These Bowdoin entries are on the judge’s docket. There is a handwritten note on one of them that SUGGESTS the judge is going to consolidate the December forfeiture complaint into the August forfeiture case file.
There also is a CHANCE that not all of the paperwork has been entered into the system. The lack of a specific motion to reverse the $93.5 million and other property seized in August is notable for its absence right now.
Patrick
it’s obvious to me, he ran out of money, when he was getting low the lawyers told him to settle and he did, but now it looks like he’s off his meds and
(I’m not joking about this part) delusional enough to think he can win the case now that those pesky lawyers are out of the way. Hell, he may even call the Mad Professor in on this one.
when this no money, so Andy HAD to settle stuff came up on the advocate. SG#9 pointed out that that was false. She wrote that she could tell the forfeiture law were written by lawyers because no matter what the lawyers would get paid. Isn’t there so time line that a motion like this would have to be filed by?
I’ve read the three documents posted above. I’ve previously read the info at http://www.ProAdvocate.org and http://www.credittechs.net, as well as much information about tax protesters/tax deniers.
“So what?”, you may ask.
Pro Advocates advises people on setting up “Private Membership Associatios” (which AVGA – with its links to ASD – has done) and Credit Techs declares itself to be such an association – one that allows people to practice law without a license, it claims.
Patrick has written about ASD having a link to Credit Techs, and it’s obvious that Andy’s pro se (without an attorney) filings have been created by someone with legal knowledge.
Bottom line: Because of Andy’s reference to “common law” in one of his documents, I think it’s lilely that Andy is now receiving input from the subculture that includes “sovereign citizen” groups, the “Arby’s Indians” and tax protester groups. They all use this language in the documents they file.
Either Gregg is right, the business genius that is Andy has run out of money to pay the lawyers, or this is yet another delaying tactic. I would not be surprised if there were more delaying submission from Andy or his supporters in the future.
Gregg,
I would suggest that Judge Collyer take Mr. Bowdoin up on one of his motions, and take it one step further. Andy wants his case to be treated as a quasi-criminal complaint. Let’s turn it into a full-blown criminal complaint, and see if he really wants to do that. Methinks not, but that will happen as some point regardless of what he wants.
I found #6 to be the most interesting in the first document especially interesting.
“The government agents and prosecutors acted in bad faith in deciding to use a civil
investigation and forfeiture to gain information and evidence for a criminal indictment
and conviction.”
I thought that they had not indicted him yet on any charges and that he has yet to be convicted of anything concerning this case.
I found #6 to be the most interesting in the first document.
“The government agents and prosecutors acted in bad faith in deciding to use a civil
investigation and forfeiture to gain information and evidence for a criminal indictment
and conviction.”
I thought that they had not indicted him yet on any charges and that he has yet to be convicted of anything concerning this case.
I just read the filings….the quasi criminal part is a weird turn, first in that he is inviting an indictment, but the legal precedent is based upon the revocation of a professional license, I guess Andy doesn’t want to lose his license to practice law? I can’t commnet on it, it, like so much in this case, is too weird for fiction.
Just think folks, this is just the beginning of ACT III. Wait until we get to the middle, but the faithful are not going to like the ending of ACT III. Stay tuned as more is to come, and soon.
Long term observers of the HYIP ponzi “scene” have often expressed the opinion that, based on prior cases, it could take up to 4 years before this one reaches any sort of final resolution.
Those “innocents” who who still believe that any case can be resolved in 45 minutes (plus advertisment breaks)are about to receive a nasty lesson in how a case can possibly be dragged out for so long.
If nothing else these filings are a PR masterstroke for Andy. The faithful were dispirited by his silence and him abandoning the forfeiture fight, hell even Kali had a moment of anti-ASD lucidity. Perhaps things were bad enough to negatively impact “advertising sales” for that son of ASD, AVG (or should that be son-in-law). This is exactly the sort of thing AVG needed to keep people coming to their forums and bitching about the government, all the while filling out their e-wallet accounts and sending more money to the ponzi puppet masters.
This become more bizarre by the minute. And the Machiavellian twist suggested by Glim Dropper of using it as a PR exercise for AVG is almost inspired
Surfs Up Site has a post from the Mods with a message from Erma. She says there is more to file. She says the DoJ are trying to hold up the filings
Patrick:
This was AT LEAST the THIRD time Andy would have heard law enforcement agents say: “Have a seat,we want to talk to you about a financial scam you’ve been running for the past year.” I’m pretty sure the judge would remind him that two times in the past he was investigated for similar crimes and both times he was criminally charged.
When ASD’s attorneys claimed they had been “blindsided” in the emergency hearing by the DOJ’s reference to ASD as a Ponzi, Judge Collyer said that was hardly likely, and she even backed up her denial of their claim in a footnote: http://www.thejoyluckclub.com/headed_LM.pdf
(bottom of page l2). Andy’s claims are a rehash of this same issue. Andy spoke to William Levine who recommended that Andy hire Gerald Nehra to make ASD wasn’t a Ponzi. Andy hired Nehra, and Nehra was going recommend changes to the website to get around the Ponzi label. Andy knows Ponzi operators are criminally investigated; Andy knew HE was facing a criminal investigation.
They had no obligation to read Miranda to Andy; at the time they seized the assets he was nothing more than a witness. But that’s beside the point — if he had no idea he was the target of a criminal investigation, why did he demand to speak to his attorney?
Andy says it was a joint IRS/Secret Service task force. Have we heard before that the IRS was involved? I think this is NEWS, don’t you??
He says refers to himself as “the defendant” — now that’s news for sure!! What’s got Andy calling himself a defendant?? Other legal papers he has in hand that we haven’t seen, where he is referred to as the defendant??
First shot into foot: “…the Defendant was requested or demanded [sic] to submit to an interview by the agents.” He not only ADMITS it was a REQUESTbut none of his original filings claimed he had been coerced into telling them he got the idea for ASD from l2DP. Can’t you just see the agents wringing this damaging admission from him??
Second shot in foot: You should have picked a story and stuck with it, Andy. Now it’s too late. : Did they fail to advise you that you were the subject of a criminal investigation OR did they threaten you with criminal prosecution? You claim both, in the same legal filing. I know you thought you were covering all your bases vis a vie the many ways you were victimized, but these two statements cancel themselves out. You should demand a refund from Dahlstrom or whoever is acting as your amateur attorney. Being coerced was your CORE complaint and now you’ve unraveled your own argument, all by yourself.
Freedomless? Is that a word? He was freedomless in his own home?
Hi Marci,
It was an IRS/Secret Service Task Force. Just wanted to make that clear.
You’ve made some excellent points above. The motion to suppress just looks like grandiose theatrics — almost as though someone said, “I know the word ‘suppress’ and I hate the cops, so I’m going to inject a motion to suppress into a civil case for maximum effect.”
Patrick
Thanks, Patrick. Can you fix the duplicate paragraph, please?
These motions are masterpieces of circumlocution and logical fallacies, yet they are being praised to the sky over on the delusional site. Guess they’ve never heard of “contradictory premises,” “false cause,” “denying the antecedent,” and most of all “affirming the consequent.” Andy argues fallaciously but to thundering rounds of applause from the ASDimwits: “Honest attorneys would have won my case, I lost my case, therefore my attorneys are crooked” It’s delicious irony to read that Andy Bowdoin, one of the most unblushing crooks still free, is accusing his lawyers of being crooked. They’re not, but I almost wish they were. That, truly, would have been poetic justice.
Fixed, Marci.
Today’s events at Surf’s Up remind me of the fireworks and champagne party after the evidentiary hearing, based on nothing other than biased reports from the scene.
Turned out that ASD’s own witnesses sunk the ship — and that’s what’s going on here, too, with AVG.
The promoters, desperately wishing to be viewed as insiders, created new layers of exposure for ASD and some of its principals. So AVG desperately is trying to get the genie back in the bottle with the formation of an underground association, but it ain’t gonna fly.
You know, Marci, I almost wish I could challenge your observations here — but I can’t. My ability to suspend my disbelief is severely limited right now, which is saying something, as I enjoy reading fiction.
Patrick
You know, a person who runs a business as a corporation cannot defend the corporation pro se, unless he is an attorney. I’m kind of wondering (and I’ll find out) if a person can represent himself pro se in an in rem proceeding. You see, in an in rem proceeding, the property is the defendent, not any person, and a very good argument can be made that only an attorney can defend property. If I’m right, and I have no idea whether I am, but if I am right, these motions could be tossed for violations of FRCivPr on their face.
Karl Dolstom must being giving Andy this bad advice. I think it is an attempt by Andy to keep AVGA alive and or growing. I think the Judge is going to request a hearing and find out if Andy is mentally capable of going through this as his own attorney and/or as the defendant. Something is not right with his brain!
I agree this should be looked into, but it wasn’t the corporation that had its assets seized. It was Andy and his DBA as ASD assets that were seized. Therefore, they were “his” assets, not the corporation. Is that correct?
Yes Lynn, but in an in rem proceeding, Andy is not a defenant, the property is. the theory of this type of forfeiture is that the property is guilty of being proceeds of crime, legally, the person who owns the property is not being charged with anything, (that comes later) and that is one of the reasons that if say, a drug dealer gets arrested with $25,000 cash on him, and hte cash is seized…the drug dealer for whatever reason is aquitted of the drug charges, but he doesn’t get his $25K back automatically. He has to go to court and ask for it, and to get it HE has to prove it’s not criminal proceeds. It’s a matter of where the burden of proff is, the government has to prove he’s guilty to incarcerate him, and he has to prove the money is innocent to get it back.
Andy by all means has a right to represent his interest in the property pro se, but the way he filed this does not explain how he claims to, so I think it might get tossed. I dunno though, Judges are a little more lenient on pro se proceedings (they are, although most of the pro se people say just the opposite)
https://patrickpretty.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/bowdoinreverseforfeiture.pdf
In this document Andy says he want to rescind THIS forfeiture agreement — did we ever see any legal documents where he actually forfeited this property; the property that was the subject of the December l9th arrest in rem? This property wasn’t mentioned in the DOJ “update” that announced that Andy had permanently forfeited $53 million plus a house and a condo.
If this motion is wrong, credit him with a triple play. ( He styles himself as “the defendant” in the other two. )
And last but not least, the property isn’t HIS it’s the proceeds from an illegal business. In this motion he doesn’t even raise the issue of whether or not ASD is a Ponzi, The motion is entirely Andy-centric. It’s all about how HE was mistreated and lied to (oh, the irony) by his attorneys and the gub’ment, and makes no mention of the members (who are cheering for him even now), or the $53 million they think of as THEIR money. And he;s either oblivious to the fact that this will delay the DOJ’s payout efforts, or he doesn’t care. I suspect the latter.
Mad Moriarty has his say.
http://pcmenterprises.tripod.com/
Come on Andy, the Miranda decision is not a per se exclusionary rule regarding evidence taken from you and your friends, but does, in fact, protects the right to be free from self incrimination based on “statements” that were taken from you in violation of Miranda. You have not alleged that statements you provided to law enforcement are being used against you and thus you were not properly Mirandized and this violates your rights. Get an attorney who is qualified to handle your case; surely you are not at all qualified to defend yourself. You are looking silly in the eyes of the law and the citizens of this country. The more you file in court the more I am convinced of your guilt and conspiracy to take from others what properly belonged to them. You hurt a lot of good people financially. They will never recover from your scams. You have done this before and you still haven’t changed. Get a good therapist to deal with your inner problems. Face up to your wrong doing. You can only then apologize sincerely to all your victims.