BREAKING NEWS: BOA Asks Court To Dismiss Claims Against It In RICO Lawsuit Against Bowdoin, Busby, Garner
Bank of America has filed a motion to dismiss claims against it in a class-action racketeering lawsuit against ASD President Andy Bowdoin, ASD attorney Robert Garner and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby.
BOA was not named a RICO defendant in the lawsuit. Instead, former ASD members Mike Collins of Savage, Minn.; Frank Greene of Washington, D.C.;Â and Natures Discount of Aventura, Fla., accused the bank of aiding and abetting Bowdoin, Busby and Garner in an organized effort to defraud.
Tens of millions of dollars connected to ASD, Golden Panda and LaFuenteDinero were seized by the U.S. Secret Service in August, amid allegations of wire fraud, money-laundering, selling unregistered securities and operating a Ponzi scheme.
“Banks are not guarantors of their customers’ conduct,” BOA argued in its motion to dismiss. The bank further argued that the complaint was vague and speculative, lacking in facts to such a degree that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia must dismiss BOA as a defendant.
The bank filed the motion on its behalf, not on behalf of the RICO defendants. Neither Bowdoin nor Garner nor Busby has responded to the lawsuit, which was filed Jan. 15, more than two months ago. The court reissued the summons last week to the trio of RICO defendants.
“All told, Plaintiffs’ allegations merely describe Bank of America as having engaged in legitimate banking services without pleading any facts that Bank of America engaged in any wrongdoing whatsoever,” BOA said in its motion.
The plaintiffs, however, said BOA ignored red flags that should have signaled the bank that surf-operators Bowdoin and Busby were using it to launder money and conduct a criminal enterprise.
“From ASD’s inception in November 2006, Defendant Bank of America played an integral role in ASD’s operations and success,†the plaintiffs charged. “While other financial institutions and payment processors refused to facilitate ASD’s fraud, Bank of America, even in the face of significant banking best practices ‘red flags’ and likely violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and relevant anti-money laundering statutes, not only conducted business with ASD and the RICO Defendants, but it also substantially assisted the expansion of the ASD scheme.â€
This had to be expected, if the lawyers who filed the complaint don’t have a response already crafted they are fools. I don’t know if BOA is in any way culpable but it’s a fascinating argument, worthy of it’s own day in court. But more to the point if BOA is dismissed as a defendant the suit dies there. They are the only named defendant with money to pay a judgment.
With the quality of legal representation that the BoA will doubtless have, it is impossible to know what the outcome will be.
It is the opinion of many, however, that the BoA was, at best, guilty of gross negligence and, at worst, complete complicity with the actions of ASD.
We must remember that the principal office dealing with the ASD monies was only a small branch of the organization. However the name BoA was a very big asset in promoting credibility for ASD. Given the enormous number of payments made, nationwide, to this small branch, particularly in certain areas in Iowa and Texas, one would have expected large alarm bells to have rung within the BoA system and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it appears that they did not.
Why should ASD members get priority over all those scammed by European crime syndicates that have stolen credit card information and has been going on since at least 2003?
No one is doing a damn thing to the banks in reference to that and the FTC more than knows about it.
Actually Bank of America could have been co-operating with the Treasury Department long before the raid. The Bank Secrecy Act (1970) specifically precludes banks from disclosing to the effected customer they have reported suspicious activities.
So while they are required by law to report suspicious transactions, but cannot do anything to alert the account holder they have done so, they must wait out whatever period the investigation takes. This puts the bank between a rock and a hard place, while in the public eye it appears they have not done anything to stop suspected illegal activities.
So I won’t be surprised to see Bank of America’s request to be removed from this suit granted.
Lynn, you make a good point, but if that is true wouldn’t BoA say that in it’s motion. “We knew this was illegal on such and such date and contracted the feds on this date. I did not read the motion but I assuming that Patrick has and we would have put that in his article.
BOA was not named a RICO defendant in the lawsuit, but accused of aiding and abetting Bowdoin, Busby and Garner in an organized effort to defraud. BofA said: “Banks are not guarantors of their customers’ conduct,†which is true in their request to be dismissed.
The “Red Flags” alleged by the Plaintiffs while on the surface seem valid, it is not known how long BofA had been reporting their suspicions to the regulators. The fact that BofA was not named in the RICO action, I think, hurt their case against BofA. There was a reason why BofA was not named in the RICO suit. The plaintiffs were hoping the information they needed to do so would be provided in the case against BofA, then amend their filing to include them. This is just my opinion as to why BofA was not named in the RICO part of the lawsuit.
I disagree Lynn. My own thought is the lawyer involved may have had serious fear of being sanctioned for accusing BofA of RICO conduct. It’s a frivilous suit from start to finish, as the plaintiffs were possibly breaking the law to begin with, it will never see a courtroom and I have always thought the only goal was for BofA to do a cost benefit analysis and pay them X thousand dollars to go away, X being a bit less than what they would pay to defend it. Including them in the RICO spec would make that a much more complicated matter for any settlement and just might make them mad enough to countersue not only the plaintiffs, but possibly the plaintiffs counsel (which is legal but very rare in federal courts)
It’s greenmail and it may even work. If they decide it may cost them $100,000 in legal fees, they’ll make motions for summary judgement (a good bet, but not a sure shot) and if that fails, the may offer someone a payday to get out. My advice to the scumbags who filed this case, TAKE ANYTHING THEY OFFER. And if I hear that that has happened, I’ll write something that will assist the downlines of the plaintiffs in suing them to get THEIR money back, which is only fair, afterall.
Gregg:
Excellent points, and I agree. Sometimes I get caught up in the details and don’t see the forest for the trees.
I just realized that I have the perfect response to this lawsuit by Bank of America. All they have to do in their defense is claim that only Andy Bowdoin knew how ASD worked, and therefore they could not be held accountable.
That was what the faithful told us wasn’t it?