Government Makes Veiled Reference To AdViewGlobal In Court Filing, Potentially Signaling Deeper Trouble For Bowdoin — And New Trouble For Promoters, Shills, Unnamed Attorneys And Advisers
UPDATED 2:25 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) In June, private attorneys representing three AdSurfDaily members who accused Andy Bowdoin of racketeering became the authors of the first public court filing that referenced the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf.
Some defenders of the surf dismissed the reference as meaningless.
Today, however, federal prosecutors made a veiled reference to AVG in dramatic court filings in a civil-forfeiture case against Bowdoin. The import of the reference cannot be denied; it clearly was aimed at AVG promoters and people who have been providing cover for Bowdoin, including promoters, shills and attorneys whose names have not surfaced in the case.
Here, in its entirety, is the reference: (Italics added.)
“Maybe Bowdoin mistakenly thought that he could con the government into believing that he was just a harmless, foolish old man. Ironically, after telling thousands of investors that he intended to build the world’s preeminent advertising company for them, in order to make them 100,000 millionaires, Bowdoin tries to con this Court, telling it that because he’s 74 and has a heart condition, any incarceration amounts to a death sentence. See Document #132 ¶8. Was he lying then, or now?
“Or, it may be the case that Bowdoin never intended to plead guilty when he agreed to debrief, and was just buying time while searching for a different exit strategy that failed to materialize. Maybe Bowdoin thought that before the government brought its charges he (like some of his family members) could move to another country and profit from a knock-off autosurf program that Bowdoin funded and helped to start.
“Or, maybe other attorneys Bowdoin employed, or ASD’s other promoters convinced Bowdoin that if he paid some of the fraud proceeds the government had missed to them (the money laundering as Mr. Murray reports), they could help to circle the wagons or otherwise do a better job than Akerman Senterfitt did when it tried to prove that free advertising was a true profitable sale and not a poorly disguised, and unsustainable, investment opportunity.
“But what is clear from Bowdoin, himself, is that neither the government, nor Bowdoin’s experienced criminal defense counsel, ever told Bowdoin that it was reasonable for a defendant convicted of operating a $100 million wire fraud scheme to expect probation.â€
See related story from today.
See June 30 story and comments about the RICO attorneys’ reference to AdViewGlobal.
Patrick Writes:
“But what is clear from Bowdoin, himself, is that neither the government, nor Bowdoin’s experienced criminal defense counsel, ever told Bowdoin that it was reasonable for a defendant convicted of operating a $100 million wire fraud scheme to expect probation”
Yes, a potential reduced jail sentence does not equate to probation.
Glad to see this is all finally coming together :)
Please please please Correction!!! come and let me tell you how you were wrong and we were all right!
Getting good now! @@
Someone needs to tell Andy that “probation” is not guaranteed. It’s like “rebates”, only the first ones in get the best deals.
Now that’s funny!!!! Figured I might as well use exclamation points like the Surf’s Up crowd does. I think it adds meaning and legality to the post if you do. Right?
Patrick,
At last — some new and exciting anti-Andy reading, from you and the DOJ. Both articles are brilliant; thanks for keeping up with this on the road. I assume you have Maddy the wonderdog with you, right?
I have a question I hope someone can answer. I just read Mike Mason’s blog, which has a transcript of Andy’s recorded message, and Andy seems to be saying a jury will give them their money back. There are posts on the Surf’s Up forum that also mention a jury trial in the future – one delusional nut talked about going to DC for the trial, to show support for Andy and ASD. What jury trial? Judge Collyer isn’t going to allow Andy to rescind his forfeiture with prejudice, but he seems to be writing as if it’s a done deal. He permanently forfeited the funds to the Government in January and is keeping the government from repaying his victims with these hopeless legal filings. But he wants people to believe that a jury will give “them” the money back?
He can get a jury trial in his criminal case, but that won’t result in any money being released. Is there any way that a jury trial could take place for the forfeiture case?
If an Andy ever had a hope of a reduced sentence that has now been squashed. Andy has just proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he is nowhere near the visionary that he wanted everyone to believe he was and to make matters even worse for him is that the Government is well aware that he fronted the money as well as being the head of AVGA. That little tidbit by Cowden in his latest filing may just be the straw that broke the camels back and the Judge may just put Andy in jail.
I have to agree with Jack. The government let things play out over the past 9 months and Andy and his lawyers argued the government’s case for them. Now Andy wants a mulligan since his civil forfeiture wouldn’t absolve the potential criminal charges. The gov is just playing Andy’s words back to him in the present filing.
I can’t see the recording hurting him much as the die was cast when Andy changed his mind about the forfeiture and started a new scam while in negotiations. Now he’s refusing everything and prattling on about his innocence which won’t change anything. He’s still liable for all the felonies he committed.
I don’t know if in rem property can demand a jury trial. The corporation certainly could since it is an “artificial” person by law.
In this case, I see Judge Collyer denying Bowdoin’s motion for rescission of his proffer and appeals, but those would be heard by judges and not juries. I could be wrong but I don’t see any jury trial except for on the criminal side. Perhaps Gregg or Patrick or someone else knows more.
It’s a “CIVIL” case,
the same sort of civil action available to every citizen.
In this case, it’s more expedient for the government to act as representative of the large number of victims involved, rather than “100,000+” victims instituting civil action on their own behalf. Anyone who is complaining about Government interference should think carefully about the consequences of all 100,000 members having to sue for compensation/damages/refunds on their own behalf.
Civil proceedings are the primary forum for the wronged individual/s in most Western countries.
Just as any citizen is at liberty to attempt a remedy by initiating a civil case against a person or trader, the government can (and will) act on behalf of large groups of individual.
No one, for example, would expect a jury trail if your local dry cleaner damaged your clothes and refused to replace them or pay compensation.
The customer would be required to institute a “civil action” in a civil court and allow the court to adjudicate.
If law enforcement agents/ies then decided criminal activity/ies had taken place, they could then institute CRIMINAL charges.
A driver(or his or her insurance company) involved in an accident resulting in injury and/or damages takes CIVIL action against the person/s he claims is responsible.
Any resulting police charges are separate from the CIVIL action for recovery of damages.
Just MORE spin, designed to appeal to those not familiar with civil forfeiture laws and how they’ve worked since they were introduced in the USA following the US President’s Commission on Organized Crime in 1986, NOT by the Patriot Act, which merely strengthened and broadened ALREADY EXISTING legislation.
Just think,
if the prosecutors had gone straight to criminal charges, Bowdoin and co would still have the money, and, NO compensatory refunds for the victims.
The money would have been forfeited to the government and the victims would have to organize their own legal action for any recovery.
“Maybe Bowdoin thought that before the government brought its charges he (like some of his family members) could move to another country …” – Admin
Isn’t Bowdoin a flight-risk to another country, like Uruguay?
Hi Martin,
This line, I believe, was written by Department of Justice Senior Trial Attorney William Cowden.
The mere fact so much money was offshore and potentially hidden in accounts of any number of insiders/partners who also had offshore accounts, I believe, makes the risk of flight high.
There is a good chance the prosecution acted to minimize the risk, perhaps by moving the State Department to seal the borders and gather passports, but the risk of flight in general still is high.
This is a sticky wicket for Bowdoin and others. The others don’t know precisely what Bowdoin has told prosecutors and what investigators have learned independently, and Bowdoin doesn’t know precisely what kind of leverage the prosecutors have on others and what they might have said.
Patrick
Very true, Patrick.
Is it possible that Juan Fernandez, Robert Garner, Don Peterson, or any of the other names we have not mentioned in the past months could be dealing with prosecutors and investigators?
I believe the three names I mentioned above all would be held accountable for this whole thing as well.
And if Bowdoin goes to Uruguay I’m going Dog the Bounty hunter on his wrinkly ass and dragging him back to Cowden myself!
Even other inmates don’t like swindlers!
Stanford treated after prison fight
Bloomberg
Last Updated: 4:07 AM, September 26, 2009
Posted: 1:22 AM, September 26, 2009
R. Allen Stanford, awaiting trial on charges he swindled investors in a $7 billion scheme, was hospitalized overnight after getting into a fight with an inmate in a Texas jail, a US marshal said.
“He got into an altercation with another inmate around 10 a.m. yesterday,” Alfredo Perez, a spokesman for the Houston office of the US Marshals Service, said yesterday. “He’s being examined by medical staff and treated for his injuries,” which aren’t life-threatening, Perez said.
Stanford, who has been in custody since being indicted in June, faces 21 felony charges for allegedly paying investors “improbable if not impossible” returns by taking funds from later investors in certificates of deposit at Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd.
Kent Schaffer, Stanford’s court-appointed lawyer, didn’t return calls or e-mails seeking comment after business hours yesterday.
This gets a prize for the Wittiest Comment of the Day on Patricks article and the AG’s filing. BINGO!
[…] In effect, prosecutors argued today that Bowdoin had told Collyer one story in his recent court filings and members another to explain events. “To this Court, Bowdoin insinuates that he was misled by his former attorney before agreeing to cooperate and to release claims,” prosecutors said.  ”To the former members, however, Bowdoin proclaims that ‘after a few months’ of cooperating he became ‘unhappy with [his prior attorneys’] results and decided to stop cooperating because ‘it would not have been beneficial to everyone’ for him to “accept a plea deal[.]‘” “Remarkably, Bowdoin even suggests to those members participating in the conference call that the money taken from his bank accounts and, supposedly, never constituting an investment, belongs, not to Bowdoin, but to the membership. It is clear that this con man cannot manage to keep his stories straight. It is also clear that the allegation Bowdoin makes in this Renewed Motion, that he released his claims to the defendant property only after he was misled by [former counsel] Mr. [Stephen] Dobson, is delusional,” prosecutors said. Included in the transcript were Bowdoin’s puzzling remarks about Cheryl Prewitt, the 1980 Miss America. Read the prosecution’s supplemental brief. Read a U.S. Secret Service transcript of Bowdoin’s recorded call. Read previous story on Bowdoin’s curious reference to Cheryl Prewitt and the Miss America pageant. Read previous story about prosecution filings last week. Read story about prosecution filing that made a veiled reference to the AdViewGlobal autosurf. […]
[…] filing by Murray did not address a veiled reference prosecutors to the AdViewGlobal autosurf prosecutors made in their Sept 25 […]
Sorry for bumping such an old topic, it’s sort of impressive how little news AVG has been making of late. But I found a simple little trick that’s been amusing me today. Feed the following URL into a browser:
http://adviewglobal.com/x/o/join.php?u=&a=999&msg=
Near the end note the “a=999,” that seems correspond to an AVG member number. Change it to any number you like and hit send, that leads to a sign up page which includes the name attached to that number.
Gary Dee Talbert is #1
David Meade (9)
Larry Alford (11)
Terralynn Hoy (12)
Laura Pont (14)
Kathryn Milner (15)
Mindy Bales (19)
So many of our friends are listed. For the record it seems that numbers up to 19,104 had been assigned.
HOW MUCH FUN IS THIS LITTLE JEWEL!! Thanks, GD..
#29 we find Stan Harris, motivational speaker at the ASD convention held in Tampa, Fl. Harris is also responsible for introducing Don Petterson to ASD. Don (hired by ASD to handle compliance) announced at the convention after looking into Andy’s background he found only one blemish which was a speeding ticket.
#451 The Fava Group, LLC
#610 Chuck Barnes
#674 Juan Fernandez
Add in the amount of downline “cheerleaders” each one of the usual suspect “playas” have brought in, and, perhaps people can begin to understand exactly how it is this whole fraudulent operation operates/ed.
Bowdoin and one or two others will undoubtedly take the fall and carry the can, but, rest assured they are far from being the ONLY guilty party/ies in all this.
[…] also made a veiled reference to the AVG autosurf in a September filing. In June, RICO attorneys suing Bowdoin for racketeering made a direct […]
[…] in the ASD lawsuit referenced AVG in a court filing. By September 2009, federal prosecutors made a veiled reference to AVG in filings in the ASD […]