EDITORIAL: Our Best Wishes To ‘Gomer Pyle,’ AUSA
William R. Cowden is the man some supporters of AdSurfDaily Inc. love to hate.
Cowden’s middle name is “Rakestraw.” Such a name posed an altogether too enticing opportunity for one ASD apologist. The apologist opined that Cowden, a federal prosecutor acting on behalf of victims of an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme, should be placed in a medieval torture “rack” and that ASD members should draw “straws” to determine who got the honor of turning the screw.
It was only a hint of the deeply troubling excess that would follow.
After an evidentiary hearing last fall requested by ASD to to explain its business model and to ask for emergency release of funds seized by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008, Cowden was derided by ASD’s apologists as a hapless, clueless “Gomer Pyle.”
It didn’t matter that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had entered guilty pleas to felony charges of securities fraud in Alabama a decade previously, the apologists explained. Nor did it matter that Bowdoin’s business partner had been implicated in a securities scheme of his very own in the 1990s.
What mattered, the apologists explained, was that Bowdoin was a fine “Christian” man who’d invented a miraculous business system for people of faith.
Cowden, they insisted, didn’t understand technology or the business model. When Andy Bowdoin took the 5th Amendment at the evidentiary hearing, one of his apologists explained that he was “too honest” to testify.
Another Christian apologist — in a hail of fire and brimstone — called for God to strike the prosecutors dead. Yet another described Cowden as a “Nazi.”
During the time ASD’s apologists were deriding Cowden as “Gomer Pyle,” they described Bowdoin’s attorneys as the “Perry Mason” team.
Perry had reduced Gomer’s case to rubble, the apologists claimed. For good measure, one of them later added that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer would have to be “brain dead†or “taking a payoff†if she ruled against ASD.
Earlier, Collyer had been made the subject of a prayer chain that admonished God to intervene so she would do the right thing — namely, rule in ASD’s favor.
Here is how a Mod who related one-sided reports to members of the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum assessed the performance of ASD’s witnesses and attorneys from both sides at the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing:
[ASD] Witnesses:
Bob Grayson – Excellent
Gerald Nehra – Excellent
Chuck Osmin -Excellent
ASD Legal Team – Excellent
US Attorney – Cowden – Not so much.
Witnesses for the Prosecution: … … … Zero –
Victims prior to 8/01/08:… … … Zero
Collyer ruled Nov. 19 that ASD had not demonstrated at the hearing that it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme. She chastised ASD’s expert witness — an MLM attorney who had been paid a retainer of $24,000 and opined that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme — for relying on one-sided information from ASD and not performing a thorough analysis of ASD’s business operations before arriving at his opinion.
ASD did not produce an audited balance sheet at the hearing, thus failing to dent the prosecution’s claim the company was insolvent and using money from new members to pay old ones in a shell game.
No release of funds would be forthcoming, Collyer said. Her ruling can be summarized in two words:
Gomer won.
After ASD suffered the stinging blow, Bowdoin apologists who once gleefully described his attorneys as the “Perry Mason” team and their performance as “Excellent” apparently decided they’d been too generous in their praise.
The apologists ignored the fact that Andy Bowdoin had more than two months to produce an audited balance sheet and failed to do so. They also ignored the fact that Bowdoin had failed to provide documentation to his own lawyers when requested to do so and that testimony at the hearing was contradicted by information on ASD’s own website.
Under a theory that emerged later, both Bowdoin’s attorneys and the prosecution were worthy of condemnation. The only people who could be trusted were among a “group” of ASD members with whom Bowdoin consulted in private. Members of the “group” advised Bowdoin to become his own lawyer.
“The group said that my attorneys had taken the wrong approach,” Bowdoin said. “The group was very confident that they could help because the government had broken so many laws and had violated our rights as citizens of the United States.”
This year and last, dozens of advocates for ASD wrote letters to the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice to have Cowden and his then-boss — former U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor — investigated and perhaps even fired. One Bowdoin apologist said Cowden would be lucky to find work in a fast-food restaurant after ASD members were done destroying his legal career.
Some ASD apologists also wrote letters to Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Thirteen U.S. banks failed during the period in which ASD’s apologists were composing those letters and Leahy’s staff was fielding them in the opening days of the year. That number now has increased to 98, with weeks remaining in 2009. There were three bank failures in all of 2007.
The ASD case, of course, is about keeping banks clean and safe from those who would pollute them with dirty money gathered in domestic and international fraud schemes.
To describe the smear campaign by some ASD members against Cowden as unjustified does not do it justice. It was insidious, plain and simple. Later, Cowden was attacked by Curtis Richmond , a man hailed a “hero” on the Surf’s Up forum, the site from which the torture rack was proposed.
Richmond, who once declared that he was immune from U.S. law because he was a “sovereign” being, accused Cowden, Taylor and Collyer of a money grab.
“The U.S. Atty. and/or U.S. Judge Had No Authority or Jurisdiction to Steal Most of the $93 million of ASD Member Ownership Interest,†Richmond said, using his trademark mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. “All of the ASD Members had a Constitutional Right to Make A Contract With ASD and None of the ASD Members had a Contract With the U.S. Government.â€
Richmond, who has a contempt conviction for threatening federal judges in a separate case and holds the distinction of having been banned from the practice of law in Colorado even though he is not an attorney, advanced his theory of the ASD case:
“Since the U.S. Atty. could not present any court order giving him Authority to Seize the $40 million of Cashier Checks and deposit them in an Account Of His Choosing, he is Guilty of Misappropriation of Funds [at] a minimum and very possibly Embezzlement,†Richmond claimed.
Richmond also claimed he had “irrefutable†evidence against the prosecutors and suggested Collyer was conspiring with another federal judge and the government to deny justice to ASD members.
“This was accomplished by sending by Return Receipt with a ‘Demand For Legal Evidence Affidavit’ to William Cowden, Assist. U.S. Atty., Jeffrey Taylor, U.S. Atty., and Roy Dotson, Special Agent, U.S. Secret Service[,] giving them 7 Days to present Legal Evidence that the Statements Made in the Demand For Legal Evidence[,] including the Listed Constitutional Rights, WERE FALSE,†Richmond claimed.
“The Demand for Legal Evidence [was] part of Notarized Affidavits and clearly stated “Your Silence will be an Admission that you do not have the Legal Evidence,†he said.
Cowden, Taylor and Dotson knowingly and willingly defaulted on his demands “because they had no Legal Evidence or believed they were above the law,†Richmond said. “Attorneys & Judges Are Not Above The Law. A Lawful Default Is a Lawful Default.â€
In short, Richmond’s theory of the ASD case is that you can demand a litigation result from federal judges and federal prosecutors by stating what you’d like to see occur, putting a letter containing the demand in the mail, giving the recipients a few days to submit to the demand — and then claim they’ve broken the law by not playing the game you brought to their doors.
It was not the first time he had played the game. Richmond was among a group of litigants from a sham Utah “Indian” tribe sued for racketeering and ordered last year to pay damages for their conduct, which targeted judges, prosecutors, police officers — and even a family-services worker — in a scheme to place enormous financial judgments against them.
Acting as an “arbitrator” for a sham company, Richmond signed a fraudulent award against the family-services worker for more than $300,000. The “tribe” placed a sham judgment for $250 million against a county prosecutor. Richmond claimed the federal judge hearing the case owed him $30 million, and the tribe drew up fraudulent arrest warrants against two other judges and Richmond’s litigation opponents in a banking case.
The tribe fabricated a “Supreme Court,” which used the address of a Utah doughnut shop, and tried unsuccessfully to force the U.S. Marshals Service to serve fraudulent court documents that called for the imprisonment of judges and Richmond’s opponents.
After Richmond began to file pro se pleadings in the ASD case in February, others followed, including ASD President Andy Bowdoin, who had fired his attorneys after consulting with the “group” of members. Bowdoin’s pro se pleadings were not as far out as Richmond’s, which is not to say they were grounded on terra firma.
Bowdoin rewrote the facts of a civil case against money and property seized from him, declaring himself a “defendant” in a quasi-criminal case and saying his paid attorneys had been incompetent. Bowdoin later publicly smeared one of his attorneys.
Prosecutors now say Bowdoin, who apparently forgot he’d told the Secret Service that ASD had $1 million in a bank on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua before later claiming ASD needed emergency funds to operate, is “delusional.”
Bowdoin, a defendant in a separate racketeering lawsuit to which he never has responded, claims a former Miss America is one of the inspirations behind his renewed litigation efforts against the government. He’d press on, he said, because Miss America didn’t give up after being denied the title in four previous bids to earn the crown.
She finally won in her fifth attempt, Bowdoin explained to ASD members.
He also explained that he was trying to get the government to return money the Secret Service seized from members, even though he always has maintained in court filings that the seized money belonged to him.
By August, dozens of pro se litigants who sought to paint the prosecution as an unwanted Orwellian Big Brother had joined in the fray. An ASD upline shared a litigation template in which names were swapped in and out. Filers claimed they had been victimized by the government, not ASD.
Cowden’s name was misspelled as “Crowden” in each of the fill-in-the-blank claims that began to flood the courthouse in August. They were still coming in last week, despite the fact Collyer already had denied the argument contained in the litigation template.
With a new administration now in power in Washington, new U.S. Attorneys are being appointed and some assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSAs) are leaving government service.
There are reports today that William Cowden, AUSA, has left the Justice Department to join the private sector. We wish him the best in his pursuits — and propose a special honor for his exceptional service to the victims of AdSurfDaily.
We were unable to determine immediately if “Gomer Pyle” had a middle name on either The Andy Griffith Show or a spinoff, Gomer Pyle, USMC.
Regardless, it would be nice — if only for today — if the thousands of ASD victims Cowden so capably represented would honor his government service by ascribing the middle initial “R” to the name of the character played by Jim Nabors.
“Gomer Rakestraw Pyle” has a nice ring to it. “Gomer R. Pyle.”
No one should be confused: Adding Rakestraw to the noble name of Gomer Pyle is a gesture of high esteem for William Cowden, who has been vilified, ridiculed and scorned by people who said nothing when it was suggested that he be placed in a rack, that straws be drawn and that a winner be declared to carry out the medieval torture.
Delusional does not begin to describe this behavior. Some of the apologists appear to be constitutionally incapable of accepting the premise that Andy Bowdoin involved them in a criminal enterprise. At the same time, they have displayed the ceaseless constitutional capability of conflating one reality after another to provide cover for a fraudster and to smear one of the career prosecutors trying to bring him to justice.
In the end, Bowdoin’s apologists could not even get their insults to make sense. Gomer Pyle, USMC, indeed, was a very good man — one held in the highest esteem.
To the ASD critics of William Cowden, AUSA, we say, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
And to William Cowden we ascribe the highest titular honor — “Gomer Pyle, AUSA” — and pay our highest regard:Â Shazam!
May there be many more Gomer Pyles at the Department of Justice in the years ahead.
You see, “Gomer Pyle, USMC” went off the air as a prime-time TV show in 1969. But the character of Gomer Pyle went on to become synonymous with virtue, a trait sorely lacking among Andy Bowdoin’s apologists.
In 2001, 32 years after the fictional Private First Class Gomer Pyle left prime time, the real U.S. Marine Corps promoted him to lance corporal. In 2007, Gen. John F. Goodman, commander of the real U.S. Marine Corps Forces in the Pacific, promoted the fictional Gomer Pyle to full corporal.
Real Marines stood at attention during the ceremony. Gomer Pyle was lauded for honesty, loyalty and devotion to duty.
You have done well and were in good company, Mr. Cowden.
I wonder how long it will take for a ponzi supporter to claim that Mr Cowden is “running away” from the ASD case “because he knows that ASD is not a ponzi”?
Hi Tony,
The claim already has been made on Surf’s Up.
Patrick
A highly emotive farewell from you, Patrick! Who knows why Bill Cowden is leaving, but it is neither unusual nor a surprise. What is clear is that it will have absolutely nothing to do with the progress of the ASD prosecution!
Irrespective of anyone’s views on civil forfeiture laws and government conduct, Bill Cowden has certainly followed the law in both spirit and letter in the ASD prosecution and has used it for its original purpose – to stop people using the system for criminal financial gain, with its consequent destabalizing effects on all involved. He kept nearly 100$ million dollars from disappearing out of the US and into Bowdoins and other winners pockets. A job well done.
LOL, so many of those comments came from my all time favorite , Mark Simmons.
After reading this article I went over to Surfs Up to see what they assuredly would be saying, and of course they were. Unbelievable the followers that remain. One particular poster refered to Mr. Cowden as Mr. Cowdung. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but that poster was my direct upline person in ASD. I had not heard from him in many months, as he became aware that telling me of Andy’s virtues was falling on deaf ears and a hardened heart.
Don is also taking alot of flack over there from the troops.
Thanks Patrick for your writings. I look forward to getting my daily news from you.
I spoke with Mr. Cowden. He assured me to hang in there and he was really nice to me.
So anyone else think that a deal has been struck already? I find it odd he would leave in the middle of a case.
I think you will find that the AGs office run more than one case at a time and it would be impossible to leave with all of the loose ends tied up on all the cases. Although the ASD prosecution result is very important to all of us who are interested in the ramifacations for the autosurf world, it is probably not the most important case he has been working as far as the big picture is concerned. I guess if he finished up every case, he would never be able to leave!
Patrick,
Great trip down memory lane! Again, we (i.e. sane people) ask the Surf’s Up wackos: Why in the world did Andy Bowdoin fire Perry Mason, saying they had failed to represent him and that he could do better on his own?
Didn’t you note in a fairly recent column that the DOJ was adding new counsel to their team? If so, this could explain it.
But to put that in perspective……I could easily see him knowing he was going to leave….most people do. I mean, he had to make the decision right? He could have just not started any more cases and just tied up all his loose ends before leaving. Happens all the time. And I would think it would be a more prominent thing that ‘professionals’ would do. I know I have done it at businesses that I had worked then left. And I was just a blue collar worker.
You do not suppose that he has left the DOJ because he heard that Robert Lee Guenther was coming to Washington on the 19th do you?
My understanding is that AG’s are and always have been political appointees so I was rather shocked at the knee jerk reaction to the Bush firings, regardless of past protocol. AG’s serve at the president’s pleasure.
I have no insight into why Cowden is leaving. The Obama administration may have decided they wanted someone else or Cowden may have decided the offer he received, if any, was too good to pass up.
Washington will survive and the prosecution will proceed. I wish Cowden good luck in his new endeavor.
The first year of a new Presidential administration always leads to turnover in various offices of the U.S. Attorney, perhaps especially when the political party of the White House changes. It’s no cinch that the transition will be completed in a year, either.
Democrat Barack Obama became President Jan. 20. Jeffrey Taylor, the US Attorney in DC for 2.5 years under Republican George W. Bush, resigned in May. He was replaced on an acting basis by his No. 2, Channing Phillips, who first served under U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder when Holder was the U.S. Attorney for DC during the Clinton administration.
Phillips, though, may not get the D.C. job on a permanent basis. It’s Obama’s call, and there are reports that Phillips’ name was not on a list of three names submitted to Obama as candidates for a permanent replacement for Taylor.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in DC is unlike any other U.S. Attorney’s office in any city. Federal prosecutors in DC also act as local prosecutors because DC is not a state consisting of counties. Federal prosecutors in DC, for example, appear at DUI hearings. They also handle all the federal matters — and there is no short supply of federal matters in DC, in part because the district is a magnet for heavy-duty criminals and crackpots.
The DC office is the largest office of U.S. Attorney in the country. There are about 350 assistant U.S. Attorneys in the D.C. office.
William Cowden, formerly head of the Asset Forfeiture Unit in DC, began to sign his briefs “Senior Trial Attorney” in April. The D.C. office is in a state of transition because of the change at the White House and because no permanent replacement for Taylor has been named.
The new — which is to say temporary — management chart of the DC office is a work-in-progress. Some of the people are wearing two hats, including Phillips, an Acting U.S. Attorney who also is serving as his own first assistant.
Here is the chart as of Oct. 14, 2009:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/dc/About_Us/PDF/OrgChart6109.pdf
Here was the chart as it appeared in August 2007:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/dc/About_Us/PDF/OrgChart082307.pdf
It’s not unusual for prosecutors to leave and/or switch jobs during a change in administrations. Regardless, there is a ready supply of replacements in DC.
Patrick
Snailspace, thanks, I’ve been called a lot worse over there.. LOL
He was an Interim Appointee to begin with, and I guess his time ran out. I bet Bob Guenther is saying he forced Mr. Cowden into leaving just before Bob’s trip to DC on the 19th. After all, bob has told him often how much more Bob knows than Cowden. Cowden probably left a week or so ago, I’m guessing the governments case is such it will try itself. That’s if it goes to trial, which many of us doubt.
Jack, that;s it, exactly.. Fear of Bob… not…
I wonder if it has escaped the Surf’s Up crowd that Deborah Connor is the Head of the Asset Forfieture Department which is part of the Criminal Division of the DoJ, and that Bill Cowden was part of the Criminal Division of the DoJ, in spite of the fact that the intial proceedings were for a civil forfeiture.
Patricks explanation is 99% accurate and as I have said all along, Cowden’s inability to adjudicate this case in an expediant manner combined with a change of administration equals leave or be replaced..
We had been told about a month ago, without offical notice, that Cowden was gone and his replacement had been assigned to the case, you will see his filings with the court as co-counsel..
I wrote a somewhat scathing email to Cowden several weeks ago, one that Patrick commented on. Unlike the ASD lovers, my beef with the DOJ regarding the prosecution of ASD/Bowdoin and Busby goes much deeper and a totally different direction. Those discussions will be aired out in DC next week in a confidential manner..
Nothing is going to happen with ANY of the money until Judge Collyer rules. Case in point…The Panda money has been ruled an asset of the Government and is being held by the DOJ. Claims against the Panda funds ARE NOT being processed because of the intermingling of funds with ASD. That would be hard to explain regarding the uncashed cashiers checks and bank accounts that were turned over to the DOJ willingly by Busby, since Panda never launched and thus cannot be a PONZI..
But, it has been discovered that a great deal of the Panda investment came from ASD “Winners”, and if the Feds ever get around to it, a minimum threshold will be established,and they will go after the winners fund over that amount..
By the time the DOJ adjudicates this case, and the appeals are exhausted, UNLESS criminal charges are filed, the winners will have long since spent, hidden or transferred offshore the winnings… Like it or not, thats the way it is.
Cowden and the DOJ bungled this deal from the get go.. And if you think Cowden left on his own, you probably think Andy is a good guy and ASD will live another day..
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Congratulations Patrick on getting something 99% right. Bob Guenther has spoken.
But it still could be/is/was fraud.
Which cannot be negated by returning any or all monies.
It’s going to happen anyway. Either “voluntarily” or by court ordered disgorgement.
All this “ponzi/not ponzi” debate was rendered completely irrelevant by the DoJ allegations of “wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit both”
Quick note:
It is a FACT that the August forfeiture case was nearly litigated to conclusion in January, with Andy’s submission “with prejudice” to the forfeiture.
It is a FACT that William Cowden, working with AUSA Barry Wiegand, filed the paperwork in the December 2008 forfeiture complaint. The paperwork in the December case was filed BEFORE Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture in the August case. He had known since at least August that his family members were at risk of prosecution.
It is a FACT that one of the first things Bowdoin did after the August seizure was arrange for ASD members who did not know all the facts of the case to submit testimonials.
It is a FACT that lots of people who submitted testimonials did not know about the FACTS that ASD money from Bank of America accounts was used to:
* Open a new account at a different bank and deposit into that account more than $177,000 that prosecutors believe were proceeds of a criminal wire-fraud and money-laundering scheme.
* Pay off the Harris mortgage of more than $157,000 via WIRE from the new account.
* Purchase automobiles registered in the names of Hays Amos and George and Judy Harris, and a new Lincoln for Andy Bowdoin and Edna Faye Bowdoin.
* Purchase a Cabana boat, jet skis and assorted marine equipment.
It is a FACT that within weeks of the Las Vegas rally on May 31, 2008, that ASD money was used to make approximately $240,000 in personal purchases by the Bowdoin/Harris family and people close to Bowdoin
Lots of people submitted testimonials without knowing these facts.
It is a FACT that Bowdoin talked about Judy and George Harris at the Miami rally, discussing a plan to enter into South American banking and identifying George Harris as head of ASD’s real-estate division.
Prosecutors say that George Harris opened the second bank account with the assistance of his mother, Edna Faye Bowdoin. He later used the TELEPHONE to instruct the bank to WIRE proceeds from the newly opened account to pay off the mortgage on the home he shared with his wife, Judy Harris.
How many people who submitted testimonials knew that the head of ASD’s real-estate division was using ASD money to pay off the Judy Harris mortgage by WIRE?
Andy didn’t tell them. Andy solicited testimonials and letters of protest against the government during an ongoing criminal investigation that ultimately led to the filing of the December forfeiture complaint, which identified Edna Faye Bowdoin and George and Judy Harris, among others, as beneficiaries of ASD’s illegal conduct.
It is a FACT that no claimants surfaced in the December case. Claimants could have included Hays Amos, Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises, George Harris, Judy Harris, Edna Faye Bowdoin and Andy Bowdoin himself, considering the property was seized from them.
It is a FACT that Andy Bowdoin did not tell members he was advertising a failed, dissolved business in his own advertising rotator to qualify for rebates. The implication could not be more clear: Bowdoin knew that ANY URL in the ASD rotator — including URLs for failed, dissolved businesses and URLs that celebrated the family pet — could qualify for rebates.
Sort of takes the luster off his claim that ASD was an “advertising” business not a securities business. A URL that resolved to a blank page could have earned rebates in ASD.
Think there might be any reasons Andy took the 5th at the evidentiary hearing?
Think he’d take the 5th again if subpoenaed in the December case? It’s filed under a separate case number.
It is a FACT that Barry Wiegand now has entered a notice of appearance in the August case and is well-acquainted with the issues, considering he is a prosecutor of record in the December case. His name has been on the docket since December.
Patrick
A few trivial bits about this and the US Attorney for the District of Columbia….
United States Attornies do serve at the Pleasure of the President, but the level Mr. Cowden was at, while techinically a political appointee, was not a position that traditionally changes with a new administration, he was a career civil servant and though he may have chosen not to work for hte new team, I doubt he was under any pressure to leave.
And for a time now, the DC US Attorney’s office has a seperate division that handles cases that in the 50 States would be in State Court, as opposed to Federal District Court. This is not over reaching, it is possible that a ‘regular’ AUSA might prosecute a misdemenor, and also possible one of these municipal prosecutors might work a “regular” Federal Prosecution, but there is a distinct line of specialty in the different parts of the office.
A Presidentially Appointed United States Attorney is an administrator of the President’s Policy, and while he makes a lof of decisions on what cases get persued, it is out of the ordinary for one to actually litigate a case in person.
The Government is under NO LEGAL OBLIGATION to return one dime to anyone. If they do try, and my bet is you can kiss off all of the money, it will be YEARS, First Judge Collyer ahs to rule in the Governments favor, then there is appeals, and you can bet book Andy will draw this out forever. Then, if the Feds appoint a Trustee, it will take YEARS for them to run through this deal..
Just take a look at how long they have screwed around with a relatively simple forfeiture, CEP..
http://www.wfperkinsforcep.com/
Err, there is a very simple reason for that.
That’s how long it takes.
It has nothing to do with Mr Cowden, bureaucratic inefficiency or what “coulda, shoulda, woulda”
But has EVERYTHING to do with the constitutional rights of the defendant/s, court scheduling and audit and evidence gathering requirements.
Observers who predicted this saga could or would take up to 5 years to resolve weren’t gifted with some sort of extra sensory perception, merely a well developed sense of pragmatic “whatISness” and a basic understanding of history.
“Bowdoin” is not Madoff, who confessed then pleaded guilty on being charged. And, you can rest assured it will take more than a “few years” to resolve any question of “refunds” in that case as well, DESPITE the guilty plea.
As has been said before, this ain’t television where a crime can be committed and solved and the perpetrator sentenced in 40 minutes plus ad breaks.
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