BREAKING NEWS: Bowdoin’s Attorney Files Motion To Permit New Attorney To Appear In DC Federal Court

UPDATED 7:51 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) An attorney for AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin has filed a motion to permit another attorney to appear in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the venue of the civil-forfeiture complaint against ASD’s assets.

The attorney was identified as Michael R.N. McDonnell of Naples, Fla.

Murray’s motion was dated Oct. 1. An accompanying affidavit from McDonnell was dated Sept. 30. Ironically the dates on the documents coincided with the one-year anniversary of the dates upon which an evidentiary hearing was conducted at ASD’s request last year.

Why the documents dated Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 of this year appeared on the docket only today was not immediately clear.

On Nov. 19, 2008, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled that ASD had not demonstrated at the hearing that it was a lawful business and not a Ponzi scheme.

Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture on advice of counsel in January 2009, and then emerged as a pro se litigant in February, saying he’d changed his mind and wanted to rescind his decision to forfeit tens of millions of dollars.

In July, Collyer ordered Murray, who had become Bowdoin’s paid counsel, to follow-up on motions filed in May. Collyer initially gave the Bowdoin side until Aug. 7 to file arguments. She extended the deadline until Aug. 28 — and then again until Sept. 14 — after Murray advised her Bowdoin was negotiating with prosecutors.

Bowdoin met the Sept. 14 filing deadline on the last possible day. On Sept. 15, he filed a corrected affidavit. His initial affidavit appeared to have lines and an entire paragraph missing.

The Sept 15 filing had 23 paragraphs, as opposed to the previous day’s 22. The Sept. 14 filing jumped from paragraph 3 to 5, skipping paragraph 4. Meanwhile, it also had two paragraph 16s, one apparently complete and one apparently incomplete.

In a brief filed Sept. 14 by Murray, there was a reference to Bowdoin having found the fees accepted by defense counsel Steven Dobson “astonishing.” The reference cited was paragraph 17 from Bowdoin’s affidavit, but the word “astonishing” did not appear in paragraph 17 — or elsewhere in the document.

Bowdoin’s Sept 15 corrected affidavit also did not include the word “astonishing” — in paragraph 17 or elsewhere.

On Sept. 28, the U.S. Secret Service filed a transcription of a recording Bowdoin had made earlier in September. The recording was posted online.

In a Sept. 28 filing that accompanied the Secret Service transcript of the recording, prosecutors said Bowdoin was “delusional.”

Prosecutors argued that Bowdoin had told Collyer one story and members another to explain events, calling the recording evidence that “this con man cannot manage to keep his stories straight.”

“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.”

On Sept. 25, prosecutors said Bowdoin was trying to lie his way back into the case and that Murray was engaging in “fantasy.”

Prosecutors’ Sept. 25 filing was blistering, and included a veiled reference to the AdViewGlobal autosurf.

“[I]t 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,” prosecutors said Sept. 25. “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.”

Murray, prosecutors asserted, had filed motions at odds with Bowdoin’s claims.

“Mr. Murray’s apparent suggestion that Bowdoin made a mistake because he was ‘hoodwinked’ by his prior defense counsel is belied by Bowdoin’s own affidavits,” prosecutors said.

Bowdoin agreed in January to submit to the forfeiture. In February, he began to file pro se motions in a bid to rescind his decision to forfeit tens of millions of dollars seized by the Secret Service in August 2008.

In March, on the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum, Bowdoin explained in a letter to members that he had made the shift from paid attorneys to acting as his own attorney after consulting with a “group” of ASD members.

“We will be filing papers in the next couple of weeks that should really get their attention,” Bowdoin said, chiding prosecutors in the letter.

Murray, who became Bowdoin’s attorney after Bowdoin had filed several pro se motions, contends Bowdoin received poor advice from Dobson, a paid attorney previously employed by Bowdoin.

Prosecutors disagreed.

“Mr. Murray’s new accusations are, in any event, utterly inconsistent with Bowdoin’s own affidavit testimony,” prosecutors said.

“Mr. Murray’s manufactured effort to fault Bowdoin’s prior counsel for Bowdoin’s decision to cooperate and his revised decision to profess ‘my belief in my innocence’ is laughable,” prosecutors said. “Bowdoin knew he should expect no leniency unless he stopped pretending that he honestly earned the millions of dollars that the government recovered from his bank accounts in 2008.”

In April, prosecutors said Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the case and acknowledged ASD was operating illegally.

Murray, however, says Bowdoin believes he is innocent.

Read Murray’s motion.

Read Bowdoin’s Sept. 14 affidavit.

Read Bowdoin’s Sept. 15 affidavit.

Read the motion from Murray that accompanied Bowdoin’s Sept. 14 affidavit.

Read an Oct. 8 motion by Murray in response to prosecutors’ Sept. 28 motion.