UPDATE: Government Has Produced At Least 2,742 Pages Of Discovery In Kenneth Wayne Leaming Case; Trial For AdSurfDaily Figure And Purported ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Scheduled To Begin Sept. 17, One Week Before ASD President Andy Bowdoin Goes On Trial
“The Government has provided over 2742 pages of discovery consisting of: liens, police reports, [Bureau of Prisons] records, pictures, surveillance photos, internet search records, audio subpoenas and over 1000 pages of documents seized.” — From March 5 court order in false-liens case involving accused AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming and former Leaming business associate David Carroll Stephenson
If the scheduling holds, accused AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming will go on trial in the Western District of Washington on Sept. 17 with his former business colleague David Carroll Stephenson, one week before ASD President Andy Bowdoin is set to go on trial in the District of Columbia in a Ponzi scheme case involving at least $110 million.
Leaming, 56, of Spanaway, Wash., is accused of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service. In addition, he is charged with being a participant with 56-year-old Stephenson, a federal inmate in a fraud case, in a scheme to file false liens against at least two federal prison officials.
At the same time, Leaming is charged with concealing two federal fugitives involved in an Arkansas-based, home-business fraud scheme involving millions of dollars, being a felon in possession of firearms and uttering a false “Bonded Promissory Note” with a purported face value of $1 million.
The docket of U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the Western District of Washington now shows a trial date of Sept. 17 for both Leaming and Stephenson.
Leaming, who has a 2005 felony conviction for piloting an aircraft without a valid pilot’s certificate, originally was scheduled to go on trial March 20. That trial date was rescheduled for April 2 after a superseding indictment was returned against Leaming after his initial arrest on a criminal complaint in November 2011 — and now has been moved to September to give Leaming and Stephenson more time to prepare, according to court filings.
Bowdoin, 77, was indicted in 2010 on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from 10 of his personal bank accounts, amid allegations that Bowdoin was presiding over an international Ponzi scheme operating over the Internet.
Both of the Arkansas fugitives allegedly found with Leaming in Washingston state also are purported “sovereign citizens.” They were identified as Timothy Shawn Donavan, 64, and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen, 67. Donavan currently is detained in Oklahoma, and Henningsen is detained in Texas, according to records.
Leaming and Stephenson both are detained near Seattle.
As was the case with the original court filings in the 2008 civil action that led to the criminal prosecution of Bowdoin, investigators have produced surveillance photos pertaining to the Leaming and Stephenson prosecutions.
Records suggest that Leaming came under surveillance in Washington state by an FBI Terrorism Task Force by at least August 2011.
In addition to the surveillance photos, the government also has produced, liens, police records, unspecified “pictures,” prison records, Internet search records, “audio subpoenas” and “over 1000 pages of documents seized,” according to court filings.
All in all, according to the filings, the government has produced at least 2,742 pages of discovery in the Leaming and Stephenson cases.
It is unclear from court filings whether the government seized any evidence of correspondence Leaming may have conducted with ASD members. Some ASD members are known to have have quoted Leaming in individual emails dating back at least to November 2010.
Leaming has asserted he is proceeding to trial under “duress.”
In March 2009 — while the ASD Ponzi case was still a civil matter — Bowdoin claimed a January 2009 decision he made to submit to the forfeiture and stop pressing claims for the money seized from his bank accounts was made under “severe duress.”
He made the claim while acting as his own attorney, and further claimed that his decision to relitigate the case after earlier abandoning his claims was “legally accomplished as a matter of law” simply because he had filed papers saying so.
A month later — in April 2009 — federal prosecutors made a bombshell announcement in court that, prior to submitting to the forfeiture and dropping his claims to the seized cash, Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter and acknowledged the government’s material allegations were all true.
In September 2009, prosecutors said Bowdoin was telling ASD members one story — while telling a federal judge another.
Final orders of forfeiture were entered in the ASD civil case in January 2010. Bowdoin appealed, but lost in March 2011.
In the earliest days and weeks after the August 2008 seizure, some ASD members — ignoring the lessons of history — began to promote other schemes that advertised preposterous payouts, claiming they were safe because they were “offshore.”
One current HYIP scheme is JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, whose advertised daily payout rate is 2 percent — twice that of ASD. Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, identified himself as an ASD pitchman in 2008 web promos three months before the Secret Service raid on ASD headquarters in Quincy, Fla.
In a Feb. 23, 2012, conference call, Mann declined to say precisely where JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid was operating from. On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a site linked to Mann featured videos of Francis Schaeffer Cox, a purported “sovereign citizen” implicated in an alleged murder plot against public officials in Alaska.
On Feb. 29, the PP Blog received threatening communications from an individual describing himself as “MoneyMakingBrain.” Among other things, “MoneyMakingBrain” claimed he’d defend Mann “so help me God.”
On March 12, the PP Blog reported that “MoneyMakingBrain” had asserted the Blog would “go down in flames.”
On Feb. 18 — at RealScam.com, a forum that educates the public about mass-marketing fraud — “MoneyMakingBrain” published a link to the Mann-associated site that beams the Cox videos. It is unclear if “MoneyMakingBrain” understood that Cox was under arrest on serious criminal charges and is identified with the “sovereign citizen movement.”
NOTE: The PP Blog believes it is ill-advised to click on any link left by “MoneyMakingBrain” at RealScam.com.
Patrick,
Is there any way to see these documents?
Not before the trial.
Hi DL,
There is no way to see the actual discovery documents. Sorry about that, DL.
Patrick