BULLETIN: Zeek Figure Robert Craddock Indicted In Separate Scheme

BULLETIN: Florida resident Robert Craddock, a figure in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme story, has been indicted in a separate scheme involving the alleged theft of more than $135,000 from a compensation fund set up to assist businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.

The office of U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley III of the Middle District of Florida announced Friday that Craddock, 54, of Port Orange, had been charged with wire fraud. The U.S. Secret Service conducted the probe.

BehindMLM.com reported the news in a story dated March 16.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Craddock “crafted fictitious invoices to support the amount of lost earnings that he claimed.”

From the statement by prosecutors (italics added):

According to the indictment, following the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (which was being leased by BP, formerly known as British Petroleum), Craddock submitted a claim to BP and the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (“GCCF”), an independent facility established by BP to compensate qualified claimants, for lost earnings purportedly related to the impact of the oil spill on his businesses.

Though uncharged in the Zeek case, Craddock has been described by the SEC as an obstructionist who encouraged victims of the $897 million Zeek scheme not to cooperate with Kenneth D. Bell, the court-appointed receiver.

Separately, the Daytona Beach News-Journal is reporting that local property records showed that Craddock, a pilot, recently “bought a home complete with aircraft hangar that backs up to a runway in Spruce Creek Fly-In.”

In 2012, Craddock was involved in a fundraising venture purportedly to assist Zeek participants to mount a challenge against the SEC for bringing the Zeek Ponzi case. This occurred through a Craddock venture known as Fun Club USA, later described by litigants suing Craddock for alleged trademark infringement as a shell company engaged in a “shake-down” bid against affiliates of at least three MLM networks: Zeek, OfferHubb and BTG180.

Precisely how much Craddock collected in the Zeek-related fundraising effort is unclear. Also unclear is precisely how the money was used.

Zeek figures Todd Disner and T. LeMont Silver — alleged winners of millions of dollars from Zeek — helped champion the fundraising venture. Disner also was a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme story, something Zeek receiver Kenneth D. Bell pointed out to a federal judge.

Bell has raised concerns that MLMers or network marketers are moving from fraud scheme to fraud scheme to fraud scheme.

Craddock has been a lightning rod for MLM controversy. In November 2012, for example, he bizarrely planted the seed that MLM attorney Kevin Thompson was practicing law without a license. Thompson described Craddock as a liar.

But if there is a signature Craddock moment, it occurred in July 2012, when Craddock sought to disable a HubPage critical of Zeek by alleging author K. Chang had engaged in libel, trademark infringement and copyright infringement. It was all a fantastic crock, and K. Chang eventually prevailed.

Less than a month after Craddock moved against K. Chang, the SEC and the U.S. Secret Service moved against Zeek.

Court records from the ASD Ponzi case show that ASD also tried to chill reporters with threats about lawsuits in the weeks prior to a government raid on ASD headquarters in August 2008.

In 2014, Craddock was listed as a copyright enforcer on the website of an entity known as Changes Worldwide LLC. The SEC has accused TelexFree figure Faith Sloan of violating the asset freeze in the TelexFree case by sending thousands of dollars to Changes Worldwide. Sloan also was a Zeek affiliate.

Craddock later reportedly authored a book whose sales copy included a claim that the U.S. government should have modeled a “stimulus program” after Zeek, which prosecutors have described as a Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered $897 million and affected hundreds of thousands of people globally.

The SEC declined to comment on the book, which was offered on Amazon.com.