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  • SPECIAL REPORT: Email Encourages AdSurfDaily Members To Identify Federal Prosecutors, Federal Judge And Secret Service Agent As ‘DOJ Thieves’ In County-Level Filings — And To Send ‘Certified Copy’ Of Claims To Home Address Of Chief Justice Of The United States

    AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, also known as "Kenneth Wayne" and "Keny."

    EDITOR’S NOTE: A week after the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia put $55 million from civil judgments back in the pockets of AdSurfDaily members as the criminal prosecution of ASD President Andy Bowdoin continues, a new effort by some ASD members to undermine the credibility of public officials by describing them as thieves who are encouraging ASD members to lie appears to be under way. Whether the government is taking extra security precautions in the ASD case is not known. The U.S. Marshals Service and the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia did not respond immediately to the PP Blog’s requests for comment on this story. The Blog was unable today to contact the Public Information Office of the Supreme Court for comment.

    UPDATED 8:10 A.M. EDT (OCT. 3, U.S.A.) Is a purported “sovereign citizen” whom records show filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against the Washington State Bar Association in 2009 that claimed he was owed an outstanding debt of more than $32 billion now leading an effort to destroy the reputations of public officials involved in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case?

    On Saturday, two ASD members confirmed to the PP Blog that they had received copies of an email that encouraged them to identify federal prosecutors and a federal judge in the District of Columbia — as well as a U.S. Secret Service agent — as “DOJ thieves.”

    The email accused prosecutors of running a “scam” against Florida-based ASD and encouraged ASD members to file an “affidavit” with their “county recorder” that would name the prosecutors, the judge and the Secret Service agent as criminals. It further encouraged members to send a “notary certified copy” of their claims to the home address of John G. Roberts Jr., the Chief Justice of the United States.

    Why members were encouraged to send documents to Roberts at his home address was unclear. Roberts, 56, is the nation’s highest ranking judicial officer and is chief judge of the U.S. Supreme Court.

    In the email, ASD members were further encouraged to send certified copies of their “DOJ thieves” claims to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the “RUST Group.” Rust Consulting Inc. is the government-approved remissions administrator in the ASD Ponzi case. Federal prosecutors last week released $55 million seized by the Secret Service, and Rust deposited the money into the bank accounts of about 8,400 ASD members who filed approved remissions claims in the case.

    ASD members who participated in the remissions program would be “coerced” into lying by prosecutors to put Bowdoin in prison, according to the email.

    If they did not “TESTILIE” — a new phrase that marries the words “testify” and “lie” and apparently means misrepresent their testimony at prosecutors’ requests — they will “be put into prison for false claims and fraud,” according to the email.

    “MARK MY WORDS,” the email emphasized in all-caps. The word “TESTILIE” also was capitalized in the email, quotes from which were attributed to ASD figure “Keny.”

    “Keny” is the nickname of ASD figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming. Leaming has been identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a so-called “sovereign citizen.”

    Records in Washington state identify Leaming as one of two persons who filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) in 2009 that claimed a debt against the association of “US$32,091,000,000.00.”

    The petition against the bar association was filed on Oct. 12, 2009. WSBA moved within days to have the petition dismissed and for sanctions against Leaming. Leaming moved for a continuance and to have the judge removed, according to records. The judge denied both the continuance bid and a motion styled “Notice of Duty to Recuse,” and the case was dismissed on Oct. 23, 2009. A judgment of $2,750 was entered against Leaming, and he was enjoined “forever from filing a bankruptcy petition or any other pleadings before this court without the advance leave from one of the bankruptcy judges of this court.”

    Also during the month of October 2009 — while the involuntary petition against WSBA was in the courts — Leaming filed a petition to place Franciscan Health Systems, a community hospital in Washington state, in involuntary bankruptcy. That petition also was dismissed.

    Records in Pierce County, Wash., show that Leaming filed a purported lien for $9.24 billion against the hospital, seeking to attach “all tangible and intangible property” of the facility, including its fixtures, furnishings, motor vehicles, bank accounts, passbooks, saving certificates, stock certificates, lines of credit, inventories, promissory notes, office equipment, educational equipment — and even its mineral and water rights.

    Leaming and ASD figure Christian Oesch sought last year to file a lawsuit apparently seeking $29 trillion against the United States for the government’s actions in the ASD case. Leaming’s company — American-International Business Law Inc. — is referenced in the April 8, 2011, Congressional Record as the filer of an unspecified claim against the United States.

    At least two notaries public associated with Leaming have had their licenses revoked, according to records.

    Some ASD members have been associated with a practice that has been called “paper terrorism.” The practice is designed to chill litigation opponents and create inconvenience for public officials such as judges and prosecutors by making them the targets of vexatious litigation pleadings or other documents designed to nuisance them.

    Here are the comments attributed to “Keny” in the email ASD members reported receiving yesterday on the heels of the remissions payouts by the government last week. (Italics added.)

    SCAM by DOJ …. By accepting these funds, they claim to be ASD/Andy’s VICTIMS (NOT DOJ victims) who will be required to testify that they were victims of ASD/Andy if they don’t want to be arrested and prosecuted for perjury /false claims. It will totally bury Andy.

    As a “victim refund” they will now be coerced into testifying that they were a victim of Andy, not the DOJ, and unless they TESTILIE claiming that Andy scammed them, they will be put into prison for false claims and fraud. MARK MY WORDS.

    They MUST (within 72 hrs) acknowledge “receipt of the funds stolen by the DOJ, and specifically (name the ss agent, us attys, and judge as the DOJ thieves), and do so in affidavit form, filing a certified copy into public records (county recorder, etc,) and sending a notary certified copy to Eric Holder, DOJ, and the Chief Justice (Roberts) of the Supreme Court of the United States (at home), and to the RUST Group.

    ALSO, maybe close out with “Claimant hereby conditionally waives any punitive and/or exemplary and consequential damages claims in the event the funds taken are returned to me within 30 days of (NAME OF AGENT/OFFICER) receiving this claim.”

    “Keny”

    Whether the government has taken or will take extra security measures because of the strange nature of the ASD case was not immediately clear. There have been repeated attempts for months by some ASD members to discourage ASD members from filing for remissions from proceeds seized in the Secret Service’s ASD Ponzi probe and to cast prosecutors, investigators and judicial officers as corrupt.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Richard Dalton, Marie Dalton Arrested In Atlanta; Colorado Couple Implicated In Bizarre Ponzi Scheme And Will Be Prosecuted In Denver By Special Government Counsel From Kansas

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: A Colorado husband and wife have been arrested by federal agents in Atlanta and will be returned to Denver to be prosecuted by special government counsel brought in from Kansas, authorities said.

    Why special counsel was appointed to oversee the prosecution of Richard and Marie Dalton was not immediately clear. The allegations in the case, which began as an emergency SEC civil prosecution last year reported on here by the PP Blog, are bizarre. The case may be linked to the mysterious, prime-bank allegations against Larry Michael Parrish of Walkerville, Md., which the PP Blog reported on here.

    Richard Dalton, 65, and Marie Dalton, 60, reside in Golden, Colo. They have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen funds, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom in the District of Kansas.

    Parrish’s name was not referenced today in the announcement by Grissom’s office of the prosecution of the Daltons. In March 2011, the SEC described Parrish as a recidivist swindler with a tie to Richard Dalton. Parrish was accused by the SEC of posing as a concerned financial adviser and investment strategist and visiting a dying man in a Colorado hospital.

    The man was suffering from cancer. Parrish assured him that investing with him was safe, that the man’s wife would not have to worry about her finances after his death, that “the investment would provide for his wife for the rest of her life,” the SEC said in March.

    “That money is now gone,” the SEC said. And so is the money from 70 other Parrish investors in three states, about $9.2 million in all, the agency said in March.

    When the Daltons learned they were under investigation by the SEC, Grissom’s office, the FBI and the IRS said today in a joint statement, they discontinued making payments to investors and falsely represented to investors that they could expect payments soon.

    “They also misled investors with false claims that the company’s European trader was switching banks, that the company was liquidating a cache of diamonds to pay investors back, that a plane carrying diamonds had been forced to land in Amsterdam because three engines had gone out and that the company had discovered it was holding 18,000 fake diamonds,” prosecutors said.

    The SEC laid out largely the same fact set in November 2010.

    “This investigation is not over as we are committed to following the money trail,” said Sean P. Sowards, IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge. “We will continue to pursue the evidence wherever it leads.”

    The Dalton caper used a “diamond” theme and had an element known simply as “the Trading Program.” It gathered $17 million through a company known as Universal Consulting Resources LLC (UCR)., investigators said.

    “As part of soliciting investors for the Trading Program, Dalton and UCR falsely told prospective investors that their invested funds would be held safely in an escrow account at a bank in the United States, and that a European trader (often referred to simply as ‘the Trader,’ but never known or referred to by name) would use the value of that account, but not the actual funds, to obtain leveraged funds to purchase and sell bank notes,” the SEC charged last year.

  • Jury Convicts Florida Woman Who Ran Bizarre Ponzi And Fraud Scheme With Husband; Marian I. Morgan Guilty On All 22 Counts, Including Wire Fraud And Money-Laundering

    A 57-year-old Florida woman who ducked out of the United States with her husband after becoming implicated in a $28 million HYIP/prime-bank swindle has been found guilty of wire fraud, money-laundering, conspiracy, interstate/foreign transportation of stolen funds and tax crimes, U.S. Attorney Robert E. O’Neill of the Middle District of Florida announced.

    The investigation into the business affairs of John and Marian Morgan of Sarasota began as an SEC civil case and morphed into a 22-count criminal prosecution with bizarre international and domestic twists. The Morgans initially high-tailed it for Europe in a bid to duck the SEC and then ventured to the island nation of Sri Lanka, where they were jailed in 2009 for passing a “forged instrument,” expelled and returned to the United States.

    John Morgan pleaded guilty to criminal charges of wire fraud and conspiracy in June 2011. Marian Morgan, whom the Sarasota Herald Tribune reported two years ago had text-chatted with her gardener to make sure he was maintaining the couple’s Florida mansion while they were jailed in Sri Lanka, chose to go on trial.

    The Morgans were fraudsters at the helm of Morgan European Holdings, a Ponzi factory with a high-sounding name.

    “They promoted sham ‘high yield/ prime bank note’ investment programs through the company, promising investors that they would receive returns of 200-300% in three months and that their principal funds would be held safe in an escrow account in Denmark,” prosecutors said. “Evidence at trial, however, showed that the Morgans spent approximately $11 million of investor money on themselves soon after investors wired the funds to the escrow account. The Morgans purchased luxury automobiles, a waterfront mansion, and numerous luxury items with investor funds.”

    While jailed in Sri Lanka, Marian Morgan complained to a U.S. judge about “filthy” conditions and being housed alongside “murderers and heroin dealers,” according to court records.

    She told the same judge that the couple’s “biggest client”  in the United States hired them to lay the banking groundwork for $1.6 billion in infrastructure projects” in Sri Lanka and the Maldives and that the government of Sri Lanka had falsely accused them of presenting a “forged bank document.”

  • BULLETIN: FLORIDA — AGAIN: CFTC Says Civil, Criminal Charges Filed Against Miami Resident Oscar Hernandez In Alleged Commodity-Pool Ponzi Scheme In Which A Customer Was Check-Waving Cheerleader

    BULLETIN: Civil and criminal charges were filed in Florida today against Miami resident Oscar Hernandez, amid allegations he was operating a $3 million Ponzi scheme through Midway Trading Company LLC and Conquest Investment Group Inc., the CFTC said.

    The office of U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District Of Florida said Hernandez has been charged criminally with fraud and conspiracy.

    In its complaint, the CFTC painted a picture of a noxious financial fraud that proliferated in part because a Hernandez customer led cheers for the scheme. The customer displayed copies of checks presented him by Hernandez, and the checks became a form of social proof that Hernandez was on the up-and-up, according to the complaint against Hernandez.

    The customer ultimately persuaded about eight others to invest with Hernandez, which caused at least $1 million more to flow to the Hernandez Ponzi, the CFTC alleged.

    The scheme operated between 2005 and 2009, netting more than $3 million. Hernandez and the firms “misappropriated approximately $1.8 million of participants’ funds for personal use, including car, mortgage, and credit card payments, and used misappropriated funds for so-called profit payments to participants,” the CFTC said.

    Investors were told Hernandez had developed a “special program” to trade futures and that annual returns of 180 percent were possible, the CFTC said.

    The CFTC, the FBI and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida cooperated in the probe, the CFTC said.

    “By late 2008, Defendants made payments only intermittently, not monthly,” the CFTC charged. “Participants received their last payments in early 2009, and have not received a monthly payment or the return of their principal since that time.”

    Neither Hernandez nor the companies was registered with the CFTC “in any capacity,” the agency said.

    A Hernandez customer named Omar Aguilera began trading with Hernandez with $50,000 in 2005, according to the CFTC. By 2007, Aguilera and his wife upped their stake to $1 million with borrowed money.

    “Aguilera began to recommend the investments that Hernandez was making through Midway and Conquest to many of his friends and relatives, showing them copies of the checks he had received as proof of the profits he was earning,” the CFTC said. “Aguilera repeated what Hernandez had told him — that he would use any funds they invested for futures day trading, and that the investment carried no risk.”

    Over time, the scheme spread by word-of-mouth — to the point where “some participants invested without ever talking to Hernandez,” the CFTC said. “Early participants in the scheme received considerable ‘returns.’”

    But “the checks that Hernandez sent to Aguilera from the Midway and Conquest bank accounts were not profits from futures trading, but were funds that Hernandez had received from other participants and deposited in the Midway and Conquest bank accounts,” the CFTC charged. “Hernandez used only a portion of the funds he obtained from participants to trade futures in the Midway and Conquest trading accounts, losing approximately $1.3 million in the process, and used the remainder either to pay off obligations to other participants, or to pay for his own personal living expenses.”

    When the Ponzi collapsed, Hernandez told “a variety of false stories,” the CFTC said.

  • BULLETIN: Church Pastor (And Recidivist Felon) Charged In Alleged Mortgage-Fraud Caper; Michael Wilkerson Accused Of Recruiting Congregants To Dupe Bank In $6 Million Scheme

    BULLETIN: A church pastor, his wife and two real-estate brokers have been charged in an elaborate mortgage-fraud caper in which congregants allegedly were recruited as “straw purchasers” in a scheme that led to a patch of foreclosures and cost Chase Manhattan Bank $3 million.

    Pastor Michael Wilkerson presided over New Life Millennium Life Restoration Fellowship in Montgomery County, Pa., prosecutors said. Wilkerson identified church members with good credit and paid them $15,000 to sign loan documents.

    If they were able to recommend others with good credit to do the same thing, Wilkerson paid them another $5,000 as a recruitment commission, prosecutors said. The scheme allegedly netted $6 million in fraudulent proceeds.

    Joyce Wilkerson, the pastor’s wife, explained the scheme to the straw purchasers, paid them to be “straws” and also “pretended” to be a co-purchaser when the straws attended the property settlements.

    Lee Garell, a real-estate broker with Long & Foster Cos., prepared the illicit paperwork for the straw purchases, and Denise Haines, a broker with American Group Mortgage Corp., submitted fraudulent loan applications to Chase, prosecutors said.

    “[A]fter settlement on the homes, Michael Wilkerson took possession of all of the homes, rented four of them and lived in another,” prosecutors said.  “He paid the mortgages with rental income for approximately six months then told the ‘straw’ purchasers that they had to pay the mortgages. This last act led to the loans falling into default and then foreclosure, resulting in a loss of approximately $3 million.”

    Bogus appraisals were part of the scheme, and information about the “straws” was fudged. Other misrepresentations included “the source of funds, the borrower’s income and assets, and their intent to take possession of the homes as their primary residence,” prosecutors said.

    The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that Michael Wilkerson is a former television evangelist. Meanwhile, the Pottstown Mercury is reporting that Wilkerson is a recidivist jailbird who spent time in prison prison for an earlier fraud scheme and was arrested in a separate case in 2009 on charges of writing a bad check for $111,000 to a Mercedes-Benz dealer.

  • FTC: Spammer/Scammer Who Sent ‘Mind-Boggling’ Number Of Text Messages And Traded On Name Of Government Hit With Judgment, Ban

    Phillip A. Flora of Huntington Beach, Calif., caused cell-phone bills to rise when he sent millions of unsolicited text messages. Flora sent at least 5 million such messages, a number the FTC described as mind-boggling when it sued him in February for violating the CAN-SPAM Act and the FTC Act.

    But spam was only part of the problem, the FTC said. Flora also was hawking purported mortgage-relief and debt-reduction “programs” — and trading on the name of the government and using the symbols of government to do so.

    Spam recipients were instructed to visit a website known as loanmod-gov.net. The site “claimed to provide ‘Official Home Loan Modification and Audit Assistance Information,’ and displayed a photo of an American flag,” the FTC said.

    To dial up the fraud, Flora also sold “leads” generated by his spamming to third parties.

    The FTC and Flora have settled the case. Flora was hit with a judgment of $58,946 and enjoined from breaking the law. The judgment will be satisfied when Flora pays $32,000. The balance will be suspended because of Flora’s inability to pay, but will be reimposed if he lied about his financial affairs, the FTC said.

    Flora agreed to a permanent injunction and the judgment without acknowledging he broke the law, according to the settlement agreement.

  • BULLETIN: Full Tilt Poker’s License Revoked By Alderney Gambling Control Commission In Wake Of U.S. Ponzi Allegations

    BULLETIN: Just days after federal prosecutors in the United States alleged that Full Tilt Poker was operating a global Ponzi scheme, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) has revoked Full Tilt’s License.

    AGCC is the e-gaming regulator of the British Channel Islands.

    “At a hearing held in London over six days, it emerged that FTP had fundamentally misled AGCC about their operational integrity by continuously reporting as liquid funds balances that had been covertly seized or restrained by US authorities, or that were otherwise not actually available to the operator,” AGCC said. “Serious breaches of AGCC regulations include false reporting, unauthorised provision of credit, and failure to report material events.”

    AGCC said its revocation order was not tied to the Ponzi allegations announced Sept. 20 in New York. Full Tilt has been under fire in the United States since April. AGCC suspended its license in June, and now has followed up with a revocation.

     

  • BULLETIN: SEC Says Utah Scammers Funneled Money To 2 Ponzi Schemes; Christopher A. Seeley, Justin G. Dickson Accused Of Conducting Offering Fraud That Raised Millions

    BULLETIN: The SEC has gone to federal court to accuse two Utah men of conducting a $7.9 million offering fraud in which money that flowed from investors was used to prop up two Ponzi schemes.

    Named defendants were Christopher A. Seeley, 36, of Herriman,  and Justin G. Dickson, 35,  of Salt Lake City. The offering fraud was conducted through Draper, Utah-based entities collectively known as “Alden View”: AVF Inc. and AV Funding LLC. The firms were described as unregistered “hard money” lending businesses that issued promissory notes that promised a high rate of return backed by real estate and quality due diligence on its borrowers, the SEC charged.

    Both of the Alden View entities now are defunct, and investors are out at least $6.3 million, according to the SEC.

    “In reality” the SEC charged, “Alden View funneled the majority of its investors’ funds into two Ponzi schemes that were run by its most significant borrowers.”

    The hard-money scheme lasted between 2006 and 2009, affecting at least 50 investors from “multiple states” who believed they were funding a sophisticated real-estate business, the SEC charged.

    The SEC identified one of the Alden View borrowers as Louis Dean Parrish, who also had a bankruptcy on his record.

    A man by the same name was identified by the state of Hawaii last year as a possible Ponzi schemer. Records in Utah show a 48-year-old man by the name name was booked by the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 31 on charges of racketeering, securities fraud, communications fraud and customer abuse.

    Louis Dean Parrish listed an address in Sandy, Utah, when booked, according to sheriff’s office records.

    In 2010, Hawaii TV station KITV4 reported that a man by the same name was a suspect in an affinity-fraud and investment scheme targeted at Mormons in the state.

    Utah has been plagued by fraud schemes targeted at people of faith, the FBI said last year.

    Seeley and Dickson “made false, fraudulent, and material misrepresentations and omissions” to investors in their promissory notes, the SEC charged.

    Read the SEC complaint.

  • NEW ADSURFDAILY DISASTER? Andy Bowdoin Says Prosecutors Returned ‘Advertising Expenses’ To Members, Not Proceeds Of A Ponzi Scheme; ‘Government Forced Members To Sign . . . Untrue Statement To Get A Refund,’ ASD Patriarch Claims

    Andy Bowdoin: Is ASD's patriarch now accusing the government of subornation of perjury?

    UPDATED 3:44 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Facing felony charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities and the potential of 125 years in prison, accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin has responded by accusing federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia of forcing members to lie to qualify for compensation from a victims’ fund in the AdSurfDaily case, according to an email ASD members have received.

    Last week, the government released $55 million seized in the ASD case and began to distribute it through Rust Consulting Inc., the remissions claims administrator approved by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Secret Service. Members began to receive payments Friday. About 8,400 ASD members filed approved claims, according to the government.

    In an email to ASD members yesterday in which Bowdoin continued his efforts to solicit $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense, the ASD patriarch suggested  prosecutors had set up the remissions program to dupe them into identifying themselves as crime victims. (Emphasis added.)

    “We need the legal defense funds now more than ever to combat this great injustice where the government forced members to sign the untrue statement to get a refund of their monies,” Bowdoin claimed in the email.

    The remissions money was not the proceeds of a Ponzi scheme, Bowdoin claimed. Rather, the money members received constituted a return of their “advertising expenses.”

    Bowdoin did not explain in the email what he intended to do if the government produced evidence that people were advertising nonexistent businesses on ASD’s closed network. Nor did he explain what he would do if the government produced evidence that the sums sent to ASD for individual advertising purchases bore no connection to the real world: a sole proprietor of an MLM sideline business hawking fruit juice who historically posted $5,000 in gross revenue suddenly spending three times that amount to advertise on ASD, for example.

    Bowdoin himself was accused in 2008 of advertising a failed, dissolved business in his own advertising “rotator” to generate purported “rebates.” In making the assertion, the government effectively was claiming that even a nonexistent business — or perhaps even a blank page or a page that promoted a personal Facebook site — could generate a return on investment if inserted in ASD’s rotator.

    “To secure some of ASD’s rebates himself, Bowdoin promoted a bogus website through ASD,” prosecutors claimed on Aug. 25, 2008. “Bowdoin explained to the Secret Service that he used the ‘advertising’ he secured from ASD to promote GPS Tech, an unsuccessful business endeavor that had already been dissolved.”

    In a footnote within the three-year-old filing, prosecutors claimed “Bowdoin also acknowledged that he modeled ASD after12dailypro, that ASD had no significant income (except maybe a couple thousand dollars) other than what its members paid in (and expected back as rebates). Bowdoin said he was not sure how ASD differed from 12dailypro except, he said, ASD did not guarantee a particular percentage, and its payments were only based on its sales. Bowdoin acknowledged that representations that he had met with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, DC, and representations that a team of SEC attorneys that he hired had approved of his operation were made up, as was ASD’s representation that Bowdoin had been awarded a Medal of Distinction by President Bush for business acumen.”

    12DailyPro was an autosurf successfully sued by the SEC in 2006 amid allegations it was operating a massive online Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors said later that Bowdoin had a “silent partner” in ASD — and that the silent partner had been Bowdoin’s 12DailyPro sponsor. The government has said all along that ASD falsely traded on Bush’s name to sanitize a fraud that gathered tens of millions of dollars.

    The U.S. Secret Service and prosecutors said in August 2008 that Bowdoin had disguised his securities venture as an advertising company that paid “rebates” of 125 percent. They later said that ASD’s internal computer systems described payouts to members as “ROI” — for “return on investment.”

    Bowdoin, though, claimed yesterday that ASD, “by definition,” was not a Ponzi scheme. He did not addresses the government’s contention about the “ROI” reference, instead insisting that ASD offered “no guarantees” that members would receive payouts. In August 2008, the government claimed that ASD’s Terms of Service included these words:

    “Advertisers will be paid rebates until they receive 125% of their ad purchases.”

    An expert witness hired by ASD acknowledged in 2008 under cross-examination that the words had appeared in ASD’s TOS. Despite the fact that the TOS document has been a matter of public record for more than three years, some ASD members claimed that the government has produced no evidence and that ASD members who agreed that they are victims of a massive financial crime will be “torn apart” on the witness stand by ASD’s lawyers.

    The “torn apart” claim was made on Jan. 17, 2011, two days before the deadline for ASD members to file a remissions claim with Rust in the case. The claim followed previous claims that a “group” of ASD members might sue persons who identified themselves as victims.

    Bowdoin, 76, further claimed in yesterday’s email that, at his upcoming trial, the government will use claims forms signed by members to prove “they were ‘investors’ and therefore victims” of a Ponzi scheme.

    On Jan. 23, 2009 — just 10 days after Bowdoin withdrew his claims to the seized money “with prejudice” and just one day after a federal judge memorialized Bowdoin’s withdrawal and consent to forfeit the seized money — federal prosecutors explained the law to ASD victims and said the compensation program would be governed by these federal regulations. (Emphasis added in next paragraph.)

    “Under Section 9.8(a)(1) and (2) of Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations, in a petition for remission or mitigation of forfeiture a non-owner victim must demonstrate that it suffered a pecuniary loss of a specific amount directly caused by the criminal offense(s) underlying the forfeiture, or a related offense, and that the loss is the direct result of the criminal acts,” the government said in explaining remissions regulations.

    A month later — in February 2009 — Bowdoin reentered the case as a pro se litigant and sought to rescind his decision to submit to the forfeiture. That effort failed after months of legal wrangling, and U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer issued a final order of forfeiture for the lion’s share of the seized funds in January 2010.

    Bowdoin appealed that order and a separate forfeiture order issued by Collyer, but lost both cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals.

    In April 2009, in response to Bowdoin’s pro se pleadings, prosecutors revealed that Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the case and acknowledged that the government’s material allegations were all true. Bowdoin later revealed in his own court filings that he had met with prosecutors over a period of at least for days in late 2008 and early 2009 and had given information against his interests.

    In yesterday’s email, Bowdoin did not address the proffer issue and his own acknowledgment that he’d provided information against his interest in the hopes of receiving a sentencing reduction. Instead, he asserted that he had “very strong feelings about what the govt. is really doing.

    “[B]ut due to my court case and upcoming trial, I can only pass on a statement made by one of the attorneys on my Legal Defense Team, in response to the govt. media press release issued on Monday, Sept. 26th, with the headline – “$55 MILLION BEING RETURNED TO VICTIMS OF INTERNET FRAUD – Victims Receive Forfeited Ponzi Scheme Proceeds,” Bowdoin continued.

    “I am in full agreement with what my attorney had to say about this govt. press release, which is in ‘quotation marks’ as follows:

    ‘The release is a gross distortion of the facts. There are no ‘victims.’ Not a single person lost a dime until the government shut down the business. These customers bought advertising on the net. They were not investors.’”

    Bowdoin did not say whether the email he sent to members yesterday in which he claimed the government “forced” members “to sign the untrue statement” to qualify for remissions was approved by his attorney.

    Bowdoin fired his original attorneys in 2009, after he had submitted to the forfeiture and agreed to cooperate in the investigation. He later hired replacement attorneys.

    Prior to Bowdoin’s email, an ASD members who identified herself as “Sara” claimed in an email that some ASD members had received amounts like “$50,000 and $60,000” back through the remissions program.

    The email attributed to “Sara” painted a picture of a government conspiracy.

    One apparent ASD member posting on Bowdoin’s Facebook fundraising site claimed last week that he received back $27,690 through the remissions program. The person did not say whether the business he had advertised on ASD had posted revenue that would justify such an advertising purchase, and the government had no comment on the Facebook assertion.

  • BULLETIN: CFTC Charges 5 Florida Residents And Mexican National In Alleged Forex Scheme With Tentacles In Panama; Scheme Was Promoted On MoneyMakerGroup, TalkGold Ponzi Forums

    BULLETIN: The CFTC has gone to federal court in Florida, charging a company and six individuals in an alleged international Forex and commodities fraud scheme that gathered at least $1.7 million and bilked residents of Florida, California and Puerto Rico.

    Charged in the case were Alpha Trade Group S.A. (ATG), which also is known as Revolution Network Ltd. of Panama. Individual defendants include Jose Cecilio Martinez Beltran of Orlando; Welinton Bautista Castillo of Orlando; Maria Alvarez Gutierrez of Orlando; Yehodiz Padua Valentin of Orlando; and Maria Asela Rodriguez of Orlando.

    Francisco Amaury Suero Matos of Mexico also was charged.

    Customers were solicited to invest in commodity pools known as Orsa Investment Group LLC and Online Marketing Solutions, the CFTC charged. Investments were positioned as “risk free” with payouts of up to 25.5 percent a month.

    Records show that the scheme was promoted on the Ponzi cesspits MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold.

    This screen shot shows the first post about Alpha Trade Group appeared at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum on Oct. 7, 2009 — days after a U.S. bank already had closed an account linked to the scheme amid fears it was being used to launder money.

    A small sum of money is believed to have gone to a trading company in Anguilla, but the defendants misappropriated “at least several hundred thousand dollars of pool participant funds for their own personal benefit, including financing international trips to Spain, Switzerland and Panama,” the CFTC charged.

    Customers were given bogus statements that showed fictitious returns, the CFTC said.

    See August 2010 story that outlined a developing criminal investigation and forfeiture case.

  • BULLETIN: 4 Arrested In Alleged $200 Million International Swindle; Raids Carried Out In Europe, United States

    BULLETIN: Authorities in Europe and the United States have carried out raids that resulted in the arrests of four individuals and the seizure of property in an alleged international Ponzi scheme involving bogus insurance investments and $200 million, the Public Prosecution Office of the Netherlands (Openbaar Ministerie) said.

    The case involves a company known as Quality Investments BV (QI), officials said. Raids were conducted in the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Dubai, England, Switzerland and the United States. Four Dutch citizens were arrested.