EDITOR’S NOTE: Reproduced below is the full news release by the office of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall on the cease-and-desist order issued last week to “Profitable Sunrise.”
Even as the state has raised serious concerns about the “program,” Profitable Sunrise “defenders” have been seeking to minimize the issues. Some people even are hurling insults at North Carolina regulators while blanketing Ponzi-scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup with “I got paid” posts.
That a program “pays” is not evidence that no fraud scheme is occurring. (Bernard Madoff “paid” — right up until the day he didn’t.) Along those lines, collapsed “programs” such as Zeek Rewards, AdSurfDaily, Legisi, Pathway To Prosperity and Imperia Invest IBC — all of which advertised outsize returns — all had a presence on the Ponzi boards.
Some “defenders” of Profitable Sunrise appear to be scurrying to describe the alleged investment “program” as the recipient of “loans” from customers. The “loan” claims may raise altogether different issues — such as whether Profitable Sunrise is engaging in unlawful banking while commingling assets and operating as an unlawful investment pool. And despite “defenders’” claims that Profitable Sunrise is not the issuer of “securities” as investment contracts, Profitable Sunrise has advertised five investment schemes on its own website, including a bizarrely named plan known as the “Long Haul” that purported to pay 2.7 percent a day.The Legisi HYIP scheme sought to escape scrutiny in the United States by calling itself a “loan” program. Federal prosecutors described Legisi operator Gregory McKnight’s wordplay as “semantic obfuscation.” The SEC earlier described U.S.-based Legisi pitchman Matthew John Gagnon as a threat to the investing public.
Here, below, the statement by Marshall’s office . . .
Raleigh – North Carolina Secretary of State Securities officials have issued a Temporary Order to Cease and Desist to Roman Novak, Radoslav Novak and Inter Reef LTD d/b/a Profitable Sunrise to bar them from offering and selling or attempting to sell securities in the form of investment contracts to North Carolina’s investing public.
Secretary of State investigators say the respondents promoted five different “investment plans” through a website that offered rates of return ranging from 1.6-percent per business day to 2.7-percent per business day. Investors were told their money would be used to fund short-term loans to businesses. Investors were also told their investments were “risk-free,” “with a certain rate of return and no chance of default,” and that “all funds deposited with us are insured against loss.”
Secretary of State investigators have also discovered that victims were making wire transfers of money to financial institutions in Eastern European countries.
However, the respondents were never registered with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s Securities Division to sell securities and the investment itself was not registered as a security in accordance with the North Carolina Securities Act.
“We have issued this Cease and Desist Order because we believe this solicitation poses a real danger to the investing public,” Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall said Friday. “Proper registration of securities and the individuals selling securities is fundamental to protecting the public from con artists and investment fraud. That is why it is so important to call our Securities Division before investing your hard-earned money to make sure that the investment you are considering is registered. This case also demonstrates the perils of web-based investment marketing.”
Marshall urged anyone in North Carolina who has invested with Profitable Sunrise to contact the Secretary of State’s Securities Division at 1-800-688-4507.
John S. Dudley, a citizen of Great Britain, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court in Utah in an investment-fraud case that featured the presence of an undercover agent who’d received email from Dudley, the office of U.S. Attorney David B. Barlow said.
The agent — from the Utah Department of Commerce’s Division of Securities — was described as “UA” in court papers, prosecutors said.
As part of a plea agreement, Dudley will not contest a restitution order for more than $6.8 million, prosecutors said. When Dudley completes his sentence, prosecutors expect to deport him under the terms of the plea. Prosecutors have recommended a prison sentence of five years.
Dudley was accused in 2011 of a Ponzi scheme that married multiple components, including pitchfests for “various investment programs, including a foreign exchange trading program, mining speculation, European and domestic stock options and commodity trading, and a human jetpack rocket suit,” prosecutors said at the time.
The pitchfests were described as “bounce nights” or “Tashi group meetings,” prosecutors said at the time.
From a statement by prosecutors on the Dudley guilty plea (italics added):
The indictment alleged Dudley made a variety of representations to potential investors, including telling them they could expect monthly returns of 5-10 percent; that he had not suffered a trading loss since 1978; that investors’ funds would be used exclusively for investment purposes; that he had personally done very well in his investments and had never made less than 5 percent per month over the last 30 years; that investors’ money was backed by a “senior life settlement policy” that reduced or eliminated investors’ risk of loss; and that investing with him was an exclusive opportunity with only a limited number of investors allowed to invest with him at one time.
As a part of the plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors, Dudley admitted he sent an e-mail to an individual, identified as U.A. in the plea agreement, with the subject line “Re: Castle Creek Bank Details.” He admitted that the e-mail was a part of his attempt to execute the fraud scheme by obtaining money under false representations. Investor U.A. is identified in the indictment as a Utah Department of Commerce’s Division of Securities investigator acting in an undercover capacity in the indictment.
The website of “NewGNI” has not resolved to a server for days. The “program” is believed to have been a knockoff of a predecessor scam known as “GNI” or GoldNuggetInvest, which collapsed in early 2010 after being promoted by members of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme.
The collapse of the original GNI was about as bizarre as they come in HYIP land. Critics were told to concentrate on earthquake relief in Haiti, rather than questioning the HYIP scheme. GNI’s collapse purportedly occurred after its operators sought “a crystal clear vision of our financial vortex.“
Among the pitchmen for both GNI and NewGNI was Ponzi-board legend “Ken Russo,” also known as “DRdave.” Earlier, “Ken Russo” had promoted the $119 million ASD scheme. He later turned to ClubAsteria, which was trading on the name of the World Bank to reel in suckers. ClubAsteria promos came under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. “Ken Russo” also emerged as a pitchman for Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from North Carolina.
Among “Ken Russo’s” latest ventures is “Profitable Sunrise,” now the subject of a cease-and-desist order from North Carolina regulators.
Profitable Sunrise purportedly is operated by Roman Novak. The “program” is being targeted at people of faith, some of whom appear to be defending it by weaving impossible tales. Any number of Ponzi-board taunts have been aimed at the Securities Division of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, even as ProfitableSunrise advertises a risk-free, preposterous return of 2.7 percent a day in its bizarrely named “Long Haul” program with a purported Easter holiday payoff.
“lol @ NC officials,” says one post at MoneyMakerGroup. Another compares Marshall’s office to “Deputy Barney Fife,” an iconic TV character played by Don Knotts in the Andy Griffith Show.
Even after the government of Belize issued a warning against GNI in 2009, scammers continued to promote it — virtually to the very day it collapsed and took an unspecified sum with it. The collapse triggered a bizarre series of conspiracy theories.
GNI was operating concurrently with a now-collapsed scam bizarrely known as “Cash Tanker,” an “opportunity” aimed at Christians. Cash Tanker used an image of Jesus Christ in its promos and purported to pay 2 percent a day.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming has been found guilty in the Western District of Washington of filing false liens against public officials, harboring fugitives and being a felon in possession of firearms, federal prosecutors said tonight.
Leaming associate David Carroll Stephenson also was found guilty of filing false liens.
The PP Blog will have a full report when more information becomes available. The case was prosecuted by the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The state of North Carolina — home base to the alleged $600 million Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme — has ordered a purported offshore “opportunity” known as “Profitable Sunrise” to cease and desist from doing business in the state.
Profitable Sunrise purports to be a hard-money lender and investment opportunity. It appears to have attracted some Zeek members both before and after the August 2012 collapse of Zeek. Zeek was under investigation by North Carolina, the SEC and the U.S. Secret Service at the time of its collapse.
In its cease-and-desist order, North Carolina described Profitable Sunrise as “an immediate and significant danger” that is using multiple investment schemes to attract money, including a purported “Long Haul” plan.
The offer is being targeted at people of faith through web-based promoters, some of whom described themselves as Christians. Offering materials for the “Long Haul” plan have advertised an Easter holiday payout.
The company itself has advertised “risk free” payouts with “no chance of default,” according to the North Carolina order. And Profitable Sunrise also claims “investments are insured by a leading investment bank.”
As the PP Blog reported in December, Profitable Sunrise appeared to qualify investors based on their views on hot-button issues, including abortion.
North Carolina’s order names Roman Novak, Radoslav Novak and Inter Reef LTD (doing business as Profitable Sunrise) as respondents, amid allegations by the Securities Division of the office of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall that Profitable Sunrise is selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.
Profitable Sunrise lists a business address in the United Kingdom. Regardless, the enterprise is soliciting funds to be sent to Raiffeisenbank AS in the Czech Republic, according to North Carolina investigators. An entity known as Melland Company SRO was listed in Profitable Sunrise wiring instructions as the beneficiary, according to the order.
A credit union used by a North Carolina-based Profitable Sunrise investor blocked at least one transaction directed toward the Czech bank, citing suspicions of fraud, according to the order.
Marshall’s investigators noted that the Profitable Sunrise investor believed that the”Long Haul” plan would pay “interest of 2.7% daily, compounded at 100%, for 240 days.”
Other Profitable Sunrise plans also promised high interest rates in compressed time frames, reaching for sums of between $10 and $2,500 and advertising interest rates of between 1.6 percent and 2 percent a day, according to the order.
Zeek planted the seed that it paid an average of 1.5 percent a day, the SEC said on Aug. 17. On Aug. 4, Zeek claimed on its news site that unspecified “North Carolina credit unions” were creating problems for it.
Garfield M. Taylor, the Maryland man accused civilly by the SEC in November 2011 of duping charitable organizations and people of faith in a Ponzi scheme, now has been indicted on criminal charges, the FBI and federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia said.
Taylor, 54, of Rockville, faces counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities, the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said.
The $25 million Taylor scam was about smoke and mirrors, prosecutors said.
From a statement by Machen’s office (italics added):
According to the indictment, Taylor devised and employed a scheme from in or about September 2006 through in or about September 2010 in which he convinced investors to invest with him by promising them substantial returns on their investment, telling them that he used a sophisticated securities trading strategy that protected against loss, and claiming that he had a proven track record of using this strategy effectively.
During the course of this scheme, however, Taylor never used the trading strategy that he told investors that he would use. With the investments he did make during this period, Taylor either lost money or made minimal profits far below what was needed to pay the amounts he owed. The only way that Taylor was able to pay the substantial interest rates he was paying during this period was to use portions of the principal invested by new investors to pay amounts that were owed to earlier investors.
In 2011, the SEC said Taylor used terms such as such as “proprietary strategy,” “covered call investment strategy” and “unparalleled downside protection” to dupe investors. It is somewhat common for fraudsters to use fancy-sounding investment lingo in bids to scam investors.
In one instance, federal prosecutors said today, Taylor took “approximately half” of an investor’s $425,000 investment to pay sums owed to “earlier investors.”
He also claimed investments with him were insured against loss and that a reserve fund to protect investors existed as an extra safeguard, prosecutors said.
Those claims were false, prosecutors said.
“At the time of the scheme’s collapse, Taylor owed investors nearly $25 million just to cover the principal he was contractually required to return to them,” prosecutors said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia also prosecuted the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme.
Patrick Randell McIntosh: Source: Fulton County Sheriff’s Office
BULLETIN: The U.S. Secret Service, the FBI and federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Georgia say a South Carolina man threatened on Facebook to kill the President of the United States.
Patrick Randell McIntosh, 28, of Charleston, was indicted on charges of possessing three firearms and ammunition while under indictment for a felony and for threatening the life of the President.
“Threats against the president of the United States and others we are statutorily authorized to protect are the Secret Service’s number one investigative priority,” said Reginald G. Moore, special agent in charge of the Secret Service Atlanta Field Office. “Every threat, no matter if made by telephone, in person, in writing, or on social media is examined to the fullest extent possible.”
The FBI and the Atlanta Police Department assisted in the probe, prosecutors said.
Today’s announcement of the McIntosh indictment marked the second time this week that an individual who allegedly used Facebook to threaten public officials was charged criminally. Lawrence Mulqueen, 49, was charged in New York with threatening to kill local, state and federal officials, including a threat to kill “every Congressional Black Caucus member there is.”
From a statement in the McIntosh case by the office of U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates (italics added):
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges, and other information presented in court, McIntosh posted on his Facebook page his intention to shoot patrons at a local Atlanta lounge and to kill the president of the United States. After posting the various threats, the defendant purchased three firearms from individuals who advertised weapons for sale.
McIntosh also threatened a woman in the Atlanta area. The woman reported to Gwinnett County authorities that McIntosh was stalking her. She gave police the location of a hotel where McIntosh was staying. Law enforcement officers subsequently arrested McIntosh at the location and recovered guns and ammunition in his possession.
The threat against the President and the acquisition of the weapons occurred after McIntosh had been indicted in South Carolina for felony stalking, prosecutors said.
Charles Daniel Koss, a 63-year-old purported “sovereign citizen” from Independence, Mo., faces up to 61 years in federal prison after being convicted in a “redemption” scam targeted at Social Security.
Koss was convicted of two counts of theft of government money, one count of Social Security disability fraud, one count of mail fraud and one count of transmitting a false negotiable instrument with the intent to defraud the government, prosecutors said. The false negotiable instrument was a purported “Registered Private Money Order” mailed to the Social Security Administration purportedly to repay $212,768 Koss owed the agency after it was determined he’d defrauded Social Security and had received disability payments to which he was not entitled between September 1994 and January 2010.
From the office of U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson of the Western District of Missouri (italics added):
Koss told federal agents in interviews during the investigation that he has studied redemption theory. Redemption theory involves bogus claims that when the United States government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral so it could borrow money. The movement also asserts that common citizens can gain access to funds in secret accounts using obscure procedures and regulations. According to the theory, the government created a fictitious person (or “straw man”) corresponding to each newborn citizen and each citizen has an alleged secret trust account with the United States Treasury. The theory also claims that through obscure procedures under the Uniform Commercial Code, a citizen can “reclaim” the “straw man” and write negotiable instruments against its accounts. Its adherents sometimes call themselves “sovereign citizens.” The “sovereign citizen” movement is a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted anarchist ideology. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to “restore” an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed.
And, Dickinson’s office added, “Redemption theory and sovereign citizen beliefs are totally without merit and they have no basis in law or fact. Individuals often use these ideas to further various fraudulent schemes.”
Even as he was receiving disability payments, prosecutors said, Koss worked full time at a business known as Embassy Mortgage. He also led an active life-style, including “bowling, golfing, horseshoes, boating, activities at his lake house and frequent visits to Ameristar Casino, where he gambled a total of $260,000 during this time.”
Koss “failed to report any change in his health condition or any income from Embassy Mortgage to the Social Security Administration,” prosecutors said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld the rulings of a federal judge and rejected an appeal by AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer. The ASD duo had contended the seizure of records from ASD’s database in a Ponzi scheme case brought in 2008 by the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors violated their right to privacy and that Judge Rosemary Collyer was biased.
A three-judge panel rejected both contentions.
“Appellants’ purported evidence of bias amounts to nothing more than their disagreement with the judge’s actions in presiding over a related matter, and ‘judicial rulings . . . virtually never provide a basis for recusal,’” the panel ruled
Moreover, the panel ruled, “The dismissal of appellants’ Fourth Amendment claim is affirmed on the ground that appellants lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the records allegedly seized.”
ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme operating from Quincy, Fla. Disner and Schweitzer later became pitchmen for Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud operating from Lexington, N.C.
BULLETIN: A purported “sovereign citizen” from Nanuet, N.Y., has been charged under state law with criminal possession of a weapon and under federal law with threatening to kill public officials and inciting Facebook visitors to carry out political assassinations.
Lawrence Mulqueen, 49, claimed that a county’s sheriff is “the highest law enforcer in all the land,” according to an FBI affidavit in the case.
Mulqueen wrote that he “cannot wait to start killing the scum,” according to the affidavit. Intended targets included Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Charles Schumer, Rep. Nita Lowey, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid and “every Congressional Black Caucus member there is.”
“Your time is about up[,] scumbags,” Mulqueen wrote, according to the affidavit. “[Y]our dirt nap is coming very soon.”
Meanwhile, according to the affidavit, Mulqueen called for snipers to shoot “inner city scum” from a distance of “at least 100 yards” or to stab targets “to conserve bullets.”
“As alleged, Lawrence Mulqueen used the power and reach of Facebook to make incendiary threats, including the use of deadly force, against federally-elected officials and others,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York. “He even provided his like-minded Facebook friends with a virtual ‘how to’ on the most effective weapons to use in making good on those threats. The internet is a forum for free expression, but it does not give anyone a carte blanche to break the law.”
One of the best weapons for assassination is a shotgun made in Italy, Mulqueen allegedly told an individual on Facebook.
The investigation began when the Clarkstown Police Department (Rockland County) received a complaint about Mulqueen, officials said.
“Overt threats of the sort made by this defendant against our elected leaders are especially troubling and must be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law,” said Rockland County District Attorney Thomas P. Zugibe.
Added FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos: “The defendant is alleged not only to have threatened to kill elected officials. He did the virtual equivalent of standing in the town square with a megaphone, using his Facebook page to exhort others to carry out these assassinations. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right, but making overt threats is not protected speech, it’s a crime.”
Mulqueen also called for the assassination of immigrants and called supporters of President Obama “traitor scum” who deserved to die, according to the affidavit.
“I want these scumbags DEAD!!!” he allegedly wrote. “[F]*** them and death to them all.”
Kenneth Wayne Leaming, aka “Kenneth Wayne,” aka “Keny,” now is calling himself a “live abortion” — apparently in “defense” of home-based businesses.
UPDATED 12:28 P.M. (FEB. 27, U.S.A.) Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme story and a purported “sovereign citizen,” is scheduled to go on trial today in federal court the Western District of Washington with co-defendant David Carroll Stephenson. Leaming is charged with filing false liens against public officials involved in the ASD prosecution. Among his alleged targets were a federal judge, at least two federal prosecutors — and the U.S. Secret Service agent who cracked the ASD Ponzi case in 2008.
Leaming, 57, also is charged with assisting Stephenson in the filing of false liens against two federal-prison officials. Stephenson was in federal prison for a tax scheme at the time the liens allegedly were filed. Records strongly suggest that Stephenson, also 57, would be a free man today were it not for his association with Leaming, given that Stephenson’s prison term in the tax case had been scheduled to end early this year. Instead, he’s facing new charges and potentially more jail time.
But the false-liens charges are just the beginning for Leaming. He also is charged with harboring two federal fugitives wanted in a multimillion-dollar home-business fraud in Arkansas, being a felon in possession of firearms and passing a bogus “Bonded Promissory Note” for $1 million.
If you’re new to the PP Blog and new to the ASD case, a brief review is in order: The Secret Service raided ASD in August 2008, alleging the Florida-based firm operated by Andy Bowdoin was a massive Ponzi scheme operating over the Internet. Bowdoin reacted to the raid and the seizure of tens of millions of dollars by comparing the U.S. government to “Satan” and the Secret Service to the 9/11 terrorists. Now 78 and in federal prison, Bowdoin came out of the gate after the seizure by assuring ASD investors that “God” was on the company’s side.
Some MLMers were quick to accuse the government of targeting a fine Christian man who was helping the United States create jobs with a “program” that purported to pay participants back 100 percent of their investment and a profit of 25 percent in only months. (Ten-thousand dollars in ASD purportedly fetched $12,500 within 90 to 125 days, purportedly more if members “compounded” their “earnings,” kept 80 percent of their money in a continuous state of “roll over” and never fully cashed out.)
Essentially there was only one chance that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme during its approximately 18-month run — and that single chance required nearly a complete suspension of logic to destroy the government’s Ponzi case and get ASD off the hook: Had a crazy billionaire or exceptionally well-heeled financier (who also was crazy) given convicted-felon Bowdoin more money than ASD’s rapidly accruing liabilities — basically an enormous line of credit that didn’t have to be paid back and could be tapped on demand for ASD to pay out $1.25 for every dollar it took in until the line was exhausted — ASD would not have been a Ponzi scheme. Absent a benevolent madman-billionaire and the kind of capital it would take to build a nuclear-power plant and operate it indefinitely with zero concern for profit, however, ASD could be one thing and one thing only: a Ponzi scheme using money from “new” members to fund the redemption requests of “old” members or a Ponzi scheme that sustained itself by simply recycling money among members of a closed group.
No madmen-billionaires sufficiently liquid to bankrupt themselves by funding Bowdoin’s stated plan of creating 100,000 ASD millionaires in three years while at once financing the “profits” of tens of thousands of average people seeking to expand the ranks of ASD millionaires well beyond 100,000 appeared to testify on ASD’s behalf at an evidentiary hearing it requested in the fall of 2008.
Here is just one of the reasons MLM has a miserable reputation: Notwithstanding the fact that Bowdoin already was a convicted felon for an Alabama securities swindle in the 1990s and that one of his business partners was a man implicated by the SEC in the 1990s in three prime-bank swindles, some MLMers decided to improve the already bizarre narrative that the government was picking on a grandfatherly Christian.
Petitions were started to paint prosecutors as the bogeymen. (The shorthand for this in MLM’s HYIP Ponzi land is “evilGUBment.”) ASD critics were derided as “maggots.” A “prayer” went out calling for prosecutors to be struck dead from the heavens. A theory was advanced that a Florida TV station should be charged with Deceptive Trade Practices for carrying news unflattering to ASD. A companion theory held that the Attorney General of Florida should be charged with the same offense and that AARP, which lobbies for senior citizens, should lobby for ASD. Meanwhile, some MLMers tried to enlist the U.S. Senate to turn the focus of the investigation away from ASD and Bowdoin and put it on the prosecutors who brought the Ponzi case. One MLMer called for the government’s lead prosecutor to be placed in a medieval torture rack, with ASD members at large drawing straws to determine who got the honor of making the prosecutor’s time in the rack as painful as possible.
Very few people in MLM had anything to say about the circus surrounding ASD. The few who did — perhaps most notably Rod Cook of MLM Watchdog — were excoriated for dismissing the narrative advanced by Bowdoin and other MLMers. All of this was occurring while ASD was provably insolvent. When Bowdoin failed to take the witness stand at the evidentiary hearing he requested, it was explained that he was “too honest” to testify. Both before and after the hearing, some of his most notable Stepfordian apologists advanced a theory that the government secretly had admitted ASD was not a Ponzi scheme and was clinging to the case in a bid to save face.
One ASD member advanced a narrative that the government had taken about $80 million in seized proceeds and invested it in a secret fund to pay for black-ops. It was from this caldron of conspiracy theories and fantastic idiocy that Kenneth Wayne Leaming emerged.
Like other “sovereigns,” Leaming to date hasn’t focused much of his attention on the actual charges against him, even though his conviction could result in considerable jail time. Rather, Leaming mostly has focused on creating a blitz of paperwork on the apparent theory his best “defense” is to keep the Feds and even local officials scurrying to guard all flanks. Since his November 2011 arrest by an FBI Terrorism Task Force, Leaming has sued the President of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, various officials (including purported “Does”) and a county sheriff in Arkansas.
Members of Zeek Rewards and other MLM schemes should pay attention to the Leaming trial. There can be no doubt that Leaming-like figures existed within the Zeek enterprise. Like ASD before it, Zeek was a magnet to willfully blind MLM hucksters and actual criminals. Both “businesses” best are viewed as racketeering enterprises that posed an untenable risk to the United States and the rest of the world.
For the remainder of this column, the PP Blog will focus on just one crime alleged against Leaming: the filing of a false lien against the U.S. Secret Service agent — not that the other alleged bogus liens are any more palatable or acceptable. The word “disgraceful” hardly covers Leaming’s alleged actions, and yet some MLMers saw Leaming not only as an inspirational figure, but as the wisest man of all.
The Secret Service guards the lives of the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States and their families. It also guards the lives of former Presidents and international dignitaries and political figures visiting the United States. As the agency is doing this, it also protects the U.S. financial system.
It is unthinkable — so far beyond the pale that it almost defies description — that Leaming, let alone any other American, ever would target a Secret Service agent in a harassment campaign. The Secret Service is a smallish agency by federal standards, yet it is arguably the most important: Markets become unglued when world figures are assassinated or targeted in assassination attempts. Beyond that, history now has shown that an event such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks actually can close markets and restrict freedom, the very things Leaming purports to be upholding.
People of good will are appalled that Leaming apparently thought it somehow his duty to Democracy and Constitutional government to harass a Secret Service agent. Given the critical duties of the Secret Service and its role in both national security and economic security, no American of good will wants to see an agent’s attention divided by the Kenneth Wayne Leamings of the nation and world.
If Leaming is convicted, he should be sentenced to the longest jail term permissible under the law. Never again should MLM or any MLMer stay silent when an obvious fraud scheme surfaces and is “defended” at the exclusion of all logic.
In both form and substance, Zeek was virtually identical to ASD — and yet ASD members and other MLMers joined Zeek. That’s a problem for MLM. whether it admits it or not.
Those ASD members who joined Zeek? They did so even as Kenneth Wayne Leaming allegedly was targeting public officials, including a U.S. Secret Service agent, in campaigns designed to destroy the thin blue line that protects citizens from anarchy. The most dangerous Zeek members are the ones who hoped he’d succeed.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Reproduced below is the full news release by the office of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall on the cease-and-desist order issued last week to “Profitable Sunrise.” 
