Retooling as it hatches a plan to launch anew? Huddling with its mysterious lawyer because the U.S. Department of Justice called it a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” pushed by an accused felon awaiting trial in his Ponzi scheme case?
The website of “OneX” has been displaying an “under maintenance” message for days. The development occurs against the backdrop of former OneX pitchman and AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin’s guilty plea to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case May 18. In April, federal prosecutors said ASD stalwarts Rayda Roundy and Tari Steward had helped Bowdoin pitch OneX.
Those pitches began in October 2011, with Bowdoin saying he’d use his OneX earnings to pay for his criminal defense in the ASD Ponzi case. Steward is listed in court filings as a potential witness for Bowdoin in his trial on Ponzi-related charges.
Bowdoin, though, pleaded guilty prior to his trial date, which had been set for Sept. 24.
Just days before his guilty plea, a fellow OneX pitchman known as “Alan” asserted that Bowdoin was “our Mentor,” according to an email some ASD members received.
In at least one of the OneX pitches, Roundy asserted that OneX had a “top attorney.” She did not identify the attorney.
Bowdoin claimed “college students” were great prospects for OneX. But the ASD patriarch did not identify the operators or braintrust behind OneX or say where the “program” was operating from. Instead, he told prospects that they could earn $99,000 very quickly through OneX.
Federal prosecutors now say OneX was recycling money in ASD-like fashion. They also say they’ve linked Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal, an autosurf that launched after the seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case in 2008 and disappeared in the summer of 2009 under mysterious circumstances.
Like ASD’s website during its Ponzi run, the OneX website has a history of going missing for days. It was offline and reportedly under maintenance during the 2011 Holiday season. Now, it’s under maintenance on the heels of Bowdoin’s guilty plea.
In 2009 — after the ASD seizure — Bowdoin also pitched a mysterious “program” known as Paperless Access. Much about Paperless Access remains mysterious. Its website also vanished.
As part of his plea agreement in the ASD case, Bowdoin has been banned from MLM, Internet programs and mass marketing.
(UPDATED 10:56 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, acknowledged in a conference call last night that the program that advertises a return of 60 percent a month is not registered with regulators. The acknowledgement, which potentially puts promoters worldwide at risk of being drawn into both civil and criminal prosecutions for selling unregistered securities and participating in a global financial conspiracy, occurred near the tail end of a call that lasted nearly an hour and a half.
JSS/JBP may have ties to the “sovereign citizen” movement, a loosely knit confederation of individuals who have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. The enterprise does not say where it is operating from and is using a number of payment processors that are “offshore” from a U.S. perspective.
A caller who identified himself as “Brian” from California asked Mann straight out if JSS/JBP was “legally registered.”
“You may have it backward,” Mann replied. “If you are legally registered, then you’ve signed up to be a slave, part of the slave system, and then they have jurisdiction over you and can shut you down.”
Earlier in the call — in response to a question from “Ricky” about why the JSS/JBP member agreement makes enlistees affirm they are not employees or officials of the “government” — Mann said this:
“In general, government people are not welcome in JBP.”
And then Mann explained why.
“Well, they’re part of a criminal gang of robbers, thieves, murderers, liars, imposters.”
Mann also said this: “These people are much worse than the Mafia.”
He conceded that some government employees might be good people. Mann also implied that, if a government employee signed up for JSS/JBP and later became a witness against the company, JSS/JBP would be able to challenge the credibility of the witness because of the firm’s member agreement.
In February, Gregory McKnight, the operator of the $72 million Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Legisi had member terms similar to JSS/JBP. The terms neither insulated Legisi nor McKnight from prosecution.
After Mann compared the government to the Mafia, a caller who identified himself as “Richard” from “Phoenix” described Mann as a “savior for the world.”
JSS/JBP purports to provide a preposterous daily return of 2 percent — twice that of AdSurfDaily, a $110 million Ponzi scheme that came under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud.
Mann, identified in 2008 promos as an ASD pitchman, said last night that ASD “basically operated as a sitting duck.”
Asked by a caller if JSS/JBP had lawyers to protect itself, Mann said this:
“Typically, lawyers are part of the slave system.”
And Mann speculated that the government could fire “cruise missiles” to take out a building in the Netherlands “where our servers are.”
Mann implied during the call that JSS/JBP had studied the ASD Ponzi case and had taken measures not to get swept into a Ponzi probe.
ASD was a “very badly managed business,” Mann said, adding that JSS/JBP had “much better security than the typical registered company.”
Zeekler, an arm of a U.S. company, frequently promotes auctions for sums of U.S. cash. Winning bidders can collect the sums via offshore payment processors linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme. Zeek is adding to the incongruity by preemptively denying it is a "pyramid scheme" while planting the seed that the U.S. government is operating a pyramid scheme through the Social Security program.
UPDATED 11:12 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) After the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case in 2008, some of ASD’s Stepfordian members advanced the bizarre theory that ASD should have been left untouched because Social Security — a U.S. government program — is a Ponzi scheme. The argument, which assumes Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is disingenuous to its core. Even if it could be proven that Social Security is a Ponzi, it does not change the simple fact that private businesses are not permitted to operate Ponzi schemes.
With the Social Security argument providing disingenuous cover for ASD and scams across the web, some of ASD’s most reliable “defenders” instantly turned their attentions to other autosurfs, HYIPs, cyclers and cash-gifting schemes. They might as well have said, “If the government gets to run a Ponzi scheme, so do we.”
The Social Security argument is a deflection that gets trotted out in scam after scam. It is used so often in scams that feature an MLM or MLM-like component that it has become a cliché, a veritable signature of a scam. Some of the most robotic MLM Stepfordians can’t resist the urge to go heavy on the exclamation points when they’re “defending” the most recent “program” in their stable of scams. Many of the “defenses” are nothing more than antigovernment screeds.
Even ASD President Andy Bowdoin — who after preemptive denials now admits he was operating a massive Ponzi scheme and knew all along that ASD was “an illegal money making business” — could not summon the discipline required to put an end to his scamming ways and days after his arrest. The government now says it has tied Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal (AVG), an autosurf that launched after the Secret Service raid, and to “OneX,” an alleged “fraudulent scheme” and pyramid.”
After the ASD raid, Bowdoin embarked on a PR strategy that positioned the government as evil. The government, according to Bowdoin, was guilty of “wrong doing,” creating a “nightmare of injustices,” bringing “un-true charges” and the “suppression of all ASD members.”
Like the Social Security argument, it was just a way to change the subject.
It has become somewhat fashionable within the HYIP sphere for “program” operators to preemptively deny they are running Ponzi schemes. The up-front denials were an element in the ASD case. They are incongruous by their very nature because they typically occur even as the “program” plants the seed that it not only pays commissions on two or more levels, but also provides outsize returns of 1 percent or more per day — percentages that would make Bernard Madoff blush.
“Zeek Rewards” is an MLM “program” that is planting an ASD-like seed that money directed to the enterprise will produce a large return.
Given the lessons provided by the ASD case on both the legal and PR fronts, it is just plain bizarre that Zeek is preemptively denying it is a “pyramid scheme” — all while going heavy on the exclamation points and raising the issue of Social Security.
On its Zeekler.com penny-auction site, the “opportunity” is saying this (italics/bolding added):
Our parent company Rex Venture Group has been in business 13 years and has historically paid its representatives in the field every commission check earned since its’ [sic] inception. “Is this a Pyramid Scheme?” Of course not!! “Pyramids” or “Money Games” are illegal and ask its’ [sic] participants to wrap money in tin foil and FedEx it to “someone else” with no exchange for product or service!
For good measure, the site is saying this (italics/bolding added):
The pyramidal structure is actually the “model” structure of every corporation and even the U.S. Social Security system. Why then are pyramids illegal? Because there is no “exchange” of product or service for the money spent and the only ones who “collect” money are the people at the top of the pyramid. When there are no longer enough people coming and sending money “up” to move people thru the pyramid – the pyramid collapses. An example of a legal – yet collapsing pyramidal structure/system is what is happening to social security. The baby boomers are all coming of age to collect (at the top of the pyramid)- with not enough people paying in from the bottom!! The structure will then collapse. Every CEO is at the top of his/her company’s pyramidal structure. That’s why he/she makes so much more than a mailroom worker. At penny auction site Zeekler every person has the same opportunity to achieve the same income or out-earn the person who referred them into the program.
Whether Rex Venture Group historically has paid commissions is immaterial to the issue of whether the company is conducting a pyramid scheme through its Zeek arms. Like successful Ponzis, successful pyramid schemes pay. The payments are what keep new money flowing to the schemes. Web-based Ponzis/pyramids can be exceptionally dangerous because affiliates use the payments they receive as a disingenuous form of social proof that no scam is under way.
Zeek’s “tin foil” reference is an apparent allusion to obvious cash-gifting scams. But lawyered-up Zeek has to know that the pyramid issue is much more complicated that that, which is why the gifting allusion impresses us as a red herring. Ponzi/pyramid schemes come in many forms and often involve the issuance and sale of securities. Fraud purveyors may avoid the use of the language of investments, but a security described as something else is still a security.
And that’s one of the potential issues with Zeek: Is the company selling unregistered securities as investment contracts and trying to disclaim its way out of an encounter with regulators?
Zeek does not address this issue in its preemptive denial that it is operating a pyramid scheme and simultaneous argument that Social Security is a pyramid scheme. But it does touch on the securities issue at the bottom of the home page of ZeekRewards, the MLM arm of the Zeek “program” (italics added):
IMPORTANT: The following paragraph MUST BE READ ALOUD whenever the ZeekRewards compensation plan is presented verbally or by telephone, or included in it’s entirety when communicating in writing:
“If you make a purchase from ZeekRewards you are purchasing a Premium eCommerce subscription or you are purchasing bids to give away as samples. You are NOT purchasing stock or any other form of “investment” or equity. You MUST actually use the bids that you purchase or give them away as samples to help grow your business. Affiliates who present our products to others in a misleading manner or in a way that leads the buyer to believe he or she is making an investment or purchasing equities will be terminated and all commissions and awards will be forfeited. Buyers MUST read the entire How It Works and Get Paid pages on the ZeekRewards website and the Legal Disclaimers.”
At a minimum, this much can be said about Zeek: It has a tin ear for PR.
Zeek is preemptively denying it is a pyramid scheme even as its affiliates maintain a presence on well-known fraud forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, a circumstance that strongly suggests scammers are directing money to Zeek that they “earned” in other scams. The Social Security argument also is a loser because it is embraced by a sea of online scammers as a rationale for licensing themselves to commit crimes on a global scale.
ASD preemptively denied it was a Ponzi scheme. Its Stepfordian affiliates advanced the Social Security deflection even as they were racing to their next scams and positioning them as a way ASD members could make up their losses.
Almost all of the scams used the same offshore processors Zeek is using.
Under the terms of his plea agreement, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin effectively has been banned from multilevel marketing, Internet opportunities and businesses that employ mass marketing.
The agreement contains this provision, and Bowdoin consented to it in writing as a condition of release before he is formally sentenced: “Your client shall not participate in any business venture using the internet, multi-level marketing, or mass marketing.” (Italics added.)
Language in the agreement suggests the bans could last until Bowdoin is well into his eighties — until Bowdoin, now 77, serves any prison or probationary term imposed. No sentencing date has been scheduled. Bowdoin’s next court date is set for June 12 “to determine if he should be incarcerated pending his sentencing,” federal prosecutors said.
Bowdoin pleaded guilty yesterday to wire fraud for the web-based ASD scam. The information in the numbered entries (below) was confirmed by Bowdoin himself in a “Statement of Offense” that bears his signature. It is in stark contrast to earlier online claims by the ASD patriarch that he had been railroaded and that ASD members should send him money to pay for his criminal defense.
Second Key Win For Government
Bowdoin’s guilty plea marked the second recent win by the government in a major online HYIP case. Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP and Ponzi scheme, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in February. The Legisi and ASD schemes fetched a combined haul of more than $180 million, according to court filings. Bowdoin’s scheme was a form of HYIP fraud known as “autosurfing” in which participants were promised enormous returns for viewing advertisements. The schemes spread in part through social networking and shilling sites such as the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup forums.
The U.S. Secret Service was involved in both the ASD and Legisi probes.
ASD Discussed In HYIP’s Conference Call Day Before Bowdoin Guilty Plea
A current HYIP scheme known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid continues to make inroads online. Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS/JBP, was identified in 2008 promos as an ASD pitchman. Bowdoin’s legal problems were among the subjects of a JSS/JBP conference call Thursday that appeared to be heavily populated by U.S. residents, including some who expressed worry about the “program.” JSS/JBP purports to provide a daily return of 2 percent, twice that of ASD.
Less than 24 hours after Thurday’s JSS/JBP call ended, Bowdoin pleaded guilty in open court and subjected himself to a possible prison term of 78 months, along with three years’ supervised release. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Bowdoin potentially faces court supervision for the next 9 and a half years.
During Thursday’s call, Mann — an older man, like Bowdoin — did not rule out the possibility that his program could encounter an ASD-like intervention by the government.
“The slavemasters don’t want their slaves to escape,” Mann said, casting the U.S. government as wicked.
“What you need to realize is that the de facto U.S. Constitution is ‘anything goes’ that we can get away with. So, that’s how Obama operates. That’s how Romney would operate if he were elected President. That’s how George Bush operates.”
Like ASD, JSS/JBP may have ties or be sympathetic to the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement. “Sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. JSS/JBP is so secretive that the “opportunity” does not identify where it is operating from and makes members affirm they are not with the “government.”
After a caller asked Mann Thursday about ASD, Mann said this:
“If they want to arrest people and take their money, they will find some pretext.”
HYIPs operate as virtually pure Ponzi schemes. Victims can pile up by the tens of thousands in a single scheme. The schemes redistribute wealth from the masses and put it in the hands of a select few.
Bowdoin’s Statement
ASD's Andy Bowdoin
Before getting into some of the specifics of Bowdoin’s signed statement — a statement also signed by Bowdoin’s attorney Charles A. Murray and a federal prosecutor — it perhaps is worth noting that Bowdoin’s plea agreement contains this provision to which Bowdoin agreed in writing: “Your client represents to the Court that his attorney has rendered effective assistance.” (Italics added.)
Though boilerplate language, it is important in the context of Bowdoin’s history. Indeed, he has a history of publicly blaming lawyers for his problems. In 2011, for example, he appeared in a video solicitation in which he asked the people he now admits he defrauded to pay for his criminal defense. Bowdoin blamed his prior counsel, a federal judge, two federal prosecutors and three agents of the U.S. Secret Service for his predicament. The final page of the plea agreement contains this language to which Bowdoin agreed in writing:
“I have read this Plea Agreement and discussed it with my attorneys, Michael McDonnell, Esq. and Charles Murray, Esq. I fully understand this Plea Agreement and agree to it without reservation. I do this voluntarily and of my own free will, intending to be legally bound. No threats have been made against me nor am I under the influence of anything that could impede my ability to understand this Plea Agreement fully. I am pleading guilty because I am in fact guilty of the offense(s) identified in this Plea Agreement.” (Italics/bolding added)
Because of the plea agreement and the MLM/Internet/mass-marketing bans, Bowdoin’s role as an an online pitchman for a program known as “OneX” has ended.
In essence, because of what Bowdoin did in ASD — and allegedly what he continued to do even after being arrested for running a Ponzi scheme — Bowdoin has been banned from MLM, kicked out of the business side of the Web and barred from making mass solicitations in any form.
Prosecutors said last month that OneX was a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” that was recycling money to members in ASD-like fashion. Bowdoin was arrested on ASD-related charges in December 2010. In October 2011 — 10 months after his arrest — he told OneX prospects that God had provided the OneX program and that he intended to use money from the scheme to pay for his criminal defense.
On Tuesday — just three days before Bowdoin pleaded guilty to a felony for his operation of ASD — a fellow OneX pitchman described Bowdoin as “our Mentor.”
Here, now, some highlights from Bowdoin’s signed “Statement of Offense” — along with editorial notes. Bolding added by the PP Blog . . .
1.) “Bowdoin called ASD’s operation a revenue-sharing advertising program . . .” (NOTE: All kinds of HYIP schemes use the phrase “revenue sharing” as a means of masking the Ponzi elements. The phrase, for example, appears on the website of JSS/JBP. It “works” because it sounds plausible. After all, many businesses share revenue legally. The connection many new HYIP enlistees do not make is that scammers have co-opted the term to sanitize their fraud schemes.)
2.) “But, contrary to its representations, the advertising packages sold by ASD generated insufficient revenue to fund the returns it promised to the members. Instead, ASD operated as a ‘Ponzi’ scheme.” (NOTE: ASD members Dwight Owen Schweitzer and Todd Disner sued the government last year, alleging that ASD was a legitimate business. Bowdoin now publicly disagrees with them, based on his admission that ASD was a Ponzi scheme.)
3.) “Throughout ASD’s operation, Bowdoin was aware that ASD was an illegal money making business, and that he was intentionally defrauding ASD members.”
4.) ASD, according to Bowdoin’s statement, actually gathered more than “$119 million” from members. (NOTE: This figure is about $9 million higher than the rough amount of $110 million cited by the government in previous filings. The PP Blog will check next week to see if it can confirm that the $119 million figure is the final sum identified after investigation. As things stand, both Bowdoin and the government agree on the $119 million figure.)
5.) ASD made more than $45 million in Ponzi payments and spent more than $10 million on operations. About $1.161 million was directed at Bowdoin or his family.
6.) During ASD’s initial iteration at AdSurfDaily.com, Bowdoin realized “[a]fter only a few months of operation” that ASD was in over its head “because he was not selling any independent products or services sufficient to generate an income stream needed to support the returns and commissions ASD was paying . . .” (NOTE: The JSS/JBP scheme has a commission-payout scheme (two tiers, one paying 10 percent the other 5 percent) that is virtually identical to ASD. Incredibly, JSS/JBP says it can pay double ASD’s daily return of 1 percent on top of the two-tiered commissions.)
7.) “In approximately March 2007, Bowdoin ceased ASD’s operations because it was paying out money to its employees and members faster than it was taking in new money.” (NOTE: Bowdoin’s concession proves the government’s longstanding theory that ASD collapsed in its original iteration because of the Ponzi pressure. At one point, according to court filings, Bowdoin blamed ASD’s inability to pay on script problems and a purported theft of $1 million by “Russian” hackers.)
8.) Bowdoin — instead of getting out of the Ponzi business — thereafter launched ASD under a new name at a new website: ASDCashGenerator.com. Bowdoin, according to his statement, admits he made some cosmetic tweaks — lowering the return from 150 percent to 125 percent, for example. “By not changing ASD’s business model in any meaningful way, Bowdoin continued to intentionally defraud members.” (NOTE: It is common in the HYIP fraud sphere for “admins” to claim they’ve employed tweaks to take Ponzi issues out of play. An obvious Ponzi scheme known as JSS Tripler 2 appears recently to have employed some Bowdoin-like tweaks, including a name change to T2MoneyKlub — while adding to its claims that the “opportunity” had income streams sufficient to pay an absurd return of 2 percent a day on top of referral commissions.)
9.) Bowdoin never told his second group of fraud victims that they were paying for the fraud Bowdoin committed against his first group of victims.
10.) “Bowdoin also intentionally failed to explain to old and new members that, in the 1990s, he was convicted in Alabama of three securities-related crimes, charged in Alabama in at least 13 additional indictments alleging securities fraud, and barred from ever selling securities in Alabama.”
11.) Bowdoin compounded lies told about his lack of a criminal record by permitting lies to be told about an award for business achievement purportedly given Bowdoin by President George W. Bush. The “award” actually was a memento from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) that was “entirely dependent” on a Bowdoin money contrbution to NRCC of $25,000 “and was not based on Bowdoin’s business acumen or any other evaluation of his prior business practices.”
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING:(5TH UPDATE: 5:54 P.M. EDT) Andy Bowdoin has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case.
A bond-review hearing for the 77-year-old ASD patriarch had been scheduled for 2 p.m. today. Instead, the proceeding turned into a plea hearing.
“The Internet now allows swindlers to perpetrate fraud on a much larger scale than Charles Ponzi could have imagined 100 years ago,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. of the District of Columbia. “Andy Bowdoin’s online Ponzi scheme took in $110 million from thousands of people across the United States and other countries. His guilty plea today is another milestone in our efforts to protect the public from being ripped off over the Internet. This case is a healthy reminder that the public should be skeptical when evaluating investment opportunities: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Bowdoin, who was arrested in Florida by the U.S. Secret Service on Dec. 1, 2010, has been free on bond since his arrest. He will remain free at least until June 12, when another hearing is scheduled.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer is presiding over the case.
Bowdoin admitted today that he knew ASD was a fraud — but nevertheless continued to operate it between 2006 and 2008. He also admitted that he siphoned more than $1.16 million from the scam, using it to enrich himself and his family.
Under the terms of a plea agreement, Bowdoin faces a maximum sentence of 78 months in federal prison. How soon he would begin any sentence handed down remains unclear. It is believed that Bowdoin — who’d initially began negotiating with prosecutors in late 2008 — reentered negotiations after prosecutors accused him last month of pitching a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” known as OneX.
Prosecutors also say they tied Bowdoin to an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal.
Larry M. Myers, a self-described “sovereign citizen” and fugitive who remained on the lam for 14 years before his August 2011 arrest, has been sentenced to 78 months in federal prison.
Myers, 63, was found guilty by a jury on Valentine’s Day of conspiracy, mailing threatening communications in a bid to extort and obstructing justice.
In March, the office of the Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration (TIGTA) described Myers as member of a bogus entity known as “The Constitutional Court of We The People In and For The United States of America.”
The entity also was known as the “Constitutional Common Law Court” and “The Supreme Court of the Constitutional Court of We the People — In and For the united [sic] States of America.”
Known informally as CLC, the confabulations were “pseudo-judicial, non-governmental, and unofficial enterprise[s], created and established in 1992 in Tampa, Florida,” TIGTA said.
“Myers and his co-conspirators mailed a CLC arrest warrant to a Chief Judge of a Florida State court,” TIGTA said. “They also issued a CLC contempt of court order and ‘militia’ arrest warrant to a District Judge. By use of threats and threatening communications, Myers and co-conspirators attempted to influence, intimidate, obstruct, and impede jurors and officers in and of the Courts of the United States. For instance, they endeavored to intimidate a jury panel with a CLC ‘contempt of court order,’ in which they threatened arrest by ‘militia’ for alleged acts of treason.”
The office of U.S. Attorney Robert E. O’Neill of the Middle District of Florida described Myers as president of the so-called “Pinellas Patriots” in the Tampa region.
“He claimed that he was not a citizen of the United States, but a so-called sovereign citizen who was not subject to U.S. statutory laws,” O’Neill’s office said. “Myers participated in a sham ‘Common Law Court’ in a number of capacities, including as a ‘judge’ and a ‘militia enforcement officer.’ Between March 1994 and March 1996, Myers participated in a conspiracy with others, to obstruct justice by conveying threatening communications to state and federal judges, petit and grand jurors, and others, in order to obtain federal rulings in criminal cases, dismissals of indictments and release from incarceration for individuals who had been lawfully convicted.”
U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday ordered the 78-month sentence.
TIGTA and the FBI led the probe.
Curtis Richmond, a mainstay in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme story, was a member of a similar sham entity in Utah.
A website linked to an emerging HYIP known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid has showcased videos of purported Alaska “sovereign citizen” and “militia” leader Francis Schaeffer Cox. Cox and others are on trial amid allegations they hatched a plot against government officials.
Cox allegedly participated in a so-called common-law court that operated at a Denny’s Restaurant.
The sham entity with which Richmond was associated was known derisively as the “Arby’s Indians” because it once held a meeting at an Arby’s restaurant in Utah. Richmond was sued successfully under the federal RICO statute, and once was found guilty of contempt in California for threatening federal judges.
In a Utah case involving Richmond, a bogus lien for $250 million was placed against a county attorney and a false claim for $300,000 was made against a Family Services worker in the state. The bogus “tribe” conducted a “Supreme Court” that used the address of a Utah doughnut shop and also relied on a bogus “arbitration” panel to make mischief in the state.
Richmond repeatedly sought to intervene in the ASD case, at one time accusing the judge overseeing the case of “treason” and suggesting she and federal prosecutors were guilty of dozens of felonies.
Richmond’s theory of the ASD case was that the government was guilty of interfering in commerce. The U.S. Secret Service described ASD as an international Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million from the small town of Quincy in northern Florida.
Kenneth Wayne Leaming, another ASD story mainstay and purported “sovereign citizen,” is jailed near Seattle on charges of filing bogus liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case.
Back in 2008 — when the U.S. Secret Service raided Florida-based AdSurfDaily in a Ponzi probe and people who called ASD’s office were told God was on the company’s side — federal prosecutors alleged that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had “followers.”
The meaning of “followers” largely was left to the imagination. Much of the mystery was taken away, however, when a now-defunct cheerleading forum for Bowdoin known as “Surf’s Up” served up impossibly tortured defenses for the ASD patriarch around the clock for more than a year.
Although it’s hard to distill the peculiar essence of Surf’s Up in a single thought, this one at least approximates it: ASD = good; government = evil.
One Surf’s Up member advanced the notion that Bowdoin’s problems could be solved by a “militia” storming Washington. Another opined that the interests of justice best would be served if the then-lead federal prosecutor were placed in a torture rack and ASD members drew straws to determine who got the honor of turning the wheel. Another ASD member — on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — issued a “prayer” for the prosecutors to be struck dead.
“Root them out of the land of the living!” the “prayer” petitioned. “Let evil slay them, and desolation be their lot!”
For good measure, the “prayer” called for God to order “divine angelic prophetic assaults . . .” against the prosecution and evidence in the case, including the ASD database.
Bowdoin himself removed some of the “followers” mystery when he compared a government raid designed to protect the financial interests of thousands of victims ensnared in an alleged $110 million Ponzi scheme to the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. He further demonized the Secret Service and federal prosecutors by comparing them to “Satan.”
Another part of the mystery perhaps was decloaked when Bowdoin’s son — in 2010 — asserted his father “is a man with no conscience” who’d used religion for years to fleece the masses.
The government has filed at least three civil forfeiture actions related to ASD. Two of the cases have proceeded to final judgment, with ASD on the losing side. (A third civil forfeiture case remains pending. Elements of the third case are directed at certain specific ASD members who allegedly benefited from the fraudulent scheme, meaning that the members themselves may have significant legal exposure.)
In both cases that have proceeded to final judgment, Bowdoin unsuccessfully appealed the losses to a higher court. He filed one of the appeals, despite the fact he’d never entered a defense in that specific case. The case he did not defend is one in which certain members of Bowdoin’s family may have significant legal exposure.
Separately, Bowdoin was named a defendant in a lawsuit by disaffected ASD members who accused him of racketeering. By December 2010, Bowdoin had been arrested on ASD-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Although his trial date is set for September, he faces a bond-review hearing on Friday. Prosecutors now say they’ve linked Bowdoin to at least two post-ASD frauds, including one known as “OneX.”
Bowdoin began pitching OneX in October 2011, about 10 months after he was indicted in the ASD case.
“I believe that God has brought us OneX to provide the necessary funds to win this case,” Bowdoin said last year.
Both Bowdoin and supporters habitually use pronouns such as “us” and “we”when discussing ASD or matters pertaining to Bowdoin. The precise reason why remains unclear. So far, Bowdoin is the only ASD figure known to have been charged publicly for alleged misconduct directly tied to ASD, which the Secret Service described as a “criminal enterprise.”
Bowdoin’s reference in his OneX sales pitch to “this case” was in the context of the ASD-related criminal case against him. He earlier blamed the loss of the ASD civil cases on a “single, lone judge,” prosecutors/agents who’d allegedly “crucified” him and earlier defense attorneys who’d allegedly railroaded him.
Did we mention that some ASD members have accused a federal judge of “treason” and that purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming — an ASD story mainstay — is jailed near Seattle on federal charges that he filed false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case?
Meanwhile, Christian Oesch, a Leaming colleague in a failed lawsuit against the government for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case, strangely has taken to calling himself a “transmitting utility” in response to a nonASD lawsuit in which he is named a defendant.
Records in Washington state show that at least two companies that use the phrase “transmitting utility” in their names have a business tie to Leaming through an entity known as American-International Business Law Inc. Other records show that the phrase itself has been linked to the so-called sovereign-citizen movement. “Sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them.
When Leaming was arrested by an FBI terrorism task force in November 2011, he was found with two federal fugitives from Arkansas, according to court filings. Leaming also allegedly discussed a plan by which he’d serve John Roberts with a writ through the school his young children attended. That writ apparently was part of a scheme to file false liens against two U.S. prison officials for alleged misdeeds against a former Leaming business colleague serving time in a federal penitentiary.
John Roberts is the Chief Justice of the United States.
And yet Bowdoin — despite everything that has happened to date in the ASD case and its surrounding circus of the bizarre — still has followers.
The PP Blog received information through a source last night that some of Bowdoin’s followers will continue on with OneX, despite the government’s recent assertion it is a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” that is recycling money to members in ASD like fashion.
An email circulating last night from Bowdoin’s OneX “team” strangely referenced Bowdoin without naming him. The email used the pronouns “our” and “we.”
“As many have noticed our Mentor has had to take a break due to legal reasons,” the email read in part. “We had hoped for a breakthrough on the 8th, however it was postponed to later this month.”
Bowdoin’s bond-review hearing originally had been scheduled for May 8. A federal judge later rescheduled it for May 18 — Friday.
That Bowdoin — an accused felon with a felonious history — gets accorded the description of “Mentor” (with an uppercase “M”) hardly can be a source of comfort to the good men and women at the Department of Justice and the U.S. Secret Service. Agents and prosecutors alike must be scratching their heads today and wondering where it all will end.
Here is the OneX email in its entirety (italics added):
Ninja Success Team Updates
Dear Team,
As most know we have been going through some changes with the Ninja Success Team. As many have noticed our Mentor has had to take a break due to legal reasons. We had hoped for a breakthrough on the 8th, however it was postponed to later this month.
I have gotten a lot of emails in the last week and I hope that my honesty has made you feel at ease and I hope that you will find patience until the challenge has been met.
Another challenge that we are facing is the financing of the servers that everybody’s Lead Capture Page Systems, the 1xTraining Site, and the Ninja Back Office sit [sic]. Our Mentor has been paying this out of his own pocket for all time. Because of the legal challenges, we are left to finance ourselves.
The management team has been tossing around a bunch of ideas, from donations to selling the lead packages. We have decided to ask for donations as well as to continue to sell the new ninja tools (which are getting awesome results).
As we all know we are at a very big momentum right now and are at the downhill roll to making all of our business worth quite a bit of money and this is due to the working of our Ninja Success Team. In order to continue as one of the biggest, most successful teams of the OneX opportunity, I implore everybody to at least make a donation or purchase of the New Ninja Turbo tools available on the training site or the Ninja Back Office.
Below is the link to make a donation or you can find on the menu part of the Training Site. A donation of $10 or $20/mon. would be extremely welcome.
[Link deleted by PP Blog]
I want to personally thank everybody as well for the patience they have shown during this challenge.
Alan
The Ninja Success Team
If the government is right, it means that Bowdoin is pushing a pyramid scheme even as he awaits trial in a major Ponzi scheme case.
And if purported email author and OneX pitchman “Alan” is right, then the Bowdoin “team” is getting “awesome results” from selling “tools” to drive traffic to a program the government says is a pyramid scheme.
“Alan” apparently does not feel compelled to pull the plug on the Bowdoin “team” OneX promos even though the “Mentor” possibly faces severe bond restrictions or potentially even loss of his freedom owing to the pitches.
What’s important to “Alan,” apparently, is that the “breakthrough” now is expected to come through on May 18 after a 10-day delay.
Whether the judge conducting the bond-review hearing might have a differing notion on the meaning of the word “breakthrough” is a question that may be answered in the coming days.
In any event, “followers” — a word used by the ASD prosecutors long ago — proved to be pretty much spot on. What no one knew at the time was that not even three forfeiture cases, a racketeering lawsuit, an arrest on serious criminal charges and Bowdoin’s own felonious history could deter some of those followers from seeing him as anything other than a mentor.
UPDATED 4:05 PM EDT (U.S.A.): It’s MoneyMakerGroup’s fault that JSS Tripler 2 (T2) — also known as T2MoneyKlub — has collapsed.
And it’s also the fault of “Elmer,” a forum poster who apparently committed the unpardonable sin of questioning the legitimacy of a scheme that advertised a return of 2 percent a day — after naming itself after another scheme that advertised 2 percent a day and after T2 gave birth to itself in a forum referenced in U.S. court filings as a place from which massive HYIP Ponzi schemes such as Legisi and Pathway to Prosperity were promoted.
The bizarre assertions were made by T2 Admin “Dave,” a self-described newlywed apparently fully recovered from a recent bout with Dengue Fever but no longer able to ward off a case of Ponzi topplitis fatalis.
“CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!!” the T2 site screamed last night in all-caps and red type. “DUE TO INCESSANT UNDERMINING BY THE STAFF AND A SELECTION OF ‘STAFF ASSISTED’ MEMBERS OF MONEYMAKERGROUP.COM.”
Only days before, “Dave” announced that members who plowed money into the scheme would begin receiving payments to make them whole and put them in profit. Whether those payments were made remains an open question. Serial scammers and willfully blind Ponzi recruiters who populate the Ponzi boards and organize their public and private sales pitches to speed the flow of cash to the schemes as a means of harvesting commissions as illegal broker-dealers may be the only winners — other than “Dave” himself.
Whether “Dave” assigned himself a Ponzi “rake” is unclear. In the AdSurfDaily online Ponzi case, federal prosecutors said ASD President Andy Bowdoin and a “silent partner” who was Bowdoin’s sponsor in the 12DailyPro online Ponzi scheme agreed to a rake of 10 percent of ASD’s “gross sales.”
The U.S. Secret Service said ASD had gathered at least $110 million. Bowdoin was charged in 2010 with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. He faces a Ponzi trial in September and a bond-review hearing May 18. Investigators say he continued to scam after the Secret Service raided ASD in August 2008.
Ponzi-board posts suggest “Dave” had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars sent in by T2 members, beginning late last year and at least into the early part of 2012. But a problem with an offshore (from a U.S. perspective) payment processor purportedly developed, a situation that purportedly led to a freeze on cashouts. “Dave” claimed he was operating the program from both Britain and Thailand, while also venturing to countries such as Cambodia.
The collapse of T2 occurred just days after the conclusion of a conference in Israel at which INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui described two recent online scams operating in Asia that had gathered billions of dollars and resulted in 220 arrests.
Some of the suspects were trying to make a fast getaway at an airport, Hui said, describing the purveyors as transnational criminals.
“[Eighty] per cent of crime committed online is now connected to organized gangs operating across borders,” Hui said, citing figures from a study by London Metropolitan University. “Criminal gangs now find that transnational and cybercrime are far more rewarding and profitable than other riskier forms of making money.”
MoneyMakerGroup is referenced in both the Legisi and Pathway To Prosperity cases as a place from which Ponzi and fraud schemes are promoted. The combined hauls of those schemes exceeded $140 million, according to court filings.
The combined hauls of ASD, Legisi and Pathway To Prosperity exceeded $250 million, according to court filings. Like Legisi, Pathway To Prosperity and T2, ASD also was promoted on the Ponzi forums. Federal prosecutors now say that OneX — yet another “opportunity” promoted on the forums — is a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid.”
Bowdoin now is accused of promoting OneX.
Although the closure announcement on the T2 site did not reference Elmer, remarks attributed to “Dave” (as Peakr8) on MoneyMakerGroup made it plain that “Dave” holds Elmer equally accountable for the collapse of the T2 scheme, which recently started a Ponzi feeder program known as “Compound150.”
Here’s “Dave” as Peakr8 yesterday on MoneyMakerGroup (italics added):
I got an email from [MoneyMakerGroup Admin] Yippee some months back. Included in it was one line I will never forget.
Elmer and his friends will NEVER be banned from MMG, the owner wants them there. To create ‘interesting discussion’.
My kids found this doing a search about T2MK… The youngest is 9 years old, the oldest is 13… they cried.
Hope you feel great about that Elmer and friends.. Hope you all feel great!!
I am closing both programs down as of NOW, and i will leave it to the processors to distribute the funds.
Yippee said hogwash.
“This is a BOLD FACED LIE!” Yippee exclaimed.
Elmer said “Dave’s” Ponzi experienced a meltdown and that “Dave” had become the “newest member of the ‘Crazy admin excuses’ club.”
“Why don’t you just tell the truth Dave? Elmer quizzed. “Your ponzi imploded. It ran out of cash to pay with.”
As part of its fraud, T2 maintained its own fraud forum. In a moment of almost-perfect fraud symmetry, legendary fraudster “Ken Russo” made the last “I got paid” post in T2s subfraud forum for its Compound150 fraud.
Whether “Ken Russo” had plowed into Wealth4All any of his purported May 11 net payout of $535.95 from “Dave’s” multifaceted T2 Ponzi venture is unknown.
“Ask About My Matching Loan Offer,” “Ken Russo” prompted in his ad for Wealth4AllTeam at “Dave’s” forum for the combined T2 frauds.
In March, “Dave” asserted that the PP Blog and “all your lackies” had “completely undermined your credibility . . . from the word go” in stories and comments about T2.
The T2 death notice followed about two months after “Dave’s” assertions on the PP Blog.
BULLETIN: There are multiple reports this morning from self-identified residents of the United States and Canada about account hackings and unresponsive support at JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, the “program” purportedly operated by former AdSurfDaily pitchman Frederick Mann. JSS/JBP purports to pay a monthly return of 60 percent, double that of the now-defunct ASD, an alleged Ponzi scheme.
Accompanying the hacking reports were comments by Mann that a JSS/JBP-related website known as Tripler.biz was offline, possibly because of a DDoS attack. If the DDoS claim is true, it marks at least the second time a JSS/JBP-related site has been targeted.
Whether the purported account hackings and server-crippling attacks had been reported to law enforcement by either JSS/JBP or its members was not immediately clear.
In a conference call last night, a JSS/JBP member who identified himself as “Kaleem” (sp?) said he’d been blocked out of his account since March 29 and that the “opportunity” had not solved the problem.
“I’ve put my last $2,000 in here,” Kaleem said.
Meanwhile, a JSS/JBP member who identified himself as “Norm” from “Alberta” said “a couple of people” in his group had their accounts hacked.
“I’ve had some sleepless nights on that because I’m managing some of these accounts for these members,” Norm said.
JSS/JBP “support” has dropped the ball, Norm suggested.
“Right now, we’re not getting these accounts back to the people who rightfully own them,” Norm said.
Separately, a woman from “California” who suggested she was helping to manage 21 accounts said this during the call:
“For a few of the accounts, a week after they were opened, they went into Nevis.”
Nevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea.
JSS/JBP support has been unhelpful after her submission of “numerous tickets,” the woman said, adding that someone in a JSS/JBP-related chatroom was “immensely rude” to her.
Although Mann spoke to the purported hackings last night by encouraging members to use the JSS/JBP support function, members appeared to be none too pleased with his guidance. The hacking issue could prove to be a thorny one because JSS/JBP operates in an environment of secrecy, does not disclose its base of operations and makes members avow they are not with the “government.” Nor does the purported “opportunity” have any known securities registrations with regulators. At the same time, at least some JSS/JBP members appear to be acting as unregistered broker-dealers and investment advisers who are managing both the JSS/JBP accounts and the payment-processing accounts of their downline recruits.
“My bills are backed up and I still can’t get in,” Kaleem told Mann and the conference-call audience. “Somebody hacked into your system and was moving money to Michael at BigBooster.”
The name “michael” and a Mann-related domain known as BigBooster.com form an email address through which JSS/JBP conducts business. Mann has described “Michael” as a business partner.
Mann pushed AdSurfDaily at the BigBooster domain in 2008, according to records. The U.S. Secret Service later described ASD as an international Ponzi scheme that had gathered $110 million. ASD President Andy Bowdoin was arrested in December 2010 on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. He faces a trial date in September — and prosecutors now say Bowdoin is pushing a fraudulent scheme known as OneX.
In December 2009, prosecutors said Bowdoin never filed a police report when individuals described as “Russian” hackers purportedly stole $1 million from ASD.
A woman on last night’s call who described herself as “Jackie” in “Arkansas” said her boss — “Leon” — had provided four employees $100 each to join JSS/JBP.
“I have signed up four of my 11 grandchildren,” Jackie said.
But she noted that Leon appeared not to have been given proper credit for at least one person who joined under him, suggesting that an email address had been tampered with.
Kaleem appeared to become increasingly frustrated during the call, suggesting he has lost both his $2,000 outlay and expected profits of thousands of dollars because of the hacking.
From pleadings by Christian Oesch in a lawsuit filed against him in Utah by Fannie Mae. (Redaction/emphasis by PP Blog.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: In July 2010, Christian Oesch of Utah, and Kenneth Wayne Leaming of Spanaway, Wash., sought to sue the United States — apparently for the staggering sum of more than $29 trillion — for its actions in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi forfeiture case brought by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008. The Secret Service described ASD as a “criminal enterprise” operated by Andy Bowdoin, a 77-year-old recidivist con man.
ASD had gathered at least $110 million from tiny Quincy, Fla., by offering outsize investment returns of 1 percent a day, the Secret Service alleged. It has been known since the earliest months of the ASD case that the business had ties to so-called “sovereign citizens.”
One of the calling cards of the “sovereign citizen movement” is what has been described as “paper terrorism”: an effort to clog the courts with baseless or vexatious litigation and legal pleadings designed to tie the hands of public servants and/or courtroom opponents
Leaming, a 56-year-old purported “sovereign citizen,” was arrested by an FBI terrorism task force in November 2011 on charges of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case. A superseding indictment was returned against Leaming earlier this year. He remains jailed at a federal detention facility near Seattle. A September trial date for Leaming has been set in federal court in Washington state, the venue from which he allegedly filed the false liens and committed other crimes such as harboring fugitives and possessing firearms as a convicted felon.
Judge Christine Odell Cook Miller of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ultimately dismissed the lawsuit brought by Oesch and Leaming, saying in December 2010 that the “complaint deteriorates into rambling.” Earlier — in July 2009 — Oesch had sought to intervene in the ASD case and set aside the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars in the personal bank accounts of Andy Bowdoin. Like Leaming, Bowdoin is scheduled to go on trial in September. Bowdoin’s trial will be conducted in the District of Columbia.
Oesch, known to have business ties to Leaming, has not been accused of wrongdoing in the ASD case.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia — later allegedly targeted by Leaming with false liens — denied standing to Oesch and numerous other pro se litigants in the ASD case.
The ASD case has been marked by strangeness, including pro se court filings that accused Collyer of treason and operating a “Kangaroo Court.” Oesch accused Collyer of interfering with commerce, arguing that the judge and federal prosecutors also were guilty of “Anti-Trust Violations” and “Criminal RICO” violations.
That same type of language now is being used by Oesch in his responses to a January 2012 lawsuit in Utah in which he was named a defendant by mortgage giant Fannie Mae . . .
Using the same street address in Midvale, Utah, that appears in court filings in the civil-forfeiture portion of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, ASD figure Christian Oesch curiously declared himself a “Fiction & Transmitting Utility” in his response to a lawsuit in which he was named a defendant by the Federal National Mortgage Association, the PP Blog has learned.
The U.S. mortgage giant commonly known as Fannie Mae initially sued Oesch, Becky Oesch, Michael A. King and two alleged “Doe” occupants of a home on South Wayside Drive in Sandy, Utah, in January 2012. The complaint was removed to federal court in Salt Lake City in February, but now has been kicked back to Utah state court, according to court dockets.
Oesch, who once claimed that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer and other public officials involved in the ASD case were guilty of racketeering and antitrust violations, now has essentially accused Fannie Mae of the same thing.
“Securitization is illegal under US legislation — primarily because it is fraudulent and causes specific violations of R.I.C.O., usury, Antitrust and bankruptcy laws,” Oesch argued.
At issue in the case is a dispute over the ownership of the Sandy home. King was listed as the owner of the home in a September 2011 notice of trustee’s sale for the property. Fannie Mae said in court filings that it purchased the home at the September trustee’s sale and that “Defendants have failed to vacate and yield possession of the Subject Property” and hold it in “unlawful detainer.”
Oesch went on to argue that “US authorities from the highest level downwards, financial institutions, intermediaries, Intelligence Power operatives and others are gearing up for what they doubtless hope will be intensified racketeering and trading activity with (corrupt) foreign counterparties.
“This behavior is being fine-tuned ‘as we speak’ . . .” Oesch ventured.
He went on to advance a conspiracy theory that involved the “US Treasury, the White House, the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency and its subsidiaries such as the lethal Office of Naval Intelligence . . .”
ASD is not referenced in the Utah complaint against Oesch and the others. Filings suggest, however, that Oesch lived at one time in the Sandy house that is the center of the case. Fannie Mae is seeking treble damages for an alleged failure of the defendants to vacate the property when requested.
BULLETIN: Arnett Lanse Waters, 62, of Milton, Mass., was “permanently barred” on March 9 “from association with any” Financial Industry Regulatory Authority member for failing to provide testimony” in a FINRA probe, the SEC said.
This ban occurred after Waters — in 1993 — was “censured and barred for two years by the New York Stock Exchange for forging a document to secure a bank loan and refusing to comply with the Exchange’s requests for information and testimony,” the SEC charged.
Regardless, a Boston-area church appears to have plowed $500,000 into Waters’ fraud scheme via a “subscription agreement” on March 22, about 13 days after the FINRA ban and nine days after Waters was interviewed by the SEC in its developing probe based on the FINRA matters, the agency said.
The church received a “a copy of the Private Placement Offering Memorandum on March 15,” about six days after the FINRA ban and a week before entrusting Waters with the $500,000 “capital contribution,” according to court filings.
Early details are sketchy, but court filings by the SEC suggest that at least some of the church’s money was misdirected by Waters and his wife to pay for a lawyer and personal expenses — and none of the money went toward what the church believed it was investing in: a portfolio of securities.
Charged in the alleged caper, which affected investors other than the church, were Waters and two business entities under his control: broker-dealer A.L. Waters Capital LLC of Braintree and investment adviser Moneta Management LLC, also of Braintree.
Named relief defendants were Janet Lee Waters, 55, of Milton, and a purported funds business known as Port Huron Partners LLP of Braintree. The funds allegedly were under the control of her husband, with Janet Waters serving as chief compliance officer of A.L. Waters Capital.
Janet Waters also was banned by FINRA on March 9, the SEC said.
A federal judge has granted an asset freeze, the agency said.
“The Court’s order further provides that the defendants are prohibited from soliciting or accepting additional investor funds and from altering or destroying any relevant documents, and also requires the defendants to provide an accounting of their assets and uses of investor funds,” the SEC said.
“The defendants used fictitious investment-related partnerships to draw in investors, misappropriate their investment money, and spend it on personal expenses,” the SEC said, alleging that the scheme dated back at least to 2009 and raised at least $780,000 from at least eight investors, including the church.
Stories about securities fraud and other crimes (or civil offenses) occurring even as investigations of purported opportunities are under way may be unusual, but are not rare.
Bowdoin faces up to 125 years in federal prison, if convicted on all counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Like Stinson and Arnett Waters, Bowdoin was described by investigators as a recidivist huckster.
Retooling as it hatches a plan to launch anew? Huddling with its mysterious lawyer because the U.S. Department of Justice called it a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” pushed by an accused felon awaiting trial in his Ponzi scheme case?
