Despite efforts by serial cash-gifting, cycler, HYIP and autosurf pitchman “Ken Russo” to prevent the TalkGold Ponzi forum from moving the 16-month-old Club Asteria thread to the scam folder, TalkGold did exactly that today.
“Ken Russo,” known as “DRdave” on TalkGold, posted purported proof that he had been paid through Ponzi-friendly AlertPay on Aug. 5 for his Club Asteria efforts. But the “Ken Russo” post — and another TalkGold post from Club Asteria promoter “martyboy” that also claimed an Aug. 5 payout — apparently weren’t enough to persuade even a Ponzi cesspit such as TalkGold that Club Asteria had any cash-sucking and wealth-draining life left in it.
Club Asteria, which traded on the name of the World Bank and targeted its offer to the world’s poor, announced weeks ago that it had suspended payouts. The announcement of the payout suspension was accompanied by news that claims about Club Asteria were under investigation by Italian authorities and that Club Asteria’s PayPal account had been frozen.
Like “Ken Russo,” one of Club Asteria’s principals — Hank Needham — promoted AdSurfDaily. ASD was implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in an alleged $110 million international Ponzi scheme in August 2008. ASD President Andy Bowdoin was indicted on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities in December 2010.
The TalkGold thread on Club Asteria had been active for eight months at the time of the Bowdoin indictment. It survived at TalkGold for another nine months beyond the Bowdoin indictment, but today was moved to the “Closed Programs And Scam Warnings” folder.
Club Asteria has been said to be scrambling to save itself, perhaps by providing members a chance to sell MLM products. Club Asteria last updated its news page on July 21, nearly a month ago.
Two days ago, “Ken Russo” announced on TalkGold that he’d received a Club Asteria payment of $256 on Aug. 5.
“I request a withdrawal once a month and I always receive a payment,” Ken Russo claimed on the forum. “My last withdrawal request was processed in about 48 hours.”
But in a span of less than a month — between May 30 and June 27 — “Ken Russo” claimed on TalkGold that he had asked for and received three Club Asteria payments, totaling $2,032.
Even as “Ken Russo” showcased his purported Club Asteria payouts, other members of various Ponzi forums complained about not getting paid.
Club Asteria asserted it was not an investment program, even though innumerable web promos positioned it as one that paid a “passive” return of up to 10 percent a week.
Some Club Asteria members have turned their attentions to Centurion Wealth Circle, an AlertPay-enabled cycler that collapsed and is trying to resurrect itself with something called “The Tornado.”
Club Asteria enthusiast “strosdegoz,” also known as “manolo,” now is pitching Centurion Wealth Circle and “The Tornado” — on the same Ponzi boards in which he pitched Club Asteria.
TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup are referenced in federal court filings as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
EDITOR’S NOTE:So-called “sovereign citizens” have made news in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case and in other court actions across America. One of the hallmarks of sovereign citizens is the pro-se pleading, including pleadings in which the filers do not use their full given names. (Think “Kenneth Wayne” in the ASD case, as opposed to “Kenneth Wayne Leaming” or “Kenneth W. Leaming.”)
Such pleadings often are impossibly off-point and read like political statements, as opposed to well-reasoned legal arguments grounded in rational thought. Judges across the United States have encountered instances in which sovereign citizens try to impose financial penalties against them, and there even have been cases in which judges were threatened with arrest and civil prosecution under the federal RICO statute for carrying out their public duties.
The story below is about how pro-se pleader and self-styled sovereign citizen Charlotte Kempf sought to sue Colorado Judge Karla J. Hansen in federal court for alleged civil-rights violations. It begins with a quotation from a decision released Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and concludes with a 21-year-old case-law citation involving a self-described sovereign citizen who received a five-year prison sentence for flouting the law.
“[W]e note that an individual’s belief that her status as a ‘sovereign citizen puts her beyond the jurisdiction of the courts ‘has no conceivable validity in American law.’” — United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, Aug. 15, 2011.
Simply ‘Charlotte’
Charlotte Kempf was convicted of traffic violations in Colorado’s El Paso County Court. She then filed a civil-rights lawsuit in federal court against Karla J. Hansen, the trial-court judge who imposed fines and a five-day jail sentence, according to court records.
The filing of the case meant that Hansen had to defend herself in federal court over her judicial decisions in a traffic case in state court because Kempf was displeased with the outcome. The financial costs to the judge and taxpayers were not immediately clear.
Kempf’s first bid to hold Hansen accountable for alleged improper actions in a traffic case and allegedly conducting a flawed trial failed. U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn of the District of Colorado ruled last year that “absolute judicial immunity shields Judge Hansen from the plaintiff’s claims.”
But Kempf, who describes herself as a “sovereign citizen” and sometimes refers to herself simply as “Charlotte,” appealed to the 10th Circuit. Kempf also sometimes refers to herself as “Charlotte of the Kempf family” and “Charlotte d.b.a. CHARLOTTE KEMPF” while rejecting “the use of her surname,” according to court filings.
A three-judge appeals panel unanimously ruled against Kempf on Monday. The case is styled CHARLOTTE v. HANSEN,” with simply “CHARLOTTE” as the Plaintiff-Appellant, and KARLA J. HANSEN, State Trial Judge” as the Defendant-Appellee.
“Kempf was convicted in El Paso County court of a number of traffic violations,” the appeals panel said. “She then sued Hansen, the judge who presided over her trial, in federal court. Hansen moved to dismiss Kempf’s complaint, asserting absolute judicial immunity from civil suit. Appealing pro se, Kempf repeats several arguments she asserted below, and advances a number of additional claims in her reply brief, including that she is a ‘sovereign citizen.’”
In affirming the dismissal of the complaint against Hansen, the appeals panel wrote that it had a message for Kempf.
“For Kempf’s benefit, however, we note that an individual’s belief that her status as a ‘sovereign citizen’ puts her beyond the jurisdiction of the courts ‘has no conceivable validity in American law.’”
The panel pointed to United States v. Schneider, 910 F.2d 1569, 1570 (7th Cir. 1990), in its Kempf decision.
Michael Scott Segal. Source: Florida Department of Corrections.
A Florida man started a $1.3 million fraud and Ponzi scheme in November 2008, five months after he was released from prison after serving seven years for trying to kill a woman, according to federal prosecutors and state records.
Michael Scott Segal, 50, of Miami, was charged in 2001 — when he was 40 — with attempted murder, kidnapping and aggravated battery for beating a woman, stuffing her into the trunk of car and trying to launch the car into a lake.
The woman survived because a police officer was nearby and observed Segal repeatedly trying to drive the car over a raised embankment and into the lake, according to news accounts. Segal ultimately spent seven years behind bars for his crime.
State records show that Segal was released from prison on June 1, 2008. Federal prosecutors now say he started a domestic and international fraud scheme five months later — not disclosing his felonious past to investors and referring to himself as “Scott Segal” to keep them from discovering his prison record.
The scheme involved purported inexpensive consumer goods from China, a purported land-development project in China and a purported “Venezuelan security cargo locks deal,” prosecutors said.
It operated through a Segal-controlled company known as Bright Jewel Holdings Limited Inc., and some investors were issued bad checks, prosecutors said.
Segal has been charged with 12 counts of mail and wire fraud.
Some investors appear to have started a Blog to publicize Segal’s alleged fraud before charges were filed. Supporters of Segal appear to have shown up at the Blog to defend him and his purported honesty, according to web records.
“This blog is not real,” an apparent defender wrote. “[I]f he has wrote (sic) checks for 60k or others believe me he wont (sic) be out from jail for a long time. So stop writing false things about him and get back to real life and be honest. He is a good man and a very kind person.”
Another apparent defender commented on a Blog that “writing these types of comments is counterproductive.”
Andy Bowdoin, another accused Florida Ponzi schemer with a felonious past, initially enjoyed significant support among investors and continues to have some support while awaiting his criminal trial.
Bowdoin was the head of Quincy-based AdSurfDaily. Federal prosecutors said he ripped off investors in a swindle in Alabama during the 1990s.
Accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin says he plans to open a Facebook fan page this weekend so AdSurfDaily members won't miss out on the opportunity to help him raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense, according to an email some ASD members received today.
Federal prosecutors say Andy Bowdoin scammed investors in a securities swindle in the 1990s. They add that one of his partners in the autosurf trade was accused by the SEC in the 1990s of pitching a prime-bank swindle.
Bowdoin, 76, was arrested in December on charges that he presided over an autosurf Ponzi scheme known as AdSurfDaily between 2006 and 2008. Among the allegations against Bowdoin was that the original iteration of ASD collapsed in a pile of Ponzi dust — and that Bowdoin simply started a new autosurf scheme to replace the collapsed one.
After Bowdoin started his replacement fraud scheme in 2007, he then presided over efforts to start at least two additional autosurf fraud schemes. Those criminal efforts became hugely successful in 2008, sucking in at least $110 million, prosecutors said.
Bowdoin, a self-described “money magnet,” now is using a video pitch to raise $500,000 for his criminal defense. The accused con man now says an email “blast” to 77,000 ASD members he hopes will provide the funds to pay his lawyers will take place today after having been postponed last week.
And Bowdoin, who once referred to the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors as “Satan” and claimed God was on his side, says he will launch a Facebook fan page “THIS WEEKEND” to bolster his fundraising efforts, according to an email some ASD members received today.
Some ASD members have referred to the Secret Service and prosecutors as “goons” and “Nazis.” Others circulated a prayer calling for Bowdoin’s accusers to be struck dead from the heavens.
In 2008, a federal judge presiding over a civil-forefeiture case involving about $80 million in seized funds linked to ASD was described as “brain dead” if she ruled against the firm.
After the judge issued a key ruling against against the company, she was described as the operator of a “Kangaroo Court” who was conspiring with another federal judge also said to be operating a “Kangaroo Court.”
Bowdoin, though, blamed his losses in the civil case — which included orders of forfeiture totaling about $80 million — on a “single, lone” judge.
He also blamed his original attorneys and prosecutors. Bowdoin’s fundraising video in which he blamed the judge was released on the Internet on July 26, four days after he made his most recent appearance before the judge.
Although the video initially advertised a July 15 launch date, that launch date was postponed until July 20 — and then until July 26.
Screen shot: Troy Wragg, whom the SEC said was a manager at a janitorial company before becoming CEO of Mantria Corp., next to President Clinton at the annual meeting on the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 25, 2009.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Using direct, no-nonsense language, U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello has ruled Mantria Corp. a Ponzi scheme that operated with “sociopathic greed” to defraud investors of millions of dollars.
Some investors were encouraged to drain equity in their homes to invest with Mantria, according to the ruling.
The ruling was a straight-line win for the SEC, which charged the firm, its principals and chief pitchman in November 2009 amid allegations that Mantria had orchestrated a colossal fraud targeted at people interested in “green” energy and protecting the environment. Mantria executives Troy Wragg and Amanda Knorr were charged in the caper, as was pitchman Wayde McKelvy of an entity known as “Speed of Wealth LLC.”
Arguello found that Mantria had scammed more than $54.5 million “by egregiously, recklessly, knowingly, and shamelessly perpetrating a fraudulent scheme” that used “misrepresentations, omissions, and blatant lies to induce unsuspecting and unwitting victim investors to liquidate the equity in their homes and take out bank loans to invest in Defendants’ scheme, which was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.”
The judge’s ruling specifically points to internal Mantria emails uncovered by the SEC during the probe.
One email from Wragg to McKelvy read, “Mantria Speed of Wealth = MSOW = Many Souls Owe Wayde.” Another from McKelvy to Wragg allegedly touting seminar registrations and a new crop of suckers read, “110 registered for tonight 75% names I don’t recognize. Let’s blow them away my brother!” An email attributed to Knorr read, “Let’s just make some f*****g money.”
Mantria traded in part on the name of former President Bill Clinton, who once presented Wragg an award for commitment to the environment. Prospective investors were shown a video that included footage of Clinton and other famous politicians and business figures.
Fraud schemes often spread virally by planting the seed that famous people endorse the “opportunities” when they do not. In fraud case case after fraud case, celebrity endorsements, which are used to disarm skeptics and create positive feelings, have been manufactured out of wholecloth.
In the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, for instance, the U.S. Secret Service said promoters claimed that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had received an important award from then-President George W. Bush. The “award” actually was a memento for campaign donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to court filings.
The Secret Service is known to have seized a significant volume of email during the ASD probe. Some of it has been described in court filings as incriminating to Bowdoin.
Reporters who emailed McKelvy for comment after the SEC brought it charges against Mantria and Speed of Wealth received invitations to join the Trump Network multilevel-marketing opportunity.
“YOU MUST START YOUR OWN BUSINESS Renee!” McKelvy advised a reporter in one email, according to the Denver Business Journal. “What You Have Been Taught About Building Wealth is DEAD WRONG!”
CenturionWealthCircle (CWC) appears to be moving from the ridiculous to the absurd, fueled in no small measure by serial, wink-nod scammers on the Ponzi boards. Members of Club Asteria, an “opportunity” that suspended cashouts weeks ago amid reports its PayPal account had been frozen, were among CWC’s early cheerleaders.
Club Asteria promoters also have been linked to Florida-based autosurf purveyor AdSurfDaily. ASD President Andy Bowdoin was arrested in December on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. He potentially faces decades in prison, if convicted.
Bowdoin now is seeking to raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense, according to a video featuring Bowdoin released last month.
CWC began to emerge as a Ponzi darling in mid- to late June, after Club Asteria’s problems had become known. By late July, however, CWC’s website appears to have been suspended for spamming — and the site disappeared. The site appears to have switched servers, even as members were complaining about low or absent payouts.
In an apparent bid to re-plumb a collapsed Ponzi that already had been the subject of spam complaints, CWC now appears ready to suck up more cash by implementing a “feeder” program that at least one Club Asteria cheerleader (manolo) is describing on the TalkGold Ponzi forum as a “Mini cycler” or “The Tornado.”
Among other things, manolo claims that “more exciting updates are coming on top of the above news.”
Various incongruities dot various posts about CWC on both TalkGold and the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forums, where some posters have declared in public that CWC is in need of new money to survive.
CWC has not said whether it is confident that its income stream is not polluted with proceeds from various Ponzi schemes. The nature of the cycler business itself is to recycle money from one group of members to another. One of the allegations against ASD was that it was a classic Ponzi scheme that recycled funds.
These words (see next paragraph) appear in a February 2009 affidavit originally filed under seal by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi scheme forfeiture case. (NOTE: The document identifies certain ASD promoters and was used to seize their ASD-related funds.)
“Based on his experience with 12daily Pro, and his review of the SEC’s filings against it, Bowdoin knew that a paid auto-surf program that promised returns of that magnitude and recycled (emphasis added) member funds was a business model that was both unsustainable and illegal. He also knew that selling an unregistered investment opportunity to thousands of investors was illegal. Nevertheless, after the collapse of 12daily Pro, Bowdoin agreed with his 12daily Pro sponsor to start a similar autosurf program. Both individuals were aware that, before its collapse, 12daily Pro had taken in millions of dollars from its members.”
Among the other allegations against ASD is that it formed a new autosurf Ponzi to address a collapsed, old autosurf Ponzi — and later launched more autosurf Ponzis to sustain the deception that legitimate commerce was under way.
CWC appears to be doing the same thing — only with cyclers, as opposed to autosurfs.
Late Tuesday, a fundraising email attributed to accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily acknowledged that an advertised email “Blast” to 77,000 ASD members that was supposed to have occurred on Monday — the third anniversary of the Aug. 1, 2008, ASD-related asset seizures — had not occurred.
What actually occurred, according to the email, was a purported “Soft Launch” to fewer than 500 ASD members. Despite an earlier claim that the “Blast” to 77,000 members would occur Monday, the email backed away from the claim, advising recipients that the “Blast” was “COMING REAL SOON.”
Bowdoin’s fundraising venture itself missed two advertised launch dates, but finally launched on July 26, fours days after Bowdoin’s most recent appearance before a federal judge in the District of Columbia.
Tuesday’s email made various claims about the success of the purported “Soft Launch” so far while at once planting the seed that Bowdoin remains hugely popular among the ASD membership base.
Because the email did not identify the characteristics of the ASD members initially contacted, the purported results — including a result that 110 people among the group of fewer than 500 initially contacted had made donations totaling “Over $4,400” — could be heavily skewed in Bowdoin’s favor. As things stand, the email effectively makes the claim that more than 22 percent of the people initially contacted chose to donate to Bowdoin while suggesting the number could hold across a cross-section of 77,000 ASD members.
The “average” donation was pegged at $40. Averages in such a small sample, however, can be misleading. The email did not reveal the amount of the smallest donation or the largest one.
At the same time, the email does not say whether the “Soft Launch” group consisted of Bowdoin friends, family members, close business associates or people who may be friendly with Bowdoin such as former cheerleaders on the pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum. Nor does it say whether the initial contributors perhaps were predisposed to make a donation out of fear or concern that they had legal exposure because of the size of their downlines, the dollar volume they generated through ASD, the amount of “profits” they have lost as a result of their participation in ASD or the amount of interference they ran for Bowdoin before and after the August 2008 seizures of about $65.8 million from Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts.
Some ASD members have more legal and financial exposure than others and may be predisposed to help Bowdoin raise funds to mount his criminal defense as a means of delaying their own day of reckoning. The government, however, has two civil judgments against ASD-related assets in its favor, and announced nearly three years ago that it was implementing a remissions program through which ASD victims would receive compensation for their losses through seized funds.
Certain purported results suggest that, in the early stages of Bowdoin’s fundraising venture, the initial goal was to let Bowdoin bask in a preordained light and to shape the data to intensify the light. Although much has been made of a purported open rate of 42 percent — meaning that more than four out of 10 members of the initial group contacted opened the fundraising email — such a purportedly glowing statistic could be meaningless. Friends and foes alike are interested in Bowdoin news, and the nature of the initial group’s relationship with Bowdoin has not been revealed.
If Bowdoin and his fundraising helpers already had a “hot” list of sympathizers, early purported success would not be surprising — in the same way that a self-evident result culled from baseball fans asked to name their favorite team while already inside the park of their favorite team would not be surprising.
Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the personal bank accounts of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin amid allegations he was presiding over an international autosurf Ponzi scheme from a former floral shop in Quincy, Fla.
Although some ASD members had received an email that claimed an “Email Blast to the ASD Members List of Over 77,000” would occur yesterday as part of a bid to raise $500,000 to pay for Bowdoin’s criminal defense, the PP Blog has received no reports that such a “Blast” was sent.
The Blog cannot independently confirm that no “Blast” occurred. If a full or partial “Blast” occurred yesterday, however, the event would have coincided with the third anniversary of the ASD-related asset seizures.
Any spam complaints triggered by a “Blast” yesterday potentially could further cement Aug. 1 as an ignominious date in ASD history. On Aug. 1, 2008 — a date that ironically coincided with a total eclipse of the sun observable in parts of the Northern Hemisphere — federal agents stationed south of the eclipse zone were busy preparing their Ponzi case.
Late in the afternoon of Aug. 1, a strange message signed “ASD Management” appeared on ASD’s website.
“Friday, August 1st 2008 afternoon update,” the message began.
“Upon direction from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia, ASD will not be able to move funds into company accounts, or out of them. We will work to resolve this problem, and return to normal operation, as soon as we are permitted to do so.”
The ASD case has been nothing but strange since the initial asset seizures on the date it grew dark during daylight hours at the top of the earth. A short time after the initial seizures, Bowdoin compared federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service to “Satan” and the 9/11 terrorists.
UPDATED: 3:07 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) David R. Lewalski, a Florida man who ran a $30 million Forex Ponzi scheme through a firm known as Botfly LLC, has pleaded guilty in federal court in the Middle District of Florida.
Lewalski, 47, formerly resided in Gainesville. Parts of the Botfly case are reminiscent of the AdSurfDaily case. Public officials and others involved in the case were called names, and Lewalski is alleged to have discussed a plan by which he’d get investors to pay for his defense.
An attorney working for the court-appointed receiver in the Botfly case was called a Nazi and a “c[$%!],” and case filings also include a reference to an “FDLE chick.”
FDLE stands for Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Both the Botfly and ASD cases started with civil complaints, followed by criminal charges.
Like Botfly, ASD also was based in Florida. ASD President Andy Bowdoin now is trying to get members of his autosurf scheme to pony up $500,000 for Bowdoin’s defense. He previously described federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service as “Satan,” and some ASD members described public officials as “Nazis” and “goons.”
Even as Lewalski was under investigation, at least one person gave Lewalski $50,000 to pay for a lawyer — and this occurred after Lewalski had chartered a private Gulfstream IV jet at a cost of $172,744 to fly from the United States to Belgium one day after he was charged civilly in Florida, according to court records.
In court filings, prosecutors argued that Lewalski also sought to tamper with witnesses and told “family members and other potential witnesses to stay quiet and not cooperate with law enforcement.”
Some members of AdSurfDaily advised other members not to fill out victims’ forms and not to file a restitution claim. Bowdoin has blamed his legal predicament on a federal judge, federal prosecutors, his former attorneys and the U.S. Secret Service.
Lewalski faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
Involved in the Botfly investigation were the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation and the Florida Office of the Attorney General.
UPDATED 7:42 A.M. EDT (July 31. U.S.A.) Accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily twice has tried to prevent U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia from presiding over Bowdoin and ASD-related matters. In December 2009, Bowdoin tried to have Collyer disqualified from hearing the civil-forfeiture case in which the U.S. Secret Service had seized $65.8 million from his personal bank accounts. In January 2011, Bowdoin sought a change of venue that would have taken the criminal case away from Collyer and put it in the hands of a federal judge in Florida.
Both of Bowdoin’s bids failed.
Bowdoin, though, now appears to have shifted strategies. Instead of continuing to insist that Collyer should be removed from the case or that the case should be removed from her courtroom in the District of Columbia and assigned to a federal judge in Florida, Bowdoin is now acting as spokesman-in-chief for his own slime machine. He is suggesting in a fundraising video that ASD lost the civil case “because of” Collyer, whom he described as a “single, lone” judge without mentioning her by name — and that ASD members should send him $500,000 to prevent him from losing the criminal case and being sentenced to prison by Collyer.
AndysFundraisingArmy.com — the web venue through which Bowdoin is seeking to raise half a million dollars to pay for his criminal defense — missed two advertised launch dates this month before finally launching late Tuesday (July 26).
The site first advertised a launch date of on or before July 15. Missing that date, it then advertised a July 20 launch, which it also missed. The need for additional “testing” delayed the launch, according to the promos.
The missed launch dates pose an intriguing question: Were the launch dates deliberately postponed because Bowdoin and “Andy’s Army” knew he had made a video in which he slimed Collyer without identifying her by name — and wanted neither Collyer nor the prosecution to know until he was safely out of Washington that he intended to use Collyer as a reason ASD members should fund his criminal defense?
The “Andy’s Army” fundraising video in which Bowdoin claimed he lost the forfeiture case “because of a single, lone judge” was not released until July 26, four days after Bowdoin’s most recent appearance before Collyer.
Because the video appears to have been produced weeks in advance of Bowdoin’s July 22 date in Collyer’s courtroom — and because Bowdoin himself was the “star” of the video and knew what he had said in the fundraising pitch — it is apparent that Bowdoin knew even as he was asking Collyer on July 22 for a six-month continuance that he’d already hatched a scheme by which he’d transfer blame for his legal predicament to Collyer as a means of raising defense funds. In the video, Bowdoin also suggested his former attorneys, federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service were responsible for his legal woes.
Collyer denied the continuance on July 22, according to the case docket. The video debuted four days later.
Bowdoin’s fundraising video made no mention of the fact that the U.S. Court of Appeals had upheld rulings made by Collyer. Indeed, it was hardly the case that a “single, lone judge” had the only say in the forfeiture case. A three-judge panel on the appeals court unanimously ruled against Bowdoin and ASD.
The appeals panel issued its ruling on March 25, 2011 — about three months prior to the production of the fundraising video.
Among Bowdoin’s assertions in the forfeiture case was that he had tricked into releasing his claims to $65.8 million seized by the Secret Service in August 2008. The tricksters, according to Bowdoin, included at least one of his paid attorneys and also federal prosecutors.
“Despite Bowdoin’s protests to the contrary, his own affidavit shows that he understood well that he was receiving no promise in return for relinquishing his claims,” the appeals panel ruled.
“Moreover,” the panel ruled, “far from being negligent, appellants’ attorney had sound reasons for recommending that they cooperate with prosecutors by relinquishing their claims.”
The panel also concluded that “the witnesses AdSurfDaily offered at the evidentiary hearing to prove that it operated a legitimate business contradicted each other . . . and at least one actually undermined the company’s position.”
Bowdoin, however, makes no mention of the appeals-court decision in the fundraising video. Nor does he explain what happened to millions of dollars ASD allegedly had moved offshore — some of it to Canada, some of it to Antigua.
Andy Bowdoin's fundraising video in which he claims ASD lost the forfeiture case because of a "single, lone judge" appears to have been produced as early as June 24. But the video was not released publicly until July 26, four days after Bowdoin appeared before the very judge he had dissed in the video. Two advertised launch dates prior to Bowdoin's July 22 appearance In U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia were postponed.
An email attributed to ASD member Todd Disner was received by some ASD members on July 25, three days after Bowdoin’s Washington appearance but one day before the release of Bowdoin’s fundraising video. (Read story based on email.)
“I talked to Andy the other day,” the email read in part. “He was in Atlanta airport coming home from his hearing in Washington.”
It is unclear whether Disner watched Bowdoin’s fundraising video prior to its public release on July 26. What is clear is that Bowdoin was in Collyer’s courtroom in Washington on July 22 when Bowdoin had the knowledge that, weeks earlier (as early as June 24), he’d taped a fundraising commercial asking ASD members to send him money and painting Collyer as one of the reasons they should pony up $500,000.
The video does not reveal that Collyer, in 2008, granted ASD a two-day evidentiary hearing in the “interests of justice” in which ASD called a series of witnesses to make its case that it was operating lawfully.
Nor does the video reveal that Collyer gave ASD extension after extension to file pleadings and once moved a hearing to a larger courtroom so more ASD members could observe the events unfolding in public.
When ASD members stayed away in droves, Collyer moved the proceedings back to a smaller courtroom — only to be pummeled later by dozens of pro se pleadings from ASD members, including members who accused her of “treason” while championing Bowdoin through the U.S. mail.
While Collyer was deliberating the issues raised by attorneys for Bowdoin and attorneys for the government during the evidentiary hearing, ASD announced on its Breaking News website that it expected a revenue infusion of $200 million from a penny-stock company.
Bowdoin did not address the $200 million claim in his fundraising video, choosing instead to position himself as a victim of a “single, lone” judge — and a victim of his attorneys and federal prosecutors and Secret Service agents who had “crucified” him.
Bowdoin As Christian Flag-Waver
That Bowdoin, a self-styled Christian “money magnet,” is wrapping himself in the American flag and other patriotic symbols on the “Andy’s Army” website adds yet another layer of the absurd to the long-running ASD saga.
On Sept. 11, 2008, the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an ASD member released a “prayer” that asked God to strike federal prosecutors dead.
“Pluck them out of their dwelling place!” the prayer commanded. “Root them out of the land of the living! Let evil slay them, and desolation be their lot!”
God, among other things, was asked to “Send divine angelic prophetic assaults against
all diabolical intelligence!” and to “Release divine viruses (emphasis added) to invade satanic databases (emphasis added) and command that they be consumed and destroyed!”
For good measure, God was asked to “Let all satanic manifestations cease and let divine abortive measures and miscarriages occur in satanic wombs and incubators!”
All in all, the “prayer” included 38 specific pleas for ASD/Bowdoin help from God. Included in the 38 was a plea that federal officials be “afflicted and tormented WITHOUT RELIEF.”
“Heavenly Father, you have given us a great work to accomplish! We war for the releasing of our finances and all resources that belong to us! Let those that hold on to our wealth longer than they should be afflicted and tormented WITHOUT RELIEF until they release what rightfully belongs to us!
“We command satan to cough it up! Spit it out! Release it! Loose (sic) it and let it go!!!!”
Nearly three years later, the prayer remains unanswered. It is almost certainly the case that, to Christian members of ASD who value intellectual honesty, the nonanswer was the answer. Indeed, asking God to let evil visit federal employees and cause their deaths is decidedly unChristian. No person with genuine faith in God ever would embrace an appeal for God to slay Bowdoin’s litigation opponents, whom the prayer defined as “satan.”
Since the prayer’s September 2008 debut, Bowdoin has lost two civil forfeiture cases, including one in which he did not even bother to file a claim. Bowdoin-connected assets have been targeted in a third forfeiture case. Meanwhile, he has been sued by some of his own members for racketeering — and, as was the case in the second forfeiture action, he did not bother to enter an immediate defense.
After nearly three years, it has come down to Andy Bowdoin blaming events on Collyer, Bowdoin’s attorneys and the agency that guards the life of the President of the United States while also guarding the U.S. financial infrastructure.
Even as Bowdoin is demonizing the U.S. justice system, he is clinging to his purported faith in God and using it as a reason to send him half a million dollars. Bowdoin, according to Bowdoin, has been attacked by the U.S. government under the direction of “Satan” himself.
Is Bowdoin Risking An Enormous Spam Fine?
In recent hours, some ASD members have received an “Andy’s Army” email (from a Google “gmail” address) that claims 75 people have ponied up “over” $3,000 for Bowdoin so far.
Why the email came from a Google address was unclear. What is clear is that some ASD members once tried to scam Google by encouraging ASD members to commit click fraud against Google. It also is clear that Google’s logo once was used in a promo for ASD that claimed Google and 23 other famous companies were ASD advertisers.
So, Bowdoin’s ASD — which at one time had members in its ranks who tried to defraud Google — apparently now has a subset of members (“andysdefensefund”) who are using Google’s gmail service and the “AndysFundraisingArmy” website to communicate with fundraising prospects. The email includes the name of “Andy Bowdoin” as the sender, and provides an “andysdefensefund” gmail address for return correspondence.
The email claims that an email “blast” will occur Monday “to the ASD Members List of Over 77,000.”
“This coming Monday, we will begin our email blast to the entire ASD Members list, and we will keep blasting this list every day or so, with different emails, until we get the Networking Momentum kicked in and turned on, causing rapid growth in our Fundraising Statistics, which will easily carry us to reaching our Goal” of $500,000, according to the email.
Sending “blasts” and repeating “blasts,” however, could trigger spam complaints if the intended recipients never agreed to receive email from “andysdefensefund” at a gmail address and had agreed only to receive email from ASD itself — not a defense fund or “Andy’s Army.”
The state of Florida dissolved AdSurfDaily Inc. in September 2009 and revoked its registration as a foreign corporation headquartered in Nevada. The state of Nevada also revoked ASD’s corporate registration.
A plan to “blast” 77,000 ASD members leads to questions about whether “andysdefensefund” at a gmail address and “Andy’s Army” are permitted to contact persons with whom they have no business relationship with a commercial proposition to send money to Bowdoin to pay for his defense.
And if ASD no longer is a registered corporation — and records in Florida and Nevada show that it is not — questions can be raised about how a dissolved entity is authorized to contact subscribers who no longer exist because the corporation itself has been dissolved.
Questions also can be raised about whether ASD, a dissolved corporation, is permitted to transfer an asset — its email list — to the “andysdefensefund” and the “Andy’s Army” fundraising entities without the express permission of former ASD members.
Still more horror surfaced in June 2009, when the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf tanked. AVG, whose name is referenced in the 2009 racketeering lawsuit against Bowdoin, had close ties with ASD. The AVG collapse followed on the heels of a series of 200 percent “matching bonus” offers for both enrollees and their sponsors.
“Each separate email in violation of the “CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000,” according to the FTC.
Even a small number of spam complaints triggered by the advertised email “blast” could be costly for Bowdoin if the “andysdefensefund” entity and “Andy’s Army” contact ASD members in unauthorized fashion.
BULLETIN: The website of CenturionWealthCircle.com will not resolve to a server, and DNS data that appears in domain-registration info strongly suggest the site was suspended for spam and abuse.
The DNS data include this string on two nameservers: SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM.
CenturionWealthCircle.com is a new darling of Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, both of which are referenced in federal court filings as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
Some members of Club Asteria, an “opportunity” that traded on the name of the World Bank amid claims that members could experience a “passive” return on investment of 10 percent a week, also promoted Centurion Wealth Circle. Included among the Centurion Wealth Circle promoters was “Ken Russo,” who claimed on TalkGold (as “DRdave”) to have received $2,032 from Club Asteria during the month of June alone.
Club Asteria later suspended member cashouts and claimed its revenue had plunged “dramatically.” The firm, whose website appears to have been registered on or near the same date the AdViewGlobal autosurf suspended cashouts in June 2009, blamed members for its problems.
A photo of Hank Needham, Club Asteria’s purported owner, appears in a promo for ASD Cash Generator, which was implicated by the U.S. Secret Service is an alleged Ponzi scheme that gathered at least $110 million. ASD Cash Generator, also known as AdSurfDaily, was operated by Andy Bowdoin.
Bowdoin was indicted on Ponzi, securities and wire-fraud charges in December 2010. Two days ago — in a video soliciting $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense — Bowdoin blamed lawyers and a federal judge for his legal problems, claiming he had been “crucified” by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service.
See the Centurion Wealth Circle thread on RealScam.com, an antiscam site.
Despite efforts by serial cash-gifting, cycler, HYIP and autosurf pitchman “Ken Russo” to prevent the TalkGold Ponzi forum from moving the 16-month-old Club Asteria thread to the scam folder, TalkGold did exactly that today.
EDITOR’S NOTE: So-called “sovereign citizens” have made news in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case and in other court actions across America. One of the hallmarks of sovereign citizens is the pro-se pleading, including pleadings in which the filers do not use their full given names. (Think “Kenneth Wayne” in the ASD case, as opposed to “Kenneth Wayne Leaming” or “Kenneth W. Leaming.”)
CenturionWealthCircle (CWC) appears to be moving from the ridiculous to the absurd, fueled in no small measure by serial, wink-nod scammers on the Ponzi boards. Members of Club Asteria, an “opportunity” that suspended cashouts weeks ago amid reports its PayPal account had been frozen, were among CWC’s early cheerleaders.
UPDATED 11:23 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.)
UPDATED: 3:07 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) David R. Lewalski, a Florida man who ran a $30 million Forex Ponzi scheme through a firm known as Botfly LLC, has pleaded guilty in federal court in the Middle District of Florida.
BULLETIN: The website of CenturionWealthCircle.com will not resolve to a server, and DNS data that appears in domain-registration info strongly suggest the site was suspended for spam and abuse.