BULLETIN: Federal prosecutors have gone to federal court in the Southern District of Florida, asking a judge to delay discovery in the November 2011 lawsuit filed against the government by AdSurfDaily figures Dwight Owen Schweitzer and Todd Disner.
In cases in which plaintiffs sue the government in federal court, assistant U.S. Attorneys who ordinarily may assist in the prosecution of civil and criminal cases put on a new hat and become lawyers representing the government as a client.
An assistant U.S. Attorney is now the lawyer for the government because Schweitzer and Disner effectively sued the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case even as they accused the U.S. Secret Service of assisting in the government presentation of a “tissue of lies” against AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin and ASD itself.
Schweitzer and Disner have not been accused of wrongdoing. Among the curious assertions in their lawsuit against the government was that undercover agents who had infiltrated ASD had a duty to report the agents’ alleged ASD Terms of Service violations to ASD management.
After their ASD days, Disner and Schweitzer moved on to become affiliates for Zeek Rewards, an MLM “program” that plants the seed that returns between 1 percent and 2 percent a day are possible and that Zeek does not constitute an investment opportunity. ASD planted the seed that it paid 1 percent a day and also claimed it was not offering an investment opportunity.
In 2008, prosecutors said ASD was relying on wordplay to try to skirt securities laws. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD case on May 18 and acknowledged he was at the helm of a Ponzi scheme and illegal money-making business that had defrauded members since its inception in 2006.
By the end of the business day on May 18, prosecutors asked a federal judge in Southern Florida — the venue in which Disner and Schweitzer brought their lawsuit — to take notice of Bowdoin’s guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer more than 1,000 miles north in the District of Columbia. Even as they pointed to Bowdoin’s guilty plea, prosecutors asked that the Disner/Schweitzer case be dismissed.
Prosecutors say their dismissal motion would eliminate the need for any discovery if approved by U.S. District Judge Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga in the Southern District of Florida. If Altonaga chooses not to dismiss the Schweitzer/Disner complaint, prosecutors said, the case should be moved to the District of Columbia, the venue in which at least three civil-forfeiture actions against ASD-related assets were brought in 2008 and 2009.
In their June 4 motion to delay discovery pending a ruling on the dismissal motion, prosecutors said they emailed Schweitzer and Disner on May 23 “seeking their positions on the defendant’s motion to stay” discovery, but that neither Schweitzer nor Disner responded to the emails.
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.
After wrapping itself in the American flag on Memorial Day and authoring a vague announcement that it “will be closing our old accounts” at two named U.S. banks and transitioning to an unnamed bank “that can handle our growing needs,” the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” now says it experienced a problem with “mislabeled” credit-card purchases.
Zeek blamed a vendor for the problem, which resulted in Zeek purchases being mislabeled as purchases from a company named “Zonalibre1,” Zeek said.
“We have just been informed that our credit card processing mis labeled [sic] zeek purchases with the company name Zonalibre1 for the past 15 hours,” Zeek said on its news Blog last night. “This is currently being corrected on all billing statements. If you have purchased anything from zeek in the past 15 to 20 hours and have a ‘Zonalibre1’ charge for the same dollar amount as your zeek purchase, please do not dispute the charge.”
“Zona Libre” is a Spanish phrase that means “free zone.” Zeek did not say who informed it about the problem. Nor did it identify the vendor or say whether it was using a U.S. domestic or offshore processor to handle credit card transactions.
Zeek announced Monday that it was dumping two U.S. banks, adding a layer of mystery by saying it “is currently in the process of moving to a bank” — but not saying whether its new bank was U.S. domestic or offshore.
A Zeek-related business known as Zeekler is a penny-auction site. Among other things, Zeekler puts up for bid sums of U.S. currency, saying successful bidders can receive their winnings via the payment processors AlertPay (now Payza) and SolidTrustPay. Both firms are offshore from a U.S. perspective and have gained reputations as enablers of fraud schemes.
Among the many other Ponzi-forum promoted “programs” that use AlertPay and SolidTrustPay is JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which purportedly is operated by Frederick Mann and may have ties to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement. JSS/JBP purports to pay 2 percent a day. “Sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them.
Promos in 2008 identified Mann as a pitchman for AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service described as a “criminal enterprise” and Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million online. ASD is known to have had “sovereign citizens” in its ranks. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month, acknowledging that ASD was a Ponzi scheme that had defrauded participants from Day One of its operation, beginning in late 2006.
Some former ASD affiliates also are known to be promoting Zeek. Included among them are Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer, who sued the United States last year for alleged misdeeds in bringing the ASD Ponzi case. One text ad for Zeek that includes a photo of Schweitzer includes this phrase (italics added):
“I earn 1%+ a day compounded & you can too!”
Schweitzer is a former attorney whose license was suspended in Connecticut. Disner is a co-founder of the Quiznos sandwich franchise.
Both Zeek Rewards and Zeekler say they are part of an entity known as Rex Venture Group. Rex operates in North Carolina, the same state in which the banks it announced it was dumping operate. On Monday, Zeek instructed customers to “Please be sure to deposit or cash any commission checks immediately so they clear before June 1st, 2012 or they will be returned to you with ‘account closed’ and will need to be reissued.”
Two days later — on Wednesday, during evening hours in the United States — Zeek issued a strange announcement that used the term “claw-back.” “Clawback” is a word often associated with Ponzi schemes. For instance, if investors in Ponzi schemes emerge as winners among a pool of losers, the government or court-appointed receivers may file clawback lawsuits that demand the return of funds from winners as a means of ensuring that all victims of a fraud scheme are treated equally.
Here, in one instance, is how Zeek used the term (italics added):
“As you know, we are currently in the process of transferring accounts to our new banks. While we will be able to resume check runs when the transfers are finalized, we do not want to cause any additional delay to our affiliates who are waiting for their May 21st or 28th commission checks. Therefore we are going to be issuing a claw-back of all requested checks into a special Zeek portal where any affiliate who is awaiting a physical check can instead choose their preferred eWallet for their commission payment. All three fully integrated eWallets (below) will be made available for this and future paydays.
SolidTrust Pay
AlertPay
Although Zeek initially said on Wednesday it had three eWallet providers, it now appears to be referencing only two — apparently editing its original news-Blog post. (In the original announcement Wednesday, Zeek also listed NXPay.)
Adding another layer of mystery to Wednesday’s announcement was Zeek’s use of the plural “banks” in the context of its transition to new service-providers. On Monday, Zeek used the singular “bank,” implying that it was selecting a single new bank to handle its needs.
Zeek affiliates have a presence on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, forums whose members promote “programs” that purportedly offer returns that are both unusually consistent and outsize — typically at preposterous ROIs that exceed 1 percent a day.
Affiliates of Zeek say the Zeek “program” pays out between 1 percent and 2 percent a day, although Zeek claims it is not an investment program and has preemptively denied it is a pyramid scheme.
Among Zeek’s claimed consultants are the MLM law firm of Gerald Nehra, and purported MLM expert Keith Laggos. Both Nehra and Laggos ventured opinions that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme. Disner and Schweitzer pointed to those opinions when suing the United States in November 2011.
The government has moved for dismissal of the lawsuit, pointing to Bowdoin’s guilty plea and acknowledgement that ASD was a Ponzi scheme. Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer argued that undercover agents who joined ASD prior to the seizure of $65.8 million in the personal bank accounts of Bowdoin violated ASDs Terms of Service and had a duty to report their alleged violations to ASD.
Disner and Schweitzer also sued Rust Consulting Inc., the government-approved claims administrator in the ASD case. A federal judge dismissed Rust as a defendant weeks ago.
(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.
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.
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.
BULLETIN: Federal prosecutors have gone to federal court in the Southern District of Florida, asking a judge to delay discovery in the November 2011 lawsuit filed against the government by AdSurfDaily figures Dwight Owen Schweitzer and Todd Disner.
