Filings expected in AdSurfDaily civil forfeiture case. Judge Rosemary Collyer earlier gave prosecutors until April 24 to respond to some of ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s pro se pleadings. Prosecutors have responded to some of them, but not all of them.
Collyer may have to issue additional orders on matters concerning Bowdoin’s representation. His paid counsel, Akerman and Senterfitt, asked the court to withdraw. Collyer, to date, has not granted the request. (Updated 2 P.M. EDT (USA) Judge Collyer has granted the request.)
Meanwhile, attorney Charles A. Murray has filed an appearance notice on Bowdoin’s behalf.
In a separate lawsuit by former ASD members against Bowdoin, ASD attorney Robert Garner and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby, Collyer has not issued an order in response to a motion by the plaintiffs to extend the deadline for class-action certification. The motion was filed April 8. The lawsuit accuses Bowdoin, Garner and Busby of racketeering, and the plaintiffs say they have not been able to serve the lawsuit on the trio. The lawsuit has been pending since January 15.
Also in limbo is a second forfeiture case filed in December by prosecutors against assets tied to ASD. The property named in the forfeiture complaint includes the Tallahassee home of Bowdoin’s stepson, George Harris, a trustee in AdViewGlobal (AVG). Three automobiles, marine equipment and computer equipment also were named in the complaint.
How the December case will proceed is unclear. No attorney has entered an appearance notice on behalf of Bowdoin, a Bowdoin family member or any person who could make a claim to the property. Bowdoin filed a pro se pleading that referenced the December case, but the filing was entered into the record of the August case.
Larry Friedman lawsuit against Jack Arons. Dallas attorney Friedman is suing Florida resident Arons for slander and libel. Friedman has sought an order to gag Arons; Arons continues to post on the Internet about the case, saying Friedman is burying him in an avalanche of paperwork.
The case sprouted from the affairs of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust. Friedman is the attorney for the Trust. He is seeking information on the identities of posters at the ASD-Biz forum through ning.com, the forum hosting company. Some of the posters appear to have changed their forum identities to protest Friedman’s move.
Yesterday a new website appeared. It is called, “Drop the Lawsuit, Larry: How can you sue the entire internet and violate Free Speech?” Friedman also is getting bad press on other forums.
Bob Guenther harassment case. Guenther, de facto head of the ASDMBA Trust, was scheduled to make a court appearance yesterday in Arizona on felony charges of continuing to harass an Arizona company after being warned not to do so. A docket entry in the case now says the appearance has been rescheduled for May 12. Guenther has two more court appearances scheduled in Arizona this month for other cases: April 27 and April 29.
One of the Arizona cases is a photo-radar traffic case. Guenther, in a Blog Comment here, said he was not behind the wheel and would handle the matter by writing a letter. The second case was a misdemeanor case.
Guenther, in a Comment here, described it as “a duplucate filing of the other two ‘bogus’ filings scheduled to be heard on April 14.. All will be tossed, just like the one before..”
Florida resident Jack Arons blamed Dallas attorney Larry Friedman for a breakdown in lawsuit-settlement negotiations, saying Friedman did not take the negotiations seriously.
In court filings in which Friedman is seeking a new temporary restraining order against Arons that would prohibit Arons from communicating with reporters and other third parties about the case, Friedman said talks collapsed because Arons didn’t negotiate in good faith.
A previous restraining order against Arons expired.
Friedman’s is not telling the truth, Arons said.
“It is more like Larry was unwilling to mediate,” Arons said in a Blog Comment here. “I had set aside 4 hours on the day of mediation to mediate and Larry who was in his car on the way to another meeting spent all of 15 minutes on the mediation.
“He also continued to load me down with paperwork during the so called mediation. So as is the case Larry is lying again and is making it sound like I am at fault and not him,” Arons said.
Friedman sued Arons last month in Dallas for slander and libel, in a case that sprouted from Friedman’s representation of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust.
The Trust was formed by member contributions to protect their legal interests in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case. Some ASDMBA members have complained about the management of the Trust by Bob Guenther, its de facto head.
Guenther, they say, has not provided transparent accounting that detailed how the Trust spent money from contributors. Friedman is the Trust’s attorney. Guenther, a convicted felon, introduced Friedman to potential contributors last year.
Arons, who says Friedman has buried him in paperwork, including a 135-page filing yesterday, lives in a manufactured home in Florida, collects Social Security and does not have an attorney.
Arons now is trying to amass $1,500 through a loan or donations to sue Friedman in federal court.
Yesterday’s filing by Friedman includes an exhibit of Internet postings on this Blog and the ASD-Biz forum. It also includes content from the websites of the Dallas Morning News and WCTV-TV, a Florida television station.
Separately, Friedman is using a subpoena to ning.com, the host of the ASD-Biz forum, in a bid to obtain information on posters at the forum. Some forum members appear to have changed their forum identities to create twists on their old names or twists on how they’ve been described by Guenther — in protest.
Guenther is scheduled to make a court appearance in Arizona today on felony charges of repeatedly violating a court order that prohibited him from threatening an Arizona company.
The de facto head of the ASD Members Business Association has more legal troubles in Arizona.
Bob Guenther faces an araignment hearing April 29 in East Mesa Justice Court. Guenther, according to records, was charged with an unspecified offense April 2.
Judge Mark Chiles is scheduled to preside. A court employee said she was not authorized to provide details about the allegation against Guenther, referring inquiries to J.W. Brown, identified as a court spokeswoman. Brown could not be reached. Calls to the media office were not answered.
A docket entry describes the allegation only as a “New Case.”
Meanwhile, Guenther is scheduled to make an appearance in Justice Court April 27 for a traffic violation. This brings to three the number of court appearances Guenther is scheduled to make this month.
He was charged March 27 in what was described as a photo radar ticket. In such cases, a camera takes a photo of a vehicle allegedly involved in a traffic violation, and the vehicle owner is mailed a ticket.
Guenther also is scheduled to make an appearance April 14 in Maricopa County Criminal Court.
He was charged March 13 with two felony counts of aggravated harassment. Mesa, Arizona, police said Guenther repeatedly violated a court injunction for workplace harassment that prohibited him from nuisancing Cheyenne Mountain and Affiliates, an Arizona business.
Despite the injunction, Guenther continued to contact Cheyenne Mountain in a manner that “harassed or threatened†the company, police said.
Guenther violated the court order both by email and telephone, police said. An infraction that occurred via telephone was recorded and placed into evidence. Guenther said the recording was obtained illegally.
ASDMBA is a group funded by members who had the expectation that their legal interests would be protected in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case. Federal prosecutors seized tens of millions of dollars from ASD in August, saying the company was selling unregistered securities and engaging in wire fraud and money-laundering.
ASDMBA members said Guenther has refused to provide transparent accounting for ASDMBA, instead engaging in profanity, threats and menacing behavior.
We’re about to engage in some speculation on the AdSurfDaily case — and we’ll readily concede it’s exactly that: speculation. None of this should be taken as high truth or an assertion we are “right.” It should be taken as an exercise in critical reasoning.
This is a long post. Care to come along for a ride whose purpose is to explore possibilities?
The first thing you’ll need to do is suspend your disbelief and accept the premise that AdSurfDaily Inc. actually is capable of telling the truth — perhaps not the whole truth, but something that may amount to a convenient truth. This will be a leap for many of our readers, but if you want to accompany us on this ride you’ll have to willing to make this leap.
One of the reasons this requires a leap is because ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s words and actions strain credulity virtually across the board. After insisting for months ASD was perfectly legal, he now says it was illegal — but that ASD was denied “fair notice” of its illegal business practices.
At the moment, Bowdoin is leading yet another charge to have ASD members pummel the government with letters of support for a business he concedes is illegal. Bowdoin also encouraged members to contact talk-show host Glenn Beck.
Earlier he filed a petition for emergency relief that asked the government to return seized funds, saying the company couldn’t pay its rent or hosting bills, but didn’t mention ASD had more than $1 million parked offshore in Antigua. Only after prosecutors revealed the existence of the Antigua money did Bowdoin acknowledge it to members.
A few months after Bowdoin’s Antigua tie was exposed, the banking system on the Caribbean island nation was endangered with the exposure of the alleged Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme. The crisis rippled across the Caribbean and into Central and South America.
Back when Bowdoin still was saying ASD was legal, he demanded an evidentiary hearing to make the company’s case — and then took the 5th. Meanwhile, ASD’s fingerprints also are all over the AdViewGlobal autosurf, which recently announced its bank account had been suspended and yet extended a 200 percent, matching-bonus program — all while it was having trouble processing cash-out requests.
Bowdoin’s stepson is an AVG trustee. The company, which purported to be offshore, came to life after the ASD seizure. AVG employed former ASD employees and used the ASD webroom. A graphic showing AVG’s street address as the same street address ASD used appeared in the webroom. It was removed after Web reporters pointed it out. Incredibly, AVG insisted there were no ASD ties. Equally incredibly, the person making the announcement was a former ASD employee.
AVG claimed to be headquartered in Uruguay. Its servers resolved to Panama, one of the countries affected by the alleged Stanford Ponzi scheme.
Bowdoin recently appeared in a video — now taken offline — for Paperless Access, a new surf company. He said the company could help ASD members recapture money seized by the government. He did not identify the owners of Paperless Access. Nor did he explain how the company was legal and able to comply with securities laws — while not operating as a Ponzi scheme.
The Issue
Assertions have been made that the U.S. Secret Service mistakenly left behind “several piles” of undeposited cashier’s checks at ASD headquarters during the August raid last year. Upon recognizing this after the agents left, ASD dutifully notified the Secret Service about the checks. Over a period of days, the Secret Service was said to have accepted some of the checks after being notified by ASD, but not all of them.
Bowdoin’s Take
Our source for this claim is none other than Andy Bowdoin himself. Here is what he said during a conference call last summer (italics and bold emphasis added):
“Now, to show how inefficient they were in doing their search at the office, they overlooked several piles of cashier’s checks,” Bowdoin said of the Secret Service, according to a transcript of his remarks during an Aug. 12 conference call. ASD members circulated the transcript.
“There was one that was made out for several hundred thousand dollars. Federal agents were present at the bank, and one of our people turned them in and said, ‘Here, you overlooked these.’ They went ahead and made a deposit so that they could seize that money,” Bowdoin continued.
“The next day [employees] found a little over a million dollars in checks that [the Secret Service] had missed. And they took them to the Secret Service office in Tallahassee and gave that to them. Monday, back in the office, they found a few more checks at the office totaling about $40 thousand to $50 thousand. They took those to the Secret Service office in Tallahassee, and they said they didn’t want any more money. They said to send it back to the members.
“Now, why didn’t they send all the cashier’s checks back that they took, back to the members? Why didn’t they do that, if they were looking out for the people? If they had been concerned about the people, they would have. The government has done a great injustice to these people by taking those cashier’s checks and cashing those checks into the U.S. Treasury.”
Bowdoin’s assertion that checks the Secret Service missed during the raid kept popping up over a period of days after the raid may be important.
Golden Panda
There also have been assertions that not all checks sent to Golden Panda Ad Builder made their way into government accounts for later use in a restitution fund for victims. Bob Guenther, for example, claims that about $1.5 million was returned to Golden Panda members, in part through his efforts.
Among the people to whom money was returned were Joe Shoop, an ASD promoter; an unnamed “high-profile Dallas Cowboy executive”; and retired and active-duty police officers in Texas and California, Guenther said.
Who recruited the members into Golden Panda is unclear. Guenther said the government should have returned all seized checks to ASD and Golden Panda members.
The Exercise In Critical Reasoning
What could the claim that the Secret Service mistakenly left behind “several piles” of checks mean?
Well, it could mean the Secret Service actually did mistakenly leave behind the checks and decided to accept some of them but not all of them them after being notified by ASD. There could be sensible, logical reasons completely consistent with the aims of law enforcement for not accepting all of the checks.
Not accepting all of the checks also could be a bureaucratic blunder.
We highly doubt the Secret Service mistakenly left behind “several piles” of checks — as Bowdoin claimed — at ASD headquarters, but concede it’s possible. It’s also possible that ASD was telling the truth when it said it notified the agency about the checks and that the Secret Service eventually told ASD it didn’t want any more checks — what Bowdoin and others have painted as investigative/administrative incompetence.
But what if it wasn’t an investigative/administrative error at all? What if the Secret Service made a tactical decision to leave a limited number of checks in the former flower shop that once housed ASD to see what would happen after agents left?
Such an approach could lead to clues that would enable the government to better fund a restitution account for victims.
In our view, no private citizen had any business working as an intermediary or third-party collector to gather money sent to ASD or Golden Panda. We’re not aware of any assertions that a third party collected money from ASD, but we are aware of a report that at least one ASD downline sponsor was pressured by a third party to return money the sponsor accepted directly from a recruit to pay for ASD “advertising.”
At the same time, we are aware of assertions that money was collected by a third party or parties and was returned to Golden Panda members.
The return of the money could have affected the government investigation and hindered its efforts to create the biggest resitution pool possible.
This is a money case. One of the ways to solve a money case is to follow the money. Even if the Secret Service mistakenly left the checks behind at ASD, not accepting some of the checks later might have created an opportunity for it to follow the money and produce new leads.
Now, understand: We have no insider’s knowledge from investigators — and, as noted above, this column is engaging in speculation. But what if the Secret Service, say, wasn’t satisfied at the time of the raid that it had identified all of ASD’s financial conduits?
It might make sense to leave some checks behind and then follow those checks if and when ASD acted on them. If higher crimes were suspected, leaving some money behind might help expose the tentacles of a criminal enterprise and lead to resources that could be used for victim compensation.
The same thing could be said about checks delivered to Golden Panda in Georgia. It is possible that the Secret Service wasn’t certain that it had located all of Golden Panda’s financial conduits and permitted Golden Panda to exercise some control so agents later could follow the money.
Want to add another layer?
What if ASD had what amounts to a banking slush fund set up offshore (or domestically) and kept uncashed checks in a secret domestic location, which is to say not at the headquarters building that was searched?
Are you ready to say for certain that ASD kept all undeposited checks at its headquarters? Are you ready to say for certain that the Secret Service missed “several piles” of checks when the man making the claim is a known fraudster who wouldn’t take the witness stand at his own evidentiary hearing?
What if ASD didn’t have an offshore or domestic slush fund but was in the process of setting one up, perhaps contemplating that it could fund the account with some of the undeposited checks? It would make sense for ASD to stash some checks outside the headquarters building until they could be used to fund the secret account.
Are you ready to rule that out?
And what if, after the raid, ASD considered the dramatic criminal consequences of such deception, and then created a cover story that the agents had left behind “several piles” of checks during their search?
One way to explain the sudden appearance of checks that had been stashed is to say the Secret Service missed them during the headquarters raid.
What if an ASD insider came to the building late at night — hours after the raid, while people were sleeping — and planted stashed checks inside for employees to find in a bid to create the appearance agents had done sloppy work in missing “piles” of checks?
What if ASD feared the Secret Service might suspect ASD had a slush fund offshore or elsewhere and knew any stashed checks effectively had become worthless? In other words, the mere act of depositing them in the slush fund would demonstrate the criminality. Holding onto checks that had been stashed could lead to uncomfortable questions from customers. So could depositing them in a secret bank.
ASD indeed could have notified the Secret Service about checks the company still had in its possession. It could have created a cover story that agents had “missed” the checks, when agents hadn’t missed them at all because they were not at the locations searched at the time of the search.
Mind you, we are not saying ASD created a cover story. What we’re saying is that it is common for criminals to create cover stories and for co-conspirators to agree to the stories. If ASD kept checks at a secret location, those checks would pose a problem that ASD could “solve” with a cover story that agents had missed “several piles” of checks.
An Ongoing Probe
The ASD case was (and is) an investigation by the Secret Service, the IRS and perhaps other law-enforcement agencies. It was (and is) an ongoing conspiracy investigation, and no agency involved is about to share the prongs of their investigative techniques and prosecution strategy.
This is why any efforts from individuals and groups post-seizure to force, say, Golden Panda to return funds to specific individuals very well could be problematic. It’s the prosecution’s case.The prosecution is empowered to investigate and prosecute the case without interference. Its theory of the case is that the assets of ASD and Golden Panda are the proceeds of a criminal enterprise and that a conspiracy existed.
For the purposes of this prosecution, the Feds effectively view ASD and Golden Panda as one in the same because of their native ties. The assets were seized in an “all funds” forfeiture complaint. It is highly possible that prosecutors view the individual entities as components of a larger racketeering and money-laundering enterprise.
Racketeering. Money-laundering. Wire fraud. Mail fraud. Perhaps other types of criminal fraud.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that private litigants have sued ASD President Andy Bowdoin, ASD attorney Robert Garner and Golden Panda President Clarence Busby in a civil RICO complaint. The theory is that businesses and individuals known and unknown were engaged in a racketeering enterprise.
The pool of money to compensate victims is now smaller because of private interventions by individuals and a group during an active investigation by authorities.
Money has been returned to private individuals by private individuals during a public investigation. We have seen no evidence that any person who intervened to return funds on behalf of another individual did so with the authority, support and encouragement of law enforcement.
We believe it best to let the prosecution handle its case as it sees fit. Freelancing by private individuals to return money never should have been part of this mix. The act alone created potential injustice for ASD and Golden Panda victims. Even before the forfeiture case has been litigated to conclusion, some victims have been made “whole” and have not been subjected to the haircut everyone else stands to get.
The money in the ASD and Golden Panda case was under arrest. Prosecutors have the authority to claw back all refunds that occurred as the result of the actions of an intermediary. At the same time, prosecutors can claw back money the Feds might have been monitoring or strategically permitting to enter the banking system to see where it eventually would land.
UPDATED 2:13 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A temporary restraining order against Florida resident Jack Arons by Dallas attorney Larry Friedman has been dropped.
Arons and Friedman are in mediation to try to settle a dispute that resulted in Friedman accusing Arons of slander and libel March 5. The mediation is occurring via telephone and will resume next week.
The lawsuit stemmed from the affairs of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust.
Bob Guenther is the de facto head of the Trust. ASDMBA members said Guenther has not provided transparent accounting for the Trust and engaged in threatening behavior when his management was questioned.
Guenther is facing two felony charges of aggravated harassment in Arizona. A court date is set next month. Police alleged that he repeatedly violated a court order prohibiting him from threatening an Arizona company.
Friedman is an attorney for the Trust. ASDMBA members funded the Trust with contributions, expecting that their legal interests would be covered in the AdSurfDaily case. Some members said they filed complaints with the Texas Bar and the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
Guenther said the Trust had an insurance policy and, if members had valid complaints, they should contact him to make a claim against the policy.
“If anyone has any VALID complaint about the administration of the ASDMBA, the disbursement or use of the funds, or any other questions not answered, then they should get a lawyer, file suit, and Ill turn it over to our insurance company,” Guenther said on March 26, in a Comment to this Blog.
Guenther did not say what process was in place to determine if a complaint was valid. He added that the Trust had a second trustee, Kenneth Devolpi.
“Hopefully Mr Friedman will continue to represent the ASDMBA, without compensation, as he has done for the last 90 days or so, and the other Trustee, Kenneth deVolpi, will not resign,” Guenther said in a Comment.
Devolpi lists members of Guenther’s family, including Guenther’s wife, as Facebook friends. Guenther’s daughter lists Devolpi as a friend, as does Guenther himself.
ASDMBA members have raised concerns in recent days that Guenther now seems to be backing away from claims that ASDMBA is a Trust.
“This association was not formed as a formal Texas ‘TRUST,’ Guenther said in a Comment to this Blog. “No representation to that effect have ever been made. It is a simple association, formed with a set of self imposed administration guidelines.”
The organization, however, was referred to as a Trust in recorded conference calls and online chat forums. The dispute now seems to center on the meaning of the word “Trust.”
Guenther also said in a Comment that about $1.5 million was returned to members of Golden Panda Ad Builder, acknowledging that the money did not become part of a federal pool to compensate victims of what prosecutors described as a $100 million Ponzi scheme involving ASD and Golden Panda.
This may lead to questions about whether some victims received preferential treatment and whether federal prosecutors will seek to have the money returned to the pool.
Money was returned to police retirees and active-duty officers in Texas and California, and to a “high profile Dallas Cowboy” executive, Guenther said. He acknowledged that he had a hand in the return of the money.
A five-figure sum was returned to Joe Shoop, an ASD promoter, Guenther said.
Guenther did not say under whose authority the money was returned. He ventured, however, that “The Feds who raided the ASD headquarters,upon finding over $35 Million in uncashed cashiers check, should have ordered the return of the uncashed checks to the rightful owners.”
The money returned to Golden Panda members was not seized in a raid by the U.S. Secret Service of ASD’s headquarters in Quincy, Fla., last year. The returned money, rather, had been sent to Golden Panda in Georgia.
Accusations against Andy Bowdoin, president of AdSurfDaily, led to the creation of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA). ASDMBA members sought to make sure their legal interests were addressed in the ASD case.
UPDATED 4:03 P.M. EDT (March 27, U.S.A.) Bob Guenther should resign from the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA). Guenther is the de facto head of the ASDMBA Trust. People who contributed money to the Trust believing their legal interests in the AdSurfDaily case would be served have not been served well.
ASDMBA members report they have been denied transparent accounting by Guenther of how the Trust spent money it collected to represent their interests. Guenther did not tell ASDMBA members about his 1994 felony conviction for bank fraud. The questions about Guenther’s management of the Trust were raised before members knew about the conviction.
Some ASDMBA members now say they would not have contributed to the Trust had they known about Guenther’s felony record. Members want to know precisely what happened to their Trust contributions. Guenther is not telling them.
In fact, Bob Guenther is threatening to sue people who raise the issue. Some members said Guenther told them if they wanted the information, they were going to have to sue to get it.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott should investigate the Trust. A claim was made that Guenther had Abbott’s private phone number. Such a claim can be construed to mean that Guenther was trading on Abbott’s name without authorization to minimize the number of complaints the state might receive about the Trust.
Abbott should not let this stand. He should investigate immediately.
Guenther, a Texan, has been charged in Arizona with two felony counts of aggravated harassment. Police said he repeatedly violated a court order not to harass an Arizona business.
The Arizona charges are reason enough for Guenther to resign from the Trust. As its de facto head, he has a duty not to bring discredit to it and to work responsibly with members. This cannot occur under a cloud of suspicion in an atmosphere of threats.
Meanwhile, federal and state investigators should seek to determine if a group of Texas police retirees somehow received preferential treatment in the ASD case through ASDMBA. It is possible that any preferential treatment was accidental and occurred with the best of intentions.
There are assertions that a police group joined Golden Panda Ad Builder, a company that is part of the ASD litigation, and that funds contributed by the group were intercepted and returned before becoming part of a common victim’s pool prosecutors hope to create.
Federal prosecutors hope to fund the pool by liquidating bank accounts and property seized by the U.S. Secret Service last year. No victim should get preferential treatment — not even a police fund. If funds from police retirees were intercepted and returned to the group, the funds should be returned to the pool to create a level playing field.
Guenther also needs to explain fully why posts associated with identities he uses at two forums have gone missing. Lost with the posts were dates, times and details that may be important to investigators — and even to Guenther himself. One of the deleted posts made the claim that Guenther had Abbott’s private phone number.
Guenther claimed forum deletions at the ASD-Biz forum were made because someone had intercepted his password and that an imposter had posted under his identity. The deletions, however, also might have wiped away Guenther’s best evidence that an imposter had been posting under his name.
Included in deletions at Scam.com were references to posts purportedly made from Mexico. Here is a screen shot of one of the Scam.com posts, under an identity associated with Guenther: “USMCSemperfi.” This shot has been reduced to fit within the borders of this Blog.
'USMCSemperfi' at Scam.com tells readers on March 9 that he is in Mexico. The screen shot also captures part of a posting below from a member posting as Zhiroc. Similar claims of posts from Mexico also were made at the ASD-Biz forum, under an identity associated with Bob Guenther.
Why a person using known Bob Guenther forum identities would claim in two forums to have been posting from Mexico — and why those posts would go missing — is unclear. What is clear is that the posts were made in the days immediately prior to criminal charges being filed against Guenther in Arizona.
In a March 16 email to this Blog, Guenther claimed he had not been in Mexico in years.
“I have not been in Mexico since August 2003. Anyone that actually knows me, also knows why,” he wrote.
Other deleted posts at Scam.com made references to Guenther’s business interests in Mexico. Here is a screen shot of back-to-back Scam.com posts under the “USMCSemperFi” identity. This shot has been reduced to fit within the borders of this Blog.
USMCSemperFi references Mexico business interests at Scam.com and also highlights the Marine Corps. Bob Guenther is a former Marine.
These are important matters, especially to ASDMBA members. They deserve to know what happened to their money, and they should be able to raise the questions in an environment free of threat.
Bob Guenther should leave ASDMBA. He should stop making threats, and Greg Abbott should enter this case to add clarity and ensure that public trust does not become a casualty of this incredibly toxic environment.
UPDATED 10:26 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Bob Guenther never should have been prosecuted for bank fraud in 1994, but accepted a plea deal after a cost-benefit analysis concluded his best chance to minimize a prison sentence was to accept the deal, Guenther’s defense attorney said in a 1996 memo.
Guenther pleaded guilty to a single felony count of bank fraud. In exchange, 10 other counts were dropped by federal prosecutors.
Rather than sentencing Guenther to prison, U.S. District Judge Paul Brown ordered Guenther to serve three years’ probation. Guenther ultimately paid resitution of $76,134 in full.
Michael McColloch, Guenther’s lawyer, said the sentence Brown imposed was an “extraordinary” downward departure of six levels under federal sentencing guidelines.
McColloch’s comments about the case are included in the memo, which Guenther provided this Blog today.
Guenther said today that he had expected to be sentenced to up to a year in jail.
“IÂ fully thought I was going to jail for 8-12 months,” Guenther said, in an email to this Blog. “And for what, absolutely nothing[.] [B]ut after 3 tours in Vietnam, a year at club-med in Seagoville Texas was not the end of the world.”
McColloch said the conviction was “devastating” to Guenther. He described his client as an “honorable man” who got caught up in circumstances beyond his control because a banking crisis in Texas spilled over into Guenther’s automobile dealership.
“I have no doubt that Bob would have preferred even a prison sentence to the burden and blemish of carrying around a federal felony conviction for the rest of his life,” McColloch said.
“This is the real tragedy of this case, that an honorable man who was only guilty of trying to save a business from extinction would be branded a felon by a system which shows little mercy to those caught up in its web by circumstances beyond their control, victimized by finger-pointing bankers and overzealous investigators,” McColloch said.
Guenther is the de facto head of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust. He has been criticized by ASDMBA members for not providing transparent accounting of how the Trust spent money it collected.
Guenther was charged in Maricopa County, Arizona, with two felony counts of aggravated harrassment March 13. Police alleged he violated a court order that prohibited him from making harassing contact with Cheyenne Mountain and Affiliates, an Arizona company.
ASDMBA members said Guenther engaged in threatening behavior when his management of the Trust was questioned.
The Trust was created last summer to protect members’ legal interests in the AdSurfDaily case. Federal prosecutors said ASD engaged in the sale of unregistered securities, wire fraud and money-laundering, and also operated a $100 million Ponzi scheme.
This Blog broke the story about Guenther’s bank-fraud conviction on March 21. Guenther initially directed an email threat at this Blog over its publication of the story. This Blog did not reply to Guenther’s threat via email, instead advising Guenther in a post that it would not submit to threats and encouraging him to submit information he wished to be considered for publication in a nonthreatening fashion.
Guenther emailed this Blog this morning, asking in a civil tone for submission instructions. This Blog responded to Guenther’s email, and provided the instructions. Early this evening, Guenther provided the document he wished to have considered for publication, along with a supporting email.
We have made the decision to publish this story — and also a link to the document — because of its news value.
Read the document from Michael McColloch, Bob Guenther’s lawyer in the case. McColloch explains his point of view on the matter, saying he took over the case from an attorney who was ill — only two months prior to the scheduled trial date.
The de facto head of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust was charged by federal prosecutors with 11 counts of bank fraud in July 1994, according to records.
Bob Guenther pleaded guilty to a single count in December 1994. In a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped 10 counts.
ASDMBA members said Guenther has refused to provide details on how the association had spent money it began collecting last summer to ensure contributors’ legal interests were covered in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case.
After a year-long series of delays in the 1994 Texas bank-fraud case, Guenther was sentenced to three years’ probation, in December 1995. He was ordered to pay $76,134 in restitution, which U.S. District Judge Paul Brown labeled “due immediately.”
In July 1998, his probation was modified, enabling Guenther to pay restitution in installments of $3,000 monthly. Why restitution remained unpaid more than two years after sentencing is unclear. Brown extended Guenther’s probation by one year to ensure payment.
Guenther made good on the restitution and was discharged from probation in April 1999.
Guenther was charged in Maricopa County, Arizona, with two felony counts of aggravated harrassment March 13. Police alleged he violated a court order that prohibited him from making harassing contact with Cheyenne Mountain and Affiliates, an Arizona company.
ASDMBA members said Guenther routinely used threats and menacing talk when the subject of his management of the association’s business affairs was brought up.
One of Guenther’s lawyers in the bank-fraud case was Michael McColloch. McColloch’s name was referenced in an an Oct. 27, 2008, document prepared by Dallas attorney Larry Friedman.
The document advised Guenther on how to behave when he interacted with a federal prosecutor in the ASD case, and warned him to quit threatening ASDMBA members.
Bob Guenther has told the Mods and members of the ASD-Biz forum that his previous “Bob Guenther” account had been “compromised.” He announced that he had deleted the “Bob Guenther” account and now would embed a secret code word in posts under his new forum identity, so members would know he was the actual author of posts and not a hacker using his identity to post.
Under the new forum identity “Robert L,” Guenther said he came to the conclusion that someone had hacked his old account after “in depth investigation” revealed “[s]omeone had accessed my account, had my email and my password.”
Meanwhile, in an unrelated but equally strange development, a poster at the Surf’s Up forum threatened to beat up ASD President Andy Bowdoin for lying to him.
“[I]f I ever see you face to face I will knock the f— out of you,” the poster said. “I met you and had breakfast with you and you lied to my face on that Sunday in [M]iami . . .”
Miami was the site of a July 12 ASD rally — a rally attended by federal agents working undercover.
Bowdoin was 74 at the time federal agents seized tens of millions of dollars from the firm a few weeks after the Miami rally, in the opening days of August. The poster who threatened Bowdoin also appears to be a senior citizen. Earlier discussion in the forum suggests the man lost $52,000 by trusting Bowdoin.
The Surf’s Up post, which stood for hours, now has been deleted. The man’s wife, who also appeared to be a senior citizen, was pictured alongside him in a loving pose. Some seniors are none too happy with Andy Bowdoin. The threat, however, was excessive.
No good can come through violence, suggestions of violence or menacing behavior. The man, who said he lives in California, made no threat to travel to Florida to harm Bowdoin.
The ‘Secret’ Code
At roughly the same time Guenther was deleting his old account at the ASD-Biz forum and announcing his secret code, he also was sending an email to this Blog. We deem the email menacing and convoluted.
Guenther is the de facto head of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust, the subject of some recent posts on this Blog and elsewhere on the Web.
All of Guenther’s old posts at the ASD-Biz forum were wiped away when he deleted his account, including threatening posts and posts that triumphantly announced a slander and libel lawsuit against Florida resident Jack Arons by Dallas-based attorney Larry Friedman, who is the attorney for the Trust.
Bob Guenther introduced Larry Friedman during an ASDMBA conference call last year while ASDMBA was solicting funds to protect contributors’ interests in the ASD case. Friedman now blames Arons for stirring the pot online and encouraging people to file complaints about his handling of the Trust’s affairs, claiming Arons is a felon and a menace.
Links to the slander and libel lawsuit were posted in the ASD-Biz forum under the “Bob Guenther” identity, which now is wiped away. Also wiped away were goonish threats from “Bob Guenther” that Friedman would sue other people.
Here are two questions an investigator might ask if considering recent developments concerning Guenther:
Who could derive a benefit from the claim the “Bob Guenther” identity at the ASD-Biz Forum was compromised by a hacker?
Who could derive a benefit by deleting the “Bob Guenther” account and thus deleting the posts associated with it?
Friedman immediately should fire the Trust as a client and disassociate himself from Bob Guenther. He also should report this matter to law enforcement. These acts are disturbing and too unnatural to ignore.
Some people said they saved copies of the old posts, anticipating that the account might go missing. Some ASDMBA members said they filed complaints with the Texas Bar and the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott about the manner in which the Trust’s affairs have been handled.
Secret code? Guenther could post something inflammatory, not include the secret code — and then claim someone else is the author because the post didn’t include the secret code.
A secret code is proof of nothing. The notion itself strains credulity at a level that cannot be ignored.
Along those lines, a claim by Guenther that he was at a volleyball tournament in Dallas “about the time” an unauthorized poster was using his old forum account and claiming to be heading to Mexico also is proof of nothing. A poster in Dallas could claim to be posting from Mexico. So could a poster from Arizona, at a location near the border with Mexico. (As noted in a previous post, in January we captured an Arizona IP address of Guenther’s near the Mexico border.)
Guenther explained that he hadn’t been to Mexico since 2003 and that “[a]nyone that actually knows me, also knows why.” Again, however, the claim proves nothing . Even a person who claims not to have been in Mexico since 2003 could claim to be posting from Mexico — or anywhere.
Restraint is not a word we associate with Guenther. His lack of restraint is what is driving one of the stories associated with the federal probe into the business affairs of AdSurfDaily Inc. (ASD).
Within hours of establishing a new posting identity at the ASD-Biz forum, Guenther was back to threatening people with lawsuits.
Guenther is the de facto head of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust. As noted above, ASDMBA was formed with member contributions in the aftermath of the government seizure last summer of tens of millions of dollars from ASD. Federal prosecutors say ASD was selling unregistered securities, operating a Ponzi scheme and engaging in wire fraud and money-laundering.
ASDMBA’s stated goal was to protect the legal interests of ASD members who contributed to the association. People concerned want to know why that hasn’t happened, despite the fact ASDMBA raised more than the $100,000 said to be needed to pay for the retainer of Larry Friedman.
In our view, Guenther has a duty to explain precisely to ASDMBA members from whom money was collected how the money was spent. If he chooses not to do so, he should have no expectation that ASDMBA members will stop asking questions.
Something this basic should not be difficult or painful. In fact, publishing a detailed accounting is the quickest way for Guenther to disarm his critics. Concerned ASDMBA members want sunlight, the best disinfectant. What they’re getting is rudeness, hostility, profanity, tirades, threats and juvenile insults — and now secret codes.
What they’re not getting is sunlight.
Friedman should drop the slander and libel lawsuit against Jack Arons. The filing of the lawsuit was repugnant, especially under these bizarre conditions.
Arons, on Social Security, is an amateur Web critic with a fly swatter. Friedman met Arons with a Howitzer, suing him in a blitz of paperwork and then trying to force Arons to appear in Dallas for a deposition at Arons’ expense with three days’ notice.
It was disgraceful, the stuff from which lawyer jokes are born. All of it flowed from ASDMBA’s lack of transparency. If anything, Arons owes Friedman an apology — if even that.
Friedman has considerable stature in the Dallas legal community — and every right to defend his reputation. This lawsuit doesn’t help. Nor does the behavior of the Trust and its de facto head, Bob Guenther.
Guenther needs people to believe in him now, and he’s doing very little to give them any reason to.
Jack Arons, a Florida man sued for libel and slander last week by Dallas attorney Larry Friedman, announced today that he is retracting statements he made about Friedman on the Internet.
“As far as Larry Friedman and his Law Firm is concerned I retract all statements made against them,” Arons said. He posted the retraction in online forums covering the AdSurfDaily case.
“Although I can not change what course of actions that have taken place concerning my statements I will no longer post anything derogatory concerning him or his firm,” Arons said.
Today we are renewing our call for Friedman to drop his lawsuit against Arons. At the same time, we call on Friedman to exercise judicious restraint and not to bulldoze Arons in any settlement negotiations.
Meanwhile, we call on Friedman to fire the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust as a client. The de facto head of the Trust is severely damaging Friedman’s law brand. Friedman should fire the Trust and get his shingle out of harm’s way. Let the Trust litigate against Friedman if it so chooses. The Trust has no credibility. Members who funded the Trust say it also has no money and is operating in the red.
Arons does not have a lawyer. He lives in the type of manufactured home that is common throughout Florida. He is not wealthy. Over the weekend, he worked on self-written, pro se drafts to fight Friedman’s lawsuit, asking for input from nonexpert forum posters.
On Monday, he was served with papers designed to force him to travel from Tallahassee to Dallas at his expense to sit for a Friedman deposition on Thursday. Arons is at a monumental disadvantage. He has had no time to think and is ripe to be bulldozed.
Larry Friedman should not bulldoze Jack Arons. To do so would be shameful, and yet a bulldozing is something some of his colleagues actually might applaud because this bulldozing would be a particularly wicked one. The pity-there-was-an-unoccupied-seat-on-the-sunken-lawyer-bus joke is not a joke about a bus; it is a joke about bulldozers driven by attorneys.
Friedman claims Arons is a menace because of Internet postings, while his de facto client openly is engaging in menacing behavior, complete with references to stalking and chasing people.
Jack Arons is not the menace in this case; he was the convenient target because people were complaining to the Texas Bar about matters pertaining to the Trust, and Friedman blames Arons for stirring the pot.
Friedman brought a Howitzer against a Web critic and sympathetic figure armed with a small peashooter. It was maximum overkill: Friedman sued in Dallas March 5. Arons was served in Florida March 7. On March 9, Arons was notified to appear in Dallas March 12 to provide a deposition to Friedman.
In between, a person purporting to be “Bob Guenther,” the de facto head of the Trust, appears to have adopted the role of Friedman’s goon. In previous mentions of the purported Guenther, we described him as appearing to act as a bouncer. We’re using “goon” today because the purported Guenther now has referenced Arons’ 6-year-old daughter in a menacing forum post.
That is the act of a goon, not a bouncer. We believe Friedman is appalled and perhaps even frightened by the behavior of his de facto client. It is our expectation that Friedman will fire his client. Not to do so is to turn a blind eye to the damage his brand is suffering at the hands of his client — something he was unwilling to do when it came to Jack Arons, a mere flea met by a Howitzer that could shoot from Texas to Florida.
UPDATED 12:44 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A person purporting to be “Bob Guenther” referenced the 6-year-old daughter of Jack Arons in a post at the ASD-Biz Forum yesterday. The reference was beyond the pale and easily could become yet another matter sprouting from the AdSurfDaily case for law enforcement to investigate.
The language from the posting is reproduced verbatim below. We took a screen shot and reduced its size to fit into the border of this column.
“Rookie,” the poster wrote in a message directed at Arons. “Look around you, the Fat Ladies have been singing all day,, See you in court dude, and how old ios that adopted daughter, Texas Court my friend, welcome to the real world…”
Here is the screen shot:
A poster purporting to be Guenther has a history of making menacing comments, including threats to visit people at their homes.
In an odd twist yesterday, a self-described, purported “30 something female” began to post under the “Bob Guenther” account at the ASD-Biz forum. The purported female appeared to champion “Bob Guenther.”
Like “Bob Guenther,” though, the purported female couldn’t resist including a passive-aggressive rant, saying the female posters at the forum needed to watch their diets, start working out “and find a man…. You obviously don’t get out much and need a lot more than a computer can provide…”
Owing to what we view as an implicit threat against the family of Jack Arons and others, we have made the decision to publish an IP address we have associated with a poster who identified himself as Bob Guenther in January. The comment to this Blog was submitted and published on Jan. 16.
Here is the IP address: 72.165.15.198. It resolves to Dana Park Office Center in Tucson, Arizona. Over the weekend, the person at the ASD-Biz forum purporting to be Guenther suggested he was near Mexico and planned to travel there. The geographic location to which the IP resolves is near Mexico.
Meanwhile, this Blog received an email — as distinguished from a comment left on the Blog — from a person who identified himself as “the ‘infamous’ Bob Guenther” yesterday. Given recent developments and a pattern that suggests Bob Guenther routinely engages in menacing behavior, we have made the decision not to respond to the email.
ASD-Biz members reacted with anger at the post referencing Arons’ daughter. Dallas attorney Larry Friedman sued Arons last week, asserting libel and slander for comments Arons allegedly had made on the Internet.
The person purporting to be Guenther in the forum announced the Friedman lawsuit in two threads and provided links to PDFs of the documents.
Friedman is an attorney for the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust. Bob Guenther is the de facto head of the Trust. Posters at ASD-Biz viewed the lawsuit as an attempt to chill speech. Prior to the lawsuit, some ASDMBA members said they had filed complaints against Friedman with the Texas Bar and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
The lawsuit against Arons followed. Posters at the ASD-Biz forum say Guenther appears to be trying to spread the chill. Forum posters said they would not be silenced by threats.
Some posters said they intended to file complaints today.
After threatening additional lawsuits at the ASD-Biz forum — and after an editorial that ran on this Blog appeared over the weekend — the poster purporting to be Guenther at the ASD-Biz forum then appeared at least briefly to switch courses.
Instead of threatening lawsuits, the person purporting to be Guenther appeared actually to encourage members to file complaints with authorities.
In one post, the person purporting to be Guenther provided a link to Abbott’s office, the office of Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and the Internet Crime Complaint Center. At the same time, in an apparent jibe, the poster also provided a link to PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
The poster then provided a link to the office of Sen. John Cornyn, and then implied he had inside connections in Abbott’s office.
“By the way if you want to call Greg Abbott, I have his direct line and that of his assistant, would you like that too,” the purported Guenther wrote.
