PatrickPretty.com

Tag: FEC

  • SPECIAL REPORT: AdSurfDaily/Zeek Pitchman Todd Disner Gave Thousands To Gingrich, Romney After Soliciting Money To Sue The United States; Records Show Tax Liens Of More Than $405,000 Dating Back To 1999

    EDITOR’S NOTE: ASD was a multilevel-marketing scheme that planted the seed it paid a return of 1 percent a day on top of two-tiered affiliate commissions totaling 15 percent for recruiters. Federal prosecutors described the purported “opportunity” as a Ponzi scheme based in the the small town of Quincy, Fla., and operated by recidivist securities felon Andy Bowdoin.

    UPDATED 9:46 A.M. ET (NOV. 18, U.S.A.) A Florida man who claimed in a November 2011 lawsuit against the United States that AdSurfDaily was not a Ponzi scheme doled out thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and organizations in the following months, records show.

    The man, ASD promoter Todd Disner of Miami, joined with fellow Miami resident and suspended Connecticut attorney Dwight Owen Schweitzer in suing the United States as pro se plaintiffs after soliciting donations from fellow ASD members to fund the lawsuit earlier in 2011, according to records. As the lawsuit proceeded, Disner and fellow ASD promoter Schweitzer raised the prospect in court filings that the seizure of ASD’s database in a 2008 case brought by the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia could lead to the ASD duo’s prosecution for tax evasion.

    A federal judge tossed the lawsuit in August 2012, but Disner and Schwetizer are appealing. They have accused the judge of “sophistry.”

    Both Disner and Schweitzer have been engaged in continuous litigation against the United States for more than a year. Neither has been charged with a crime. After their days promoting ASD, Disner and Schweitzer went on to promote Zeek Rewards, an ASD-like,  1.5-percent-a-day “program” with accompanying commissions that triggered probes by both the SEC and the U.S. Secret Service. On Aug. 17, the SEC accused North Carolina-based Zeek of operating a $600 million Ponzi-and pyramid scheme that potentially swindled more than 1 million investors.

    Zeek operator Paul R. Burks did not contest the SEC’s civil allegations and consented to a judgment in the case. Records show that Burks gave $2,500 to the campaign of GOP Presidential hopeful Ron Paul between 2011 and early 2012.

    On Dec. 26, 2011, only weeks after the Disner/Schweitzer lawsuit was filed against the government, Disner provided a donation of $1,000 to the GOP Presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich (Newt 2012), Federal Election Commission records show. The Gingrich donation by Disner appears to have been his first to a national candidate or organization. The FEC database, for example, shows no donations from Disner between Jan. 1, 1990, and Dec. 25, 2011.

    Disner matched the Dec. 26 donation with another $1,000 to Gingrich in January 2012, according to FEC records.

    Separately, records in Miami-Dade County show that the IRS filed a tax lien against Disner for $101,723 on Aug. 1, 2006. Included in that sum was $95,015.97 allegedly owed from 1999, and $6,707.77 allegedly owed from 2002.

    ASD, operated by the now-convicted and jailed Andy Bowdoin, launched just weeks after the IRS filed the lien against Disner. Two years to the day after the lien was recorded in Miami-Dade, the Secret Service seized $65.8 million from 10 Bowdoin bank accounts.  A raid of ASD’s headquarters followed four days later. Bowdoin later was charged criminally with operating a Ponzi scheme. Among the allegations against Bowdoin was that he had used money from the ASD Ponzi scheme to make a donation to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

    Bowdoin, 77, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in May 2012. In August, he was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison. Prosecutors said he was at the helm of a $119 million Ponzi scheme and promoted other MLM fraud schemes even after his December 2010 arrest.

    On Nov. 21, 2007, according to records, the IRS filed another lien against Disner in Miami-Dade totaling $294,940.89. This lien was for the 2003 and 2004 tax years. The IRS filed yet another lien against Disner on Oct. 22, 2008. This one sought $8,661.36 for the 2000 and 2001 tax years.

    All in all, records show three tax liens against Disner for the combined sum of $405,325.99.

    Whether Disner has cleared the IRS liens is unclear. What is clear is that, in June 2012, he raised the prospect in court filings that he could be prosecuted for tax evasion because of the seizure of ASD’s database in 2008. Records in the Zeek case, meanwhile, show that the Zeek database also has been seized.

    Records suggest that, with Gingrich out of the GOP Presidential race by May 2012, Disner switched his support to Mitt Romney, who went on to become the party’s nominee. Romney ultimately lost in the general election to President Obama, a Democrat seeking a second term.

    Gingrich, a former Georgia Congressman, is a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

    On June 25, 2012, Disner gave $1,000 to Romney for President Inc., according to FEC records.

    Just days earlier — on June 18, 2012 — Disner and Schweizer claimed in federal court that the government’s Ponzi case against ASD was a “house of cards,” despite Bowdoin’s guilty plea and acknowledgment that he had operated a Ponzi scheme and that ASD never had operated lawfully after its 2006 inception.

    A month later — on July 17, 2012 — Disner gave $200 to the Republican National Committee, according to FEC records.

    Exactly a month after that — on Aug. 17, 2012 — the SEC filed an emergency action in federal court that accused Burks of presiding over a massive fraud scheme that effectively extended across the world.

    Within days of the SEC action, Disner — who previously solicited money to sue the United States for alleged misdeeds in the ASD Ponzi case — participated in a conference call with self-described Zeek “consultant” Robert Craddock, who himself was soliciting money for some sort of court action against the SEC or the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek case.

    Nothing has been filed by Craddock to date. During one call, Craddock dropped the name of former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, claiming McCollum as a “friend.” McCollum is a Republican. In 2008, while attorney general, McCollum accused ASD of operating a pyramid scheme.

    Some ASD members reacted by suggesting that McCollum and a Florida TV station that carried the news of the ASD lawsuit should be charged with Deceptive Trade Practices.

    Despite Craddock’s claim after the SEC action that McCollum’s law firm SNR Denton had become the attorneys for a Craddock and a group of Zeek members, SNR Denton appears to have decided not to represent Craddock or his group.

    FEC records show that Disner gave $1,500 to the Republican National Committee in September 2012.

  • REPORT: Feds Open Inquiry Into Allen Stanford’s Political Donations; Committee To Which Andy Bowdoin Donated Money Again Makes News In Ponzi Probe

    The Justice Department has opened a probe into the political donations of R. Allen Stanford, according to the Miami Herald.

    Stanford is jailed in Texas amid allegations he presided over a $7 billion Ponzi scheme on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua.

    Among the first names to surface were the names of the National Republican Congressional  Committee (NRCC) and its chairman, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. The names of Democratic politicians also have surfaced, according to the newspaper.

    NRCC is the organization to which AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin — himself implicated in a Ponzi scheme by the Justice Department — donated money in 2007 and 2008 as the purported head of two companies and received the Congressional “Medal of Distinction.”

    Despite its important-sounding name, the medal is part of an NRCC marketing plan and signifies only an individual’s ability to write a check for what amounts to the purchase of banquet tickets.

    In a story apt to embarrass Sessions and others, the Miami newspaper reported yesterday that, on Feb. 17, the date Stanford was indicted, Sessions sent an email to Stanford.

    “I love you and believe in you,” the newspaper quoted Sessions as writing. “If you want my ear/voice — e-mail.”

    Today the newspaper reported that Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., traveled to Venezuela in 2006 after Stanford asked him to carry a message to President Hugo Chávez.

    Stanford was concerned that a former employee in Venezuela who had been accused of fraud was questioning whether Stanford’s operation itself was a fraud, the newspaper reported. A year after Meeks carried the message to Chavez, the Stanford employee was indicted by Venezuelan prosecutors and charged with swindling money.

    The story raises questions about whether Meeks’ purported intercession with Chavez might have helped Stanford delay the inevitable exposure of the alleged Ponzi scheme and whether he was relying on politicians to run interference for him prior to the exposure of the scheme.

    Stanford’s empire, which prosecutors and regulators said was a Ponzi scheme propped up by Certificates of Deposit that paid above-market rates and lured investors into unsafe, uninsured offshore banking instruments, collapsed less than two months after the Bernard Madoff Ponzi collapsed in December 2008.

    Meeks traveled to Venezuela in April 2006, according to the newspaper.

    The extent of prosecutors’ interest in linking Ponzi money to politics and determining if corrupt money influenced votes and policy is unclear. At a minimum, however, prosecutors are known to have peeled back layers of the onion in Florida.

    In an announcement dripping with the word “co-conspirators” last month, Acting U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman of the Southern District of Florida, the FBI and the IRS said that money from disbarred Florida attorney Scott Rothstein’s alleged Ponzi scheme was “used to make contributions to federal, state, and local political candidates.”

    In the Rothstein case, investigators are seeking to determine if the scheme existed in part as a means to evade campaign-finance laws. Rothstein Ponzi money also was used “to provide gratuities to high ranking members of police agencies,” officials said.

    In August 2008, prosecutors said that ASD’s Bowdoin had donated money to NRCC and that ASD members claimed the “Medal of Distinction” Bowdoin received for the donations was an important award from the White House.

    Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that Bowdoin gave money to NRCC and claimed to be the owner of two companies: AdSurfDaily and AdSalesDaily.

    On Feb. 27, 2007, the Federal Election Commission recorded a $250 donation from “Mr. T. Bowdoin” in the name of “AdSalesDaily Inc.” The FEC recorded another $250 donation from “Mr. T. Bowdoin” in the name of “AdSalesDaily Inc.” on March 27, 2007.

    Screen shot of Federal Election Commission record showing 'Mr. T. Bowdoin' was the 'owner' of 'Adsalesdaily, Inc' and made a political donation under that name in 2007.

    Both 2007 donations were targeted to NRCC and used an address — 13 S. Calhoun Street, Quincy, FL 32351 — federal prosecutors later said was bogus.

    Although the donations listed Bowdoin as the “owner” of Florida-based AdSalesDaily Inc., the corporation appears not to have been registered in Florida. Records in Georgia list “Ad Sales Daily, Inc.” as a corporation that initially was registered in Georgia May 8, 2007, more than two months after Bowdoin identified himself as the owner in federal campaign records.

    The Georgia entity does not list Bowdoin as an owner, officer or filer for the corporation — or as a person involved in any capacity. Rather, “Ad Sales Daily, Inc.” is listed as a Delaware foreign corporation, with J. Heardy Myers listed as the corporate filer and Myers (of Marietta, Ga.) and Otis Whitcomb (also of Marietta) listed as officers.

    AdSalesDaily Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on March 22, 2007, about 24 days after Bowdoin made his initial NRCC donation, according to filings.

    FEC records show that Bowdoin — under the name of “Mr. T. Andy Bowdoin, Jr” and “AdSurfDaily Inc. and AdSurfsDaily Inc.” (the second “s” is an apparent typo)  — gave $5,000 to NRCC in 2008. Two donations of $2,500 were recorded — one on June 6, 2008, and another on July 7, 2008.

    Even as the FEC was recording the donation on July 7, undercover agents from an IRS/Secret Service task force based in Florida were beginning to scrutinize ASD.

    Bowdoin has a tie to a bank in Antigua, although it is unclear whether the tie is to a bank controlled by Stanford because Bowdoin has not identified the bank. Prosecutors, however, said ASD had $1 million on deposit in Antigua in an account under a different name.

    Records suggest that the alleged Bowdoin Ponzi scheme might have operated under as many as four names dating back to early 2006: DailyProSurf, AdSurfDaily, AdSalesDaily and ASDCashGenerator.

    Litigation surrounding tens of millions of dollars seized from ASD in August 2008 has turned into Theater of the Absurd, with dozens of pro-se litigants attempting to enter the legal skirmish between the Justice Department and Bowdoin.

    One of the great mysteries of the case is why Bowdoin suddenly started donating money to NRCC in 2007 — during a time in which the company was not making payments to members and said it needed to issue a stock offering in which shares would be sold for $10,000 to raise funds.

  • Purported Transcript: Bowdoin Pushed ASD ‘Stock’ In 2007; Other Records Show Bowdoin Gave Campaign Donations In Names Of Two Firms

    UPDATED 2:26 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A purported transcript of remarks in March 2007 by AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin paints a picture of a startup company with serious problems Bowdoin tried to solve by offering “stock” in the firm.

    The “minimum purchase” of the stock was set at “$10,000,” and the the money would be used to help the company get back on its feet, according to the transcript, which was dated March 12, 2007, and posted in the asamonitor forum.

    ASD had been operating only a few months at the time of Bowdoin’s remarks and already was in over its head, according to the purported transcript and other records.

    AdSurfDaily also would undergo a name change to “AdSalesDaily,” according to the transcript.

    Just two weeks earlier — on Feb. 27, 2007 — the Federal Election Commission recorded a $250 donation from “Mr. T. Bowdoin” in the name of “AdSalesDaily Inc.” The FEC recorded another $250 donation from “Mr. T. Bowdoin” in the name of “AdSalesDaily Inc.” on March 27, 2007, two weeks after the purported stock offering.

    Screen shot of Federal Election Commission record showing 'Mr. T Bowdoin' was the 'owner' of 'Adsalessaily, Inc' and made a political donation under that name in 2007.
    Screen shot of Federal Election Commission record showing 'Mr. T. Bowdoin' was the 'owner' of 'Adsalesdaily, Inc' and made a political donation under that name in 2007.

    Both donations were targeted to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and used an address — 13 S. Calhoun Street, Quincy, FL 32351 — federal prosecutors later said was bogus.

    Although the donations listed Bowdoin as the “owner” of AdSalesDaily Inc., the corporation appears not to have been registered in Florida. Records in Georgia list “Ad Sales Daily, Inc.” as a corporation that initially was registered in Georgia May 8, 2007, more than two months after Bowdoin identified himself as the owner in federal campaign records.

    The Georgia entity does not list Bowdoin as an owner, officer or filer for the corporation — or as a person involved in any capacity. Rather, “Ad Sales Daily, Inc.” is listed as a Delaware foreign corporation, with J. Heardy Myers listed as the corporate filer and Myers (of Marietta, Ga.) and Otis Whitcomb (also of Marietta) listed as officers.

    AdSalesDaily Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on March 22, 2007, according to filings.

    In posts from March 2, 2007 at a forum known as stacontact.myfastforum.org, Myers is referred to as “Executive Vice President” and “Chief Information Technology Officer” of Ad Sales Daily Inc., with Bowdoin listed as “president.”  A “write-up” that resembled a news release on Bowdoin and Myers was published in the forum.

    Within the same thread later in the month, however, a poster said Myers had resigned as executive vice president to “focus on getting the other website completed. He will continue to be a member of the President’s Circle.”

    A person who identified himself as a member of an ASD downline group known as “oneteam” started the forum thread. “oneteam” used free hosting at homestead.com to promote ASD. At one time, “oneteam” displayed an ad that said ASD deposits were insured by the FDIC and that ASD provided “shelter” from the SEC and the FTC.

    On March 22, 2007, a forum poster quoted Bowdoin as saying, “We should have all the stock money coming in this week.”

    On July 17, 2008, a Blog known as “Otitis’s Weblog” (sic) included a denial that Ad Sales Daily Inc. had been affiliated with Bowdoin, saying “Any Bowdin (sic) has made false public statements in late 2006 to beginning 2007, that he had a company named Ad Sales Daily. Andy Bowdin (sic) has never done business as Ad Sales Daily, or incorporated this name or filed for a business license in Florida where he resides.”

    The denial on “Otitis’s Weblog” appears to be the only post on the Blog.

    Why Bowdoin would claim to own a company he did not own — and make two campaign donations recorded by the FEC in the name of AdSalesDaily Inc. — is unclear.  The federal filings recorded in February and March 2007 specifically list Bowdoin as the “owner” of AdSalesDaily Inc. (See the screen shot above of the February 2007 FEC record.)

    Bowdoin, according to the transcript at asamonitor, had been in Atlanta in March 2007 to get “input” from “leaders” on the company’s problems. It is unclear if Bowdoin actually sold any stock in ASD. There does not appear to have been any public filings concerning an offering, although an offering could have been conducted privately.

    “Hi Folks,” the transcript began. “My name is Andy Bowdoin, President of AdSurfDaily. We are not having an opportunity call tonight, but it will be an update call instead.

    “I am in Atlanta Georgia tonight and I have been up here this afternoon meeting with some of our leaders getting some input on some of the issues we have,” Bowdoin continued, according to the transcript.

    The transcript did not identify the leaders.

    “We have known that we should have shut down the site for a long time, because of the issues we continually have with the site, but we have been putting band aids on it to keep it going until the new site was ready,” Bowdoin said, according to the transcript. “We have been using a lot of our programmers time to repair it and keep it going. That is expensive and wasting money and prolonging the development of our new site. But now the existing AdSurfDaily site is beyond repair.”

    Script problems “drained” money from ASD, according to the transcript.

    “[T]he mathematical formula that governs the payouts are wrong,” Bowdoin was quoted as saying in the transcript. “The site has been paying out 63%, 67% and 72% instead of the normal 60%. This has drained the money we had for pay outs. Therefore all pay outs are on hold at this time.”

    Bowdoin did not say if people who benefited from extra payout amounts were asked to return the money, according to the transcript. Instead, ASD stopped payouts altogether.

    “We have frozen all accounts,” Bowdoin said, according to the transcript. “We have disabled the ability to make upgrades and purchase new ads. You can still view ads and earn credits to show your site. You can still look at you history and referral page. You can print out your information in your History page and Referral page. We will use this information to make everyone whole when we launch the new site. Our goal is to launch the new site during the month of May and make everyone profitable.”

    Bowdoin next pitched a stock offering, according to the transcript (emphasis added).

    “We will be selling stock in the new corporation AdSalesDaily to finish paying for the development of the new site and make the current payouts. The minimum purchase for the stock is $10,000. We are looking for people who share our vision, and are willing to invest toward the continued development and completion of the new AdSalesDaily website. If you are interested in purchasing some of the stock or if you know someone that might be interested in listening to the stock presentation, call the home office at 850-627-2206.”

    The transcript and political donations in the name of AdSalesDaily may mean that ASD operated under three different names — not just two — between October 2006 and August 2008, the month certain assets tied to the firm were seized by the U.S. Secret Service. The assets were seized when ASD was operating as ASD Cash Generator.

    A second forfeiture complaint filed in December 2008 against assets tied to ASD cites at least one unidentified “silent partner.”  The December complaint references a purported theft of $1 million from ASD at the hands of “Russian” hackers, alleging that no police report ever was filed despite the loss of a magnificent sum.

    The complaint describes the transition from the name AdSurfDaily to ASD Cash Generator. It does not reference “AdSalesDaily,” but federal records show that Bowdoin gave two campaign donations in that name.

    “Mr.  Bowdoin told some individuals that he had to stop operating the program over the Internet as AdSurfDaily after one or more Russians hacked into his program and caused the ASD operation to issue approximately $1 million to one or more Russians,” prosecutors said.

    Bowdoin explained the money was taken “before [he] discovered that the Russians had not paid any money to ASD to secure for themselves a portion of its revenue stream (as so-called ‘rebates’),” prosecutors said.

    The December complaint also alleges that Bowdoin blamed the company’s problems on “cash reserves that had been drained because surfing commissions were overpaid” — a possible reference to Bowdoin’s remarks in the March 2007 transcript about script problems.

    But Bowdoin and ASD insiders, according to the December complaint, arranged for ASD money to be stolen.

    “Mr. Bowdoin and associates issued ad packages to friends and family (who paid nothing for the ad packages) as free investment, and compensation programs,” prosecutors said. “Mr. Bowdoin also gave free ad packages to a son and former daughter-in-law, by which they pulled funds out of ASD without paying any money to ASD. In his son’s case, he arranged for another employee to ‘surf’ the program in order to qualify for a share of the daily rebates.”

    Select individuals “were able to pull out considerable funds from the so-called rebate program even though in many cases they put little, if any, of their own money into the scheme,” prosecutors said.

    “For example, a former employee took over $30,000 out of ASD after putting in nothing. Another former employee pulled out over $300,000 after putting in about $10,000,” prosecutors said. “One ASD promoter pulled out almost $100,000 after putting in less than $1,000.”

    FEC records show that Bowdoin — under the name of “Mr. T. Andy Bowdoin, Jr” and “AdSurfDaily Inc. and AdSurfsDaily Inc. (the second “s” is an apparent typo) ” — gave $5,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2008. Two donations of $2,500 were recorded — one on June 6, 2008, and another on July 7, 2008.

    Bowdoin’s NRCC donations resulted in the issuance of a “Medal of Distinction,” which Bowdoin and ASD promoters positioned as an important award for business accomplishments from the White House. The “medal,” however, is issued for campaign donations and signfies only one’s ability to write a check for what amounts to the purchase of banquet tickets.

    Even as the FEC was recording the donation on July 7, undercover agents from an IRS/Secret Service task force based in Florida were beginning to scrutinize ASD.

    Prosecutors said last month that Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter and acknowledged to law enforcement that the material allegations in the government’s August complaint all were true. The government did not reveal the entire contents of the proffer letter or the date it was signed.

    Given the allegations in the December forfeiture complaint and direct quotations attributed to Bowdoin, it is possible that the December complaint itself is based at least in part on Bowdoin’s proffer.

    Read the purported transcript of Bowdoin’s 2007 remarks, as published in the asamonitor forum.

    View the PDF of the Georgia filing for Ad Sales Daily Inc.

    Read forum posts from March 2007 on Ad Sales Daily Inc from stacontact.myfastforum.org.