Federal Election Commission records list this donation from Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho to the 2012 reelection campaign of President Obama. Filho’s employer is listed as Platinum Trade Bancorp. Red highlight/redaction by PP Blog.
In 2012, Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho, purportedly an employee of an entity known as Platinum Trade Bancorp and using the address of a mansion in Boca Raton, Fla., made a $250 campaign contribution to Obama for America, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The PP Blog is declining to publish the address of the 6,742-square-foot (est.) waterfront property, which appears not to have been owned by Filho. Records suggest the six-bedroom home has at least 6,200 square feet with air-conditioning and a separate quarters for domestic staff.
It sold for $2.025 million in August 2013, but Filho was listed neither as buyer nor seller. If he ever lived in the mansion, it appears he was a tenant, not an owner.
The donation to President Obama’s reelection campaign in Filho’s name (and listing the address of the Boca Raton mansion) was recorded on Oct. 16, 2012, just three weeks before the Nov. 6 general election that returned Obama to the White House for four more years. Obama is a Democrat.
Filho, now implicated criminally and civilly by the FBI and the SEC in the alleged DFRF Enterprises Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that traded on an international gold-mining theme, is not a U.S. citizen, according to court filings. Rather, he is a citizen of Brazil.
Campaign donations by “foreign nationals” are illegal under U.S. law. There is an exception for U.S. residents who have a green card “indicating his or her lawful admittance for permanent residence in the United States,” according to the FEC.
Sann Rodrigues, a defendant in the epic TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid case and an alleged Filho business associate, was arrested in May 2015 on a charge of immigration fraud. Like Filho, Rodrigues is a citizen of Brazil. Prosecutors said Rodrigues lied to get a green card.
Both men have listed addresses in Florida and Massachusetts and have been implicated in alleged frauds targeted at people who speak Portuguese or Spanish.
FEC records show that the donation in Filho’s name lists him as “Chairman of the Board” of Platinum Trade Bancorp. Where the purported business was based is unclear. No such company appears to exist in Florida.
The name of the purported firm, however, is similar to the name of Platinum Swiss Trust, a company the SEC said played a role in the DFRF fraud.
Platinum Swiss Trust, the SEC alleged, is a “purported Swiss private bank that is not actually authorized to conduct banking activities in Switzerland.” It purportedly is associated with Heriberto C. Perez Valdes, 46, of Miami. Valdes is a DFRF codefendant in the SEC’s civil case.
DFRF, the agency said, advanced a story that it has a $3.1 billion line of credit with Platinum Swiss Trust and used investors money to “leverage the credit line and generate a total return of 600%.”
Darren Covar, a Florida immigration attorney who appeared with Filho and others in a DFRF promo, is listed in FEC records as a contributor to Democratic causes. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.
FEC records lists Covar as having made $2,800 in 2012 contributions, though none to Obama. These contributions consisted of $300 to the Democratic Executive Committee of Florida, and $2,500 to the Kristen Jacobs for Congress campaign. Jacobs, a Democrat running for seat in the U.S. House, lost the race to Democrat Lois Frankel, the former mayor of West Palm Beach and the former minority leader of Florida’s state house.
Whether bail has been set for Filho is unclear. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Massachusetts did not return an inquiry on the matter.
Filho made an appearance in federal court in the Southern District of Florida yesterday. Miami defense attorney David A. Howard made a “temporary” appearance for him, according to the docket of the case.
Howard did not immediately return an inquiry for comment on Filho’s bail status.
Court records suggest he is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service and will be returned from Florida to face the DFRF-related criminal charge of wire fraud in federal court in Massachusetts.
BULLETIN: Florida has served up another doozy — one that is an embarrassment to major figures in both major U.S. political parties.
Claudio Eleazar Osorio, also known as Claudio Osorio Rodriguez, 54, was arrested by federal agents today, amid charges he scammed the U.S. government out of $10 million in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January 2010.
If promising to provide post-earthquake housing in Haiti and not delivering were not enough, Osorio also concocted a ruse by which investors came to believe their money was guaranteed by “a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund,” according to court filings today.
“This claim was patently false,” the SEC charged. “The Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund investment was a ruse to solicit additional funds from investors.”
The Aventura resident was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, major fraud against the United States, conspiracy to commit money laundering and making false statements to a U.S. government agency.
Also charged criminally was accountant Craig Stanley Toll, 64, of Pembroke Pines.
In a parallel civil action, Osorio and Toll were sued by the SEC, which alleged a massive fraud at Osorio’s InnoVida Holdings LLC.
Osorio, the SEC said, raised at least $16.8 million from investors and “stole nearly half” of it to “pay the mortgage on his multi-million dollar mansion and other lavish highlife expenses.”
“From his lap of luxury, Osorio concocted a compelling story about InnoVida by recruiting an impressive board of directors and boasting a bogus financial condition to lure investors into funding his scheme of lies,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican and the son of former President George H.W. Bush and the brother of former President George W. Bush, once sat on InnoVida’s board. So did Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark, a onetime Democratic candidate for President. Osorio also is listed in a Federal Election Commission database as an individual contributor to the Presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and the Congressional campaign of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, among others.
From a statement by the office of U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida (italics added):
The indictment further alleges that between January 2010 and March 2011, Osorio, Toll and others applied for and obtained a $10,000,000 loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (“OPIC”), a U.S. government agency that promotes U.S. government investments abroad to foster the development and growth of free markets. The purported purpose of the loan was to build a manufacturing facility and 500 homes in Haiti (“the Haiti project”) for displaced families in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. The indictment alleges that Osorio, Toll and others made materially false representations and omissions concerning, among other things, the profitability of Innovida, the purported use of the loan proceeds, an equity contribution to be made by Innovida, and contracts that Innovida purportedly had obtained with third-party vendors. Osorio used the OPIC loan proceeds to repay investors and for his and his co-conspirators’ personal benefit and to further the fraud scheme.
The SEC, meanwhile, described Osorio as a “former Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winner.”
From a statement by the SEC (italics added):
To induce funds from investors, Osorio and Toll allegedly produced false pro forma financial statements. A pro forma financial statement for March 31, 2009, stated that InnoVida had more than $35 million in cash and cash equivalents and more than $100 million of equity. A pro forma financial statement for Dec. 31, 2009, listed more than $39 million in cash and cash equivalents and $122 million of equity. In reality, the company’s bank accounts held less than $185,000 on March 31, 2009, and less than $2 million on Dec. 31, 2009. Toll failed to review all of InnoVida’s bank account statements when he drafted financial statements. Instead, he accepted Osorio’s misrepresentations that InnoVida had these assets in an account to which Toll did not have access.
The SEC alleges that Osorio offered bogus share prices to prospective investors based on false valuations. He told one investor that InnoVida was valued at $250 million, and then a week later told a different investor that the company was worth $50 million. The latter investor purchased $100,000 of Osorio’s stake in the company for five cents per share.
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.
ASD case subject of discussion in Washington’s highest power corridors: The Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force was formed by President Obama in November 2009. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a member of the President’s cabinet and the chief law-enforcement officer of the U.S. government, presides over the Task Force.
Secret Service is charter member of Task Force. The U.S. Secret Service, whose duties include protecting the President of the United States, the integrity of the economy and the financial infrastructure of the nation, is a member of the Task Force.
Among the allegations in the ASD case is that members were falsely trading on the name of then-President George W. Bush to sanitize a $110 million Ponzi scheme, that ASD President Andy Bowdoin encouraged the false claims and arranged to spend Ponzi proceeds to retire the $157,000 mortgage on a home in Tallahassee occupied by his wife’s son and the son’s wife, purchase a lakefront home in Florida, purchase an $800,000 building (for cash), purchase jet skis, a Cabana boat, haul trailers and marine equipment — all while owing restitution to victims of an Alabama securities caper in the 1990s and “thousands of dollars” to an ex-wife.
“Thank you, God, for destining me to great wealth,” he exhorted the Las Vegas crowd to internalize and recite during the day.
And he exhorted members to picture themselves wealthy.
“See a big check coming in from AdSurfDaily,” he urged. “I signed a check the other day, about $22,000. See those checks like that coming for you constantly, just flowing to you.”
One of Bowdoin’s business partners — Walter Clarence Busby Jr., the operator of the Golden Panda autosurf — was implicated by the SEC in three prime-bank schemes in the 1990s, according to records. Golden Panda, according to Busby, was hatched after he went fishing with Bowdoin on a Georgia lake in April 2008. Just days after the fishing expedition, Bowdoin boarded a plane and flew to Costa Rica, according to court filings.
Weeks after his return from Costa Rica, Bowdoin headed to Washington, D.C., to rub elbows with politicians, according to court filings.
Read the full news release on the AdSurfDaily case here. It is published on StopFraud.gov, the Task Force website.
New conspiracy theory emerges after government compensates ASD victims. As often has been the case, some ASD members appear not to have taken the clue that top Justice Department officials and perhaps the White House itself are being briefed on developments in the ASD case. The ASD case became a national-security case when the U.S. Secret Service discovered in 2008 that Andy Bowdoin, a recidivist securities swindler in his seventies who allegedly had “earned no significant income from legal employment in the twenty years prior to his commencement of ASD’s operation,” suddenly was sitting on tens of millions of dollars and had handed out some of it to political rainmakers.
Some of the handouts, which came in the form of contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), occurred in early 2007, even as the first Ponzi scheme iteration of ASD was collapsing and the firm’s original members were left holding the bag while Bowdoin explained $1 million had been stolen by “Russian” hackers. Bowdoin did not file a police report about the purported theft because he did not want to draw the attention of law enforcement, according to court filings.
The NRCC handouts continued in 2008, after Bowdoin had changed the name of his collapsed autosurfing venture from AdSurfDaily to ASD Cash Generator, plumbed it with new cash from a new group of suckers, started a second Ponzi venture known as LaFuenteDinero, arranged with Busby to form a third Ponzi-in-waiting (Golden Panda) and had flown to Costa Rica with a “North Carolina lawyer” (and co-owner) of LaFuenteDinero, according to court filings and Federal Election Commission records.
In a bizarre email that began to circulate among ASD members yesterday, the seed was planted that that the government was trying to recruit witnesses by luring them with remissions payments — and that prosecutors might claw back the remissions money if the member “did not cooperate in testifying against ASD.”
The date upon which the email was written could not immediately be determined, but the email appears to be the second in a two-part series sent after ASD members began to receive remissions payments late last week.
The content of the email, which was described as “insider information” and attributed in part to an unamed third party who purportedly overheard a conversation involving a federal prosecutor at an unspecified location, was titled, “Important Warning: ASD/Golden Panda.”
Among the suggestions in the email was that the government planned to “force” ASD members who received remissions distributions to testify against Bowdoin in his upcoming criminal trial on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. The email was signed “Sara.”
Here is the email verbatim (italics added):
“Hi Everyone-
Since I sent the last email update about ASD/Golden Panda monies being received by members, I received some very important insider information you should know. This is an important warning.
The information (these are not quotes) I am sharing with you was spoken by and was heard directly from an attorney for the government, in relation to the ASD legal case. I must protect the source but I can assure you it is reliable (it is not Andy). I was told that the person heard the government attorney say they had hired the Rust Company to send a remission form by email and US-mail to ASD and Golden Panda members. The form was to be sent under the pretense that the member would get their money back if they filled out the form to request a remission of their ASD/Golden Panda monies seized by the government on 8/1/08. Those members would then receive their remission monies directly into their bank accounts, but the attorney said that their names would go onto a list and they would then be summoned by the court (at the members own expense) to testify against ASD. They would be forced to testify against ASD even if they did not believe that ASD was illegal, because the form they signed was set up in such a way that the member was essentially stating that ASD victimized them in an illegal business. I’m imagining a typical scenario in court would be: The attorney for the government would read statements from the form and the member’s answers and then say something like, “Is this your signature?” to force the member into saying that the statements were theirs. And, take note, that it was also mentioned by the attorney that the direct deposit into the member’s account could be reversed at any time if ASD should eventually lose the case or if the member did not cooperate in testifying against ASD. If the money isn’t in the account anymore, it would be money owed back to the government, so moving the money would not help. The addendum that I was advised to suggest to you if you were drawn to fill out the form (sent by the Rust Company on behalf of the government) that stated that you did not make an investment in ASD/Golden Panda, but rather bought advertising, would apparently protect you from the government’s tactics, but I honestly do not know that for sure.
Many of us had major red flags when we read the form as it was obvious what the government was trying to do. That’s why it was advised that members add the addendum to their form, to protect themselves from the government’s deceptive practices. So pray about how you should proceed. Please don’t ask me. I can’t make this decision for you.
God’s Blessings,
Sara
The email appears to have followed the email below, which divines a construction by which the government seized ASD money illegally and set up the remissions program only because ASD members outraged at the illegal seizure demanded the return of their funds (verbatim/italics added):
“Dear ASD & Golden Panda Members-
I have some news! ASD and Golden Panda Members have recently received a “remission” of the money that was in their ASD and/or Golden Panda accounts, deposited directly into their personal bank accounts by the government; amounts like $50,000 and $60,000 and it was apparently 100%of the money that was owed to them!
Personally, I am stunned. My experience over the last decade or more has been that the government has never fulfilled their obligation to return money they have seized from programs they deemed illegal. My opinion is that they are scrambling to do this in order to diffuse the outrage ASDmembers have felt toward the government from their (in my opinion, illegal) seizure of members’ account funds, so that members will have less opposition toward the government during the eventual ASD trial.
But, for whatever reason the government is doing it, it is irrelevant to those relieved members who are finally receiving justice from this (in my opinion, illegal) seizure.
If you have not received your remission, you can go to this website to fill out the form there: adsurfdailyremission.com. You can also call the following toll free information line for more information and even talk to a customer service agent in person to ask any questions you mighthave about this process: 888-398-8214. The following email address has also been provided to communicate about this: info@adsurfremission.com You will notice that, in the recorded message, the government does NOT back down in their assertion that Golden Panda and ASD were illegalponzi schemes, but that is obviously not stopping them from returning members’ funds.
Some of you will notice that this form is the one that many of you did not feel inspired to fill out when it was first presented to us. It really puts members in an uncomfortable position of stating that they were victims of ASD/Golden Panda when they don’t believe they were and many felt as if they were also being set up to incriminate themselves.
At the time, I was advised to suggest to you that, if you felt drawn to fill it out, you include an addendum that stated that you understood that you were purchasing advertising, not making an investment. That continues to be the advice. Now that people are actually receiving their money back, perhaps some of you may feel more motivated to risk filling out the form. Just be careful not to incriminate yourselves. Be alert as you do it. Do not leave any question unanswered or it will be rejected. You must also provide documentation so hopefully you kept good records.
You will notice on that website (upper left corner) that it says that you must fill it out and submit it by a date in January, 2011. The way around this may be to say that you just found out about it (you didn’t get their letter in the mail or an email from them) and therefore you are only responding to it now. You might want to make that clear to the Customer Service agent at the number above BEFORE you take the time to fill it out, to confirm that they are still accepting them. If not, take a stand for your right to your monetary remission and ask for a supervisor. I am hearing that they are swamped trying to keep up with the communications they are receiving from members, so please be patient.
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.
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.
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 '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.â€
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.
