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.
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.
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.
