BULLETIN: Purported “sovereign citizen” and AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming will remain jailed after a judge at a bail hearing today found that Leaming was a flight risk and a danger to the community, the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington said this evening.
Leaming, 55, of Spanaway, Wash., was arrested last month on charges of filing false liens against public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi scheme case in the District of Columbia. The liens allegedly were filed in Pierce County in Washington state.
In advance of today’s 3 p.m. PT hearing, Leaming argued in court filings that he should be freed pending trial. U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Richard Creatura disagreed at today’s hearing, which was held in Tacoma.
Leaming has been detained at the Sea Tac Federal Detention Center near Seattle since his Nov. 22 arrest. Prosecutors said last week that firearms were found at the Leaming arrest scene.
At a proceeding last month, Creatura preliminarily found that Leaming had no adequate residence and that “no condition or combination of conditions which defendant can meet will reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant as required and/or the safety of any other person and the community.”
Creatura specifically found at the first proceeding that Leaming’s history included a “failure to comply with Court orders and terms of supervision” in a previous case in which he was charged with piloting an airplane without a license.
On one of the occasions in which he violated his probation in the aircraft-piloting case, Leaming claimed he had “diplomatic status or immunity.” On another occasion, he filed a “vexatious lawsuit lien or retaliatory complaint,” according to the FBI.
Records show that Leaming tried to overturn his conviction in the aircraft-piloting case by making the strange assertion that the court hearing the case was a “BANK.”
Seven firearms were found last week at the scene of the arrest of Kenneth Wayne Leaming in Spanaway, Wash., the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington said last night.
Durkan’s office said it could not discuss whether the government was contemplating taking the firearms matter before a grand jury. Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen,” was arrested by the FBI last week on charges that he filed bogus liens against five public officials involved in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case.
The FBI filed the false-liens charges via a 17-page criminal complaint. Information about the alleged presence of firearms came out during testimony at a detention hearing for Leaming last week, Durkan’s office said.
Prosecutors argued in court filings last week that Leaming was a “serious” flight risk who posed a risk to public safety, and a judge found after hearing testimony from two government witnesses that Leaming lacked an “appropriate residence.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Richard Creatura ordered Leaming detained, finding that “no condition or combination of conditions which defendant can meet will reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant as required and/or the safety of any other person and the community.”
Creatura specifically found that Leaming’s history included a “failure to comply with Court orders and terms of supervision” that evolved from a previous case and that Leaming lacked an “appropriate residence.”
Leaming, 55, pleaded guilty in March 2005 to a federal felony of piloting an aircraft without a valid airman’s certificate, according to records. He spent 31 days in jail, and was formally sentenced in August 2005 to time served. Leaming also was placed on probation for a year. On at least two occasions after his guilty plea and sentencing, Leaming was brought up on charges of violating the conditions of his probation, according to federal records.
On one of the occasions in which he violated his probation, Leaming claimed he had “diplomatic status or immunity.” On another occasion, he filed a “vexatious lawsuit lien or retaliatory complaint,” according to the FBI
Leaming has been detained at the Sea Tac Federal Detention Center near Seattle since his arrest eight days ago.
Nearly three years after Leaming pleaded guilty to having no pilot’s license while flying a Cessna aircraft repeatedly between 2002 and 2004, he filed a document styled in part as “NOTARY PRESENTMENT OF: BONDED REPORT OF FRAUDULENT SECURITIES” in a bid to overturn his conviction in the aircraft-piloting case, according to court filings.
The document, dated June 3, 2008, and placed in the court record six days later, named the judge who sentenced Leaming in the case a “3rd Party Respondent.” Five other individuals also were named “3rd Party Respondent[s].”
“COMES NOW the man, Kenneth Wayne, of the family LEAMING, to provide the above titled ‘court’ (BANK) and its named officers a BONDED REPORT OF FRAUDULENT SECURITIES, and to provide said officers an opportunity to SUA SPONTE vacate the entire record of ‘prosecution,’ ‘conviction’ and ‘sentence’ upon which the fraudulent securities were issued,” the document began.
It went on to accuse the judge and others of “BARRATRY” and to argue that the court in the Western District of Washington through which his conviction was recorded was “actually a bank” and a “commercial” enterprise.
A plea bargain that had led to Leaming’s guilty plea three years earlier was forced on him under “THREAT OF DEATH,” Leaming argued unsuccessfully.
The June 2008 document was notarized by Tina M. Hall, according to the stamp. In January 2010 and February 2010 — approaching two years after Hall’s name appeared in Leaming’s pleadings in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington — her name appeared on the court docket of U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer in the civil portion of the ASD Ponzi case in the District of Columbia. Those filings, which were rejected, were styled “Claim by Notary Presentment.”
Collyer is presiding over both the criminal and the civil aspects of the ASD Ponzi case. ASD President Andy Bowdoin, 77, was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service in December 2010. Bowdoin is scheduled to go on trial on charges of mail fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities in September 2012.
Leaming now is accused of filing a bogus lien against Collyer in Pierce County, Wash., nearly 3,000 miles from the District of Columbia. The state of Washington revoked Hall’s notary license last year, according to records.
Leaming also is accused of filing bogus liens against the federal prosecutors and the Secret Service agent involved in the ASD case.
Among the allegations against Leaming is that he sent an email in May 2011 to David Carroll Stephenson, a former business partner and a federal prisoner. That email referenced the “kids” of U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and their “school,” according to the complaint against Leaming.
“In this email,” the FBI agent who sought Leaming’s arrest in the false-liens case wrote, “I believe that LEAMING is offering to file documents on Stephenson’s behalf, including sending them to the Chief Justice, via his minor children.”
Purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming remains jailed near Seattle a week after his arrest on charges of filing bogus liens against five public officials involved in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case in the District of Columbia, according to prison records.
Leaming, 55, was arrested in Spanaway, Wash., on Nov. 22. He was charged with retaliating against a Federal judge or Federal law enforcement officer by false claim or slander of title, amid allegations he filed false liens against a federal judge, a former U.S. Attorney, a former assistant U.S. Attorney, a current assistant U.S. Attorney and an active-duty special agent of the U.S. Secret Service.
The office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia — the venue from which the ASD case was brought in August 2008 — declined to comment yesterday on Leaming’s arrest on the other side of the country.
“Because our office is not handling this particular case, we have no comment on this particular matter,” Machen’s office said.
The office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington is supervising the Leaming prosecution. An FBI affidavit filed in the case last week references the name of American-International Business Law Inc., a Spanaway company associated with Leaming.
The company’s name also is referenced in the April 8, 2011, Congressional Record as the presenter of a “petition . . . relative to a claim against the United States of America.” (Story here.)
Whether the firm filed a claim against the United States through the U.S. Congress for a dollar sum is not known.
Meanwhile, American-International’s name appeared in a November 2010 email received by some members of ASD. (Story here.)
Pasted into the November 2010 email was a purported “legal opinion” by a person described as “Keny” of “AMERICAN-International Business Law inc. (sic).”
“Keny” is a Leaming nickname. Advertisements describing Leaming as an attorney appeared online last year, but Leaming appears to have no law degree. Some ASD members, however, appear to have turned to him for legal advice.
When Leaming was arrested last week, he was found in the company of two federal fugitives from Arkansas, Durkan’s office said last week. The fugitives, who were indicted in February 2011 amid allegations they hatched a home-business scheme involving stuffing envelopes, were identified as Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen.
Donavan, 63, and Henningsen, 67, made an appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Richard Creatura in Tacoma yesterday, according to records. They remain in custody at the Sea Tac Federal Detention Center near Seattle, according to records.
Leaming is being held at the same facility.
A grand jury in the Western District of Arkansas returned mail-fraud indictments against Donavan and Henningsen on Feb. 24. The envelope-stuffing scheme, according to the indictment, was “created solely to defraud persons seeking home-based employment” and operated through entities known as Trial Head Options Inc. and Premier Solutions in Van Buren, Ark.
When the U.S. Court of Federal Claims dismissed the lawsuit brought by Leaming and Oesch last year, Judge Christine Odell Cook Miller noted that their “challenge took the form of presenting claims issued by Tina M. Hall, a notary public in the State of Washington . . .”
Hall’s name appears on the court docket in the ASD case on Jan. 27, 2010, and Feb. 12, 2010 — with entries of “Leave to file denied” by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, whom the FBI now says was one of the targets of Leaming’s bogus liens. Hall’s license later was revoked by the state of Washington.
President Bush observes the 2006 swearing-in ceremony of incoming Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. Peters held the cabinet post between October 2006 and January 2009. Source: Wikipedia: White House photo by Paul Morse.
UPDATED 5:42 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) Public officials involved in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case were not the only targets of bogus liens filed by Kenneth Wayne Leaming, according to federal prosecutors in Seattle.
Leaming, 55, also filed a lien against Mary Peters, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President George W. Bush during his second White House term, prosecutors said.
In addition, prosecutors said Leaming filed liens against U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer; former U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor; former assistant U.S. Attorney William Cowden; current assistant U.S. Attorney Vasu B. Muthyala; and Roy Dotson, a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service.
Collyer is presiding over both the civil and criminal prosecutions connected to the ASD Ponzi case in the District of Columbia. The civil case, which led to the successful forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars in the personal bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin, was brought by Taylor’s office in August 2008.
Cowden and Muthyala assisted in the prosecution against ASD-related assets, including more than $65.8 million in Bowdoin’s 10 bank accounts and more than $14 million in other bank accounts linked to Golden Panda Ad Builder, a companion autosurf.
Dotson was a key investigator in the case, which was brought in part through the efforts of a Florida-based Task Force. Bowdoin was arrested in December 2010. He is free awaiting trial in the District of Columbia.
Taylor was succeeded as U.S. Attorney by Ronald C. Machen Jr. Machen’s office was sued pro se earlier this month by ASD members Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer of Miami. Disner, a cofounder of the Quiznos sandwich franchise, and Schweitzer, a former attorney whose license was suspended in Connecticut, asserted that prosecutors engaged in “character assassination” against Bowdoin and that the forfeiture case consisted of a “tissue of lies.” They also claimed Dotson’s affidavit that led to the seizure of Bowdoin’s assets was flawed and that 4th Amendment violations had occurred.
Disner and Schweitzer also named Rust Consulting Inc., the government-approved claims administrator in the Ponzi case, a pro se lawsuit defendant. In September, Machen joined Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in announcing that the government had returned $55 million to victims of the ASD Ponzi.
Collyer ordered the forfeiture of Bowdoin’s assets in January 2010. Her rulings were upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Bowdoin, 77, is using Facebook and a website known as “Andy’s Fundraising Army” to raise money for his criminal defense on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.
Why Peters allegedly was targeted by Leaming was not immediately clear. But court records suggest the FBI is investigating Leaming ties to a Washington state group of “sovereign citizens” known as the “County Rangers.”
Leaming was arrested on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Richard Creatura in Tacoma. Creatura ordered Leaming’s detention to continue. The date of Leaming’s next court appearance was not immediately clear.
Leaming, according to prosecutors, was found Tuesday with two federal fugitives from Arkansas who were indicted in February on federal charges related to an alleged envelope-stuffing scheme. Prosecutors identified the fugitives as Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen.
Donavan and Henningsen have court histories that include declaring themselves “living breathing free” people to whom laws do not apply, according to records. Like Leaming, they are being held at the Sea Tac Federal Detention Center near Seattle.
Leaming has been charged with retaliating against a Federal judge or Federal law enforcement officer by false claim or slander of title, an obstruction of justice statute.
Among the government’s allegations against Bowdoin is that he falsely claimed to have received an important award for business acumen from President Bush in 2008. ASD members used Bush’s name in online promos, according to records.
In July 2008 — as the Secret Service and the Task Force were investigating ASD — Bowdoin threatened to sue critics, according to court filings. After the seizure of his assets, he claimed the government’s action was the work of “Satan” and compared the seizure to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Cowden, whose name was repeatedly misspelled as “Crowden” by pro se litigants in the forfeiture case, was derided as “Gomer Pyle” on the now-defunct, pro-ASD “Surf’s Up” forum. One ASD member opined that Cowden should be placed in a torture rack. Another said a “militia” should storm Washington. Still another issued a “prayer” that called for prosecutors to be struck dead.
ASD critics were derided as “rats,” “maggots” and “cockroaches.”
In December 2010, prosecutors linked ASD to E-Bullion, a defunct California payment processor operated by James Fayed. E-Bullion has been linked to several Ponzi schemes.
Earlier this month, Fayed was formally sentenced to death for arranging the contract slaying of his estranged wife, Pamela Fayed.
Pamela Fayed was slashed 13 times in a Greater Los Angeles parking garage in July 2008 while James Fayed sat on a bench within earshot of Pamela’s screams, according to records.
At least one ASD member used E-Bullion to send money to ASD, according to federal court records. That member — former ASD “trainer” Erma Seabaugh of Missouri — was operating a purported “religious” nonprofit in Oregon and using ASD to promote a pyramid scheme, according to records.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming was arrested Tuesday by the FBI on criminal charges of retaliating against a Federal judge or Federal law enforcement officer by false claim or slander of title, the PP Blog has learned.
Leaming, 55, of Spanaway, Wash., was arrested at his home, the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan said this evening. When arrested, Leaming was found with two federal fugitives from Arkansas. Both were arrested with Leaming and are detained at the Sea Tac Federal Detention Center near Seattle. Leaming is being held at the same facility.
Prosecutors identified the fugitives as Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen. Prison records say Donavan is 63; Henningsen is 67. They were accused of mail fraud in an alleged home-based business scheme involving stuffing envelopes.
Prosecutors in Seattle said Leaming is accused of filing liens against at least five federal employees involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, a former U.S. attorney, a former assistant U.S. attorney, a current assistant U.S. Attorney and an agent of the U.S. Secret Service.
Bail details for Leaming and the Arkansas fugitives were not immediately clear.
UPDATED 3:59 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) : Kenneth Wayne Leaming, an AdSurfDaily figure and a purported “sovereign citizen,” has been arrested in Washington state.
Leaming, 55, is listed as a prisoner at the Sea Tac Federal Detention Center near Seattle, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said this afternoon. The circumstances under which Leaming was arrested and detained were not immediately clear. Also unclear was the date upon which he was arrested.
Federal prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia — the venue from which ASD President Andy Bowdoin was charged last year with operating a Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million — did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Leaming’s arrest and whether it was related to his ASD activities.
The office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan in Seattle had no immediate details on Leaming’s arrest and detention.
In 2010, Leaming unsuccessfully sought to sue the United States — apparently for the staggering sum of more than $29 trillion — for its actions in the ASD case.
Meanwhile, in 2009, Leaming sought to place the Washington State Bar Association in involuntary bankruptcy, according to federal records. Records also show that Leaming sought to place a Franciscan hospital in Washington state in bankruptcy.
The Anti-Defamation League lists Leaming as a member of an “active anti-government extremist group that calls itself the ‘Little Shell Pembina Band of North America.’”
Leaming, who uses the names of “Kenneth Wayne” and “Keny,” was blocked in 2010 by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer from filing pro se pleadings in the civil case against ASD’s assets. That case was brought in the District of Columbia by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008.
Records show that, in 2010, ads listing Leaming as an “attorney” appeared online. Leaming, though, appears to have no law degree.
ASD members have claimed Leaming was providing them legal advice.
Leaming’s company — American-International Business Law Inc. of Spanaway, Wash. — is listed as registered agent for at least 73 companies. Some of the companies use the word “federal” in their names. One company conjures the image of a U.S. government agency in its name, calling itself “Homeland Security Service.” Another company calls itself “Presidential Detail.”
Two other companies use forms of the name “JP Morgan.”
Some sovereign citizens — including members of ASD — have clashed with banks in litigation unrelated to ASD.
In October 2011, some ASD members received an email that used the Leaming nickname “Keny” and encouraged them to file paperwork at the “county” level that identified a federal judge, prosecutors and a U.S. Secret Service agent as “DOJ thieves.”
