New court filings in Canada by the receiver and liquidators in the Banners Broker case now estimate the total haul of the alleged double-your-money pyramid scam at more than $156 million. That’s up from an earlier estimate by Toronto police of $93 million. If the $156 million figure proves correct, it would make Banners Broker a bigger fraud than the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.
Like MAPS, which currently is operating, ASD and Banners Broker purported to be “advertising” companies. The ASD case threw down the gauntlet on securities companies trying to evade the law by pretending to be “advertising” firms.
But the apparent upstaging of ASD by Banners Broker in dollar volume in the purported “advertising” trade is not the only news.
Rajiv Dixit, one of the Banners Broker figures who helped put Stepsys in the position of getting rich from online fraud schemes, was arrested in Canada in December 2015.
Filings April 4 by the receiver and liquidators in the case show that Dixit may be trying to use “sovereign citizen” courtroom tactics against them in Canadian proceedings. In the United States, AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming tried the same thing in that case.
The Banners Broker receiver and liquidators have reported Dixit’s alleged activities to the court.
Specifically, they say Dixit, who calls himself “the man master rajiv of the family dixit” [sic] and his targets “interlopers,” is trying to foist a bogus “Cease and Desist” order on them that threatens a fine of $36 per second if they don’t back off from their judicially mandated duties. Dixit apparently wants to be paid in “silver dollars.”
From the receiver/liquidators (italics added):
The Cease and Desist Notices go on to state that if the Court Officers and their counsel do not cease and desist “all actions and claims against Mr. Rajiv Dixit and or Rajiv Dixit forthwith” Dixit will invoice them $47,304,000.00 silver dollars “[p]lus, for each second starting at 12:00:01 AM until the cease and desist is complied with, each Respondent will be charged an additional $36.000 per second.”
Court filings in other cross-border cases — including Zeek Rewards and DFRF Enterprises — have signaled that “sovereigns” also were involved in those schemes.
With Banners Broker, Dixit called his affiliates “stupid,” according to the new filings by the receiver and liquidators.
Are “sovereign citizens” immersed in the “SVM Global Initiative” and “UFunClub” cross-border, network-marketing schemes?
“Sovereign citizens” may have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. It is not unusual for them to be involved in financial fraud, and some “sovereigns” have been linked to MLM HYIP frauds and securities offering frauds.
Individuals who join such schemes may not understand they have signed on to enterprises engaging in international fraud and that a political agenda or even political extremism may be driving events.
In a conference call Tuesday night for SVM, a man who identified himself as “Nelson” calling from “Saskatchewan, Canada” came on the line. He explained that he’d been with SVM “from the very beginning” and was involved in “world-shaking affairs, including the global currency reset.”
Precisely what constituted the purported “reset” wasn’t explained, but the term has been associated with banking conspiracy theorists and “sovereign citizens.” AdSurfDaily Ponzi story figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, for instance, allegedly claimed “the Rothschilds” were hiding in a “bunker in India” while controlling the central bank of Iraq, according to a 2011 complaint against Leaming that accused him of filing bogus liens against public officials and other crimes.
The complaint was filed by a member of an FBI Terrorism Task Force operating in Washington state. Leaming, who’d been under federal surveillance, later was convicted on charges of filing false liens, harboring two federal fugitives wanted in a separate home-business caper in Arkansas and being a felon in possession of firearms.
Banking conditions in Iraq were causing the Rothschilds to lose money, and the “inner circle” is “jumping ship,” Leaming allegedly told a colleague, “just like body odor’s inner circle in the White House.”
“Body odor” was a veiled reference to President Obama. ASD was a “program” that claimed a daily payout rate of 1 percent. The $119 million scheme spread over the Internet, creating thousands of victims. ASD was broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.
A Troubling Narrative: Was A Rallying Cry Of ‘Sovereign Citizens’ Part Of It?
On the call hosted by SVM’s Sheila V. Tabarsi, “Nelson” further ventured that he had “many connections in the international banking arena.
“I have many connections in law; I have many connections in military — on and on and on,” he said.
During his fawning over SVM, “Nelson” went on to make a veiled reference to UFunClub, now the subject of a major investigation in Thailand. This leads to questions about whether he is involved in two separate cross-border schemes and whether other SVM members also are pushing multiple schemes.
“Nelson” said this before he got off the line (italics added):
“And God Bless the Republic of the United States of America.”
Here we’ll point you to BehindMLM.com’s April 13 review of SVM. We’ll note that the Tuesday SVM call more or less was an effort to slime the online publication, which reports on emerging MLM schemes.
SVM appears to operate out of Greater New York City, perhaps from the Bronx and Manhattan — with an arm in Costa Rica.
Prior to “Nelson” coming on the line, Tabarsi asserted BehindMLM.com was a “pawn” and a “coward” that works with an unidentified third party to “bring network-marketing companies down.”
“To me, this is real Illuminati kind of stuff,” Tabarsi said. “Granted, the success of Sheila V and Associates and the SVM Global Initiative could do some devastating things to the network-marketing industry.”
Other MLM schemes have trotted out the theme that dark forces — usually cast as competitors unhappy that downlines are leaving one “program” because another has found the Holy Grail — are controlling things behind the scenes or secretly. It is not unusual for political rhetoric, conspiracy theories or antigovernment sentiment to become part of the narrative, and this may be happening with SVM.
Tabarsi, for example, said during Tuesday’s call that the “Bush administration” was involved in an “effort to dismantle this world economy” and that the effort has been “so concentrated” and “so diligent.”
The aim, she contended, was to concentrate 99 percent of the world’s wealth in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
“We are a threat to that,” she said. “The success of Sheila V and Associates and the SVM Global Initiative is a threat to this establishment that is trying so long and so hard to take everybody down.”
Any number of MLM schemes have advanced forms of this narrative. The $1.8 billion TelexFree scheme broken up by the SEC last year was positioned as a “revolution” that would put wealth in the hands of ordinary people. Though much smaller in scale, the Achieve Community scheme broken up by the SEC earlier this year advanced a similar narrative.
TelexFree and Achieve — like the Zeek Rewards scheme in 2012 — were operating combined Ponzi- and pyramid schemes, the SEC has alleged.
SVM, through Tabarsi, has positioned itself a network-marketing enterprise with three arms. Working together, these three arms — Sheila V. and Associates LLC (New York), The Marketplace at SV&A LLC (Costa Rica) and SVM Redesign Your Life America with an organ called “The Freedom Fund” — purportedly will elevate people out of poverty.
On her website, Tabarsi says she is a “4th Generation Native Cherokee/African American Spiritual Life Coach, Universal Life Church Minister, Business and Medical Intuitive with 17 active years of practice performing Clair-empathic healings and various forms of intuitive readings.”
She also notes she is a “corporate administrative manager, former U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant and Veteran of the ’91 Gulf War” who established “SVM ReDesign Your Life America, a non-profit organization to convert abandoned military bases into places to end poverty and homelessness.”
In a March conference call, she claimed she was under investigation by a U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI, among others. She denies she has done anything wrong.
“The FBI is involved only because I have international clients, but not that there’s too much they can really act on,” she said during the call last month.
Because SVM says it has a presence in the Bronx and Manhattan, the PP Blog on Wednesday contacted the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York for comment on SVM, UFunClub and “Nelson’s” line about the “Republic of the United States of America” during the Tuesday SVM call.
“Serving as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has been the highest honor of my professional career. I am tremendously grateful to the President, Attorney General Holder, and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for placing their trust in me. The men and women of this office are among the most dedicated and talented public servants in the country. I am proud of the work we have done together to achieve justice in the courthouse and to build bonds of trust with the community that we serve. I leave this position confident that my extraordinary colleagues will continue to pursue justice and protect the residents of the District and this great nation.” — U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., District of Columbia, March 16, 2015
Ronald C. Machen Jr. is leaving his post as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after five years.
Ronald C. Machen Jr. led many important prosecutions during his five-year tenure as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The one PP Blog readers are most apt to remember is the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme figure Andy Bowdoin.
Machen, 45, is leaving his post and intends to reenter private practice, the Justice Department said today.
“During more than five years as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ron Machen has distinguished himself as a skilled leader, a devoted public servant, and a forceful champion of justice on behalf of the American people,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.
Upon the sentencing of Bowdoin in August 2012, Machen called the huckster “a master of fraud and deception” who cheated “victims out of their hard-earned money and savings with his get-rich scheme.”
AdSurfDaily gathered $119 million through its Internet-based fraud, a 1-percent-a-day “program” that purported to be in the “advertising” business, not the business of selling securities.
Machen will leave his post on April 1. Principal Assistant U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen Jr., 44, will become Acting U.S. Attorney on that date.
Two assistant U.S. Attorneys and a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service involved in the ASD case were targeted with false liens by Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen” from Washington state. Leaming was arrested by an FBI Terrorism Task Force and was successfully prosecuted by the office of then-U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of the Western District of Washington.
We wish Ronald Machen the best, and we thank him for his service to his country.
John A. Glavin, the Wisconsin man and purported “sovereign citizen” who received a memorable rebuke from a county judge who sentenced him to 90 days in jail in a case about transferring property illegally to dupe a bank, now has been indicted under federal law for tax crimes.
Glavin, 43, is the father of 11 children. How he apparently became immersed in “sovereign” chicanery is unclear.
But in January, Glavin was sentenced to 90 days in jail by Juneau County Circuit Judge Paul Curran, who told him that “fidelity to nonsense is no virtue,” the Juneau County Star Times reported.
The Star Times is reporting that Glavin now has been indicted on federal tax charges.
In a brief statement, federal prosecutors in the Western District of Wisconsin said that Glavin filed bogus tax returns in 2005 and 2008. Those false returns sought a combined refund amount of more than $956,000, prosecutors said.
Redacted screen shot of "regional representatives" claim today on the website of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.
BULLETIN: The PP Blog has learned that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is publishing a page in which it advertises the availability of “regional representatives” in various parts of the world, including Italy.
On Jan. 23, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, took action against certain JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid affiliaties. Despite the CONSOB action, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is openly advertising that it has at least two affiliates who speak Italian and that the affiliates are available to “assist you with ALL aspects of the program IN YOUR LANGUAGE.”
The page also touts the native-language talents of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid affiliates to assist members in Hong Hong, Taiwan, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States (to assist people who speak English or Japanese), Germany, Lithuania, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, France, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Spain.
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid described its outreach via regional reps as “AMAZING!”
“The people on this page have been thoroughly trained in all the workings of JustBeenPaid’s programs, and are happy to assist you TODAY!” the murky entity crowed.
In a Feb. 23 conference call, Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, declined to say precisely where the “opportunity” itself was located.
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, Mann asserted to an audience of Americans and at least one person who claimed to be a resident of Canada, was “not located in any specific part of the world.
“We’re all over the planet,” he said, speaking with an English accent that appeared to be native to South Africa.
The assertion led to questions about whether Mann was running the “program” in a fashion reminiscent of a sort of small-scale Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). BCCI deliberately structured itself in murky fashion to ward off oversight by regulators. Its collapse created one of the great business scandals of the 1990s, prompting the Wall Street Journal (Europe) to observe that BCCI had been set up to be “offshore everywhere.”
BCCI’s collapse also triggered Congressional probes in the United States, along with both civil and criminal prosecutions.
The CONSOB probe in Italy, which the agency announced nearly six weeks ago, was not referenced on the “representatives” page on the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid website.
Incongruously, the “representatives” page included a link to an “agreement” page in which JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid registrants and/or prospects were informed they must affirm “that I am not an employee or official of any government agency, nor am I acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency.”
Moreover, the registrants and/or prospects were informed they must affirm “that I am not an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company, and I am not reading any of the JBP pages in order to collect information for someone else.”
The collapsed Legis HYIP published similar terms. (More on the Legisi prosecution below.)
How long the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid regional reps have been in place was not immediately clear. Also unclear was whether each of the reps had a physical presence in the respective countries or were using the Internet to reach over borders and perform customer service and recruit downlines in the respective nations.
The U.S. government and other governments of the world have become increasingly concerned about cross-border fraud. Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, met with top officials in Canada to discuss the problem.
Perhaps aghast over JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid developments, a poster on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum declared today that having regional reps for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is an “insane idea.”
“Forget about the matrix spots and payouts,” the MoneyMakerGroup poster wrote today. “[W]hy is 200,000 + members not enough and why arent (sic) we off the radar and private and not opening ourselves up to potential problems ? Regional reps is an insane idea, Im (sic) sorry but the admin needs to protect us and wakeup (sic) to the reality that you cant (sic) get this huge and expect nothing bad to happen.”
The poster did not explain his apparent belief that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid had a duty to go “private” and to get “off the radar” of regulators. Nor did he say precisely what constituted something “bad.”
HYIPs have been the subject of both civil and criminal litigation in various jurisdictions.
It is common for HYIP purveyors to tout purported “offshore” operating venues and to claim such venues insulate an “opportunity” from prosecution. It also is common for HYIPs to announce they are “private” programs and therefore not subject to government oversight. At the same time, it is common for HYIPs to try to structure a Terms of Service or Member Agreement that purports either that the “opportunity” is not selling securities or is not subject to regulatory oversight.
Some HYIPs, including JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, have preemptively denied they are Ponzi schemes.
The purported returns of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid are somewhat on par with the returns of Nicholas Smirnow of the alleged Pathway To Prosperity HYIP Ponzi scheme. Smirnow is listed as “Wanted” by INTERPOL.
On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a website linked to Mann displayed videos of Francis Schaeffer Cox, an American and purported “sovereign citizen” under indictment in Alaska in an alleged murder plot against public officials.
Separately, a YouTube promo for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid dated yesterday asserted that “[a]ll you have to do is wait for your money to increase!!!”
A Blog post dated today, meanwhile, makes this assertion (italics added):
“The JSS Tripler new site is one month old. It has been a month of phenomenal growth, but it’s nothing compared to what’s in the future. Some ‘Big Things’ are on the horizon that will enable many of the members to become millionaires, some could even become billionaires.”
Neither the March 3 Blog post nor the March 2 YouTube video referenced the CONSOB probe.
In 2008, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin asserted that ASD had a plan to create 100,000 millionaires in three years. On Dec. 1, 2010, the U.S. government announced that Bowdoin had been indicted on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.
Seabaugh also was an affiliate of an enterprise known as Ad-Ventures4U (ADV4u), which crashed in 2009 amid allegations that its operator had been threatened by members.
In web promos, Mann has described himself as a promoter for both ASD and ADV4U. Some affiliates have described him as a “genius,” the same description accorded Bowdoin before the August 2008 raid on ASD headquarters by the U.S. Secret Service.
After the event — and facing both civil prosecution and a criminal investigation — Bowdoin told ASD members that the raid was the work of “Satan.”
It is a descriptor completely contrary to the typical view Americans have of the Secret Service, which has the twin duties of protecting the nation’s financial infrastructure and the life of the President of the United States.
Most Americans believe the Secret Service consists of heroes who place themselves in harm’s way every day to keep the United States safe, doing everything from making sure U.S. grandparents have safe places to deposit their Social Security checks to making sure that the President is well-protected and accessible to the American people.
Kenneth Wayne Leaming, an ASD member and purported “sovereign citizen,” allegedly filed a bogus lien against the Secret Service agent who led the ASD investigation in 2008, the FBI said in November 2011 court filings.
Leaming also allegedly filed bogus liens against a federal judge and three federal prosecutors involved in the ASD case, according to court filings by the FBI. He is jailed near Seattle awaiting trial on those charges, along with charges of filing false liens against other public officials, concealing two federal fugitives wanted in a home-business caper in Arkansas, being a felon in possession of firearms and uttering a bogus “Bonded Primissory Note” for $1 million.
Court filings suggest Leaming was conducting financial research on John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States and the head judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, while hatching a scheme to serve papers on Roberts through a school attended by the distinguished jurist’s children.
Though not using the phrase “sovereign citizen” when describing the courtroom actions of Roger Charles Day Jr., the Department of Justice said yesterday that Day “filed hundreds of billions of dollars of fraudulent default judgments against more than 100 people who Day claimed had prosecuted him unfairly.”
Included among Day’s targets were “investigating agents, the prosecuting attorneys, Day’s former defense counsel and the U.S. district judge who sentenced him” in a New Jersey fraud case in federal court in the late 1990s, the Justice Department said.
But not even a 97-month prison term handed down from the New Jersey caper deterred Day from a life of crime, the Justice Department said.
Day, 47, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge John Gibney of the Eastern District of Virgina to 105 years in federal prison for a parts scam top U.S. officials said endangered the U.S. military.
“Mr. Day’s greed put the men and women in the U.S. military in harm’s way,” said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia.
In August 2011 — after Day was found guilty on federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to engage in international money laundering and conspiracy to smuggle gold out of the United States — Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny Breuer said this:
“Mr. Day masterminded a sophisticated and dangerous conspiracy to profit from the sale of defective parts to the U.S. military. He foolishly put our nation’s security at risk for the sake of personal riches.”
Day, a fugitive, was captured in Mexico after “America’s Most Wanted” broadcast a story on him. He was extradited from Mexico in December 2010, the Justice Department said.
Gibney yesterday ordered Day to forfeit 3,496 ounces of gold bars and coins, two sport utility vehicles and $2.1 million, the proceeds from the scheme targeted at the Defense Department.
Meanwhile, Gibney ordered a $3 million fine and $6.2 million in restitution to the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).
“It is unpardonable that individuals endeavor to enrich themselves by stealing from the U.S. taxpayer through fraud, especially by denying critical goods to our warfighters combating terrorism in a hostile overseas environment,” said Robert E. Craig and Edward T. Bradley of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), in a joint statement.
Day and coconspirators in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Belize, “formed at least 18 separate companies that posed as legitimate contractors and collectively used a computer program to win nearly 1,000 lucrative contract awards for the various companies.
“Day and his conspirators then shipped defective parts to the [Department of Defense] on more than 300 of those contracts, receiving more than $4.4 million in payment on parts that Day purchased for less than $200,000,” the Justice Department said.
The New Jersey case against Day in the 1990s also involved a bid to scam the Defense Department, the Justice Department said.
And Day also was sentenced to 84 months in New Jersey state prison in the 1990s for a scam aimed at the city of Newark the Newark Board of Education, the Justice Department said.
In his most recent scheme aimed at the Defense Department, “Day and his co-conspirators compounded the fraud by concealing their identities through the use of multiple nominee companies and by assuming others’ identities to operate the companies,” the Justice Department said.
“When [the Department of Defense] requested proof that the companies had purchased and intended to supply the correct parts from approved manufacturers, Day and others submitted fabricated documents that falsely represented that the correct parts had been purchased,” the Justice Department said.
After detecting the fraud, the Defense Department “debarred several of the companies from doing further business with the military, the Justice Department said.
But not even that caused Day to end his dangerous scheming, which had put the military and the American people at risk.
Day simply “directed his conspirators to discontinue bidding through those companies and instead form and use new companies,” the Justice Department said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story concludes with a link to an April 27, 2010, story by CourthouseNews.com. At the bottom-left of the CourthouseNews story, readers will find a link to the RICO lawsuit filed by public officials last year against Richard Enrique Ulloa. The document is worth the time to read because it shows how public servants can become targets of spectacularly vexatious litigation that forces them or their employers to hire attorneys, thus burdening judicial resources and potentially driving up costs for taxpayers.
At least part of the bizarre saga of Richard Enrique Ulloa has come to a close: Ulloa, a 52-year-old purported “sovereign citizen” who resided in Stone Ridge, N.Y., was sentenced yesterday to five years in federal prison for mailing “fraudulent liens and judgments to a variety of individuals and financial institutions who had displeased” him, the office of U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian of the Northren District of New York said.
The FBI joined Hartunian’s office in announcing the sentence, which was ordered by U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy after Ulloa asserted various individuals and entities owed him billions of dollars. McAvoy also ordered Ulloa placed on supervised probation for three years after his prison release and to pay $63,401 in restitution.
Ulloa’s bizarre tale touched on multiple courtrooms in multiple jurisdictions. It also involved public officials fighting back against Ulloa by suing him under the federal racketeering statute.
In April 2010, the County of Ulster, N.Y., and the towns of Lloyd, Rosendale and Ulster asserted that Ulloa and others “sent or caused to be sent mailings and/or wires consisting of ‘criminal complaints,’ ‘invoices,’ ‘demands for payment,’ and ‘judgments’ that contained materially false statements,” according to federal records.
Owing to sovereign-inspired hectoring, public officials began to fear for their safety and the town of Rosendale ordered body armor for court officials, according to the Times Herald-Record.
Read an April 2010 story (and see the accompanying court document) on CourthouseNews.com.
UPDATE: On Dec. 1, 2010, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin was arrested on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Sixteen days later — on Dec. 17, 2010 — federal prosecutors filed a forfeiture complaint against certain ASD-related bank accounts, including an account in Bowdoin’s name and accounts allegedly controlled by ASD members Erma Seabaugh of Missouri and Robyn Lynne Stevenson of Florida.
In the December 2010 forfeiture case, Bowdoin filed a claim for nearly $500,000 in assets he allegedly controlled. But Seabaugh and Stevenson did not, and federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia filed motions for default judgments in August 2011, according to court records.
The motions for default against more than $153,000 allegedly controlled by Seabaugh and more than $96,000 allegedly controlled by Stevenson are pending.
Seabaugh, Florida-based ASD’s purported “Web Room Lady,” is listed in Oregon records as the operator of a purported Missouri-based “religious” nonprofit firm known as Carpe Diem.
Stevenson operated a company known as Robyn Lynn LLC, according to court filings.
Bowdoin, 77, is free on bail. His criminal trial is scheduled for September 2012.
Separately, ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming remains jailed near Seattle. The FBI accused him last month of filing false liens against five public officials involved in the ASD case, including U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer.
Collyer is presiding over the forfeiture case against money in the bank accounts allegedly controlled by Seabaugh and Stevenson. Collyer also is presiding over Bowdoin’s criminal trial and two related forfeiture cases involving ASD assets. Those cases were filed in August 2008 and December 2008.
The portion of the December 2010 forfeiture case involving assets allegedly controlled by Bowdoin has been placed on hold because of the criminal trial, but the cases against the assets allegedly controlled by Seabaugh and Stevenson are active.
Prosecutors have scored a clean sweep in ASD forfeiture-related litigation, with Bowdoin losing appeals to funds seized in the August 2008 and December 2008 cases. The U.S. Secret Service brought all of the ASD-related forfeiture cases.
The December 2010 case involving Bowdoin, Seabaugh and Stevenson traces its roots to February 2009, when Bowdoin — who’d initially submitted to the August 2008 forfeiture a month earlier — sought to undo his forfeiture decision and reenter the case as a pro se litigant. The AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, which came to life after the August 2008 and December 2009 forfeiture cases were filed and after Bowdoin was sued by members amid allegations he had engaged in racketeering, was morphing into a so-called “private association” as Bowdoin was morphing into a pro se litigant, according to records.
AVG, which members said had close ASD ties, purportedly operated from Uruguay. Members positioned it as an offshore, safe alternative to the post-seizure ASD, but AVG appears to have gone belly-up in June 2009, less than a year after the first sound of seizures began in the ASD case.
NWITimes.com is reporting that Christopher H. Cannon, a purported “sovereign citizen,” has been found guilty in federal court in the Northern District of Indiana of using counterfeit currency to pay for big-screen TVs.
The TVs were purchased at Sears, according to the NWITimes report.
On Nov. 4, the IndyChannel.com reported that a purported Indiana “sovereign citizen” who described himself as a “free man” was found to be driving an unregistered motorcycle and in possession of an identification card that purported he was a diplomat.
“Sovereign citizens” in Indiana and other states have been known to assert diplomatic immunity from prosecution.
In federal court in Washington state yesterday, purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming was denied bail on charges he filed bogus liens against federal officials involved in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case in the District of Columbia.
Meanwhile, Bob Paudert, the retired police chief of West Memphis, Ark., gave a training speech at the Wiregrass Law Enforcement Seminar in Alabama yesterday on the “sovereign citizen” movement, the Dothan Eagle is reporting.
Paudert’s son, a police officer, was killed last year during a traffic stop involving a “sovereign citizen.” Another officer died in the same hail of gunfire.
Ret. Chief Paudert is featured in this video by the “60 Minutes” program produced by CBS News.
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.”
Travis Lee Lambert, 61, of Andalusia, Ala., has been charged with the unauthorized practice of law amid allegations he filed court pleadings for his girlfriend, a convicted burglar, the Dothan Eagle newspaper is reporting.
The office of Houston County Sheriff Andy Hughes brought the misdemeanor charges. The sheriff’s office did not respond immediately yesterday to a request for comment from the PP Blog.
Lambert is a purported “sovereign citizen,” the newspaper reported, noting he was arrested on Friday and freed after posting $300 bail.
His girlfriend also purported to be a “sovereign citizen,” the paper reported.
