BULLETIN: A federal judge in Florida who says she was accused of “abusing” her discretion and “trampling” the Constitutional rights of a man implicated in an alleged multimillion-dollar commodities fraud by the SEC has ordered the defense attorney who made the assertions to explain himself and substantiate claims that his client had been denied due process.
U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz ordered attorney Horecia I. Walker to respond in writing no later than Sept. 9 and explain what kind of investigation he conducted prior to asserting that James Clark Howard III and his counsel present at an Aug. 23 evidentiary hearing did not have adequate time to prepare for the hearing.
Howard, who appeared at the hearing, was represented at the hearing by attorney Mark C. Perry, according to records. Both Howard and Perry had 11 days to prepare for the hearing, Seitz wrote.
In an order issued on the same day as the hearing, Seitz directed Howard and Sutton Capital LLC to turn over $1.45 million to attorney David S. Mandel, the court-appointed receiver in the Commodites Online LLC fraud case filed in April by the SEC.
Seitz gave Howard and Sutton, another firm associated with Howard, until yesterday to turn over the money. It was not immediately clear if either party complied with the order.
What is clear is that Seitz was not amused by an emergency motion filed by Walker on behalf of Howard and Sutton to stay the Aug. 23 order to turn over the money pending an appeal of the order.
“Walker has accused this Court of trampling Howard’s constitutional rights and abusing its discretion in entering the turnover Order,” Seitz wrote. “The factual underpinnings for these accusations are that Howard and Perry had insufficient time to prepare for the August 23, 2011, hearing. To avoid running afoul of Rule 11, Walker should have investigated these factual circumstances before relying on them to accuse the Court of a constitutional affront.”
The judge added that “it appears to the Court that no such investigation occurred.”
Seitz took issue with Walker’s characterization of the Aug. 23 hearing as an “apparent ‘evidentiary hearing,’” according to an order she issued yesterday denying the stay.
“Walker posits that the hearing ‘was not an evidentiary hearing at all’ and the Court’s Order requiring disgorgement amounts to an abuse of discretion,” Seitz wrote. “Lost in all of his hyperbole is the simple fact that Howard and Perry received notice of the hearing eleven days before the hearing commenced.”
Neither Howard nor Perry asked for a continuance, Seitz wrote.
The Commodities Online case has a link to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case brought by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008.
SSH2 Acquistions, a Nevada company that listed former ASD member and pro-ASD Surf’s Up moderator Terralynn Hoy as a director, sued Howard and others in September 2010 amid allegations he was part of a massive Ponzi scheme into which SSH2 had plowed $39 million. The lawsuit was filed about six months after the Boca Raton Police Department filed felony charges against Howard in an alleged financial scam that targeted Haitian Americans.
Surf’s Up was a cheerleading site for ASD, and Hoy later became a moderator of a cheerleading forum for the collapsed AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf.
While SSH2 claims to be a Ponzi victim of Howard, the Surf’s Up and AdViewGlobal forums both claimed that ASD and AVG were conducting legitimate commerce. With Hoy as a moderator of Surf’s Up, the forum conducted an October 2008 online party complete with images of champagne and fireworks for ASD President Andy Bowdoin.
The U.S. Secret Service described Bowdoin as an international Ponzi schemer and recidivist felon who’d gathered tens of millions of dollars in the ASD caper — most of it in ASD’s final weeks of life in the late spring and summer of 2008. At least $65.8 million was seized from Bowdoin’s 10 personal bank accounts, according to court records. One account alone contained more than $31.6 million. Three accounts contained the exact same amount: $1,000,338.91.
It is unclear if ASD members beyond Hoy had any business ties to Howard and invested any money with the accused schemer. Hoy has not been accused of wrongdoing.
SSH2 said in court filings that it plowed $39 million into the alleged Howard scheme, and received back about $19 million in “fake and fraudulent ‘profits.’” Sutton, Rapallo Investment Group LLC and Patricia Saa also were named defendants in SSH2’s lawsuit.
Howard was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison in the 1990s on narcotics and weapons charges, according to records. ASD’s Bowdoin, meanwhile, narrowly avoided jail time during the same decade when he was implicated in Alabama in a securities swindle, according to records.
Clarence Busby Jr., one of Bowdoin’s alleged business partners, was implicated by the SEC during the 1990s in three prime-bank schemes, according to records.
Some ASD members have been identified as members of the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement. Cheerleading for Bowdoin and ASD continued on the Surf’s Up forum even after it was revealed that Curtis Richmond, one of the purported “sovereign” beings associated with ASD, had a contempt-of-court conviction for threatening federal judges in California and once claimed a federal judge from Oklahoma sitting by special designation in Utah owed him $30 million.
Richmond was a member of the so-called “Arby’s Indians,” an “Indian” tribe that targeted public officials with vexatious litigation. U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot ruled the “tribe” a complete sham.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia is presiding over the ASD Ponzi case. Both Richmond and Bowdoin tried unsuccessfully to have her removed from the case. Richmond accused Collyer of “TREASON” and claimed she may be guilty of 60 or more felonies.
UPDATED 12:09 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Federal prosecutors effectively advised U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer last month that enough people to fill a small city had filed remissions claims in the AdSurfDaily autosurf Ponzi case.
Although prosecutors did not reveal a precise number, they said in court filings that more than 11,000 people had filed claims and provided more than 150,000 pages of documentation. ASD was based in Quincy, Fla.
Remissions is a form of restitution. Prosecutors have said for more than two years that the government intends to compensate ASD victims from funds seized by the U.S. Secret Service in civil-forfeiture actions against ASD-related assets in 2008. Collyer issued civil judgments in the government’s favor totaling about $80 million in 2009 and 2010. Bowdoin was charged criminally with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities in December 2010.
ASD created Ponzi victims all over the world, prosecutors have said. The claims number alone greatly exceeds the Gadsden County community of Quincy’s population of roughly 7,000. It also greatly exceeds the population of Perry, the 7,000-inhabitant Florida town in Taylor County Bowdoin once represented as a council member and mayor.
The claims number would consume nearly 80 percent of combined populations of Perry and Quincy. Looking at the number a different way, had ASD’s membership consisted only of residents of those two communities in separate counties, only one in five inhabitants — 20 percent — would be left untouched by the scheme. Had the 80 percent of residents who filed claims lost significant sums in ASD, the economies of both cities could have been brought to their knees.
Among the core dangers of autosurf schemes is that criminals — domestic and international — establish means by which they can tap into bank accounts, payment processing accounts and credit accounts at the local level. When a scheme collapses, it may affect commerce far and wide while also putting banks in multiple communities in possession of tainted cash. By some accounts, large numbers of members of individual churches became ASD members.
A collapsed autosurf scheme not only may affect individual churches, it may affect the finances of the church itself and the commerce stream in reach of the church and its members. One 2008 promo for ASD and a purported “millionaire” advertising co-op viewed by the PP Blog as part of its reporting encouraged members (verbatim, text coloring added by PP Blog) to:
Go to your nearest ATM machine Use your Debit card to withdraw the necessary cash for your payment OR Use your Credit card to make a “cash advance” of the necessary funds for your payment. Note: there is usually a much higher Annual Percentage Rate for a credit card cash advance. Take the cash to your nearest branch of Bank of America and deposit the cash amount in the AdSurfDaily, Inc. account, using the following information:
The promo appeared on a website linked to Tari Steward, whom Bowdoin has identified as a potential defense witness and the Internet Marketer behind an effort by Bowdoin to raise funds to pay for his criminal defense.
Screen shot: From a 2008 promo for an ASD millionaire co-op.
The U.S. government warned in December 2010 that securities schemes such as AdSurfDaily and Imperia Invest IBC that spread virally on the Internet were creating tens of thousands of victims at a time. Imperia, which was smashed by the SEC in October 2010, was targeted at people with hearing impairments and gathered millions of dollars.
Noobing, an autosurf that became popular after the ASD-related bank-account seizures in 2008 and collapsed in 2009 after the FTC took action against its parent company, also was targeted at the deaf community. Internet-based crimes and scams are creating victims in numbers America’s largest sports stadiums cannot accommodate, according to records.
ASD gathered at least $110 million in its scheme and may have created 40,000 or more victims, prosecutors have said, asserting in January 2011 that “as far as the Government is aware, there is no available accurate compilation” of all individuals or entities that lost money in the scheme.
“It appears from the investigation that there may be members who provided funds to ASD but whose information ASD did not enter into its database,” prosecutors said in January.
Bowdoin, with Steward’s reported assistance, has busied himself since June to raise funds online for his criminal defense from the members he is accused of defrauding. A web entity known as “Andy’s Fundraising Army” has been sending “blast” emails for weeks to a list of ASD members that purportedly contains 77,000 names.
Bowdoin also announced plans to complement his “Andy’s Army” fundraising efforts with a Facebook site, but no such site appears to have launched on the popular social network. At least three advertised launch dates for the Facebook site were missed.
Meanwhile, the “Andy’s Army” bid appears to have fallen flat, with Bowdoin stuck more than 95 percent short of his $500,000 goal after five continuous weeks of formal fundraising. Some ASD members have said they had received multiple fundraising appeals from Bowdoin in a single week.
Screen shot: From the 2008 "millionaire" co-op promo.
Kenneth Wayne Leaming, aka "Kenneth Wayne" and "Keny."
BULLETIN: The state of Washington has revoked the notary license of Kathryn E. Aschlea. The precise reason for the revocation was not immediately clear, although the state’s website said Aschlea “failed to comply with [a] fine and education sanction.”
Aschlea is listed in Washington state records as a business associate of AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen.” On June 11, 2010, Aschlea was blocked by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer from filing a document styled “Claim by Notary Presentment/Acceptance” in the ASD forfeiture case in the District of Columbia.
The revocation of Aschlea’s license occurred about 10 months after the state revoked the notary license of Tina M. Hall, another Leaming business associate who tried to file notary claims in the civil-forfeiture case against the assets of ASD President Andy Bowdoin.
Collyer blocked Hall from filing claims on Jan. 27, 2010, and Feb. 9, 2010, according to the docket of the case.
Aschlea is listed in Washington records as vice president of American-International Business Law Inc., Leaming’s Spanaway-based firm.
In 2010, some ASD members said Leaming was performing legal work for them. There is no record that he is a licensed attorney, despite the fact advertisements describing him as one have appeared online.
Cornell University Law School, Justia.com and Oyez.org removed Leaming’s online profiles in November 2010. The profiles had featured a photograph of Leaming — and advertised a fee structure of up to $250 an hour.
In December 2010, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims dismissed a bizarre, ASD-connected, pro se lawsuit brought against the United States by Leaming and ASD figure Christian Oesch. Hall’s also name is referenced in the dismissal.
Dozens of pro se litigants sought unsuccessfully to intervene in the ASD civil-forfeiture case brought by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Among the bizarre claims in the pleadings was that the government had produced no “EVIDENCE” against ASD — despite the fact that some of the evidence had appeared on the public record of the case a year before the claims that no “EVIDENCE” had been produced were made.
At least one other notary public in Washington state lost her license as a result of performing work for Leaming, according to records. In 2005, the notary — a woman — told the Washington State Bar Association that Leaming had coerced her into notarizing documents and that he had been “physically and emotionally abusive to her.”
The woman “voluntarily resigned her notary license as a consequence of the acts” directed at her by Leaming and obtained a protection order against Leaming, according to a letter the Practice of Law Board of the State of Washington sent Leaming in 2005.
This 2008 ad for AdSurfDaily features an image of Hank Needham and continues to appear online. Last month, an old ASD Cash Generator affiliate link within the ad began to resolve to a page for an opportunity known as Ad Sales Daily International. Today, however, the link is resolving to a page that returns a server error. The reason why was not immediately clear. In a video released last month, Needham identified himself as a principal of Club Asteria. The video was released after Club Asteria, which trades on the name of the World Bank, acknowledged that its PayPal account had been frozen and claimed that it had suspended payouts to members. Club Asteria blamed the developments on members. But some Club Asteria members, including "Ken Russo," have claimed that they continue to be paid by Club Asteria through AlertPay, a Canadian payment processor. "Ken Russo" posts as "DRdave" on the TalkGold Ponzi forum. Talk Gold, which is known for helping HYIPs and other "programs" that promise or suggest preposterous weekly or even daily payouts to members achieve virality on the Internet, moved ClubAsteria to its scam folder last week. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said in July 2010 that "HYIPs are old-fashioned Ponzi schemes dressed up for a Web 2.0 world." Some "programs" have tried to distance themselves from the term "HYIP" by declaring themselves "revenue-sharing" programs or using other language tweaks in their offers. Some Club Asteria members have claimed that the firm's program paid out up to 520 percent a year — while preemptively denying Club Asteria was an HYIP or Ponzi scheme and describing it as a revenue-sharing program. Other members described Club Asteria as a "passive" program that provided a weekly return on investment and an income of more than $20,000 a year if members paid only $19.95 a month.
BULLETIN:(UPDATED 10:16 A.M. EDT (AUG. 22, U.S.A.) As the PP Blog first reported on July 12, the ASDCashGenerator.com domain once controlled by accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin had returned online and was promoting a mysterious opportunity known as “Ad Sales Daily International.”
But the ASDCashGenerator website now is throwing a server error and returning this message: “The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request. The script had an error or it did not produce any output . . .”
In July, the PP Blog observed that the ASDCashGenerator domain had become operational again after clicking on a link from a 2008 ASD affiliate promotion that featured a photograph of Hank Needham. After his days in 2008 as an ASD pitchman and lead generator, Needham emerged as a principal in Club Asteria.
Club Asteria, which trades on the name of the World Bank and targets its offer to the world’s poor, announced weeks ago that its PayPal account had been frozen and that it had suspended payouts to members amid a serious cash crunch. The firm blamed the developments on members.
Claims about Club Asteria are under investigation by Italian regulators.
Some Club Asteria promoters claimed Club Asteria was a “passive” investment program that paid a return of up to 10 percent a week. The news section of the firm’s website has not been updated since July 21. The last Club Asteria news update occurred nine days after the PP Blog reported that the old ASD Cash Generator URL associated with Needham was sending visitors to the purported Ad Sales Daily International opportunity, which appears to have been an upstart that did not fully launch.
Precisely when the old ASD Cash Generator domain became operational again is unclear. The domain, however, appears to have directed all old ASD affiliate links to the purported Ad Sales Daily International opportunity, which had its own logo.
The PP Blog observed the server error on the ASDCashGenerator site today after it again clicked on the old ASDCashGenerator affiliate link in the 2008 ASD promotion that featured Needham’s photograph. On July 12, the same affiliate link returned a pitch page for the mysterious Ad Sales Daily International program.
Federal prosecutors declined to comment in July on the curious return of the ASDCashGenerator website and the reactivation of the ASDCashGenerator domain name, which previously had been associated with Bowdoin and the alleged ASD Ponzi scheme. The site had been reregistered in the name of Barbara Cruz.
Cruz was associated in 2009 with an ASD cheerleading site known as ASD2Day that made confusing claims about the then-Bowdoin controlled ASDCashGenerator site, including a claim that ASD could not be a Ponzi scheme because the script employed by ASD could not be programmed to permit a Ponzi scheme to occur. The ASD2Day site also asserted that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer was on an Aug. 28 [2009] deadline “to determine if the US Attorney General’s case against ASD should move forward.”
Collyer, who presided over the civil-forfeiture cases involving Bowdoin and ASD Cash Generator and now is presiding over the criminal case against Bowdoin after he was arrested for wire fraud and other crimes in December 2010, was under no such deadline. Although a deadline did exist at the time, it was not one that applied to Collyer.
Rather, it was a deadline imposed by Collyer on Bowdoin to file pleadings in one of the ASD civil-cases or face the forfeiture of more than $65.8 million seized by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008. After not having heard from Bowdoin for more than two months, Collyer issued the order to Bowdoin in July 2009. Bowdoin then asked for a series of delays to comply with the order, saying he was in negotiations with federal prosecutors.
Collyer ultimately gave Bowdoin until Sept. 14, 2009, to comply with the order. Bowdoin ultimately complied, apparently after his negotiations with prosecutors had broken down.
Little is known about the purported Ad Sales Daily International “opportunity” that, at least for weeks, was accessible through Bowdoin’s old ASDCashGenerator website that had been reregistered in the name of Cruz. The ASD2Day website, which also had a Cruz tie and promoted Ad Sales Daily International, now is displaying a page that beams advertisements.
The domain registration for ASD2Day appears to have expired Aug. 19. AdSalesDailyInternational appears not to have a domain registered in its own name.
Today’s strange developments follow on the heels of a bizarre bid by Bowdoin to raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense through a series of “blast” emails to the very individuals he is accused of defrauding: ASD members.
Bowdoin disses Collyer in a fundraising video released July 26 — without mentioning Collyer by name.
ASD is known to have ties to so-called “sovereign citizens.”
UPDATED 7:42 A.M. EDT (July 31. U.S.A.) Accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily twice has tried to prevent U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia from presiding over Bowdoin and ASD-related matters. In December 2009, Bowdoin tried to have Collyer disqualified from hearing the civil-forfeiture case in which the U.S. Secret Service had seized $65.8 million from his personal bank accounts. In January 2011, Bowdoin sought a change of venue that would have taken the criminal case away from Collyer and put it in the hands of a federal judge in Florida.
Both of Bowdoin’s bids failed.
Bowdoin, though, now appears to have shifted strategies. Instead of continuing to insist that Collyer should be removed from the case or that the case should be removed from her courtroom in the District of Columbia and assigned to a federal judge in Florida, Bowdoin is now acting as spokesman-in-chief for his own slime machine. He is suggesting in a fundraising video that ASD lost the civil case “because of” Collyer, whom he described as a “single, lone” judge without mentioning her by name — and that ASD members should send him $500,000 to prevent him from losing the criminal case and being sentenced to prison by Collyer.
AndysFundraisingArmy.com — the web venue through which Bowdoin is seeking to raise half a million dollars to pay for his criminal defense — missed two advertised launch dates this month before finally launching late Tuesday (July 26).
The site first advertised a launch date of on or before July 15. Missing that date, it then advertised a July 20 launch, which it also missed. The need for additional “testing” delayed the launch, according to the promos.
The missed launch dates pose an intriguing question: Were the launch dates deliberately postponed because Bowdoin and “Andy’s Army” knew he had made a video in which he slimed Collyer without identifying her by name — and wanted neither Collyer nor the prosecution to know until he was safely out of Washington that he intended to use Collyer as a reason ASD members should fund his criminal defense?
The “Andy’s Army” fundraising video in which Bowdoin claimed he lost the forfeiture case “because of a single, lone judge” was not released until July 26, four days after Bowdoin’s most recent appearance before Collyer.
Because the video appears to have been produced weeks in advance of Bowdoin’s July 22 date in Collyer’s courtroom — and because Bowdoin himself was the “star” of the video and knew what he had said in the fundraising pitch — it is apparent that Bowdoin knew even as he was asking Collyer on July 22 for a six-month continuance that he’d already hatched a scheme by which he’d transfer blame for his legal predicament to Collyer as a means of raising defense funds. In the video, Bowdoin also suggested his former attorneys, federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service were responsible for his legal woes.
Collyer denied the continuance on July 22, according to the case docket. The video debuted four days later.
Bowdoin’s fundraising video made no mention of the fact that the U.S. Court of Appeals had upheld rulings made by Collyer. Indeed, it was hardly the case that a “single, lone judge” had the only say in the forfeiture case. A three-judge panel on the appeals court unanimously ruled against Bowdoin and ASD.
The appeals panel issued its ruling on March 25, 2011 — about three months prior to the production of the fundraising video.
Among Bowdoin’s assertions in the forfeiture case was that he had tricked into releasing his claims to $65.8 million seized by the Secret Service in August 2008. The tricksters, according to Bowdoin, included at least one of his paid attorneys and also federal prosecutors.
“Despite Bowdoin’s protests to the contrary, his own affidavit shows that he understood well that he was receiving no promise in return for relinquishing his claims,” the appeals panel ruled.
“Moreover,” the panel ruled, “far from being negligent, appellants’ attorney had sound reasons for recommending that they cooperate with prosecutors by relinquishing their claims.”
The panel also concluded that “the witnesses AdSurfDaily offered at the evidentiary hearing to prove that it operated a legitimate business contradicted each other . . . and at least one actually undermined the company’s position.”
Bowdoin, however, makes no mention of the appeals-court decision in the fundraising video. Nor does he explain what happened to millions of dollars ASD allegedly had moved offshore — some of it to Canada, some of it to Antigua.
Andy Bowdoin's fundraising video in which he claims ASD lost the forfeiture case because of a "single, lone judge" appears to have been produced as early as June 24. But the video was not released publicly until July 26, four days after Bowdoin appeared before the very judge he had dissed in the video. Two advertised launch dates prior to Bowdoin's July 22 appearance In U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia were postponed.
An email attributed to ASD member Todd Disner was received by some ASD members on July 25, three days after Bowdoin’s Washington appearance but one day before the release of Bowdoin’s fundraising video. (Read story based on email.)
“I talked to Andy the other day,” the email read in part. “He was in Atlanta airport coming home from his hearing in Washington.”
It is unclear whether Disner watched Bowdoin’s fundraising video prior to its public release on July 26. What is clear is that Bowdoin was in Collyer’s courtroom in Washington on July 22 when Bowdoin had the knowledge that, weeks earlier (as early as June 24), he’d taped a fundraising commercial asking ASD members to send him money and painting Collyer as one of the reasons they should pony up $500,000.
The video does not reveal that Collyer, in 2008, granted ASD a two-day evidentiary hearing in the “interests of justice” in which ASD called a series of witnesses to make its case that it was operating lawfully.
Nor does the video reveal that Collyer gave ASD extension after extension to file pleadings and once moved a hearing to a larger courtroom so more ASD members could observe the events unfolding in public.
When ASD members stayed away in droves, Collyer moved the proceedings back to a smaller courtroom — only to be pummeled later by dozens of pro se pleadings from ASD members, including members who accused her of “treason” while championing Bowdoin through the U.S. mail.
While Collyer was deliberating the issues raised by attorneys for Bowdoin and attorneys for the government during the evidentiary hearing, ASD announced on its Breaking News website that it expected a revenue infusion of $200 million from a penny-stock company.
Bowdoin did not address the $200 million claim in his fundraising video, choosing instead to position himself as a victim of a “single, lone” judge — and a victim of his attorneys and federal prosecutors and Secret Service agents who had “crucified” him.
Bowdoin As Christian Flag-Waver
That Bowdoin, a self-styled Christian “money magnet,” is wrapping himself in the American flag and other patriotic symbols on the “Andy’s Army” website adds yet another layer of the absurd to the long-running ASD saga.
On Sept. 11, 2008, the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an ASD member released a “prayer” that asked God to strike federal prosecutors dead.
“Pluck them out of their dwelling place!” the prayer commanded. “Root them out of the land of the living! Let evil slay them, and desolation be their lot!”
God, among other things, was asked to “Send divine angelic prophetic assaults against
all diabolical intelligence!” and to “Release divine viruses (emphasis added) to invade satanic databases (emphasis added) and command that they be consumed and destroyed!”
For good measure, God was asked to “Let all satanic manifestations cease and let divine abortive measures and miscarriages occur in satanic wombs and incubators!”
All in all, the “prayer” included 38 specific pleas for ASD/Bowdoin help from God. Included in the 38 was a plea that federal officials be “afflicted and tormented WITHOUT RELIEF.”
“Heavenly Father, you have given us a great work to accomplish! We war for the releasing of our finances and all resources that belong to us! Let those that hold on to our wealth longer than they should be afflicted and tormented WITHOUT RELIEF until they release what rightfully belongs to us!
“We command satan to cough it up! Spit it out! Release it! Loose (sic) it and let it go!!!!”
Nearly three years later, the prayer remains unanswered. It is almost certainly the case that, to Christian members of ASD who value intellectual honesty, the nonanswer was the answer. Indeed, asking God to let evil visit federal employees and cause their deaths is decidedly unChristian. No person with genuine faith in God ever would embrace an appeal for God to slay Bowdoin’s litigation opponents, whom the prayer defined as “satan.”
Since the prayer’s September 2008 debut, Bowdoin has lost two civil forfeiture cases, including one in which he did not even bother to file a claim. Bowdoin-connected assets have been targeted in a third forfeiture case. Meanwhile, he has been sued by some of his own members for racketeering — and, as was the case in the second forfeiture action, he did not bother to enter an immediate defense.
After nearly three years, it has come down to Andy Bowdoin blaming events on Collyer, Bowdoin’s attorneys and the agency that guards the life of the President of the United States while also guarding the U.S. financial infrastructure.
Even as Bowdoin is demonizing the U.S. justice system, he is clinging to his purported faith in God and using it as a reason to send him half a million dollars. Bowdoin, according to Bowdoin, has been attacked by the U.S. government under the direction of “Satan” himself.
Is Bowdoin Risking An Enormous Spam Fine?
In recent hours, some ASD members have received an “Andy’s Army” email (from a Google “gmail” address) that claims 75 people have ponied up “over” $3,000 for Bowdoin so far.
Why the email came from a Google address was unclear. What is clear is that some ASD members once tried to scam Google by encouraging ASD members to commit click fraud against Google. It also is clear that Google’s logo once was used in a promo for ASD that claimed Google and 23 other famous companies were ASD advertisers.
So, Bowdoin’s ASD — which at one time had members in its ranks who tried to defraud Google — apparently now has a subset of members (“andysdefensefund”) who are using Google’s gmail service and the “AndysFundraisingArmy” website to communicate with fundraising prospects. The email includes the name of “Andy Bowdoin” as the sender, and provides an “andysdefensefund” gmail address for return correspondence.
The email claims that an email “blast” will occur Monday “to the ASD Members List of Over 77,000.”
“This coming Monday, we will begin our email blast to the entire ASD Members list, and we will keep blasting this list every day or so, with different emails, until we get the Networking Momentum kicked in and turned on, causing rapid growth in our Fundraising Statistics, which will easily carry us to reaching our Goal” of $500,000, according to the email.
Sending “blasts” and repeating “blasts,” however, could trigger spam complaints if the intended recipients never agreed to receive email from “andysdefensefund” at a gmail address and had agreed only to receive email from ASD itself — not a defense fund or “Andy’s Army.”
The state of Florida dissolved AdSurfDaily Inc. in September 2009 and revoked its registration as a foreign corporation headquartered in Nevada. The state of Nevada also revoked ASD’s corporate registration.
A plan to “blast” 77,000 ASD members leads to questions about whether “andysdefensefund” at a gmail address and “Andy’s Army” are permitted to contact persons with whom they have no business relationship with a commercial proposition to send money to Bowdoin to pay for his defense.
And if ASD no longer is a registered corporation — and records in Florida and Nevada show that it is not — questions can be raised about how a dissolved entity is authorized to contact subscribers who no longer exist because the corporation itself has been dissolved.
Questions also can be raised about whether ASD, a dissolved corporation, is permitted to transfer an asset — its email list — to the “andysdefensefund” and the “Andy’s Army” fundraising entities without the express permission of former ASD members.
Still more horror surfaced in June 2009, when the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf tanked. AVG, whose name is referenced in the 2009 racketeering lawsuit against Bowdoin, had close ties with ASD. The AVG collapse followed on the heels of a series of 200 percent “matching bonus” offers for both enrollees and their sponsors.
“Each separate email in violation of the “CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000,” according to the FTC.
Even a small number of spam complaints triggered by the advertised email “blast” could be costly for Bowdoin if the “andysdefensefund” entity and “Andy’s Army” contact ASD members in unauthorized fashion.
In a fundraising video released last night, ASD President Andy Bowdoin said he was "crucified" by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is based in part on the content of a video released last night in which AdSurfDaily President and accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin appeared. A group known as “Andy’s Fundraising Army” is seeking to raise at least $500,000 to pay for Bowdoin’s defense on criminal charges related to the alleged ASD Ponzi scheme.
UPDATED 10:23 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) One day after an AdSurfDaily member claimed that “We plan to go after Akerman [Senterfitt] next,” ASD President Andy Bowdoin — without mentioning the law firm by name — suggested the firm was responsible for his legal troubles.
And Bowdoin — again not naming names — suggested that criminal attorney Stephen Dobson, who is not employed by Akerman Senterfitt, also was to blame. (In court affidavits, Bowdoin has referred to Stephen Dobson as Steven Dobson. The U.S. Court of Appeals already has rejected a claim by Bowdoin that he had been “hoodwinked” by Dobson into releasing his claims to money seized by the Secret Service. At the same time, the appeals court upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer that Bowdoin “knowingly and voluntarily” released his claims to the money. Bowdoin released the claims while Akerman Senterfitt was his counsel-of-record in the civil-forfeiture case.)
Bowdoin also blamed Collyer — again without naming names — for his predicament. Bowdoin described Collyer as a “single, lone judge.”
“Now, after that law firm (Akerman Senterfitt) finished the civil case, which we lost because of a single, lone judge (Collyer) [who] had the final say in verdict [and] not a jury, they told me they couldn’t represent me in a criminal case, that I needed a criminal attorney because there would be a federal indictment.
“They recommended a law firm in Tallahassee, Florida, so I retained the firm. But the lead attorney in that Tallahassee firm (Dobson) was an ex-U.S. Attorney. And I’m sad to say that he actually sold me out to the federal government,” Bowdoin said.
Bowdoin described Aug. 1, 2008 — the day the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from his personal bank accounts in a Ponzi scheme probe — as the day “when the government attacked.”
In 2008, Bowdoin referred to the Secret Service and federal prosecutors as “Satan,” and compared the seizure to the 9/11 terrorists attacks. In a video released yesterday, he now claims he was “crucified” and “heavily ridiculed” by two U.S. Attorneys and three Secret Service agents.
Bowdoin said he hoped to raise $500,000 for his legal defense fund, asserting ASD was not a Ponzi scheme. An indictment against Bowdoin was unsealed in November 2010, and he was arrested on Dec. 1, 2010. He is free on bond.
In September 2009, federal prosecutors described Bowdoin as “delusional,” alleging that he was telling ASD members one thing and Collyer another.
Bowdoin — without using Miami-based Akerman Senterfitt’s name in the new video but describing it as a “big law firm with hundreds of attorneys and even offices in Washington, DC” — opined that the firm “didn’t do us any good.”
“So, I learned quickly that big is not always better or good when it comes to hiring a winning law firm,” Bowdoin said.
Collyer issued a key ruling against ASD in November of 2008, saying that ASD had not demonstrated at an evidentiary hearing it requested that it was operating lawfully. Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture in January 2009, claiming in September 2009 that he had done so in the belief he possibly could avoid a prison sentence.
Sometime in December 2008 or January 2009 — the precise date is unclear — Bowdoin signed a proffer letter and acknowledged the government’s material allegations were all true, according to filings by prosecutors. Bowdoin has acknowledged in his own filings that he gave information against his interests.
Even as Bowdoin was not naming the names of Collyer and his previous counsel in his new video, he was not naming the names of his current counsel in the Ponzi case. Those names (Charles A. Murray and Michael R.N. McDonnell) are available in the public record, Bowdoin said.
Bowdoin sought unsuccessfully in 2009 to have Collyer, who also is hearing the criminal case, removed from the civil case. Earlier this year, Bowdoin sought unsuccessfully to have a judge in the the Northern District of Florida hear the criminal case, as opposed to Collyer.
This old ad for AdSurfDaily features an image of Hank Needham, the purported owner of Club Asteria. An ASD affiliate link in the ad summons ASD’s old ASDCashGenerator.com URL, which went dormant after the federal raid on ASD’s Florida headquarters in August 2008. In recent hours, however, the old ASDCashGenerator URL began to resolve to an apparent new business opportunity known as Ad Sales Daily International. Needham’s one-time tie to ASD leads to questions about whether Virginia-based Club Asteria, through Needham or ASD downline members, could have benefited from ASD cash prior to the federal seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the personal bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin nearly three years ago. The Club-Asteria domain name was registered in June 2009, the same month an autosurf with ASD connections known as AdViewGlobal collapsed. Club Asteria’s domain now is registered behind a proxy, but once was registered to Needham, according to web records.
BULLETIN: (UPDATED 9:36 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A website identified in a 2008 forfeiture complaint as the site of a major financial crime allegedly engineered by AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin and unidentified co-conspirators is active again and appears to be redirecting traffic to an entity named “Ad Sales Daily International” (ASDI) and a second entity known as ASD2Day.
“Make $10 per direct referral & $5 for every 2nd level indirect!” the site exclaims. “Recieve (sic) $2000 Account Initiation Credits! Hurry, while we are in pre-launch.”
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia declined to comment on the development, saying that ASD is part of an active investigation.
The ASDI site is accessible through an affiliate link to Bowdoin’s old ASDCashGenerator.com site, which appears to have been re-registered in the name of Barbara Cruz, whose name previously has appeared in the context of ASD. The PP Blog accessed the ASDI site by clicking on an old ASDCashGenerator affiliate link . The link was within an ASD ad from 2008 that featured an image of Club Asteria’s purported owner Hank Needham.
The ASD ad with Needham’s image positioned ASD as a “Perfectly Credible Business” and included a contact email address that used the characters “ptigold.” The ASD ad, however, does not load Needham’s name as an ASDI affiliate when the link is clicked. Instead, it loads the name of another individual. The reason was not immediately clear.
This page for ASDI, an apparent upstart, is accessible when a link is clicked in an old ad for Andy Bowdoin's ASD Cash Generator program. The old ASD ad features a photo of Hank Needham, the purported owner of Club Asteria, but the ad does not load Needham's name as an ASDI affiliate when the link is clicked. Instead, the ad loads the name of another person. The reason was not immediately clear. Bowdoin is under federal indictment for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Questions have been raised about whether Club Asteria also was selling unregistered securities as part of a purported "passive" investment program.
A separate link within the ad with Needham’s image forwards to a page that displays pornography ads.
All or part of the old ASDCashGenerator site appears to be redirecting to the domain name of ASD2Day.com. In 2009, the ASD2Day site was registered with Cruz listed as the contact person at an address in Florida that state investigators had tied to a major insurance scam. Although Cruz now is listed as the registrant of the ASDCashGenerator site, the ASD2Day site is registered in the name of another individual.
In October 2009, the PP Blog published a story about the ASD2Day site, which was making odd claims about the state of the ASD litigation a year after the federal seizure of Bowdoin’s assets and assets linked to Golden Panda Ad Builder, an autosurf implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD probe.
ASD2Day.com claimed, among other things, that ASD could not be a Ponzi scheme because the script employed by the autosurfing firm could not be programmed to permit a Ponzi scheme to occur. It also made a puzzling claim that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer was on an Aug. 28, 2009, deadline “to determine if the US Attorney General’s case against ASD should move forward.” (Also see this story and comments thread.)
Collyer was on no such deadline. In January 2010, Collyer issued a forfeiture order that awarded $65.8 million seized from Bowdoin’s bank accounts to the U.S. government, which is using the seized money to compensate victims of ASD. In July 2009, Collyer issued a forfeiture order for more than $14 million linked to Golden Panda, ASD’s one-time purported “Chinese” option.
The ASD ad that featured Needham’s image also made a veiled reference to Golden Panda.
A section of the ad read, “OPENING IN CHINA[:] July 2008.”
Undercover agents from a Secret Service/IRS task force began to investigate ASD and Golden Panda on July 3, 2008, according to court filings. The court process of seizing cash linked to both entities began on Aug. 1, 2008, with the issuance of seizure warrants.
It appears to be the case that all old ASD Cash Generator affiliate links, including the links in the ad that featured Needham’s photograph, now load the new ASDI webpage at the old ASD Cash Generator URL.
Claims made about Club Asteria are under investigation by Italian authorities. Club Asteria first slashed payouts to members then reportedly suspended them for 60 days. The firm also reportedly has had its PayPal account frozen.
Like ASD, Club Asteria was promoted on Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
In a video dated July 8, a Club Asteria executive claimed the firm had “a philanthropic foundation both domestically and internationally where we help causes all over the world.”
Among the claims in the video, which appeared online after Club Asteria reportedly suspended payouts, was this one:
“We donate cows and pigs and water buffaloes and camels to help families all over the world.”
Virginia-based Club Asteria trades on the name of the World Bank. Members said payments came from an entity known as Asteria Holdings Limited (Hong Kong) — before the payments stopped.
One of Club Asteria’s principal concerns, according to a new video, is children.
Investigators long have fretted that some promoters of online business “opportunities” simply race from fraud scheme to fraud scheme, collecting commissions for introducing others to “programs” that prove to be scams.
Like the now-collapsed AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, Club Asteria has blamed its reported problems on members. AVG had promoters and members in common with Bowdoin’s ASD, which the Secret Service described as a massive international Ponzi scheme.
Among other things, AVG plucked the heartstrings of members by telling them that the company was interested in saving the rain forest.
EDITOR’S NOTE:First of two parts. Part Two will be published later tonight or tomorrow.
Even as AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin was venturing to Washington in June 2008 to receive what his members and prospects were told was the “Medal of Distinction” from the President of the United States, he was harboring terrible secrets and knew full well his autosurf business was a Ponzi scheme that could collapse at any second and lay waste to thousands of investors, according to court records and an affidavit originally filed under seal by the U.S. Secret Service.
Much of the information from the affidavit, which was filed in February 2009, is being published today for the first time. Companion court documents in ASD-related litigation show that part of a third civil-forfeiture case brought in December 2010 against assets alleged to be owned by ASD and Bowdoin has been put on hold while Bowdoin is battling criminal allegations — and that some individual ASD members whose assets were targeted for forfeiture in the same case have not filed claims for money seized from their bank accounts. Although the forfeiture action against Bowdoin has been suspended, the cases against the assets of the individual ASD members remain active.
Just two months prior to his June 2008 Washington jaunt — in April 2008 — Bowdoin had flown at the prompting of a “North Carolina lawyer” to Panama and Costa Rica with his wife and the lawyer. The purpose of the trip, according to the affidavit, was to incorporate ASD Cash Generator and an entity known known as La Sorta Trading outside of U.S. jurisdiction to create wiggle room if U.S. regulators came knocking.
ASD Cash Generator was the replacement name for the original ASD autosurf business, which was known simply as AdSurfDaily. The first scheme collapsed in 2007, leaving Bowdoin’s first set of investors holding the bag, according to the affidavit. Bowdoin’s later investors were not told about the firm’s dubious history.
La Sorta Trading, whose purpose was not immediately clear, never before has been referenced in the ASD case. La Sorta is the name of a city in Honduras, another country in Central America. It is not known if the firm was named after the city.
Bowdoin also was exploring the possibility that he and his wife would move from the small town of Quincy, Fla., to Costa Rica, the Secret Service advised U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer.
“Bowdoin’s wife did not like Costa Rica, however, and his plans to move ASD’s operations off shore were shelved,” according to the affidavit.
The February 2009 affidavit paints Bowdoin, now 76, as a man experiencing pressure from multiple points of contact — and as a man who made one disastrous decision after another. One of the things allegedly pressuring Bowdoin was fear that the Ponzi could come tumbling down before enough new members were recruited to keep cash churning and the facade of a successful and lawful business in place. Yet-another was fear that insiders, ordinary members and even employees could turn on him. Still-another was fear that a government intervention could occur at any time, according to the affidavit.
Of the millions of dollars that had flowed into ASD, “less tha[n] $25,000 was derived from independent revenue,” according to the affidavit. The rest had come from members and was being recycled in classic Ponzi scheme fashion, with Bowdoin initially empowering himself and a “silent partner” to rake 10 percent of ASD’s “gross sales” and split it evenly: 5 percent each.
But even as he was in Washington in June 2008 to receive an award he positioned as a Presidential acknowledgment of his business acumen, Bowdoin knew that his silent partner posed a risk to him, according to the affidavit.
That silent partner, according to the affidavit, was Bowdoin’s “sponsor” in 12DailyPro, an autosurf the SEC accused of running a massive Ponzi scheme more than two years earlier.
Through his sponsor, Bowdoin had invested $100 in 12DailyPro. The money was lost quickly because the SEC shut down 12DailyPro soon after Bowdoin joined. But Neither Bowdoin nor his silent partner took the clue from the SEC’s action, according to the affidavit. Instead, they worked on ways to channel 12DailyPro-like revenue to themselves and disguise what they were doing.
“Based on his experience with 12daily Pro, and his review of the SEC’s filings against it, Bowdoin knew that a paid auto-surf program that promised returns of that magnitude and recycled member funds was a business model that was both unsustainable and illegal. He also knew that selling an unregistered investment opportunity to thousands of investors was illegal. Nevertheless, after the collapse of 12daily Pro, Bowdoin agreed with his 12daily Pro sponsor to start a similar autosurf program. Both individuals were aware that, before its collapse, 12daily Pro had taken in millions of dollars from its members.”
Under Bowdoin’s agreement with his silent partner, Bowdoin was responsible for managing ASD’s operations. The partner, meanwhile, was responsible for marketing ASD.
In December 2006, about a year and a half prior to Bowdoin’s June 2008 trip to Washington amid claims he was receiving a Presidential award for business smarts, Bowdoin arbitrarily slashed the silent partner’s cut of the upstart ASD business from 5 percent of the gross to 1 percent, according to the affidavit.
Despite the fact Bowdoin had been a 12DailyPro member recruited into that SEC-smashed Ponzi scheme by the same person who’d later emerge as his silent partner in ASD, Bowdoin explained to the silent partner that he — meaning Bowdoin — “was performing most of the work, and bearing most of the risk in operating ASD,” according to the affidavit.
With those words, Bowdoin imposed a pay cut on the silent partner, who later asserted Bowdoin had ripped him off, according to the affidavit.
In August 2008, during a search of Bowdoin’s home in Quincy less than two months after the Washington jaunt and the Presidential claims, the Secret Service found Bowdoin’s handwritten notes from December 2006 that “show his and his silent partner’s awareness of the risks of the auto-surf program they were conducting,” the Secret Service said in the affidavit.
“Bowdoin’s notes indicate that he told his silent partner that the partner should have made him better aware of those risks ‘knowing regulators were on the prowl for surfing sites,’” the Secret Service alleged.
It is known from other documents that the Secret Service opened the ASD probe after becoming aware of the company on July 3, 2008, about 17 days after Bowdoin had ventured to Washington amid claims he’d be be receiving a Presidential award and dining with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
One of the documents is a 57-page evidence exhibit that includes surveillance photos taken in Quincy prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from Bowdoin’s 10 personal bank accounts, one of which allegedly contained more than $31.6 million. The Secret Service was alarmed as it began the process of peeling back layers of the onion, according to court records
Before July had come to a close, the agency — confronted with a murky fact set and trying to figure out how a man who claimed to have had a remarkable business career that had captured the attention of the President of the United States — had assigned multiple undercover agents to the ASD case.
One of the earliest puzzles to solve, according to court documents, was that Bowdoin had left behind a string of dissolved companies in Florida and professed to be wealthy — but had “earned no significant income from legal employment in the twenty years prior to his commencement of ASD’s operation.”
As the investigation progressed, according to court documents and the February 2009 affidavit, agents discovered that ASD had “special” members who provided Bowdoin start-up capital to varying degrees. These “special” members were grouped as members of ASD’s “President’s Circle,” “President’s Advisory Board” and “President’s Advisory Counsel,” and also knew about the 12Daily Pro Ponzi.
At least “some” of them, according to the affidavit, counseled Bowdoin not to use the name he initially contemplated in 2006 for the upstart enterprise: DailyProSurf.
Some of the special members, who were entitled to higher compensation than ordinary members, “complained” that DailyProSurf sounded too much like 12DailyPro. In response to the concerns, the enterprise abandoned the DailyProSurf name and used the name AdSurfDaily as a means of avoiding “law enforcement scrutiny,” according to the February 2009 affidavit.
The document did not name the “special” members. It was filed under seal on Feb. 26, 2009, during a period in which an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) was launching. AVG may represent the fourth iteration of ASD, one launched months after the seizure of Bowdoin’s bank accounts by the Secret Service in August 2008.
AVG’s name is not referenced in the February 2009 affidavit. In June 2009, however, AVG’s name surfaced in a racketeering lawsuit brought against Bowdoin and North Carolina attorney Robert Garner. In September 2009, the government made a veiled reference to AVG in court filings.
Lawyers Referenced In Secret Service Affidavit As Bowdoin’s Partners In LaFuenteDinero, The ‘Spanish’ ASD
NOTE: The PP Blog became aware in 2010 that the government had subpoenaed at least three North Carolina attorneys, including Robert Garner, in the ASD case. The other two attorneys were husband and wife. The husband, who was sentenced to a year in federal prison in 2006 for lying to the FBI in a real-estate case, was disbarred in 2009. Bowdoin challenged the subpoenas, arguing that his communications with the lawyers were privileged. A federal judge ruled that the attorneys had to testify.
The Blog, which previously has published stories that reference Garner, is doing so again today. Garner is listed in Nevada records as a “director” of AdSurfDaily Inc., with Bowdoin as the president, secretary and treasurer. However, the Blog is choosing today not to publish the names of the husband-and-wife attorneys, but reserves its right to do so in the future.
Moving on . . .
One of the most stunning allegations in the February 2009 Secret Service affidavit, which became a public record when the seal was lifted in May 2009 and which the PP Blog is reporting on for the first time today, was that two of the North Carolina lawyers were proposed as Bowdoin’s business partners in LaFuenteDinero (LFD). LFD was ASD’s so-called Spanish autosurf. The proposal was made by one of the lawyers, who described the other lawyer as his “law partner.”
The section below is verbatim from the February 2009 Secret Service affidavit:
“In approximately September or October 2007, ASD’s North Carolina lawyer suggested to Bowdoin that they should start a new site that was in Spanish. In addition, the North Carolina lawyer suggested that the company associated with this site should be set up off shore because when these type of companies raise too much money the government comes in and shuts them down. The North Carolina lawyer recommended that he, his ‘law partner’ and Bowdoin would each share ownership of the Spanish site (as 1/3 share partners). In return for the others’ ownership interests, the North Carolina lawyer and his associate would handle the incorporation work and all of the work needed to move operations offshore.”
By early 2008, with nearly a year and a half of troubled operation under its belt and a Ponzi collapse that had caused ASD to cease operations for weeks in 2007 as it tooled up for a second try under the ASD Cash Generator brand, Bowdoin was growing “suspicious” of at least one of the North Carolina lawyers, according to the affidavit.
“In February 2008, Bowdoin, the North Carolina lawyer and an ‘Internet marketer’ discussed expanding ASD by beginning a new site in Chinese, which would be called Golden Panda Ad Builder,” according to the affidavit. “The North Carolina lawyer suggested a person that would be well suited to run the site offshore, but Bowdoin was beginning to get suspicious of the lawyer. Bowdoin decided, instead, to split the Chinese site with the Georgia minister. Bowdoin told the Georgia minister that ASD had no outside income sources and that ASD’s survival was depend[e]nt on an ever growing base of new contributors. The Georgia minister began working on developing the Chinese auto-surf site.”
‘Georgia Minister’ Allegedly Caught Stealing By ASD Employees; Bowdoin Allegedly Stays Silent About Theft
Bowdoin, according to the affidavit, confronted trouble from any number of fronts. One of his colleagues — the “silent partner” who had been Bowdoin’s 12DailyPro sponsor whose rake Bowdoin allegedly had slashed after they started ASD — told Bowdoin he believed he was owed $20,000 and threatened to expose ASD’s new operation.
“Bowdoin agreed to compensate the sponsor” after initially balking, according to the affidavit.
And Bowdoin also was under pressure from the “North Carolina lawyer” to move the ASD operation offshore — counsel Bowdoin earlier had resisted but agreed to explore in April 2008, despite his suspicions about the lawyer, according to the affidavit.
During the first half of 2008, with Golden Panda still not off the ground during a period in which the “Georgia minister” had access to ASD’s computer system, ASD employees began to complain that the minister was “padding” his ASD account by “secretly using his access to the computer system to increase his/relatives’ number of ad packages,” according to the affidavit.
Bowdoin personally investigated the complaints, comparing the “Georgia minister’s” account with banking records.
Bowdoin “confirmed for himself that the Georgia minister was in fact stealing money from ASD by creating free ad packages,” according to the affidavit. “When confronted, the Georgia minister denied the allegations and asserted that he had proof that the ad packages he created flowed from legitimate deposits of funds into ASD’s bank accounts. The Georgia minister never showed Bowdoin this proof, however, and each time Bowdoin or someone else inquired about the evidence of deposits, the Georgia minister created an excuse to explain why he did not then have it.”
Instead of firing the Georgia minister and ending the relationship, “Bowdoin did not pursue the matter,” according to the affidavit.
Things took a dramatic turn “in about June 2008,” when ASD employees discovered that “the Georgia minister had been permanently enjoined by a court from committing violations of the federal securities laws.
“When ASD employees disclosed this information to Bowdoin, they told him that ASD needed to distance itself from the minister,” according to the affidavit. “Bowdoin agreed to severe his ties to the Golden Panda operation after several ASD employees indicated that they were unwilling to work with the Georgia minister.”
Walter Clarence Busby Jr. of Acworth, Georgia, has been identified by the government in other court filings as Bowdoin’s Golden Panda partner. Separate court documents describe Busby as a minister and real-estate professional, and the SEC described Busby in 1997 as a prime-bank swindler.
In court filings in the ASD case, Busby advised Collyer that he had prevailed upon another minister to assist him in arranging a relaxing day of fishing with Bowdoin in April 2008. During that same month, according to the February 2009 Secret Service affidavit, Bowdoin ventured to Central America with his wife and a “North Carolina lawyer.”
The fishing excursion took place in Brunswick, Georgia, on April 11, 2008, according to court filings by Busby. Five days later, according to the February 2009 Secret Service affidavit, Bowdoin was in Panama and Costa Rica, discussing ASD business and the formation of the La Sorta Trading firm.
Coming later: Government moves against money in ASD-related bank accounts in Iowa and other states.
We are plugging our nose as we publish this document (link at bottom of post). You should know up front that we converted the document to PDF format after receiving it in Microsoft Word format. We did so based on the belief that many readers may not own Word but likely have a free PDF reader among the programs on their computers.
We obtained the document from a source. An email introducing the document prompted recipients to “Please forward this to as many of our people as you can.”
The PDF conversion altered the format of the original document, causing certain typesetting errors to appear — but the text content of the body of the document is unchanged. We did not edit the body text in any way. For the sake of convenience, we named the PDF file declaratoryreliefdraft.
The Word original is titled “T&D v USA UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT.” It purports to be a draft of a “Complaint for Declaratory Relief” some AdSurfDaily members say they intend to file in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The document lists ASD members Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer as pro se plaintiffs.
It is unclear if other plaintiffs will emerge. Previous ASD pro se litigants appeared to have shared a do-it-yourself litigation template. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was inundated with ASD-related, pro se filings in 2009.
No other plaintiffs are listed in the caption of the draft. The defendant is listed as:
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
c/o United States Attorney’s Office
555 Fourth Street N.W.,
Washington, DC 20530
The address is the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. No individual defendants are named. The document, which references U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia, misspells her name as “Collier.”
Disner lost a pro se round in the civil forfeiture complaint against Andy Bowdoin’s assets filed in the District of Columbia in August 2008. His petition — and the petitions of dozens of other ASD pro se filers who sought to intervene in the case amid claims the government “confiscated” their assets “wrongfully” — was denied for lack of standing.
In the original set of pro se pleadings in Collyer’s D.C. court, former Assistant U.S. Attorney William Cowden’s last name was misspelled as “Crowden.”
ASD President Andy Bowdoin advised Collyer in a sworn affidavit nearly three years ago that the seized assets in the U.S. Secret Service probe belonged to him or ASD, not individual members. In short, Bowdoin agreed with the prosecution’s view of the case with respect to the ownership of the seized assets.
In its current form, the draft appears to advance the notion that individual ASD members can gain standing in Florida after having been denied in the District of Columbia, get a judgment against the government and undo the government’s remissions program organized by the Secret Service and federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia. Prosecutors have said the ASD Ponzi scheme case may have 40,000 or more victims.
Among other things, the draft asks a Florida federal judge to declare that the government conducted an “illegal search and seizure in that it failed to meet the requirements of the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution and that therefore the search and seizure of their assets was illegal and void.”
At the same time, the draft appears to suggest ASD had a subset of members who should have been treated differently than ordinary members whose lives were altered by the alleged Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, the draft makes a puzzling argument that ASD’s Terms of Service superseded federal law.
(In this snippet from the draft, the PP Blog added the emphasis to this Blog post.)
“Among the items seized were the accounts, funds and records specifically identified as belonging to the plaintiffs which were separately accounted for on the computer programs and data seized as they were members of ASD, having bought ad packages as specified in the rules and regulations of the ASD business model,” a section of the draft complaint reads.
“Consistent with the rules and regulations applicable to the plaintiffs’ their information was confidential and could only be accessed by them through the use of their password protected account with ASD and their accounts were separate and distinct from any other individuals or businesses who were participants in the ASD advertising program,” the section claimed.
If the document does get filed in a final form — and if the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. gets served and files a response — we sincerely hope the government moves instantly to protect ASD victims at large from further restitution delays caused by pro se sideshows.
Make no mistake: This is gamesmanship.
An email currently circulating among ASD members and attributed to Disner even describes it as such.
“Let the games begin!” the email declares.
It’s as though the first round of games were not enough for some ASD members.
“Here is a draft of the complaint Dwight finished today,” the email, which is dated today, reads.
“I think you will be impressed.
“We will schedule another conference call to field any “feed back” to this motion.
“Please forward this to as many of our people as you can. (As I know you will)
James Clark Howard: Source: Boca Raton Police Department
UPDATED 2:25 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) In a complex case unfolding in Florida, the SEC has filed fraud charges against two companies that allegedly sold unregistered securities and conducted a $27.5 million “investment scheme” involving “purported commodities contracts.” A receiver has been appointed to marshal the assets of the murky businesses, which are known as Commodities Online LLC and Commodities Online Management LLC.
Millions of dollars generated in the scheme were moved to Mexico and the Netherlands even as the SEC was issuing subpoenas in the case last month, according to court filings. The agency described the transactions as “extremely suspicious.”
Although the SEC successfully halted the alleged Commodities Online scheme on April 1, the only defendants named to date are the companies themselves. The agency described the individuals presiding over the scheme — a former managing member and a vice president — as convicted criminals.
One of the individuals, according to the SEC, was a “convicted felon who was, in March 2010, charged with grand theft and organized scheme to defraud in conjunction with an unrelated Ponzi investment scheme.”
The other, according to the SEC, was an individual who “pled guilty to bank fraud and narcotics charges in 2005 and to transmitting a threat to injure charge in 2007.”
The PP Blog confirmed that, on March 5, 2010, the Boca Raton Police Department arrested James Clark Howard, who is listed as a “managing member” of Commodities Online LLC in documents filed with the Florida Department of State on Jan. 26, 2010.
Howard was charged with grand theft and organized scheme to defraud in a Ponzi case that may involve as many as five companies and their associates acting in concert to scam investors. Boca Raton authorities said the Florida Office of Financial Regulation also was conducting an investigation.
On Feb. 11, 2011, Louis Gallo was identified as a manager of Commodities Online Management LLC in records filed with the Florida Department of State. The Sun Sentinel newspaper reported that Gallo is “on probation for bank fraud and a cocaine charge out of New Jersey federal court.”
AdSurfDaily Member And Surf’s Up Mod Emerges As Figure In New Florida Flap
Other records show that, on Sept. 15, 2010, a Nevada-based company that listed former AdSurfDaily member and Surf’s Up moderator Terralynn Hoy as a “director” sued Howard and others in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. The Nevada company — SSH2 Acquisitions Inc. — alleged that Howard and the others were running a Ponzi scheme into which SSH2 had plowed $39 million.
Hoy, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, was a member of Florida-based AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service said in August 2008 was conducting an international Ponzi scheme involving tens of millions of dollars. After the ASD seizure, Hoy became a moderator at the pro-ASD “Surf’s Up” forum, which mysteriously vanished in January 2010 after cheerleading nonstop for ASD President Andy Bowdoin for more than a year.
Bowdoin was the target of a federal criminal probe the entire time Surf’s Up operated, according to court filings. In November 2008, just days after a key court ruling went against ASD, the firm endorsed Surf’s Up as its mouthpiece.
By February 2009, Hoy became a conference-call host and moderator of a now-defunct forum that promoted the now-defunct AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf. AVG, which had close ties to ASD, launched in the aftermath of the federal seizure of more than $80 million in ASD-related assets, the filing of two forfeiture complaints against ASD-related assets and the filing of a civil racketeering lawsuit against Bowdoin.
On June 30, 2009 — one day after Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison for his colossal Ponzi scheme — lawyers suing Bowdoin for racketeering alleged that AVG was an extension of ASD. In September 2009, federal prosecutors made a veiled reference to AVG in court filings in the ASD case.
AVG disappeared in June 2009, about a month after the grand jury that ultimately indicted Bowdoin for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities as investment contracts began to meet. The indictment against Bowdoin was unsealed in November 2010, and Bowdoin was arrested in Florida on Dec. 1, 2010.
Surf’s Up was known for unapologetic, unabashed cheerleading for Bowdoin, whom prosecutors said had swindled investors in Alabama in a previous securities caper during the 1990s. Clarence Busby, an alleged business partner of Bowdoin and the operator of the Golden Panda Ad Builder autosurf, swindled investors in three prime-bank schemes in the 1990s, according to the SEC.
More than $14 million linked to Golden Panda was seized as part of the ASD case — and yet the cheerleading for Bowdoin continued on Surf’s Up. The forum labeled ASD pro-se litigant Curtis Richmond a “hero” after he accused the judge and prosecutors of crimes in 2009.
Richmond was associated with a Utah “Indian” tribe a federal judge in a separate case ruled a “complete sham” after it filed enormous judgments against public officials in performance of their duties. Regardless, the cheerleading on Surf’s Up continued — even after it was revealed that Richmond had a contempt-of-court conviction for threatening federal judges and had been sued successfully under the federal racketeering statute by the Utah public officials and was ordered to pay nearly $110,000 in penalties and damages.
Federal prosecutors now say they have linked ASD to E-Bullion, a shuttered California payment processor whose operator — James Fayed — is accused of arranging the contract murder of his wife, a potential witness against him in a fraud case. E-Bullion has been linked by investigators in the United States and Canada to multiple Ponzi schemes.
SSH2, the company that listed Hoy as a director, alleged in September 2010 that Howard was part of a Ponzi scheme that also involved Patricia Saa, Sutton Capital LLC and Rapallo Investment Group LLC.
Howard had been arrested by the Boca Raton Police Department in March 2010, about six months before SSH2 accused him in the September 2010 lawsuit of operating a Ponzi scheme. In the lawsuit, SSH2 said it had conducted business with the defendants from “early 2009 through March 2010,” and ultimately turned over $39 million.
Howard and the defendants, according to the lawsuit, told SSH2 it was trading in commodities and “would produce profits of 40% per month or more, while not risking any of the invested funds.”
SSH2 did not say in the complaint how it had come to believe that a return of 40 percent a month with no risk was possible. Nor did the company describe its efforts to conduct due diligence on Howard and the other defendants.
Of the $39 million directed at Howard and the other defendants, SSH2 received back approximately $19 million in “fake and fraudulent ‘profits,’” according to the lawsuit.
If SSH2’s assertions that it conducted business with Howard and the others beginning in “early 2009” and expected a return of 40 percent a month are true, it means that the business was being conducted in a period after which both the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme and the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemes were exposed.
Both Madoff and ASD bragged about returns that were far less than the monthly returns allegedly offered by Howard and the other lawsuit defendants.
Madoff’s fraud was exposed in December 2008, about four months after ASD’s alleged fraud was exposed.
And if SSH2’s assertions against Howard and the others are true, it also means the transactions occurred during a period in which Hoy, later to emerge as an SSH2 director, also was moderating forums for ASD and AVG and also was serving as a conference-call host for AVG, which purported to operate from Uruguay and enjoy protection from U.S. regulators because of its purported “private association” structure.
ASD’s Bowdoin initially ceded the money seized by the Secret Service in January 2009, dropping his claims to the cash “with prejudice.” By the end of February 2009, however, Bowdoin sought to reenter the case as a pro se litigant and renew his claim to the money, which totaled about $65.8 million.
Bowdoin’s sudden reappearance in a case he had abandoned coincided with a meeting AVG reportedly conducted with Karl Dahlstrom, a convicted felon. In March 2009 — in a letter posted on Surf’s Up — Bowdoin claimed he had decided to reenter the case after consulting with a “group” of ASD members. Bowdoin did not name the members, but chided federal prosecutors in his letter, writing that his pro se pleadings should “really get their attention.”
For the balance of 2009, Surf’s Up continued to cheerlead for Bowdoin, despite the fact he never told the membership at large about a second forfeiture complaint that had been filed against ASD-connected assets in December 2008. Bowdoin also did not inform ASD members that he had been sued for racketeering and had signed a proffer letter in late 2008 or early 2009 and acknowledged that prosecutors’ material allegations against ASD were all true.
Surf’s Up continued to operate even after prosecutors revealed the existence of the proffer letter. In Bowdoin’s own court pleadings, he had acknowledged he had given information against his interests to prosecutors. Bowdoin said he hoped to work out a deal by which he could avoid prison time, despite the fact prosecutors had alleged he was at the helm of a massive Ponzi scheme.
In October 2008 — at the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing ASD had requested — Surf’s Up conducted an online party for ASD members, complete with images of champagne and fireworks. Members were fed one-sided accounts of what had happened at the hearing, and a federal prosecutor was described derisively as “Gomer Pyle.” ASD’s lawyers were described as the “Perry Mason” team.
A month later — in November 2008 — U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled at ASD had not demonstrated at the hearing that it was a lawful business and not a Ponzi scheme. The AVG forum led by some of the Surf’s Up mods, including Hoy, launched shortly thereafter, and the Surf’s Up forum soldiered on.
AVG was positioned as a way for members to make up their losses in the alleged ASD Ponzi scheme.
Surf’s Up became infamous for deleting comments and information unflattering to Bowdoin. The forum also was used to hatch a rumor that the prosecution secretly had admitted ASD was not a Ponzi scheme but was clinging to the case in a bid to save face.
As time progressed, dozens of pro se litigants attempted to intervene in the ASD case, claiming the government had no “EVIDENCE.” These filings occurred despite the fact that some of the evidence had been a matter of public record since August 2008.
Critics referred to Surf’s Up, whose formal name was the ASD Member Advocates Forum, as the AS[Delusional] forum. Various tortured explanations for Bowdoin’s conduct appeared on the forum, and there were calls for a “militia” to storm Washington, D.C., and for a prosecutor to be placed in a medieval torture rack. Prosecutors and federal agents were derided as “goons” and “Nazis,” and critics were derided as “maggots.”
The SEC’s Case Against Commodities Online
On April 1, the SEC filed an action against Commodities Online that alleged it was selling unregistered securities and operating a commodities fraud that had absorbed at least $27.5 million. Florida attorney David S. Mandel was appointed receiver.
“In connection with the unregistered securities offerings, the Defendants made numerous material misrepresentations and omissions regarding the nature of Commodities Online’s business model and operations, the risks and earnings associated with investing in its securities, and the background of its co-founder and vice-president,” the SEC charged.
“On December 15, 2010, Commodities Online announced on its website that ‘[t]o date, we have 32 contract offerings that have been completed for which our steadfast subscribers have been paid. The dollar total of these contracts is approximately $7.5 million and the payout was in excess of $8.5 million, producing an average earning of over 14.5%.’
“That statement was untrue,” the SEC charged. “There is no evidence to support this amount of investor return. In fact, Commodities Online’s bank records show a net loss for the companies associated with these promised contracts. Further, the company’s records show a net outflow of cash for each of these associated companies.”
By March 14, 2011, the SEC charged, Commodities Online had upped its number of purported successful contracts to 48. That claim also was untrue, the agency charged.
Referring to Howard but not naming him, the SEC said that the company “failed to disclose that in 1997, he was convicted of federal narcotics and firearms felonies and sentenced to 57 months in prison. The Defendants never disclosed his past criminal background to investors either through the Commodities Online website or any other company communication to investors.”
Referring to Gallo but not naming him, the SEC said that, in 2005, he “pled guilty in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey to bank fraud and narcotics charges.
“In 2007, in the same court, he pled guilty to transmitting a threat to injure,” the SEC continued. “He is currently serving a three-year term of supervised release, which expires in July 2011.”
In a separate filing accompanying the complaint filed on April 1, the SEC said that Commodities Online “recently sent approximately $3.8 million to entities and individuals in Mexico and the Netherlands.”
Investigators deemed the transactions “extremely suspicious,” given that the transactions allegedly occurred between March 15, 2001, and March 25, 2011. The SEC said it issued subpoenas to the defendants on March 15, the same day the international transactions began to occur.
BULLETIN: Andy Bowdoin and AdSurfDaily Inc. have lost their appeal of a January 2010 order by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer that $65.8 million be forfeited to the government in the August 2008 civil Ponzi scheme case against Bowdoin’s assets.
The U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia unanimously upheld Collyer, rejecting Bowdoin’s claims he had been denied due process and been hoodwinked by his former attorneys into releasing his claims to the seized cash in January 2009.
“To begin with, there can be no doubt that appellants meant to withdraw their claims,” the panel ruled. “Their withdrawal motion expressly stated that they wished to ‘withdraw and release with prejudice’ their verified claims and that they ‘consent[ed] to the forfeiture of the properties.”
“Nor is there any basis to conclude that appellants were somehow tricked into releasing their claims,” the panel continued. “Despite Bowdoin’s protests to the contrary, his own affidavit shows that he understood well that he was receiving no promise in return for relinquishing his claims.”
Bowdoin’s withdrawal of his claims was “free and deliberate,” the panel ruled.
Although Bowdoin blamed one of his former lawyers for giving him bad advice, the appeals panel said nonsense.
“[F]ar from being negligent, appellants’ attorney had sound reasons for recommending that they cooperate with prosecutors by relinquishing their claims,” the panel ruled.
The ruling means that the government now has title to about $80 million seized in the ASD case. Bowdoin lost a previous appeal for a smaller sum in a separate forfeiture action brought in December 2008, and Collyer ordered the forfeiture of more than $14 million from Golden Panda Ad Builder in July 2009.
Golden Panda was the purported “Chinese” arm of ASD. It was operated by Clarence Busby, whom the SEC had implicated in three prime-bank schemes in the 1990s, according to court filings.
About $65.8 million of the total sum seized in the August 2008 forfeiture case was in Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts, including one account that contained more than $31 million.
Bowdoin initially released his claims to the money in January 2009. By late February of the same year, he sought to reassert his claims as a pro se litigant. He ultimately retained new counsel, and unsuccessfully sought to have Collyer removed from the case.
Collyer refused to step down, and issued the forfeiture order for $65.8 million in January 2010. At least one other ASD member also sought unsuccessfully to force Collyer to disqualify herself from hearing the case.
That member — Curtis Richmond — accused the judge of treason. In a separate case in Utah in 2008, Richmond claimed a federal judge owed him $30 million. That judge, too, refused to step down, finding that a purported Indian tribe with which Richmond was associated was a “sham.”
Richmond has claimed to be a “sovereign” being, as have other people with ties to ASD.
Bowdoin was charged criminally with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities in December 2010. The U.S. Secret Service said he was operating a Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million by disguising itself as a “advertising” business.
ASD perhaps created as many as 40,000 victims, according to court filings. The civil portion of the case featured dozens of templated, pro se filings from ASD members who asserted the government had no “EVIDENCE” of wrongdoing.
Almost three years into the case, some ASD members still are claiming the government has no evidence — despite the fact that the evidence has been discussed in open court and in public filings dating back to August 2008.
