PatrickPretty.com

Tag: U.S. Secret Service

  • EDITORIAL: Was ‘Andy’s Fundraising Army’ Website Launch And Video Release Deliberately Put Off Until AFTER Andy Bowdoin’s July 22 Appearance Before A Federal Judge In Washington? (And Is Bowdoin Risking A Massive Spam Fine In A Purported Email ‘Blast’ Scheduled For Monday?)

    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.

    But documents show that Bowdoin had a court date in Washington July 22 before Collyer.

    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.

    Bowdoin is not popular in all ASD circles. In 2009, some ASD members expressed disgust after they received a purported Christmas greeting from Bowdoin. Earlier, in March 2009, some ASD members expressed horror after they viewed Bowdoin pitching a mysterious, purported opportunity known as “Paperless Access” after the ASD-related seizures.

    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.

  • BULLETIN: CenturionWealthCircle.com — ‘Opportunity’ Pushed By Club Asteria Members And New Darling Of The Ponzi Boards — Is Offline; Nameserver Data Show Same Info ASD Cash Generator/AdViewGlobal Sites Displayed When They Went Missing

    BULLETIN: The website of CenturionWealthCircle.com will not resolve to a server, and DNS data that appears in domain-registration info strongly suggest the site was suspended for spam and abuse.

    The DNS data include this string on two nameservers: SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM.

    In 2008 and 2009, nameserver information for the ASD Cash Generator and AdViewGlobal autosurfs included the same string when the sites went missing.

    CenturionWealthCircle.com is a new darling of Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, both of which are referenced in federal court filings as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.

    Some members of Club Asteria, an “opportunity” that traded on the name of the World Bank amid claims that members could experience a “passive” return on investment of 10 percent a week, also promoted Centurion Wealth Circle. Included among the Centurion Wealth Circle promoters was “Ken Russo,” who claimed on TalkGold (as “DRdave”) to have received $2,032 from Club Asteria during the month of June alone.

    Club Asteria later suspended member cashouts and claimed its revenue had plunged “dramatically.” The firm, whose website appears to have been registered on or near the same date the AdViewGlobal autosurf suspended cashouts in June 2009, blamed members for its problems.

    A photo of Hank Needham, Club Asteria’s purported owner, appears in a promo for ASD Cash Generator, which was implicated by the U.S. Secret Service is an alleged Ponzi scheme that gathered at least $110 million. ASD Cash Generator, also known as AdSurfDaily, was operated by Andy Bowdoin.

    Bowdoin was indicted on Ponzi, securities and wire-fraud charges in December 2010. Two days ago — in a video soliciting $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense — Bowdoin blamed lawyers and a federal judge for his legal problems, claiming he had been “crucified” by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service.

    See the Centurion Wealth Circle thread on RealScam.com, an antiscam site.

     

  • PRONOUN MYSTERY: ‘We Plan To Go After Akerman [Senterfitt] Next,’ AdSurfDaily Member Writes; No Immediate Comment From Law Firm That Represented Andy Bowdoin

    Andy Bowdoin

    UPDATED 3:59 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) An email attributed to an AdSurfDaily member claims “We are now playing offense” and “We plan to go after Akerman Senifit (sic) next.”

    Why the pronoun “we” was used was not immediately clear. Also unclear is why Akerman Senterfitt has been identified as a prospective target of litigation and what, precisely, constituted “offense” on the part of the unidentified “we.”

    Akerman Senterfitt is the Florida-based law firm that represented ASD President Andy Bowdoin in the immediate aftermath of the August 2008 federal seizure of tens of millions of dollars from Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts by the U.S. Secret Service. The initial forfeiture case — and a subsequent forfeiture case brought by federal prosecutors in December 2008 — were filed as civil actions. ASD lost the cases in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and in the U.S. Court of Appeals — long after Akerman Senterfitt withdrew as counsel to Bowdoin and ASD.

    Charles A. Murray was Bowdoin’s counsel of record when final orders of forfeiture were issued against proceeds seized from Bowdoin and when both appeals were decided against Bowdoin, who once claimed as a pro se litigant that he’d been denied “fair notice” of illegal conduct.

    The email, which was attributed to ASD member Todd Disner, did not explain who comprised “we.” Nor did it explain how and why an apparent group of ASD members intended to “go after” the firm, Florida’s largest and one of America’s largest.

    Akerman Senterfitt appears only to have represented Bowdoin and former ASD Chief Executive Officer Juan Fernandez in the August 2008 civil case. There is no record of the firm filing an appearance notice for individual ASD members on the docket of the case, giving rise to questions about how individual ASD members ever could succeed in a bid to sue a law firm that never represented them. In the earliest days of the litigation, some ASD members compared the legal skills of the firm in its representation of Bowdoin and ASD to those of “Perry Mason” — while at once describing a government attorney as a bumbling, hapless “Gomer Pyle.”

    After a key court ruling went against Bowdoin and ASD in November 2008, some ASD members backed away from their earlier “Perry Mason” boast and blamed Akerman Senterfitt for Bowdoin’s legal troubles. The record of the case, however, shows that the government used ASD’s own words against it at an evidentiary hearing conducted in the fall of 2008 at Bowdoin’s request.

    A voicemail message left by the PP Blog for comment at Akerman Senterfitt in Miami was not immediately returned. Bowdoin fired the firm without notice in 2009, according to court records.

    On Jan. 13, 2009, with Akerman Senterfitt as counsel, Bowdoin submitted to the August 2008 forfeiture “with prejudice” and “consent[ed] to the forfeiture of the properties.” More than a month later — on Feb. 27, 2009 — Bowdoin filed a pro se pleading styled “NOTICE of Rescission and Withdrawal of Release of Claims to Seized Property and Consent to Forfeiture.”

    In April 2009, Akerman Senterfitt advised U.S. District Justice Rosemary Collyer that Bowdoin and ASD “have decided to represent themselves without consulting their counsel.

    “By way of example only,” the firm advised Collyer, “Mr. Bowdoin has recently filed, on a pro se basis, a series of motions. Mr. Bowdoin filed these motions without consulting with counsel and without bothering to advise counsel that he would be submitting motions on his own. Under these circumstances, the Akerman Senterfitt Law Firm cannot render effective assistance of counsel.”

    The firm, which was still Bowdoin’s counsel of record when he began to file freelance motions, asked for leave to withdraw from the case, explaining that its representation had become “unreasonably difficult.”

    Collyer released Akerman Senterfitt from the case on April 15, 2009.

    By the close of April 2009 — in response to one of several pro se pleadings by Bowdoin — prosecutors advised Collyer that he had signed a proffer letter in the case and acknowledged that the government’s material allegations were all true.

    Bowdoin himself later acknowledged that he had met with prosecutors over a period of at least four days in December 2008 and January 2009 and had provided information against his interests.

    Neither Bowdoin nor the government has said whether Bowdoin had provided information against the interests of others. Bowdoin claimed in September 2009 that he had been “hoodwinked” into releasing his claims and cooperating with prosecutors by Steven Dobson, a criminal attorney recommended by Akerman Senterfitt.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously rejected Bowdoin’s hoodwinking claim in March 2011.

    There was no basis “to conclude that appellants were somehow tricked into releasing their claims,” the panel ruled. “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.”

    In his own court filings, Bowdoin acknowledged that his decision to withdraw his claims to $65.8 million seized by the Secret Service was made because of a “possibility” that he could avoid a jail term.

    These are among the phrases to which Bowdoin swore on Sept. 15, 2009:

    • Dobson represented to me that I could possibly avoid prison or get a reduced sentence if I agreed to disclose details concerning ASD and releasing the assets.
    • I also signed a document stating that I would release my claims in the abovecaptioned civil in rem forfeiture proceeding, again thinking that necessary for a possible avoidance of a prison term.
    • I did all of this on the understanding that by cooperating I could possibly avoid a prison sentence.
    • I agreed not to exercise my rights in the civil forfeiture proceeding, anticipating from representations made by Dobson that this could possibly keep me out of prison.
    • Dobson lead [sic] me to believe that if I cooperated there was a possibility that I would not be incarcerated or imprisoned.
    • I believed that my cooperation would still result in a criminal sentence that could possibly not include imprisonment or incarceration.
    • I slowly came to understand what I understood from Dobson not to be the case: that my agreement to cooperate provided me no benefit in the criminal matter except the possibility of a reduced sentence if the judge desired which would still be a life sentence.

    New Email Circulating Among ASD Members

    Here, verbatim, is a new email circulating among ASD members. The email was attributed to Todd Disner. Disner, like Bowdoin, is among dozens of litigants who filed pro se pleadings in the civil portion of the case. (Italics added.)

    Hi folks,

    I talked to Andy the other day. He was in Atlanta airport coming home from his hearing in Washington .
    He said the government gave his attorney 10 discs full of files .
    The judge gave his attorney only 90 days to review all the documents .
    This was not fair but this is what the judge determined .

    But what was really interesting was when he told me that the
    prosecution was very proud of 11,000 affidavits they received from us through Rust
    Incorporated. .

    They “think” that they have evidence that now ASD was an investment.

    Of course we knew that that was a trap to get unsuspecting and desperate
    people to sign just about anything in an effort to get their money back .
    (My question is where of the other 107,000 people who did NOT sign the
    affidavit?)

    I’m sure that Andy’s attorney will speak to the coercive nature used to created that questionable evidence. To me it appears more and more that our
    government is operating with malice in this case. I think that will be apparent
    to any jury.

    Andy’s attorney is filing a motion to REDO the affidavit, This is a powerful attempt to get our money back by asking the court to make the government issue a “reasonable” form; one that does not make us perjure ourselves in an effort to recover what is rightfully OURS.

    Remember when we enrolled in ASD, we signed the “Term and Conditions” explicitly stating the ASD was NOT AN INVESTMENT. The existing form make liars out of us, one way or the other.

    Andy was in good spirits and very confident about his case .
    Dwight helped him get money back from his second attorney .
    This is a story in itself. Its shows the way Andy has been treated
    by his previous attorneys.

    We plan to go after Akerman Senifit next. (Andy’s first attorneys)

    It is a tragedy how the government must stoop to such tactics in
    order to prove their case against Andy and ASD.

    We are now playing “offense” and will see what happens.

    Keep your spirits up and try to help the cause.

    Best Regards,

    Todd Disner
    [Phone number deleted by PP Blog]

    Rust Consulting Inc. is the government-approved claims processor for victims of the alleged ASD fraud. ASD members who certify themselves crime victims through a process known as remission may be eligible to receive compensation through seized proceeds. The government announced nearly three years ago that it was establishing a restitution program.

    Some ASD members have described the remissions program as a government plot. Meanwhile, two ASD figures — Kenneth Wayne Leaming and Christian Oesch — sought to sue the government last year for the spectacular sum of more than $29 TRILLION.

    Disner started a drive earlier this year to raise money to help him and onetime attorney Dwight Schweitzer file a pro se lawsuit against the government.

    In recent weeks, other ASD members have started a fundraising drive for Bowdoin, who was arrested on ASD-related criminal charges in December 2010.

    There have been at least four efforts by subgroups of ASD members to raise money to litigate against the government since August 2008. Some ASD members who provided funding have contributed multiple times, becoming members of subgroups within subgroups that issued appeals for cash.

    A defunct organization known as ASD Members International (ASDMI) purported in October 2008 to be a Missouri nonprofit whose aim was to litigate against the government even if it was proceeding lawfully and perhaps have prosecutors and investigators charged with crimes.

    Separately, a group known as the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) claimed it had gathered more than $100,000 to challenge the forfeiture and speed the return of seized funds. ASDMBA’s de facto head was Bob Guenther, a convicted felon.

    ASDMBA members complained that Guenther provided no transparent accounting after soliciting funds.

    Disner’s apparent group of ASD members is known informally as “ASD Justice,” the title of a Blog. No accounting has been released of the sums it collected. A plan by Disner and Schweitzer to sue the government in Florida’s federal courts appears to have stalled.

    Bowdoin’s apparent group is calling itself “Andy’s Fundraising Army.” It has missed two launch dates this month, but now says it will launch tomorrow. The group has positioned Bowdoin as “David,” with the government cast as a lawless “Goliath.”

  • Tax Lien Was Filed Against Golden Panda’s Clarence Busby Prior To Lawsuit Autosurf Operator Filed Against Bank; Separately, Georgia Has Dissolved 2 Busby Firms And Says Biz Ad Splash ‘Surf Company In State Of Noncompliance

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Clarence Busby Jr., a figure associated with at least four autosurfs — AdSurfDaily, Golden Panda Ad Builder, LaFuenteDinero and BizAdSplash — has encountered a recent string of troubles, including a mortgage foreclosure and tax liens. Owing to his association with ASD President Andy Bowdoin, who operated ASD and LaFuenteDinero and once had a partnership with Busby in Golden Panda, Busby also was forced to spend an unknown sum on legal fees after the seizure of ASD- and Golden Panda-connected assets in 2008.

    Bowdoin said in September 2009 that he’d spent more than $1 million on legal fees in the first 13 months of ASD-related litigation. He was arrested on federal charges on Dec. 1, 2010, and had to arrange a bond of $350,000.  Sixteen days later — on December 17, 2010 — federal prosecutors filed yet another (the third) civil-forfeiture complaint against Bowdoin-connected assets. Bowdoin filed appeals in the first two forfeiture cases, losing both and driving up his legal costs.

    Despite the costly troubles encountered by both Bowdoin and Busby — and the remarkable staying power of those troubles, which next month will enter their fourth year — promoters on TalkGold, MoneyMakerGroup and other Ponzi forums still are pushing autosurfs and HYIPs.

    They’re pushing them even though Bowdoin and others potentially face long prison sentences and have lost significant dollar sums and property as a result of their infatuation with what prosecutors have described as serial lawlessness.

    On July 6, a federal judge ordered Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, to pay more than $6.81 million in disgorgement and penalties. Like ASD and countless schemes, Legisi was promoted on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup — and court filings in the Legisi case specifically reference MoneyMakerGroup.

    Still pushing ‘surfs and HYIPs?

    Apparently using a fill-in-the-blank litigation template, Clarence Busby Jr. sought foreclosure relief on a central Cobb County property in Marietta, Ga. Busby's filing also placed the property in Gwinnett County, which does not border Cobb County. (Graphic from Wikipedia.)

    When former autosurf operator Clarence Busby Jr. filed a lawsuit last year last seeking relief from from a bank and other parties involved in a mortgage foreclosure against him, he’d already been put on notice by the Internal Revenue Service that the agency intended to collect thousands of dollars in back taxes from him, according to records in Cobb County, Ga.

    The taxes were from 2009, according to records. During the same year, Busby launched an autosurf known as Biz Ad Splash — but the tax bill was for a different Busby entity.

    On Aug. 11, 2010, the IRS prepared a federal tax lien against Busby and a company known as Freedom Achievement LLC for $15,481. The lien was formally recorded on Aug. 26, 2010. A note on the lien described Busby as “SOLE MBR” of Freedom Achievement, whose business purpose was not immediately clear.

    About four months later — in December 2010 — Busby filed a pro se lawsuit demanding relief from Quicken Loans, OneWest Bank, MERSCorp and 1,000 “Doe” defendants in Cobb County Superior Court.

    OneWest and MERS responded in January 2011 by moving to have Busby’s case transferred to federal court in the Northern District of Georgia because the lawsuit named defendants in multiple states and involved a controversy that exceeded the sum of $75,000.

    Busby’s case was assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Robert L. Vining Jr., who dismissed it for failure to state a claim. Beyond dismissing the lawsuit for failure to state a claim, Vining agreed with the defendants that Busby’s arguments had no legal merit. Busby’s pro se pleadings appeared to have come from a fill-in-the-blank legal kit.

    These words appeared on the first page of Busby’s complaint: “COMES NOW, name here, as plaintiff” — and Busby did not insert his name in the “name here” space.

    By contrast, some filings in the ASD/Golden Panda forfeiture case begin with these words, “COMES NOW, plaintiff United States of America, by and through its attorney.”

    The Busby complaint also claims the Busby property in dispute is located in “Gwinnett County.” The document claimed elsewhere that the property was located in the city of Marietta in “Cobb County,” the venue in which Busby sued.

    Marietta is situated in central Cobb County. Cobb County and Gwinnett County do not border one another. and the property is listed in Cobb County courthouse records, meaning it is possible that Busby used an existing legal template and never swapped out an existing reference to Gwinnett County — in the same manner in which he did not insert his name in the “name here” space.

    Whether Busby’s apparent fill-in-the-blank oversights added to the defendants’ costs in successfully defending against the lawsuit is unclear. What is clear is that Busby came out on the losing end and that the defendants referenced the IRS tax lien against Busby in Cobb County in their response to his complaint.

    Separately, the state of Georgia dissolved a Busby company known as Homeshare Investment Club Corp. The dissolution occurred on Sept. 13, 2010, less than a month after the IRS tax lien was filed against Freedom Achievement LLC, according to records.

    Records pertaining to Homeshare Investment Club show that it used the same address used by Busby in the formation of Biz Ad Splash NA LLC.

    BizAdSplash, or BAS, was an autosurf that ceased operating in January 2010. BAS launched in the aftermath of the ASD- and Golden Panda-related asset seizures. A separate address associated with the BAS filing in Georgia is the address of a maildrop in Kennesaw.

    BAS purported to operate offshore. Its apparent U.S. domestic brand is listed in noncompliance by the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp.

    Members of BAS have complained to the PP Blog about not getting refunds from the autosurf. How much money the surf collected is unclear.

    At the same time the state of Georgia was dissolving Homeshare Investment Club, it also was dissolving another Busby enterprise: Ocean View Enterprises Inc.  Meanwhile, yet another Busby firm — Legacy Premier Properties Inc. — is listed in a state of noncompliance.

  • AdSurfDaily/Golden Panda Figure Clarence Busby Jr. Filed Pro Se Lawsuit Against Bank, 1,000 ‘Does’; ‘Plaintiff Has No Knowledge Of The True Names And Identities Of Any Or All Of The Real Lenders’

    Even as bank failures and  foreclosures were piling up in Georgia last year, a man associated with at least four failed autosurf companies was filing lawsuits against mortgage companies and 1,000 “Doe” defendants amid claims he did not know the “true names” of the “real lenders.”

    Clarence Busby Jr. of Acworth, Ga., advised a Cobb County judge that it was “long standing black letter Mortgage law” from the 19th century that he should receive foreclosure relief from Quicken Loans, OneWest Bank, a service company and the “Does.”

    In January 2011, the defendants moved to have the cases removed to federal court in Northern Georgia and filed for dismissal. The dismissal was granted in March.

    A street address for Busby that appeared in both the county and federal filings corresponds with an address used by Biz Ad Splash NA LLC (BAS) in Georgia corporate filings dated May 13, 2009. BAS was an autosurf associated with Busby that went missing last year. Busby also was the president of Golden Panda Ad Builder, yet another autosurf, and a onetime business partner of Thomas A. “Andy” Bowdoin, the operator of the Florida-based AdSurfDaily autosurf.

    The address BAS used in the Georgia filings was a mail drop, according to records.

    Bowdoin was arrested in December 2010. The U.S. Secret Service said he had presided over an international Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million. Assets tied to both Bowdoin and Busby were seized as part of the ASD/Golden Panda probe, which also involved an autosurf known as LaFuenteDinero.

    Busby was implicated in three prime-bank schemes by the SEC in the 1990s and was enjoined from violating securities laws by a federal judge. An FDIC-insured bank that once held Golden Panda funds failed in April 2011.

    Georgia leads the United States in bank failures, with Florida nipping on its heels. Both states also are high on the list of mortgage foreclosures. Foreclosures tend to lower the value of surrounding properties.

    Busby has described himself in court filings as a minister and real-estate professional. The actions in Cobb County that were removed to federal court were filed pro se, meaning Busby acted as his own attorney.

    The defendants in the cases claimed Busby was seeking to “invalidate and/or void” in its “entirety” a $120,000 security instrument held on a property in Marietta, Ga.

    Records suggest the property has been bought and sold twice in recent months for wildly different prices.

    Among Busby’s claims in the Cobb County lawsuit was that the “true names and identities of any or all” of the “real” lenders, investors and others involved in his mortgage “were hidden from the plaintiff.”

    BAS, which purported to be headquartered offshore, entered the autosurf world in January 2009 — after the ASD, Golden Panda and LaFuenteDinero-related asset seizures.

    The entry of BAS began with the stern bang of a drum and a dire message in a promotional video: “The World Is In Crisis,” the video warned. “Turn On The News, And You’ll See. The Stock Market Is At A Record Low. Foreclosures Are At An All-Time High. Thousand’s (sic) Are Losing Their Jobs. Banks Are Closing. There Has To Be A Solution!”

    The dire bang of the drum faded, replaced by a riff from an organ. The riff grew frantic, building toward a crescendo. The video never said the tones were from a 1999 work by Fatboy Slim: “Right Here, Right Now.”

    Messages flashed in front of viewers’ eyes for more than a minute before the video announced the company’s name — BizAdSplash — and positioned the surf as the cure for all the economic misery in the world.

    “Biz Ad Splash Has The Answer,” it said. “The Plan Is Simple. Advertise Your Business, A Product Or Service, Introduce Others To The Value Of Advertising. View A Few Ads For A Few Minutes A Day. Earn Profits. It’s That Simple!”

  • BULLETIN: ASDCashGenerator Website Is Active Again; Is A New ‘Program’ In The Offing? Page Is Accessible Through Old ASD Ad That Features Image Of Purported Club Asteria Owner; No Comment From Investigators

    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.

  • Missouri-Based ‘Trainer’ For Florida-Based AdSurfDaily Was Head Of Purported ‘Religious’ Nonprofit Firm In Oregon; State Dissolved Firm Over Which Erma ‘Web-Room Lady’ Seabaugh Presided; Address For ‘Carpe Diem’ Was A Mail Drop

    Missouri-based Erma Seabaugh, known among members of Florida-based AdSurfDaily as a company trainer and the "Web Room Lady," was the president of Carpe Diem, a purported "religious" entity in Oregon.

    On Jan. 16, 2008, the state of Oregon recorded the business registration of an entity known as “Carpe Diem,” a purported “religious” nonprofit firm. AdSurfDaily figure Erma Seabaugh of Cape Girardeau, Mo., was listed as Carpe Diem’s president and secretary. ASD members described Seabaugh as a “trainer” for the Florida-based autosurf firm whose operator, Thomas A. “Andy” Bowdoin, 76, is under federal indictment for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    The Oregon registration of Carpe Diem coincides with a period in which ASD allegedly was ratcheting up the criminality to drive more business to its $110 million Ponzi scheme — first by introducing a companion “Spanish” autosurf known as LaFuenteDinero and later by launching a “Chinese” surf known as Golden Panda Ad Builder and producing a video in which an attorney who appeared with Bowdoin preemptively denied ASD was operating a Ponzi scheme, according to federal court filings.

    As an ASD trainer and a person with “privileges within the ASD computer database system to post and remove ‘ad packages’ from individuals’ accounts,” Seabaugh was positioned to benefit from ASD’s crimes and engage in crimes of her own, according to federal court filings.

    The filings raise the possibility that Seabaugh was seeking to disguise personal income as the proceeds of a purported religious entity and use ASD itself to launder money or hide income.

    Prosecutors said in December that it appeared as though Seabaugh “was selling her own investment ‘ad packs’ to clients and representing herself as ASD.” The Cape Girardeau, Mo., address for Carpe Diem in Oregon records is associated with a firm that provides mailbox and parcel services.

    Oregon dissolved Carpe Diem’s registration in March 2010, about 26 months after the entity was registered in the state.

    Just weeks prior to the January 2008 creation of Carpe Diem — on Nov. 11, 2007, Dec. 9, 2007 and Dec. 19, 2007 — Seabaugh opened three separate ASD accounts. Each of the accounts used a variation of the Carpe Diem name: Carpe Diem, Carpe Diem2 and Carpe Diem3, according to federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia.

    The presence of a form of the Carpe Diem name in three ASD accounts leads to a question about whether Seabaugh or others were seeking to structure transactions to avoid tax-reporting requirements or to minimize the risk that a bank might begin to ask uncomfortable questions.

    Seabaugh used the Carpe Diem account to sponsor “48 additional investors into the ASD investment scheme,” federal prosecutors said in a forfeiture complaint filed on Dec. 17, 2010, about 16 days after Bowdoin was arrested in Florida.

    Known as ASD’s “Web Room Lady,” Seabaugh withdrew $107,997 from the Carpe Diem account “through checks that issued from ASD,” according to the complaint. The account was funded with “ad packs” that “originated” at LaFuenteDinero, the “Spanish” version of ASD.

    It also was funded with $10,510 that originated at e-Bullion, which prosecutors described as an online digital currency.

    Two of Seabaugh’s Carpe Diem accounts — Carpe Diem2 and Carpe Diem3 — were used to promote an apparent “pyramid scheme” known as StreamlineGold.net, according to the forfeiture complaint. Although Seabaugh appears not to have made a withdrawal from the Carpe Diem3 account, she withdrew $83,994 from the Carpe Diem2 account, which also had been opened with a transfer of “ad packs” from LaFuenteDinero, according to the forfeiture complaint.

    LaFuenteDinero means the “fountain of money.” Different email addresses were used to open each of the Carpe Diem accounts, according to the forfeiture complaint.

    In addition, Seabaugh used an address with the letters “ASD” and the word “admin” included among the characters comprising a free gmail address, according to the forfeiture complaint.

    E-bullion operator James Fayed was convicted in May of arranging the contract murder of his estranged wife, Pamela Fayed, a potential witness against him on matters pertaining to fraud. James Fayed faces the death penalty for the slaying.

    Investigators have linked e-Bullion to multiple Ponzi schemes.

    At least $10,510 flowed from E-Bullion to ASD through Seabaugh’s Carpe Diem account prior to the gruesome slashing murder of Pamela Fayed in a California parking garage on July 28, 2008.

    About four days later — on Aug. 1, 2008 — the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the personal bank accounts of ASD’s Bowdoin. Seabaugh has not been charged with a crime, but agents seized at least $153,087 from bank accounts linked to Carpe Diem and Seabaugh, according to court filings.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Paranoia-Maker: FBI Undercover Sting In Florida Leads To Criminal, Civil Charges Against 5 In Alleged Penny-Stock Capers; Agents Established ‘Phony’ Consulting Company

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: An undercover sting by the FBI in Florida has led to criminal and civil charges against five alleged penny-stock fraudsters in Florida, Texas, Nevada and California.

    The sting featured a phony “consulting” company created by the FBI, authorities said. News about the make-believe consultancy followed on the heels of news last month that U.S. investigators had created a “payment processor” as part of a different probe into illegal gambling.

    Charged criminally in today’s undercover cases were Brian Gibson, 63, of Coconut Creek, Fla; Donald W. Klein, 40, of Frisco, Texas; Douglas Newton, 66, of Rancho Mirage, Calif; Charles Fuentes, 66, of Dana Point, Calif; and Thomas Schroepfer, 54, of Las Vegas. Schroepfer also is known as Thomas Schroepfer Baetsen.

    The men and several companies also were charged civilly by the SEC in what the agency described as a coordinated law-enforcement assault against microcap hucksters.

    “Investors deserve better than secret investment strategies based on kickbacks and bribes,” said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.

    The Miami region’s top federal prosecutor, meanwhile, said the cases evolved from the Southern District of Florida’s ongoing Securities and Investment Fraud Initiative, a task force aimed at criminals and fraudsters operating in the region.

    “The defendants charged today abused their knowledge of the capital markets hoping to misappropriate money held in pension fund and brokerage accounts to enrich themselves and their co-conspirators,” said Wifredo A. Ferrer.

    Undercover FBI agents posed as scammers and set up a phony “consulting” business as part of the probe, the SEC said.

    “The defendants charged today were intent on making profits for themselves while defrauding others,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office.

    Newton, the SEC said, was chief executive officer of Real American Brands Inc., now known as Real American Capital Corp. He was accused of paying kickbacks to a “purported employee pension fund trustee” to buy more than 6.2 million shares of restricted Real American Brands stock.

    He further was accused of trying to conceal the kickbacks through a “consulting” firm.

    However, the trustee Newton believed to be corrupt actually was “a fictitious person,” the SEC said. Meanwhile, “the trustee’s business associate who helped arrange the deal was an undercover FBI agent,” and the consulting company was a “phony” one created by the FBI, the SEC added.

    Klein was the president and chief executive officer of KCM Holdings Corp. He is accused of engaging in two restricted stock transactions and one market transaction involving KCM Holdings’ stock.

    “Klein and the company paid kickbacks to an undercover FBI agent who portrayed himself as a business associate of a corrupt trustee of an employee pension fund, in exchange for the fund’s purchase of 2.5 million shares of restricted KCM Holdings stock,” the SEC said. “Klein attempted to conceal the kickbacks through a consulting agreement with a phony company that would receive the kickbacks. In another scheme, Klein bribed a purported corrupt stockbroker (actually an undercover FBI agent) to purchase KCM Holdings stock in the open market for brokerage clients with discretionary accounts.”

    Thomas Schroepfer was president and president of of SmokeFree Innotec Inc. He, too, got caught in the sting, the SEC said.

    For his part, Fuentes was a promoter of SmokeFree’s stock, and “paid kickbacks to an undercover FBI agent, posing as the business associate of a corrupt employee pension fund trustee, in exchange for the fund’s purchase of 400,000 shares of restricted SmokeFree stock,” the SEC said.

    Schroepfer, the SEC said, “attempted to conceal the kickbacks through a consulting agreement with a phony company created to receive the kickbacks.

    “In addition, SmokeFree issued shares of its stock to a cooperating witness for acting as a middleman in the scheme,” the SEC said.

    Gibson “created a now-defunct website, Roaringpennystocks.com, to promote shares of Xtreme Motorsports International Inc., as part of a planned pump-and-dump scheme,” the SEC charged.

    He is accused of touting Xtreme Motorsports “by blasting a series of e-mails to potential investors” and posting “false testimonials on the site from purported investors raving about their success in following the website’s stock picks,” the SEC said.

    In a separate case in Maryland last month, prosecutors announced that federal agents had created a “payment processor” to infiltrate illegal gambling operations.

    The name of the Feds’ “payment processor” was Linwood Payment Solutions — and its website now serves this message:

    “Linwood Payment Solutions is a Department of Homeland Security Undercover Business set up to identify and prosecute companies accepting and paying out funds for U.S. customers who gamble online illegally.”

    In response to a white-collar fraud epidemic involving huge sums of money and fraudsters and criminals operating both domestically and internationally, U.S. agencies, including the Secret Service, ICE and others, have been employing techniques once largely reserved for organized-crime probes.

  • UNCONFIRMED: Club Asteria Suspends Member Cashouts; If Ponzi Forum Reports On Payout Halt Are True, Then Decision Was Made Virtually 2 Years To The Day After AdViewGlobal Autosurf Collapsed

    A Virginia-based company that trades on the name of the World Bank and claims to help lift some of the poorest people on earth out of poverty by involving them in an income and MLM-like recruitment scheme has suspended member cashouts, according to posts on Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forums.

    If the news about Club Asteria is true — and the company is not confirming it on its news webpage — then the firm may be following the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf into the darkness virtually two years to the day after AVG suspended cashouts after collecting an unknown sum of money and declaring member payouts never were guaranteed.

    Club Asteria, according to chatter on infamous Ponzi forums such as MoneyMakerGroup, did not call its decision not to pay members a suspension. Rather, the firm described it as a “decision to accumulate revenue share disbursements for the next 30 to 60 days.”

    Members have claimed in promos for months that Club Asteria provided a “passive” investment opportunity and that earnings were guaranteed. The company itself has implied as much, according to promotional materials. Club Asteria is under investigation by Italian authorities, and confirmed in May that its PayPal account had been frozen.

    After the PayPal freeze, which involved an unspecified sum of money, Club Asteria slashed its weekly payout rate to less than 1 percent and urged members to use offshore payment processors.

    Like AVG, Club Asteria blamed negative developments on its own members. The firm does not publish verifiable financial data, and members say payments come via wire from an entity known as Asteria Holdings Limited in Hong Kong.

    Why a Virginia-based company would route money through an apparent Hong Kong-based subsidiary to both U.S.-based members and international members never has been clear. Some members have published spreadsheets and ads that state plainly or imply that Club Asteria members can count on earning $400 a week for a payment of $19.95 a month, with earnings projected at a rate of 10 percent a week.

    Other members have claimed Club Asteria pays 3 percent to 4 percent a week, numbers that project to a return of between 156 percent and 208 percent per year. References to a “passive” earnings opportunity with guaranteed payouts gave rise to questions about whether Club Asteria and its members were selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.

    Meanwhile, the presence of promotions and “I got paid” posts on infamous Ponzi forums led to questions about whether Club Asteria had come into possession of funds tainted by one or more Ponzi or fraud schemes.

    When AVG collapsed two years ago this week, the firm said it was retooling and would make an 80/20 program mandatory upon relaunch. Club Asteria, whose domain name appears to have been registered on June 25, 2009,  reportedly incorporated an 80/20 program into its business model upon its launch in 2010.

    Club Asteria’s domain, according to web records, was registered on the very same day news about the collapse of AVG surfaced. On June 30, 2009 — five days after its collapse — AVG’s name was referenced as an iteration of Florida-based AdSurfDaily in a racketeering lawsuit filed against ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    Bowdoin was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities in December 2010. In August 2008, prior to the launches of both AVG and Club Asteria, tens of millions of dollars were seized from Bowdoin’s 10 personal bank accounts by the Secret Service.

    It is believed that ASD, AVG and Club Asteria had promoters and members in common.

    In the online Ponzi world, 80/20 programs are used to minimize cash outflow and disguise the nature of the programs. Club Asteria members preemptively have claimed the firm was not operating a Ponzi, a highly dubious claim given that the company does not publish audited financial information and that members — perhaps particularly members from Third World countries, countries ravaged by war or countries governed by dictators or strongmen — likely lacked the means or ability to visit Club Asteria’s U.S. headquarters to examine the books in person.

  • EDITORIAL: The AdSurfDaily Solution: Form ‘Andy’s Army,’ Target The Government With $50 ‘Rocks,’ Stone ‘Goliath’ With Cash From ASD Members And ‘Other Freedom Fighters Across America,’ Provide Bowdoin’s Lawyers ‘Massive Funds’ To Defeat ‘Giant Common Enemy’

    Andy Bowdoin

    Two weeks after a purported “sovereign citizen” allegedly opened fire with an AK-47 on a Pensacola seafood store because it was out of crawfish, Floridians may be confronting yet-another bizarre and disturbing drama.

    Indeed, members of Quincy-based AdSurfDaily appear to be circulating an email call to raise defense funds for ASD President Andy Bowdoin, accused criminally in December 2010 by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service of operating an international Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million.

    After earlier evoking the image of the President of the United States to sanitize the ASD scheme, Bowdoin’s apologists now are evoking the image of famed golfer Arnold Palmer and his famed “Arnie’s Army.”

    “So now we have a strong chance to build ‘Andy’s Army’ made up of many tens of thousands of caring ASD members and other Freedom Fighters across America who are all joining together in this extremely important fight for Truth and Justice,” the email read in part.

    It went on to describe the U.S. government as a “giant common enemy that destroyed Andy’s life and reputation.” The email further accused the Secret Service of seizing “all the ASD member’s advertising money from their accounts” and keeping it.

    Curiously, though, the email did not explain that Bowdoin — in 2008 — agreed with the government that money seized by the Secret Service belonged to him, not individual ASD members. Nor did the email explain how the government, which has described Bowdoin as a recidivist felon involved in at least five bids over the years to fleece investors,  had “destroyed” Bowdoin’s life and reputation.

    After not explaining those two things, the email went on not to explain that the government announced more than two years ago that it was establishing a restitution program through a remissions administrator appointed by the Justice Department and the Secret Service — and that scammed ASD investors would be compensated from cash seized from Bowdoin’s bank accounts.

    Three of Bowdoin’s bids to scam investors over the years occurred while he was operating ASD between 2006 and 2008, renaming the company to launch a new Ponzi scheme under a new brand — and coming up with two other autosurfs to scam investors, according to the government. Two previous Bowdoin efforts to defraud investors occurred more than a decade ago, according to court filings.

    Instead of telling investors about his true history, he falsely led them to believe he was a highly successful businessman who’d earned a nod for business achievement from the President of the United States. Donations Bowdoin provided the National Republican Congressional Committee were funded with Ponzi proceeds, according to the government.

    In September 2009, federal prosecutors described Bowdoin, now 76, as “delusional.” The assertion was made just days after Bowdoin — in a conference call with members — claimed his fight against the government was inspired by a former Miss America.

    Crucially, prosecutors alleged nearly two years ago, Bowdoin had told members the seized money belonged to them. But he had told a federal judge that the money belonged to him.

    “[T]his con man cannot manage to keep his stories straight,” prosecutors said.

    But what the government described as an autosurf  Ponzi scheme with at least two other autosurf Ponzi schemes feeding it now is being described by Bowdoin’s apologists as a “wonderful” opportunity.

    And the U.S. government, which stopped an alleged Ponzi scheme in its tracks before it could further mushroom, is being described as the “enemy.”

    “This same enemy destroyed and stopped the wonderful ASD business that Andy and his staff had continually created for 2 years that was making ASD member’s dreams of Financial Freedom come true,” the email continued.

    Although ASD has not been associated with acts of violence, the company is known to have within its membership ranks people who define themselves as “sovereign” beings. In 2008, after the Secret Service seized 10 of Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts amid allegations he disguised a securities business as an “advertising” business and was falsely trading on the name of President George W. Bush to sanitize his scheme, Bowdoin claimed the seizures were the work of “Satan.” For good measure, he said the government’s acts against his company were comparable to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. When reporters called ASD’s office, they were greeted by Bowdoin’s voice on an answering machine.

    Bowdoin assured callers that God was on the company’s side.

    Now, nearly three years later — with Bowdoin facing serious felony charges and having lost two federal appeals for more than $65.8 million seized through civil forfeiture while confronting at least one more civil-forfeiture case and a racketeering lawsuit filed by three of his members — Bowdoin says he is out of money, according to ASD members.

    The remedy for Bowdoin’s purported lack of funds, according to his apologists, is for ASD members to provide cash $20 and $50 at a time. The money will go into a legal war chest from which Bowdoin, positioned as “David,” can draw funds to stone his enemy in court, with the government positioned as “Goliath.”

    We presume the David-and-Goliath reference in the email is figurative, but the language employed by the apologists is disturbing even if no actual rocks will be thrown at the people who prosecute criminal cases and protect the life of the President of the United States while guarding the U.S. financial infrastructure.

    “In the Biblical Story of David & Goliath, little David, all alone, threw only one rock with a strong force and deadly aim and killed Goliath with a sharp powerful blow to the forehead,” the email read. “And now each member of Andy’s Army can throw one rock (one contribution of up to $50), and when combined all together will become tens of thousands of these financial ‘rocks’ that are each propelled by the powerful force of Truth, and these ‘rocks’ will strike the common enemy by giving Andy’s Legal Defense Team the massive funds they need to fight and win this giant case for Andy, for ASD and for each of you. Together the combined financial force of Andy’s Army can destroy this giant nightmare and make that wonderful dream described above come true for everyone.”

    The new bid to raise funds for Bowdoin follows on the heels of a bid by some Florida members of ASD to raise funds for themselves — reportedly $10,000 to sue the United States in Florida’s federal courts. Dozens of ASD members previously had failed in their pro se bids to derail the forfeiture cases against Bowdoin’s money in federal court in the District of Columbia.

    Prior to the failed bids in the District of Columbia, a federal judge was described as “brain dead” if she ruled against ASD. One ASD member called for other members to form a “militia” and storm Washington with guns. Another opined that a federal prosecutor should be placed in a torture rack — with ASD members drawing straws to see who got the honor of turning the wheel.

    ASD critics were described as “rats,” “maggots” and “cockroaches” — and these things happened after Bowdoin advised the troops that “Satan” was on the prowl and that God was on ASD’s side.

    This madness is hardly limited to Florida.

    About the only things for certain is that Andy Bowdoin is no Arnold Palmer, and ASD was no “wonderful” company.

    What is was was a criminal mirage that triggered a mass delusion.

  • PART 2: PROSECUTION BOMBSHELL(S): Operators And ‘Insiders’ Received ‘Millions Of Dollars’ From ASD; Bowdoin Changed Subject When Told What He Was Doing Was ‘Not Mathematically Possible’; Government Targeted ASD Money In Iowa Bank Accounts

    EDITOR’S NOTE: See Part One here.

    UPDATED 1:46 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AdSurfDaily “paid out millions of dollars to operators and insiders,” according to a U.S. Secret Service affidavit originally filed under seal in February 2009.

    But ASD President Andy Bowdoin changed the subject when people told him that what Florida-based ASD was doing not only was illegal, but also was “not mathematically possible,” according to the affidavit.

    What he was trying to do, according to court filings, was establish at least three autosurfs that would generate Ponzi-extending cash while Bowdoin positioned them as legitimate “advertising” businesses.

    And Bowdoin also wanted to persuade members that he had discovered a formula that purportedly made it possible for ASD to set aside 50 percent of its daily revenue and pay participants 125 percent of what they paid in — all while planting the seed that members could expect a return of 8 percent a day on some days.

    Investigators saw things a different way, saying ASD was creating a minimum liability of $1.25 for every dollar it took in.

    “Try it — it works,” Bowdoin simply told the doubters, changing the subject instead of addressing the mathematical realities, according to the Secret Service.

    There was too little profit in operating legitimately, Bowdoin told a consultant, according to the Secret Service.

    As ASD was facing a Ponzi abyss, a consultant told Bowdoin there was a way for ASD to clean up its act, according to the Secret Service.

    “Bowdoin, however, was dissatisfied with the consultant’s revenue sharing proposal and with the limited revenue a legitimate business would produce,” the Secret Service alleged in the February 2009 affidavit. “Bowdoin rejected the consultant’s plan and terminated his relationship with the consultant.”

    Bowdoin had arrived at his 50-in/125-out formula after an earlier formula in which ASD purportedly had set aside 60 percent of its revenue to pay participants 150 percent of what they paid in had brought on a Ponzi collapse that caused the company to cease operations and leave investors in limbo for weeks in 2007, according to the Secret Service.

    ASD’s original formula was concocted by Bowdoin and his “silent partner,” a man who recruited Bowdoin into the 12DailyPro autosurf Ponzi scheme, according to the Secret Service.

    Both of ASD’s formulas were just a means of hiding ASD’s true nature as a financial beast with a fatal disease, according to court filings.

    Despite the spectacular collapse of 12DailyPro amid Ponzi allegations filed by the SEC in early 2006, Bowdoin and his silent partner ruminated that 12DailyPro simply had promised to pay out too much money on a daily basis, according to the Secret Service.

    Upstart ASD, Bowdoin and his silent partner speculated, could take regulators out of play and avoid the Ponzi fate of 12DailyPro by telling investors that the firm would pay out less money and by introducing verbal sleight-of-hand to disguise the true nature of the business, according to the Secret Service.

    ASD also speculated that it could circumvent the Ponzi problem and law-enforcement scrutiny by suggesting that ASD’s payouts, which the firm called “rebates,” were not “guaranteed,” according to the Secret Service.

    Despite telling members to “Try it — it works,” Bowdoin had no confidence in his business model and knew it was still a Ponzi despite the post-12DailyPro tweaking. In the end, according to court documents and other records, ASD still was telling investors they’d get back more than they paid in and, on a yearly basis, would receive a return of 365 percent at a “rebate” rate of 1 percent a day.

    Even as ASD was playing in the post-12DailyPro fields and grew eventually to suck in tens of millions of dollars a week, less than 2 percent of its revenue came from external sources. More than 98 percent came from members and was simply being recycled to other members to keep the Ponzi afloat, according federal prosecutors.

    At a certain point in time, Bowdoin did away with unlimited purchases and limited the amount investors could pay ASD to $12,000 “because he did not want members to lo[]se too much money should ASD collapse,” according to the February 2009 Secret Service affidavit.

    The import of the claim is that prosecutors can argue to a jury that Bowdoin himself was worried about the imminent demise of ASD — a demise Bowdoin brought on through the use of various mathematical concoctions, linguistic fantasies and fabrications designed to separate people from their money to keep the Ponzi afloat.

    Meanwhile, the claim sets the stage for prosecutors to tell a jury that Bowdoin anticipated a catastrophe and sought to insulate himself from prosecution by suggesting that ASD did not guarantee rebates and that customers were purchasing “advertising,” as opposed to entering into an investment contract with ASD.

    “[T]o ensure that no individual investor monopolized the rebate pool, and to reduce the
    likelihood that any individual investor would suffer a catastrophic loss, Bowdoin placed a limit on the amount of ‘advertising’ members could purchase,” the Secret Service said. “Of course, it would have made no sense to impose such limitations if ASD was actually selling, and members actually were purchasing, Internet advertising.”

    Bowdoin’s various stories were at odds with themselves, the Secret service alleged. Even as Bowdoin was telling members ASD was not in the investment business and instead was a provider of  advertising “rebates,” ASD’s computer systems described member payouts as “ROI” — for Return on Investment.

    And even as he positioned himself as a Christian “money magnet” and merchant who’d been recognized by the President of the United States — and even as he purportedly was enforcing a $12,000 purchase ceiling to minimize the chance an individual investor would become engulfed in a calamity — Bowdoin told attendees of company “rallies” in U.S. cities that ASD would match the money they plowed into the firm 50 cents on the dollar.

    “At the rallies, to raise more money, Bowdoin concocted the idea of running ‘rally-only promotions,’” the Secret Service alleged. “New members were told they would receive a 50% bonus for joining at the rally. For example, if a new member purchased $500 in ‘ad packages’ as a bonus she would be credited $750 to her account. Representatives of ASD stated this was a ‘World Wide Wealth’ program that was available to anyone with Internet access.”

    In early 2008, Bowdoin became a participant in a scheme with a “North Carolina” attorney to assure prospects that ASD had been vetted and was operating lawfully. ASD’s 26-minute legality video and the rallies caused tens of millions of dollars suddenly to flow into the firm, according to the Secret Service.

    Just a year earlier, the company suspended operations because it was starved for cash flow and faced a collapsed Ponzi, according to the Secret Service. ASD’s response to the collapse was to launch a new autosurf Ponzi under a new name — and to port the accounts of its original set of victims into the new scheme, where the payouts early loyalists had expected would be funded by incoming participants who did not know their money was being distributed to Bowdoin’s orginal victims.

    Later in 2008, as spring and summer warmth returned to northern climes, ASD found people throwing money at it. Some of the people who threw money at ASD did so at rallies in Iowa, according to the Secret Service.

    Affidavit For Seizure Targeted At At Least 7 Iowa Bank Accounts

    The PP Blog reported in December 2010 that funds traced to Bowdoin and two other ASD members had been targeted in yet-another forfeiture action in the District of Columbia. The action was filed less than three weeks after Bowdoin’s Dec. 1 arrest by federal agents in Florida on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    Prosecutors’ December civil-forfeiture action was at least the third targeted at assets owned by Bowdoin. Assets of two other ASD members — Erma “Web Room Lady” Seabaugh and Robyn Lynn Stevenson (also: Robyn Lynn) of Florida — also were targeted.

    The civil case against Bowdoin’s assets is on hold because of the criminal allegations against him. But the cases against the assets of Seabaugh and Lynn remain active. Neither Seabaugh nor Lynn had filed a claim for the money as of Friday.

    In the case against Seabaugh’s assets, the government was authorized to seize $213,693 from a bank account, but found only $153,097 in the account. The Secret Service seized $96,525 from two bank accounts linked to Lynn.

    Some of the money Seabaugh plowed into ASD originated at E-Bullion, a shuttered California money-services business operated by convicted murderer James Fayed, who ordered the execution of his estranged wife in 2008.

    Pamela Fayed, a potential witness against her husband on matters pertaining to E-Bullion and an associated business known as Goldfinger Coin & Bullion, was slashed to death in a Los Angeles-area parking garage on July 28, 2008.

    On Aug. 1, 2008, the Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from Bowdoin’s bank accounts. The December 2010 claim by federal prosecutors that Seabaugh had used E-Bullion to fund one of her ASD accounts was the first public tie between ASD and E-Bullion, which has been linked to multiple Ponzi schemes.

    Seabaugh had multiple ASD accounts with multiple email addresses — and appeared to be “selling her own investment ‘ad packs’ to clients and representing herself as ASD,” the Secret Service alleged.

    The PP Blog learned on June 10 that the Secret Service, in February 2009, also targeted proceeds in seven bank accounts belonging to ASD members in Iowa for forfeiture. In an affidavit, the agency said the accounts contained at least $413,018.

    How the cases are evolving was not immediately clear. The Secret Service, according to the affidavit, identified the assets as proceeds of an ASD-related wire-fraud scheme.

    Acting as pro se pleaders and using a litigation template associated with ASD participant Curtis Richmond, one of the so-called Arby’s Indians, two of the individuals associated with the Iowa accounts cited by the Secret Service in the February 2009 affidavit later attempted unsuccessfully to intervene in the main civil-forfeiture case against Bowdoin’s assets.

    The February 2009 Secret Service affidavit identifies the individuals as Joyce and Michael Haws.

    “Joyce Haws was an active participant in and large promoter of the ASD wire fraud
    scheme,” the Secret Service alleged in the affidavit. “Ms. Haws was one of several people who requested and facilitated one of the first rallies within ASD, in Ankeny, Iowa, on about March 15th, 2008.”

    Haws recruited her mother and others into the scheme, according to the affidavit.

    Walter Clarence Busby Jr., a Georgia minister and Bowdoin’s alleged business partner in Golden Panda Ad Builder, identified Joyce Haws and her “spouse” in 2008 as “founders” of Golden Panda.

    In the same Busby affidavit, filed on Aug. 29, 2008, Busby identified Robyn Lynn as the person who introduced him to ASD.

    Curtis Richmond was an early mainstay in the ASD story. He has a contempt-of-court conviction for threatening federal judges, has been banned from the practice of law in Colorado even though he is not an attorney and has been sued successfully under the federal racketeering statute for harassing public officials and participating in schemes to place bogus financial judgments against them.

    Richmond, who proclaimed himself a sovereign being answerable only to God,  was a member of a Utah “Indian” tribe a federal judge ruled a “sham.” The “tribe” got its derisive name — the Arby’s Indians — because it once held a meeting in an Arby’s restaurant.

    The “tribe” also used the address of a Utah doughnut shop as the address of its “Supreme Court,” while threatening public officials with arrest and detention for carrying out their official duties.