Net-winner attorney argues Zeek thieves “provided value”
The original argument of those who profited in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme was that it wasn’t a Ponzi scheme.
After wasting $30,000 of Zeek Reward victim’s fund on an expert witness they hoped would prove just that, turns out the witness was unable to disprove Zeek Rewards was a Ponzi scheme.
Armed with this conclusion, late last month the Zeek Receiver filed for summary judgement against Zeek’s top net-winners.
In a July 29th response filing, the net-winner class attorney is now arguing Zeek’s top profiteers “provided value” to the $900 million Ponzi scheme and believed it was a legitimate business.
The Receiver’s motion for summary judgment presents the Court with the following question: does the fact that a business operated as a Ponzi scheme relieve a plaintiff from establishing all elements of his fraudulent transfer claims and entitle him to judgment as a matter of law against any person who received payment from the business?
Even if those recipients provided reasonably equivalent value and believed they were dealing with a legitimate company?
The answer, of course, is no.
Even if…? If the business in question is a Ponzi scheme, you don’t get to crap on about “even if…”. It’s case closed.
Hand over the money you stole and have a nice day.
The Receiver’s argument in support of this request can be succinctly summarized: “ZeekRewards was a Ponzi scheme; therefore, I win.”
But that is not the law, and never has been.
As far a clawback litigation goes, isn’t that precisely what the law is?
You earn money fraudulently in a Ponzi scheme, you pay it back through clawback litigation. For what other purpose than to retrieve ill-gotten funds through investment fraud does clawback litigation otherwise exist?
Seriously guys, talk about clutching at straws.
Whether the Class Defendants gave reasonably equivalent value is also relevant.
Lack of reasonably equivalent value is an element of a constructive fraudulent transfer claim, meaning that the Receiver bears the burden of proving that the Class Defendants failed to provide it.
And haven’t we already gone over this? Spamming Ponzi advertisements en-masse to classified websites nobody but the Zeek affiliates spamming them accesses is hardly “value”.
Amusingly, the net-winner response filing seeks to equate spamming unused classified sites with Ponzi spam to the job of “internet marketing specialists”.
The net-winners argue that had Zeek Rewards of hired professionals to spam abandoned classified websites, they’d have had to pay them $50,000 to $80,000 a year.
Just one thing guys: What legitimate business would pay an “internet marketing specialist” team to spam unused classified websites with Ponzi spam?
The comparison of Zeek’s top scammers to legitimate internet marketers, given what Zeek had its affiliates do to qualify for a daily ROI is nothing short of ridiculous.
The evidence of reasonably equivalent value here is significant.
The Class Defendants spent countless hours marketing ZeekRewards and recruiting new customers to the Zeekler penny auction—some logging as many as 18 hours per day.
A reasonable estimate as to the value of these services, based on salaries offered to persons performing similar tasks at other companies, is $472 million.
This is far more than the $295 million in net winnings alleged by the Receiver.
At a minimum, ZeekRewards received reasonably equivalent value in exchange for
the payments it made to the Class Defendants.
And in and event, how is promotion and marketing of a Ponzi scheme providing “value”? Value to whom? The fraud itself?
Certainly not to the general public or Zeek Rewards’ victims, who let’s not forget the net-winners have ultimately stolen from.
NCUFTA provides a transferee who gave reasonably equivalent value in good faith with an absolute defense to an actual fraudulent transfer claim, regardless of whether the transferor (ZeekRewards) made the transfer with actual intent to defraud.
In short, whether ZeekRewards was a Ponzi scheme is hardly the end of the inquiry.
All evidence indicates that the Class Defendants acted in good faith, believing they were working for a legitimate business.
The Receiver, to this credit, does not contend otherwise.
As such, summary judgment must also be denied on this claim too.
So uh what Mr. Net-winner Attorney, every Ponzi scammer claims they provided value and makes clawback litigation redundant?
You don’t think there’s a reason ill-gotten gains obtained through a Ponzi scheme is an absolute in the eyes of the law?
And how exactly does one differentiate between “I thought a $900 million dollar Ponzi scheme I made hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in was legitimate”, from a scammer?
You can’t, because they are one and the same.
Even if the Court were inclined to apply a Ponzi scheme presumption under
North Carolina law with respect to the issue of reasonably equivalent value something that has never been done in that state—summary judgment should be denied in any event because the Receiver’s claims are barred by a contractual limitations period.The Class Defendants and Rex Venture Group (the operator of ZeekRewards) agreed to be bound by the terms of service on ZeekRewards’ website.
Those terms required any claim related to ZeekRewards to be brought within one year of the date the claim arose.
Yeah here’s the thing though, Zeek Rewards was a $900 million dollar Ponzi scheme.
In light of the widespread financial fraud committed and millions of dollars stolen from victims of the scheme, Zeek Rewards’ terms and conditions don’t mean jack.
I obviously can’t say for sure, but hopefully these ridiculous arguments will be shut down by Judge Mullen.
Paul Burks lost and is going to jail. His second in command has already plead guilty and will likely also spend time in jail.
Your $30,000 expert witness failed to conclude Zeek Rewards wasn’t a Ponzi scheme.
Give it up guys, you’re not keeping that money.
Footnote: Our thanks to Don@ASDUpdates for providing a copy of the Class of Net Winners’ Response filing (filed July 29th).
hmm, so this is the ‘was zeek selling securities’ question reframed under UFTA, as did recipients provide ‘reasonably equivalent value’ for the payments they received from zeek.
it goes back to the question of the ‘value’ of ‘work’ provided by zeek participants to keep the ponzi scheme running. [even though recruitment was not compulsory in the zeek RPP, it is clear that without fresh investments being brought in by participants, there would be no profit share]
even if the financials of the scheme [money in/money out] show that the scheme was a ponzi, it has to be shown that participants did only a modicum of work [securities law] or provided ‘reasonably equivalent value’ [under UFTA], to receive their returns.
i’m pretty sure the judge will award a summary judgement in favor of the receiver, and the civil trial will be cancelled. then the net winners will appeal, and the appellate court will study the question of the ‘work’ of zeek participants against legal precedent, and then the quetion of whether zeek sold ‘securities’ will be answered.
that is, if the netwinners don’t rush to ‘settle’ after the summary judgement of the trial court.
i’m really eager to see the question of ‘securities’ answered by a proper legal weighing of the facts, so i hope this case will run the whole course.
in the criminal case against burks, the DOJ avoided the ‘ponzi’ argument and stuck with proving ‘fraud’, so the question of whether zeek was a ponzi [as in selling securities] remained unanswered there.
There is no proof of value since Zeek does NOT track the ad ID. Remember, receiver/SEC has the source code and it’s been audited. The lawyer is posing a hypothetical with no proof.
This is just too funny! Just shows you what an attorney will do for the money he is paid. Forget case law, let’s just toss out a hypothetical premise and hope the judge is dumb enough to buy it.
I hope the Receiver makes them pay the full amount they stole and does not settle for anything less. I hope they have criminal charges filed against them for selling unregistered securities which is one of the four charges that Paul Burks was found guilty of in his criminal trial.
Easiest money this attorney has ever made and he is probably laughing inside at the ridiculous defense he has presented; but as long as the check cleared he could care less.
the netwinner attorney is not arguing the ‘value’ of the ad’s posted by zeek participants . he is arguing about the recruitment ‘work’ done by zeek participants in getting new participants:
As in making videos writing bull**** blog entries and bogus “Russian lawyer analysis” on how Zeek’s a great opportunity?
Where in their affiliate agreement did it say they have to do that?
So, recruiting others into participating in a criminal enterprise is “effort” or “work” now.
Gotcha.
i don’t know what all bullshit zeek affiliates did, all i know is that the 1 million affiliates who brought in the money to be shared via the RPP profit share, were brought in by the affiliates themselves.
Actually, this argument will bite them in the arse.
“If you argue that the net winners are entitled to their money via good faith, then so are the net losers. And thus, the needs of the many outweighs needs of the few”. 😀
If Edmundson wants to argue that his clients are victims, it’s not enough to let them keep their money. EVERY Zeek affiliate is a “victim of fraud”. The difference is some are net winners, and some are net losers.
EVERYBODY supposedly did the business in good faith, and ought to be compensated, and the only “equitable” way is to claw back the money to be redistributed.
good, i’m glad you’re getting it.
it’s not just me who treats recruitment work as ‘valuable’, but federal courts and caselaw do it.
koscot was found to be a ‘ponzi’, because the affiliates did not do the recruitment ‘work’ independently.
sell america was found to be a pyramid but not a ponzi, because the affiliates were doing the recruiting ‘work’ independently.
zeek is some sort of ‘hybrid’ with a ponzi/pyramid overlap, so how the court explains its ruling will be very interesting.
I believe it has something to do with the need to have “clean hands” before the courts will allow a person to profit from participating in a fraudulent scheme.
The court doesn’t have to decide who is and who isn’t “guilty” or who knew what and when.
As Kasey says: “EVERY Zeek affiliate is a “victim of fraud”.
But, what would I know ???
Koscot was a pyramid scheme pounded by FTC. You’re thinking of Glen Turner / Dare to be Great, perhaps?
SEC hit them with securities violation and the court accepted that the Howey test does apply, despite GTE lawyers argue that because each member had to recruit, their success is up to them, and thus fails one aspect of Howey test.
Court disagreed, ruling that recruiting is not a managerial level decision crucial to the overall success of the enterprise.
This “recruiting = effort” argument was an interesting parallel to this argument, but it doesn’t really apply here as no Howey test was invoked.
The real problem here is this is fundamentally viewing the case from the wrong angle.
Edmundson is trying to interpret fraudulent transfer as “not receiving proper value back”
Basically, he’s claiming that because Zeek received “reasonably equivalent value” in exchange for the payment to the net winners, the transfers can’t be clawed back as “fraudulent transfers”.
He’s trying to spin the rule as if Zeek actually paid the money for the marketing services, when it’s PAINFULLY obvious that the money paid was profit share based on amount of VIP points accrued, which has NOTHING to do with internet marketing other than those unchecked spam ads.
Indeed, again I ask, WHERE in the affiliate agreement was it stated that Zeek asked its affiliates to perform such marketing services touted by Edmundson, and agreed to compensate them for doing so?
Zeek never asked for such work. They are NOT a factor in fraudulent transfer. If anything, the net losers did even more work, as there are far more of them than net winners.
It’s a lose-lose argument.
correct.
as all participants of a ponzi scheme are deemed to be victims, the court considers the ‘work’ they did to receive their ROI, as genuine work and not useless work just because the scheme was illegal.
so, the court has to see whether these ‘victims’ gave equivalent value for the payments received by them, and whether they participated in good faith or not.
No, it doesn’t It’s all been done and covered before.
Uh, no, they all did the same work, the bare minimum to qualify them for the daily profit share, i.e. the spam ads.
Any work they did above and beyond that is not within the scope of compensation. It was not asked for by zeek, it should not be rewarded by Zeek, and thus it should not be a factor in fraudulent transfer.
koscot was prosecuted by the SEC, and was found to be a ponzi by the 5th circuit court, as the affiliates put in only a ‘modicum of effort’and the management did the lions share of the recruiting work.
it was separately prosecuted by the FTC and found to be a pyramid scheme too, due to lack of retail.
no, the court did not rule that ‘recruiting is not a managerial level decision crucial to the overall success of the enterprise’.
in fact the court found that recruiting work was : Those efforts are the sine qua non of the scheme; . . . those efforts are what produces the money which is to make him rich [SEC vs DTBG]
the court found that the management did most of the recruitment work themselves, and the work of the affiliates was not ‘enough’, and so the scheme was a ponzi.
basically you’re saying that recruitment was not needed to receive the RPP ROI, so the recruitment work is not important to the ‘ponzi’ argument.
while this is true, the facts of the matter are that without the recruitment of new affiliates there would be no RPP ROI. so the affiliates efforts were tied to the distribution of the RPP ROI.
but, i have no idea how the ‘fraudulent transfer’ arguments are decided, except that they will be somewhat different from the test for securities.
Whether you want to accept it, or believe it, the court is not going to allow one group of participants in an illegal enterprise to profit to the exclusion of others and recruiting others into said scheme is not “work” now matter how much of it is done.
In fact, if you want to get right down to it, both organizing AND / OR participating in a pyramid scheme are illegal in the USA.
So, perhaps the DoJ should spend a few hours proving Zeek had elements of a pyramid / endless chain recruiting scheme and prosecuting all the participants.
like the court, even i believe that no one can keep profits of an illegal enterprise.
the question for me has always been, that though zeek was fraudulent, was it selling securities?
the criminal case avoided the issues of ponzi and securities, and only proved ‘fraud’.
if the civil case also steps sideways into fraudulent transfers, without addressing ‘securities’, then again my question will remain unanswered.
the question of whether recruiting people into schemes is work or not, has already been answered by the courts in DTBG and koscot. the work does matter.
yeah but the DOJ missed the chance in the criminal case, where they decided to stick to only fraudulence. besides, they called zeek a ‘ponzi’ and not a ‘pyramid’.
in fact according to robert fitzpatrick who attended the zeek trial, at the request of the defendants, the word’ ponzi’ was removed from indictment documents given to the jury to deliberate the case. so, zeek being a ponzi was not even a ‘consideration’ in the criminal case. the only consideration was whether burks committed ‘fraud’.
i have argued that since the indictment mentioned ‘ponzi’ many times, it was imperative that the DOJ prove hw zeek was a ponzi.
in court, the DOJ said that they had not charged burks with running a ponzi scheme and hence did not need to prove that zeek had ‘all the elements’ of a ponzi.
i guess the judge did not allow any ‘ponzi’ arguments, stuck with only fraud, and removed the word ‘ponzi’ from the indictment provided to the jury.
so, i was not off the mark, there is some truth in what i have been arguing.
seekingalpha.com/article/3991395-zeeks-criminal-fraud-case-raises-prospects-herbalife-charges?page=2
In the words of Mr Ripley:
“BELIEVE IT, OR NOT”
Burks wasn’t convicted of “selling unregistered securities” but of mail/wire/tax/conspiracy fraud
One of the five elements of any fraud is that someone must have suffered damage. The net winners suffered no damage, therefore were not themselves defrauded and therefore not “EVERY Zeek affiliate was a “victim of fraud”.
On the other hand the net winners received the poisoned fruits of Burks criminal fraud activity and under the UFTA must return the money to the Rex estate whence it came.
What equivalent value did the net winners provide REX LLC? I would say none. They did however jointly and individually, knowingly or unknowingly aid and abet Burks in his criminal scheme to defraud.
Just to muddy up all of your water…as I was a “net-winner”, I have a fair amount of knowledge in this case……..
how many of the 9000 “net winners” were also “victims”? Tons! Due to timing ONLY because Zeek was shut down! Dolly bought 10,000 bids in June 2012.
She had her profit % set at 95%. From June until August 2012 she received a little over $1,000 through NX Pay. She spent 10,000. So…..what is she?
A mean, nasty, lazy, ponzi pimp, evil recruiter of a Ponzi scheme Net Winner, like you all refer to us as???? Or was she a “victim”, poor, pathetic loser who should have realized she was in a Ponzi scheme because all of the signs were there?
The HUMAN BEINGS, who were a part of Zeek, as I prefer we should all be called, were fooled into believing that the Zeekler Penny Auction was extremely profitable.
Dawn was very convincing, or should I correct that by saying conniving, in her Zeekler pep talks about how profitable the auction was. She lied to all of us. She lied directly to the top 10 winners and used them for their charisma and personalities.
She sought them out individually, relentlessly to promote her criminal venture. Trust me, you all don’t know HALF of the story behind Zeek Rewards.
Just because you read all of the legal documents spewing out about Zeek doesn’t mean Jack.
So the amount of time I see all of you putting into arguing the so-called facts about this case makes me laugh. I don’t waste my time and read everything you all write about Zeek… but occasionally when it has to do with me, like this article, I do.
Let me assure you all, Paul definitely did not have his hands clean in this business, but the Pupeteer was Dawn.
Paul did not determine the amounts of the daily payouts…. Danny did. Heard the phone conversation with my own ears between Dawn’s son and stepson during a red carpet event. I was mortified.
Apparently, Danny had set the payout to a really low number and all of the “Human Beings” watched their daily profit dip and were complaining heavily to Dawn’s family at the Red Carpet event.
Presto Change-o, a notification went out from the Zeek Gods stating that there was a computer glitch and the amounts would be adjusted accordingly the next day.
See what nobody seems to get, is that EVERYONE knew when they signed up… is that there could be days, weeks, months that we would receive 0% profit.
If the profit percentage was set at the ACTUAL amount of profit, lol, nobody would have joined Zeek because there wouldn’t have been any moola flowing out. But, how can the business model be called a Ponzi Sceme? It can’t!!!!!!!! Because they LIED about the daily profits is what created a mess!!!!!
The business model was sound, but would NOT HAVE CREATED A cash windfall for everyone. The LIES created the ZEEK MONSTER and the liars were DANNY AND DAWN!
Nobody EXPECTED profit. We were “spoiled” with AMAZING profits that were unrealistically very consistent. They should NOT have been.
Dawn and Danny started a bogus claim about the penny auctions being so profitable and they ROLLED with it. They were building a Ponzi Scam Scheme.
Lying and laughing all the way to the bank at the people who trusted them like fools. You all sit back from you office chairs or couches pretending that you are the ultimate judge and jury when you don’t even have all the facts.
From a legal standpoint, you are probably all spot on, but from a humanistic standpoint, you’re all DEAD WRONG.
Your hatred and disdain is misplaced. Dawn and Danny are deceptive criminals and I can’t wait to see their sentences.
So many of us are naive enough to believe what we are being shown on paper as our business model is an accurate and true representation of said business model. Don’t call us Ponzi Pimps because the COO and her stepson were misrepresenting EVERYTHING.
A dumbshit for not filing a claim for $9000 in losses with the Receiver.
Net-winners made money in Zeek, Dolly is obviously not a net-winner.
Considering this is a legal matter, the legal standpoint is ultimately all that matters.
Humans are scammers, more news at 11…
If they want to claim RPP ROI respnsibility, then they will be charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud as Burks’ co-conspirators.
…
Because what they did was repeated Burks fraud on a much larger scale.
“Good faith” no longer applies. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Dolly is a Net loser in the amount of $9,000 using your figures. I guess my follow-up question for you is, given your understanding of the illegal coercive methods used by Dawn and Danny and Burks… whether you disgorged your net winnings back to the Receiver estate or settled?
My guess is that you have kept the money even though you claim to know the facts. Why would any but a ponzi pimp do that?
It looks like 4 years later, you’re still in denial.
The “business model” was never sound.
You’re last paragraph contradicts the first two.
If “EVERYONE” knew there could be days, weeks, or months where there was 0% profit, they wouldn’t be complaining “heavily”, now would they.
In reality, nearly “EVERYONE” expected the ROI that was initially promised in the early advertising for Zeek.
Don’t know who you are, so don’t know whether you could be a “ponzi pimp” or not. If you’re still playing rev share games and recruiting for them, then you are. If Zeek was your last time playing the ponzi game, then perhaps not.
As Oz said, if Dolly sunk $10k in and only got $1k back, she’s a net-loser and should have filed a claim for the $9k she lost. Obviously, she wouldn’t have received all of it back, but would have received a substantial portion.
If you were somebody that was truly naive enough to be duped by a so-called business model that so many of us could easily see was flawed and illegal, my condolences.
Hopefully, if you were a net-loser you filed your claim and recouped some of your losses.
If you were a significant net-winner pursued by the receiver, hopefully you didn’t waste Dolly and other losers money by fighting to keep your ill-gotten gains.
At that point, what did you do? Turn a blind eye or go to the authorities?
I think you broke it down pretty well there Chris. “One who Broke Bread with Zeek Gods” might also be called the one who knowingly benefitted from an illegal ponzi scheme but does not want to give the money back (even to his friend Dolly) … but don’t call me a ponzi pimp ’cause that’s not fair.”
Herp Derp.
This has been discussed before in the Trudy Gilmond case. We can simply watch the upcoming results. There’s no need to post any new arguments here.
My bet is that the Receiver will get his summary judgment. I haven’t studied the current arguments, but I had a quick look ar the current article.
That’s exactly what we tried to tell you in the lengthy “Paul Burks indicted” discussion. Welcome to the reality.
i think so too. let’s see if this case goes to appeal.
my argument was that since the indictment went blue in the face saying ‘ponzi scheme/ponzi scheme’, the DOJ would have to prove ‘ponzi scheme’.
the argument against me was that the DOJ had not indicted burks for ‘ponzi scheme’ but for ‘fraud’.
i see now, that the trial court judge has agreed with both our stands-
– he limited the arguments in court to ‘fraud’
– he removed the word ‘ponzi’ from the indictment
be gracious norway, both sides win some brownie points here 🙂
As far as I could see based on the current article, the defense attorney is arguing contract terms. He’s not using Anjali’s arguments.
They acted in good faith (that’s not disputed). They provided some work … a significant amount of work for some of them. And the contract offered payments for the work … in the form of profit share. So his primary argument is that the Receiver’s claim is barred by the contract terms.
It’s more likely that you’re misleading yourself, and have done it since you first entered the discussion about Paul Burks indictment.
Indictments should be read in reverse order … “What are the formal charges?” before “What is the substance of this case?”.
The jury didn’t need to answer anything about Ponzi scheme or securities.
I seriously doubt that the judge “removed” anything from the indictment. But he didn’t follow your plan for how to resolve the case.
There you have the correct explanation. They didn’t charge him with running a Ponzi scheme.
The fact that you could read the word “Ponzi” several places in the indictment doesn’t change that fact. You could read many other words in the indictment, and he wasn’t charged with those words either.
“I have argued” doesn’t mean that they will need to follow the same plan. If you want DOJ to follow the plan of your choice then you must first bring yourself into a position where they will listen to your plans. That’s how life works.
well, robert fitzpatrick claims that he attended the zeek trial and that:
i disagree with fitzpatrick’s extremely critical views about MLM, but i wouldn’t categorize him as a liar.
the defense had wanted to bring in experts to give testimony that zeek was not a ponzi. the DOJ protested saying that they had not charged burks with running a ‘ponzi’ or ‘securities’.
the judge did not allow any ponzi arguments and very ‘fairly’ removed the word ‘ponzi’ from the indictment provided to the jurors. because, if you don’t want to prove it, or talk about it, then you cannot allege ‘ponzi’ just to evoke an emotional and prejudicail response from the jury.
fair enough, IMO. well done judge.
That’s probably BS. The indictment hasn’t been replaced by a new one.
You’re trying to avoid facing the reality by inventing an imaginary scenario where the judge removed certain words from the indictment. 🙂
the DOJ may not have taken my advice, but it seems the judge did pay heed to my argument.
so turns out, life does work well enough.
i don’t know if burk’s lawyers can get the original indictment changed [they should if they can].
it’s enough that the judge did not let the jurors look at the indictment with the word ‘ponzi’ in them.
[unless fitzpatrick is lying]
if fitzpatrick is correct in the information he has shared, then i think that technically speaking the DOJ can at the most refer to zeek as a ‘ponzi-like’ scheme and not definitively say ‘ponzi’.
“The copy given to jurors” is plausible enough, but the idea that the judge should have removed words from the indictment wasn’t very plausible.
You read the indictment in the “wrong order”. You will first need to look at the formal charges. Those are the charges the jurors will need to answer “guilty / not guilty” to … the decisions they will need to make based on the substance of the case. And the jurors clearly didn’t need to answer anything about Ponzi or securities.
He may have followed something the defense lawyers have asked about.
You never argued that the judge should give redacted copies of the indictment to the jurors. You argued quite the opposite … that DOJ had to prove both Ponzi scheme and the existence of securities. 🙂
No,
no you don’t
yes, the word ‘ponzi’ was removed from the indictment provided to the jurors and guess what – the judge ordered it!
you want to word spin or something, be my guest.
i read the indictment in the correct order.
the indictment explained the scheme to defraud as ‘ponzi scheme’ and the charges of mail/wire/tax fraud, were made on the basis of the scheme described.
if the DOJ did not want to discuss ‘ponzi scheme’ in court, the indictment should not have used the term ‘ponzi scheme’. the DOJ should have simply described zeek as a ‘fraudulent scheme’ built on lies.
the judge removed the word ‘ponzi’ from the indictment provided to the jurors, which means he saw the validity of my stand.
get?
Back to the current case …
This argument is wrong. The defense attorney has misinterpreted the burden of proof.
That’s why I predicted that the Receiver would get his summary judgment. It was one of the reasons for that prediction.
The other reason was this one.
The dispute isn’t about the contracts. The attorney is using “wrong legal arguments”. What the contract said is simply irrelevant. People can’t use contract terms as a defense against fraudulent transfer … they must refer to the realities behind the transactions if they want to prove “equivalent value”.
In your usual fashion, you’re disingenuously failing to mention the prosecution pointed out the motion to remove was unnecessary as Burks hadn’t been charged with “running a ponzi”
SEC never accused any of the investors of anything. They focused on Paul Burks and the scheme itself. The investors were classified as “non-parties”.
The Receiver has followed the same plan. He has focused on the transactions rather than on the people receiving the money. The investors were first classified as parties when he filed the clawback litigation against the whole group of net winners.
The clawback litigation isn’t about whether people have done something wrong. It’s simply about whether they have received more money than they paid in. It isn’t about whether they recruited anyone or how active they were in promoting Zeek.
There’s one potential exception to that last paragraph. Trudy Gilmond was charged with something by SEC. I don’t remember the details for that. There may be a few other exceptions, but I haven’t followed the case in several months.
Your first version of the story simply wasn’t very plausible. It was a half truth where one of the elements was missing.
The missing element was about WHY the judge had ordered something and WHAT he had ordered. You tried to bend the truth there.
in your usual fashion, you’re disingenuously bringing up unimportant stuff, because you have this need to blabber.
of course the prosecution would have protested any removal of words from the indictment, both prosecution and defense will challenge each others stand in court, and that is normal.
the point is – the judge removed the word ‘ponzi’ from the indictment provided to the jurors.
so, if the DOJ didn’t wanna talk ponzi, or walk ponzi, they don’t get to say ponzi. get?
are you referring to post#31 when you speak of missing elements and bending of truths?
my first post on this subject was post#19 which had a full explanation of the removal of ‘ponzi’ from the indictment.
hence, post#31 may have had some ‘missing elements’ in your view, but that was not my intention and i certainly was not ‘bending the truth’ as you allege, because i had previously provided the full explanation.
That’s probably why it was necessary to remove it?
Paul Burks never admitted any wrong doing in the SEC case. The indictment of Paul Burks tried to introduce the word “Ponzi scheme” as a factual allegation, but the DOJ never intended to prove it in court.
It could be interpreted as a factual allegation by jurors. The jurors could incorrectly get the impression that Paul Burks had admitted something in a previous case.
My comment was based on previous experience … on the arguments from the “Paul Burks indictment” discussion.
You can use it as an example for how and why ideas fail. I used my own ideas as a primary source … I checked my experience from previous discussion but I failed to check the facts posted. I clearly quoted post #19 (not #31), but I didn’t carefully read it.
When I recheck the facts, then you clearly stated all the relevant elements in post #19. You’re correct about that.
definitely. i shall copy this down in triplicate, and meditate on it regularly.
duh, i know. thanks.
Thanks to everyone for explaining that. Now if the vertigo will just go away.