Paul Burks criminal case delayed (slightly)
Just a quick update today today regarding the status of the Paul Burks criminal case.
A while Paul Burks’ attorney put in a Motion to Continue, citing the large volume of discovery they need to sift through before the commencement of a trial.
An order granting the motion was published on the 16th of January, with Judge Cogburn Jr. reasoning that
failure to grant such a continuance would deny counsel for the defendant the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation, taking into account the exercise of due diligence.
Further, the ends of justice served by granting such continuance outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.
Basically the issue was that if the motion wasn’t granted, Burks’ attorneys wouldn’t be given adequate time to prepare his defense. This trumped the need for a speedy trial, as it would likely then be an issue raised in the trial itself.
Better to give Burks a little extra time now so that things run smoother later in court.
The case has been postponed now until “the March 2015 term”.
Burks’ attorney filed a notice stating that he’s unavailable during certain dates in June and July, indicating that the March 2015 term extends to mid-year.
At the time of publication, no actual date for the continuance of Burks’ case has been set yet.
Footnote: Our thanks to Don@ASDUpdates for providing a copy of Judge Cogburn Jr.’s order and Burks’ attorney’s Notice of Unavailability.
i reported this first on another thread? thanks to me too?
OR, i can just announce some credit to myself! 🙂
people like bowdoin of ASD, have left a veritable ‘help book’ for their ‘brotherhood’ on ‘how to delay your trial and make friends with the SEC, gradually’.
Apologies I must have missed it (when you post mountains of offtopic comments important ones might get glossed over!).
I don’t think Bowdoin made friends with the SEC, dude’s in jail. And that’s likely where Burks will end up too.
scam worth 100 million or so, and your dude got like 4 years? i say kissy face happened between bowdoin and the prosecution.
burks has only just begun.
If the Bowdoin / AdSurf Daily ponzi case is an indication:
-ASD raided and shutdown August 2008
-Bowdoin sentenced on criminal charges August 2012
-Bowdoin jailed January 2013
We could be in for a long wait.
You don’t think they let him keep any of his ill-gotten gains do you?
Years of your twilight years spent promoting scams, only to be thrown in jail (wasting more of your precious later years). That and you emerge penniless.
Yeah no, sounds totally worth it.
Bowdoin was 77 when he was sentenced to 78 months in Federal prison under his plea agreement.
Some would say 78 months to a man of his vintage could be considered a death sentence
what does age have to do with sentence?
madooff got 150 years when he was in his seventies.
bowdoin could have got 50/100 years by the same measure.
why 4 years ?
madoff was ‘pure’ ponzi scheme. ASD was not. ‘proving the case’ , was an achilles heel, hence it got dragged for 4[?] years and got settled with a very reasonable sentence.
i am upset, that the SEC did not prove its case against zeek, at The Outset.
one year in the beginning, would have saved years of pain.
Interesting,
So Bowdoin got thrown in jail, missed that and was curious what sentence would be. Seems to me he will be eligible for parole in a couple to three years, so it may not be a death sentence unlike Madoff who will be in forever.
I don’t think Bowdain was near in the same league as Madoff. Madoff was a pure and simple scam from start, and SEC got tips way in advance and did nothing, so they are also to blame for many more getting screwed as I see it.
With Bowdoin, and Burkes for that matter did not set out to scam, they both just got out of control and they both were simply pushing the envelope as I see it.
I knew Paul years ago before Zeek, and before FreeStore deal, and before Fireshaker, and he was far from being a scammer, very honorable business we did, unrelated to is later troubles with Zeek.
I even warned him when I got invitation that it was not a sound and safe program, but he was being misled in my opinion by an associate as I recall.
So although he is charged by SEC as investment fraud, I honestly don’t think he was a typical scammer, just got duped by the wrong people, and got some bad advice on structuring Zeek.
Still amazes me it get that big in such a short period of time, but hey, people love money games, always have, always will as I see it.
I hope Paul doesn’t get jail time, he has to be near same age as Madoff and Bowdoin as I recall.
Only in terms of magnitude. Madoff did start as a proper investor. There’s a story that he covered up a trading loss early in his career by moving client money, but he eventually made it back and nobody said anything.
I think this was from one of the books on the Madoff disaster. Somewhere along the way he just stopped trading and pretended to trade.
Bowdoin was far shadier than Madoff. He was a member of another scheme 12DailyPro and basically “improved” that to make Ad Surf Daily. AND he created a couple other related schemes too. AND was promoting more, claiming to be making money for his defense fund, until they took him to jail.
So somewhere along the way, he crossed over into the dark side, eh? Or did he met his Emperor Palpatine? 🙂
Because he signed a proffer letter shortly after the seizure and “had already admitted to law enforcement agents that the material allegations that the government made in its forfeiture complaint in this case were all true.”
It wasn’t four years; it was 78 months, 6.5 years.
In a manner of speaking, Bowdoin, through paid counsel, got a deal. But he nevertheless almost screwed it up by firing his paid counsel and listening to amateurs. The “sovereign citizen” dogshit started during this time, and the prosecution waited to see what was going to happen.
What happened is that a cast of the usual suspects, including some folks who later went to Zeek, tried to run cover for Bowdoin. They didn’t know about the proffer letter until the prosecution referenced it in a court filing in April 2009.
After news of the proffer letter broke, Bowdoin’s apologists manufactured a series of outrageous stories. One of them held that ASD was very close to winning the case. All the while the prosecution held the proffer letter.
It’s true that Bowdoin was able to add some time to the clock. But here’s the thing about doing that: It gives the government more time to investigate.
With Bowdoin and apologists hatching various delay tactics, the government went out and linked him to AdViewGlobal and OneX. Those two schemes actually put him in jail before ASD did.
During the Bowdoin/apologist-engineered sideshow, the government also went out and rounded up Kenneth Wayne Leaming. Leaming was trying to run interference for some of the ASD apologists: threats, false liens, etc.
Some of the ASDers were quoting him as though he were some sort of expert. He was, in fact, a nonattorney who advertised himself online as an attorney. Among other things, he is a “birther” conspiracy theorist who was a convicted felon PRIOR to the schemes he hatched for the ASDers.
If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ve certainly noticed that one of the first things some of the Zeekers did was to try to smear Paul Burks’ lawyer.
That’s exactly what some of the ASDers did — though not until AFTER they had exhalted Bowdoin’s lawyers. They initially cast the case as Bowdoin/lawyers (the “Perry Mason” team) vs. the hapless government (the “Gomer Pyle” team.).
“Gomer” went on to win all all fronts.
You imply the ASD case never was “proven” because of the Bowdoin guilty plea.
The proffer letter and the admissions, including Bowdoin’s acknowledgement in open court AFTER he’d been implicated in AdViewGlobal and OneX that ASD was a Ponzi scheme proves you wrong.
PPBlog
I have no reason to doubt that Paul is a very nice person offline but online, he was a serial scheme promoter.
Free Store Club was a Sky Biz clone started after Sky Biz was busted by the FTC. It operated very much under the radar as a fairly subsistence level scam with only a modest handful of people (Paul included) making just enough money to avoid legitimate employment. And when that petered out Paul reinvents email and attaches a pyramid comp plan.
After NewNetMail failed came GoGoHub and Paul’s first foray into ponzidom. It never gained much traction, keeping Paul and Rex Ventures safely under the radar and as a last ditch effort to save GoGoHub they added the penny auction which morphed into Zeek.
Paul’s “15 years of rock solid business experience” which was a drumbeat of Zeek’s sales pitch was a bit under 15 years of reinventing his pyramid schemes.
What changed was Paul acquired (or was acquired by) a group of more or less partners. A small group of serial ponzi scheme players threw the weight of their collective mailing lists behind Paul. These peoples names are available in the ongoing clawback litigation.
They more so than Paul propelled Zeek off the charts and onto the regulators radar. Paul is culpable but he wasn’t the mastermind. He was the front man and bag holder.
78 / 12 = 6.5 years, but still a relatively mild sentence compared to other cases. It indicates that some sentences may be affected by individual factors, e.g. “criminal personality” factor (e.g. that a court simply see them as “too dangerous to society”).
I have looked into that a couple of times, but Paul Burks clearly knew what he was doing when he started ZeekRewards in January 2011.
One motive can be failed business projects. Free Store Club didn’t bring in much money, Shopping Daisy didn’t bring in much money, the penny auction didn’t bring in much money (in 2010, before ZeekRewards).
I’m not familiar with any of his other business projects, but they have generally been described as “unsuccessful” in the background story.
(Ozedit: ASD was a Ponzi scheme, it’s owner confessed as much and is now in jail. All the proof you need is in the company’s compensation plan.)
uh, norway, bowdoin was carrying on with his ponzi career even after ASD was shut down. that should have put him in the “too dangerous to society”, category and not the ‘lets give him the lightest sentence’ category.
bowdoin was a serial scammer, it’s not like he lost control of his scheme.
in burks case, one may have a bit more sympathy, because he was unsuccessfully trying to run MLM , for some time, before zeek. zeekler, the penny auction business was ‘real’ and predated zeekrewards.
zeekrewards which was to bring customers to the penny auction, took on a life of its own, and burks may not have engineered this runaway success on his own.
in a video shot at a top affiliates meeting in late 2011, burks mentions that there are seven people, who he depends on, and who know more about the business than he does.
i’m guessing these seven could be 1] dawn wright olivares 2] dawn’s husband 3] daniel olivares 4] dama P 5] rebecca 6] darryle douglas 7] ?
burks especially mentions dama p and rebecca as having control of the reins.
what happened to these two people? why are there no criminal charges against them, or the others?
dama P was the executive administrator. he was burks right hand man. he had the keys to the cupboard where all the skeletons lay. yet , he finds no mention in either the action against the ‘insiders’ or the ‘net winners’ or the ‘criminal proceeding’.
rebecca S was the fulfillment manager [ whatever that is]. she was a trusted lieutenant of burks, who he even trusted with stamping his cheques. yet, she seems to have fallen off the edge of the earth?
in liberty reserve or madoff, even employees who paid a central role in propagating the scam, have been charged criminally and convicted.
where have these two center pieces of zeek disappeared to?
mystery alert !
Most of the “ordinary employees” were cleared from suspicion relatively early in the case. Most “ordinary contractors” were cleared too.
A “fulfillment manager” is probably responsible for sending auction winnings to the auction winners, and similar types of work.
ZeekDoc30-1.pdf CASH, REAL PROPERTY & OTHER RECEIVERSHIP PROPERTY has the list of employees and contractors.
Dama P = Dama Potts, Executive Assistant
Rebecca S. = Rebecca Sink, Sales fulfillment
A similar thing happened in ZeekRewards, but you listed 2 “ordinary employees” as “center pieces” among the insiders, and you missed one insider (Roger Plyler).
When was this announced?
Bowdoin DID lose control of ASD. For starters, he was being blackmailed by an insider and basically paid hush money to keep things quiet.
Beyond that, other insiders were committing thefts by assigning themselves “ad packs,” something that deepened the Ponzi while transferring costs to the members at large.
One or more banks then closed down accounts linked to ASD — something both Zeek and TelexFree would experience later.
So, yes, ASD’s Bowdoin did lose control of his scheme.
PPBlog
I didn’t say it had been “announced”?
“Who was involved in what?” is one of the first things to investigate after a shutdown. The Receiver also had some “employer duties”, e.g. the duty to terminate employment contracts.
If people have been cleared from suspicion, it will usually have happened within a few weeks.
Oh. I thought you said they WERE cleared.
Here’s my statement (post #18) …
If they haven’t been mentioned in any court documents in 2 years, they have most likely been cleared. The opposite theory will be that the Receiver / SEC / DOJ slowly and secretly are building up cases against them.
My theory is that its better to not say they were cleared unless you know for certain they have been cleared.
dama potts , rebecca sink and plyler can hardly be called ‘ordinary employees’, they were the deepest confidantes of burks. i’m just surprised there are no charges against them.
but, bells team had interviewed potts and sink and billed the receivership, for expenses incurred:
11/06/12 Prepare for D. Potts interview , Interview D. Potts (3); Review subpoena documents requested to employees……$3,162.00
12/17/12 Prepare for R. Sink interview…….$612.00
wral.com/asset/news/local/wral_investigates/2013/03/13/12218698/Zeek_Receiver_Payment.pdf
They may be confidants, but if they were employed they need to be paid as employees.
are you saying such old hands of burks, would not have had any position in the matrix or RPP? that seems not possible!
Discovery is still very much in progress and being slowed by across the board work product and privilege assertions. Bell has a special team handling these issues.
IF the receiver suspects criminal conduct he will refer the case to the District Attorney. The DA has four years from notification to bring charges per statute of limitations. This is far from over, and in fact may have barely begun.
According to the Receiver’s latest interim report, Plyer entered into a financial settlement agreement (net winner clawback probably)
Here’s how it’s being described in the Quarterly Report, Fourth Quarter 2012:
The Receiver sent 60 subpoenas to former employees and contractors.
CLSUB: CLAWBACK LITIGATION SUBPOENAS AND OTHER …
REBECCA SINK
(Using the search function)
DAMA POTTS
FI = FACT INVESTIGATION
OTH = OTHER
TASK AAR = ASSET ANALYSIS AND RECOVERY
TASK CA = CASE ADMINISTRATION
TASK CAO = CLAIMS ADMINISTRATION AND OBJECTIONS
TASK DA = DATA ANALYSIS
TASK LC = LITIGATION CONSULTING
TASK EBP = EMPLOYEE BENEFITS/PENSIONS
* Roger Plyler was one of the insiders, and his estate was sued in the litigation against the insiders.
* Rebecca Sink seems to have had some potential “payroll issues” (Employment Benefits/Pensions, Assets Analysis and Recovery), but she hasn’t been sued as an insider. She was represented by a counsel.
* Dama Potts seems to mostly have been involved in the Data Analysis Task, and haven’t been sued as an insider. Wasn’t represented by a counsel either. “These interviews have identified numerous individuals and entities with relevant information”.
“Exhibit G” and “Exhibit H” in that report have actually been filed Under Seal as “sensitive information”. 🙂
ZeekDoc67.pdf MOTION TO FILE TIME RECORDS UNDER SEAL is related to the First Interim Application For Fees And Expenses, and for all the subsequent documents of the same type.
“If released, it could undermine the Receiver’s efforts on behalf of the victims and creditors”.
this suggests that plyler was on the comp plan, but potts and sink were purely salary based employees.
seems a bit funny, that potts and sink, were actively helping people make large amounts of money, while subsisting on salaries themselves. dumb and dumber.