Dawn Wright Olivares & stepson receive jail time (Zeek Rewards)
Up until the scheme’s last few months or so, Dawn Wright-Olivares was second-in-command at Zeek Rewards.
After the SEC shut down Zeek for being a $850 million dollar Ponzi scheme in 2012, Wright-Olivares (now known as Dawn de Brantes, alias Viola Wright), plead guilty to securities fraud evasion and tax evasion in December, 2013.
Wright-Olivares’ stepson Daniel Olivares, Zeek Rewards’ Senior Technology Officer, also plead guilty to securities fraud conspiracy.
Earlier this month it was announced that both Wright-Olivares and her stepson would be sentenced on September 13th.
On September 11th Wright-Olivares (as Dawn de Brantes) made the following plea on Facebook:
Hello friends and family. I humbly come before all of you and ask for your support, prayers, light and love for my family and I. We are asking for favor, protection, grace, mercy and strength in this moment… and through the next 3 days.
Please see us coming home together happy and whole on Wednesday.
Those dreams were shattered yesterday, after both Wright-Olivares and her stepson received prison sentences.
Judge Cogburn sentenced Dawn Wright-Olivares (right) to seven and a half years in prison. Daniel Olivares was sentenced to two years.
Upon release both Wright-Olivares and her stepson will be subject to three years of court supervision.
Restitution has also been ordered, however the exact amount has yet to be determined. Bear in mind that’s on top of the $600 million awarded to the Zeek Rewards Receivership.
The final chapter yet to be closed is the sentencing of Paul Burks, the mastermind behind Zeek Rewards.
Burks went to trial and lost back in July. His sentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled.
I’d like to think upon receiving news of Dawn’s sentence, Burks, lurking in a dark room somewhere, might finally realize Zeek Rewards cost him what remains of his life.
Was it worth it for a few short years at the top?
I am a bit surprised that she got that much jail time. And that was with pleading guilty and cooperating.
Slowly these folks are getting nailed one by one. I sure hope some of the affiliates who made a lot but are serial scammers get their justice as well. I wonder if Dawn will be allowed to post on Facebook from prison.
I think the sentence is too light considering the damage she did and her indifference to it
She’ll be out in five or less. Three years probation is almost meaningless.
yes, i was expecting something well under 5 years.
IIRC in paul burks criminal trial, the DOJ had said that daniel olivares would be appearing as their witness. they did not call dawn wright olivares to the trial to testify for them?
i thought that as there was a rumor that dawn was a cocaine user, the DOJ avoided her testimony because maybe she would harm their case rather than support it.
maybe the DOJ felt she did not cooperate fully OR she did not provide value as a prosecution witness?
and to think burks has pissed off the DOJ by not pleading guilty! phew!
but there is no parole in federal prison?
federal prisoners can get time off for good behavior:
so, at the most dawn wright can get a little over an year shaved off her sentence.
youtube.com/watch?v=hePW5BybdGU
Maybe iwowwe will take her on again when she gets out.
Her sentence was not enough, and the time off for good behavior will probably be in her favor.
Considering that she was used to stealing money from everyone else and being on top, now how is prison going to feel? How will she ever get a job ever again?
That’s the price you pay for ruining people’s financial situations by only thinking about yourself.
At this point even if Paul were to curse the judge and the stenographer at his sentencing trial, it would prove meaningless considering the amount of time he will receive.
I thought the good time behavior reduction was greater. Maybe it is in County jail or some state prisons, but as you indicate its not so in Federal. So…. good as far as I am concerned.
As to the length of her sentence, her cooperation etc. The Pre-sentencing Investigative Report may have been unfavorable in some respect.
Perhaps the Probation Office concluded she was an unregenerate psycho social mess. They administer psych evals in this process so there’s a chance something came up.
I did not know her.
It is one of the reasons why she opened her restaurant because she knew if she was convicted, whether she went to prison or not, she would have a difficult time finding a job.
The problem is that she used money from Zeek to buy the building and start her restaurant. Depending on what fines, in addition to the restitution she has to make, will determine how many years she will have to pay. If her restaurant fails, then she is in really deep doo-doo.
Of course she never dreamed she would find herself in the situation she is in right now. There is no doubt in my mind she thought that Paul was the only one at risk of a criminal charges, trial and conviction with prison time. She thought wrong.
What was truly pathetic to me is all the lies she told in her conference calls/webinars knowing everything she said was a lie. This is what got her into the situation she is now paying the price for.
I only hope they do this to the other participants in the next Ponzi that gets shut down by the Feds. Once the major promoters start having to pay a heavy price for their involvement in promoting these Ponzi’s, they will diminish in size and length of time they can last.
The message needs to be sent by law enforcement: If you play you pay dearly.
The Healthy Hog was shut down earlier this year IIRC. They sold everything off.
Olivares will soon find out she is at the bottom this time, of the food chain.
according to dawn de brantes’ FB page she was in the MLM, young living essential oils. she was selling these oils along with necklaces and bracelets on her website ‘the hippie diva’.
she fancied herself as some sort of a spiritual hippie and her intro on her website says:
well, if she’s deeply spiritual then prison will certainly give her a lot of free time to sit in silence and reflect.
I believe victims of fraud are entitled to full restitution of their losses under federal law. Since there are multiple Zeek perps and investor losses are not yet fixed the amount Olivares will be held responsible for can not yet to be determined.
There is no scenario I can imagine where she will be able to pay even a minute fraction of the restitution she will be ordered to pay…. with or without a restaurant, and she certainly will not be earning anything while in prison.
Realistically investors will receive nothing because after a stint in prison Olivares will have a hard time just supporting herself much less paying millions of dollars in restitution.
I’ve heard investors can garnish wages if the criminal ever receives any, but aside from making her life slightly more miserable in the future there is no benefit to pursuing such a course of action for an investor.
Summary: Restitution is a joke in this situation.
Isn’t that a Hindu greeting?
yes.
from wiki:
Great , How do you say, see you in seven and a half years.
you could say : namaste dawn debrantes. sadhe saat saal baad milte hain!! 🙂
That expression gained some traction during the early to mid-2000s when the whole “law of attraction” theme seemed to start taking hold in MLM shortly before “The Secret” came out.
I do believe the sentencing was fair and just.
What concerns me is, during the last three years, she has purchased homes and expensive cars for her then teenage daughters.
If you follow their Facebook pages, the daughters were taking trips to New York and other place several times a year. Their pictures show them loaded up with shopping bags in front of high end retail stores.
Sadly, if she’s filtered her Zeek earnings to her daughters, this lessens the likelihood of her victims receiving full restitution.
To look at her Facebook page (she now goes by Dawn De Brantes) you would think this woman is some kind of martyr. Here is what she posted today from Fort Worth TX, where seems to be where she will be going to prison:
So let’s see, she personally stole $7.2 million from victims, she also committed tax fraud. She did this #AllforYou? … give me a break, she did it for her own greedy, sleazy self.
those are the lyrics of a song she recorded with her son which is being sold on itunes for $1.29.
guess she needs a little spending money in prison. she celebrated an early Christmas and left for her prison term.
seven years of her life gone, for just an year or so of living it up in zeek!
is it worth it dawn de brantes? i feel sorry for you.
anjali, I don’t feel sorry for her at all. She knew what she was doing, no one made her do it. When Zeek got in trouble she jumped to another sketchy MLM outfit.
behindmlm.com/companies/iwowwe/zeeks-dawn-wright-olivares-now-marketing-iwowwe/
Judging for her Facebook posts she has no remorse or understanding for the damage she has caused to hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe seven years in prison will cause her to reflect on this.
I’m glad that all of you people are perfect. Your talking mad shit about someone that you don’t personally know. I grew up with Dawn and she is an awesome person.
She is also an entrepreneur. She has many businesses and knows how to make money. She doesn’t live her life doing illegal things.
So now I’ve said my peace. STOP TALKING SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE YOU DONT KNOW!!! Only God can judge!!!
Whether you personally knew/know Wright-Olivares is irrelevant to her being a convicted Ponzi scammer.
One can be great to have grown up with and also a Ponzi scammer.
Akshully Wright-Olivares pled guilty to fraud, was judged and sentenced in a court of law.
Anyway “thou shalt not steal”. Or are you one of those selective “rules don’t apply to me or my buddies” religious types?
Also the last comment before yours is dated 2016, five years ago. It seems only you are having trouble getting over the fact Dawn is a convicted Ponzi scammer.
I just saw these bs comments. Wesley Snipes and many other celebrities have been arrested for tax evasion. Do you still watch they’re movies or do you talk shit about them too.
I talked to Dawn before and after she was in jail. She is still an awesome person.
A mistake is a mistake. She took responsibility for what she did. Or was she supposed to be sentenced to death???
Cmon have you ever made a mistake or had a lack of judgement??
If those charges were MLM related, you can bet they’d be documented here.
I’m sure she is. But that doesn’t change the fact Dawn headed up a $600 million dollar Ponzi scheme, was convicted and sent to prison.
Not really sure what your problem is. This article was published in 2016, the year Dawn was sentenced to prison.
The comments on the article were all made in the same year, until you showed up five years later to have a sook.
Again, it seems the only person unable to come to terms with Dawn being sentenced to prison for securities and tax fraud is you.
Sentenced to death? Monica, you are over-reacting.
Hmm. Googling your full name shows a larceny arrest in 2013 (Connecticut). Could your hysterics about Dawn be related to something the two of you did together?
I’m not a psychologist, mind you.
I was swindled by Zeek, and Dawn. The crazy thing is that she moved to my state (Arkansas) after all this happened. She touts “love and light,” but does anyone know if she actually took responsibility for what she did?
Yes, she plead guilty. But did she actually own up to it? Was there any remorse?
She went to prison. AFAIK Dawn keeps quiet about it.
Probably the smartest move on her part.