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Court To Scammer, "Give Up Your House Or Go To Jail"
coondoggie writes "Too many online scammers get away with what amounts to a wrist-slap, but a case if Las Vegas this week seems to be heading the right direction. According to the Federal Trade Commission, a business opportunity scammer has been held in contempt for the second time by a federal court and ordered to turn over the title of his home in Las Vegas or face jail time. The court found that the operator of the scam, Richard Neiswonger, failed to deliver marketable title to his home, in violation of a previous court order entering a $3.2 million judgment against him, the FTC stated. The FTC charged that the defendant deceived consumers with false promises that they could make a six-figure income by selling his 'asset protection services' to those seeking to hide their assets from potential lawsuits or creditors."
Can anyone else see the irony in the seller of "asset protection services" to "hide assets from potential lawsuits" failing to hide his assets from potential lawyers?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Don't give him a choice, take everything AND put him in jail...
think about it - if his service actually worked, he wouldn't have been prosecuted for running a scam :)
Take the house and put him in jail... Actually, Waterboard him too.
"The FTC charged that the defendant deceived consumers with false promises that they could make a six-figure income by selling his 'asset protection services' to those seeking to hide their assets from potential lawsuits or creditors."
Of course, you might have to spend time in jail instead of losing your assets ...
I hope the government has a plan to build more jails because they will fill up fast with these fools. These guys are really taking advantage of the situation right now with a lot of people out of work.
What I tell friends and family and anyone who wants to listen: consider all unsolicited emails as scams. The same for telemarketers - if you're on the DNC list, then those people are breaking the law by calling you which makes them criminals. You don't want to do business with criminals, do you?
Junk mail a lot (too many) of times are crooks too - you know the "checks" that come in the mail for you to deposit and send money via Western Union to others.
Some day, one of these assholes is going to scam the wrong person and they may end up wishing they've gone to jail.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
The FTC has an archive of case materials. Looks like a complaint was brought in 1996, and he settled in 1997, which included agreeing to a permanent injunction. The FTC brought another complaint in 2006, got a temporary restraining order, and a finding of contempt of court in 2007. The 2007 filing is the one that instituted a $3.2 million fine and ordered Neiswonger to turn over title to a specific residence in Las Vegas as part of paying it.
It's not clear to me if that's his primary residence or a secondary one. Usually primary residences are shielded from civil judgments. If it's a secondary one, this case isn't unusual at all, since ordering a 2nd home to be sold to pay a judgment is common. If it's a primary one, I'm not sure if the rules are different because it's a contempt proceeding. (In theory it seems the rules might also be different for even primary residences purchased with ill-gotten money, but none of the complaints seem to allege that specifically.)
The FTC also has a slightly more detailed version of this news, fwiw.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
...once they ship his scamming ass off to Federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Contempt of court is the only thing that can legally get you sent to jail indefinitely without a jury trial in the US.
No, in fact, the (former) president of the United States stated that if you are suspected of terrorism, you can be held without charge indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, and without any right to challenge the fact that you were so designated (or even to see any of the evidence used to designate you a terrorist.)
For example, Jose Padilla was a U.S. Citizen, picked up on U.S. territory, and put into solitary confinement without being allowed to see talk to a lawyer and without any charges against him. On September 9, 2005, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled that President Bush indeed has the authority to detain Padilla without charges, in an opinion written by judge J. Michael Luttig.
So, no, contempt of court is not the only thing that can legally get you sent to jail indefinitely without a jury trial in the US.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Get all of his property, including anything off-shored (property, money & other stuff) and vehicles (car , boats & airplanes) that this moron has,
The most important that they get the off-shored stuff since most criminals now, like companies, are off-shored so they can put these items into tax and legal havens so these people don't have to worry about tax or government garnishing these things.
If the US is really smart, they should go after all these criminals so they can recoup lost of tax revenue that we, legal people pay for, and get those criminals really shaking in their boots.
Isn't hiding assets from creditors unlawful? Isn't any "service" designed to assist people in committing unlawful acts also illegal? What is the difference between "You can make big $$$ selling our program to help people hide their assets!" and "You can make big $$$ breaking legs for loansharks whose borrowers don't pay up!" Either way, your business model is asking people to pay you to help them commit crimes. This fails one of the first tests any "business opportunity" should pass: is it legal?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's deliberate irony, though, which is unfunny in the same way that explaining a joke makes the joke not be funny. The lose-your-big-assets sentence was almost certainly chosen because of what the scammer was advertising.
This isn't spontaneous enough to be "haha!" worthy.
Or to put it another way: this very post (explaining why it isn't funny) isn't funny, and if you reply to explain why you think it's still funny, the story gets even less funny.
I hereby propose to resolve this problem by an ammendment to the Constitution, to read as follows:
XXVIII. We really mean it.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I think this should be done to people who copy music, hack into other's computers ..... !
I say he should go to jail and keep the house. While in jail he can't lose any more money- in the mean time the house can earn him rent so maybe he can upgrade to a hotel.
My webcomic
Um, how did his claim count as fraud? He made (at least) 3.2 million selling his "program". So surely others could manage the claimed "six figures" doing the same thing, no? Thus, no fraud. His system worked, simple as that.
Granted, the end-product may (or may not - He may have said nothing more complex than "sell everything and bury your cash in the back yard") have violated a law or two, but he didn't actually sell the "asset protection" service, he sold educational material on how to hide assets. And he didn't really even do that, according to the FTC, he sold lessons on how to sell educational material on how to hide assets.
Seriously, how many layers of indirection do you have to toss in before it stops counting as a crime? If I convince you to pay me $20 to tell you where you can find bomb-making instructions, then send you off to the library after you pay up... Have I committed a crime?
scams and frauds, who is out to steal your money and how, don't do this at home
While scumbag scammers need to go to jail, they should go to jail for being scumbag scammers.
It sounds like they couldn't get this guy for a real crime, so they decided trump up fraud charges and fish out people who fell for the scam and enter a judgment of $3,200,000.00 against him.
That's fine. If the fraud charges are valid they'll withstand appeals. If he covered his ass with "results not typical" and etc., then he should win the appeals.
The move to hold him in contempt of court until he pays up is a thinly veiled attempt to put him in prison ("justice" for his non-criminal crimes) while he works on further appeals. If he hands over the deed and otherwise pays up, it'll bankrupt him so he can't afford to proceed with further appeals.
Courts have way too much power in regards to putting you in jail if you can't afford whatever it's been decided you owe.
People need to pay their debts, and cough up for actual damages, and courts should have the power to take your assets if need be. But a lot of judges act like 12 year olds with an @ sign on IRC and abuse thier power to no end in order to shoehorn their idea of justice in.
The typical bullshit is "Pay up or go to prison. Your choice.". When a person can't pay (see 95% of "deadbeat dads"), prison isn't a choice - it's a jail sentence for a private debt that should be settled between the parties in arbitration and, if necessary, asset valuation and seizure.
That's some old world shit we were supposed to have left behind.
But... but he was a bad guy! He kicked his dog, peed on the American flag, tore the tag off of his mattress, returned his DVDs without rewinding them, did not have his pet spayed or neutered, only looked one way before crossing, and was personally at the controls of both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center. The President said so, and he has... um... papal infallibility or something like that. It's in the Constimutution.
There's an ammendamament about it too. Part of it was scribbled in the margin and only seems to appear on the original copy in Raleigh, but I'm sure it's still legal.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws unless they're, like, all bad guys or French or something and we all know it. Then the, you know, states can hit them with sticks and pour tea up their noses and that's still cool. Seriously."
Good thing the current President has changed all that...
(Note: First news link I saw when I Googled it. I'm sure there are plenty better ones out there.)
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
I thought in a state with homestead rules the govt cant seize a persons home?
Ok...let's think this through....
If it was high school curriculum, then people would know by the time that they're 16 that scammers are out to rip them off.
If people knew that, then it's not much of a leap of logic to figure out by the time you're 20 that banks, governments and other corporations are out to rip you off, too.
And that is the last thing the ruling elite want you to know.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Good thing the current President has changed all that...
Well, that's the interesting thing of it. You give one president arbitrary powers, because you trust him to not misuse them, and, you know, you discover that the next president takes those powers, too. And the next. So you have to trust all of them not to misuse them.
Well, it's all perfectly legal. All that stuff about being innocent until proven guilty, constitutional rights-- that's obsolete. The courts said so-- if somebody says the word "terrorism," that word erases any of your so-called "rights".
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If its a community property state, the FTC will only get half. And if she's anything like my wife, after sharing the place for a few months, the gov't will come crawling back, begging to have Neiswonger take it back.
Have gnu, will travel.
is there an option forfeit a summer home in nigeria instead? lol
the last time I looked houses in Vegas were worth a box of chicklets. Gum, not strippers you perverts.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
HAHAHAHA! Take that you Nigerian piece of SH ...
Oh wait a minute...
XXIX: Intentional circumvention of the preceding by the government or its agents should be chargeable as TREASON to all voluntarily participating parties, will the maximum sentence for such to be execution, implemented with utmost haste.
a secret extract derived the the lubricant glands of the rare pythonus imaginarius.
>>> import lubricant_glands
>>> print lubricant_glands.extract
The scammer was stupid to buy a house in California. Every sane criminal knows to buy in Florida, where state laws protect the walls, roof, frame against confiscation and the ranch it stands on. Only the most serious federal crimes (racist murder, slavery, terrorism, armed robbery of a federal reserve bank, etc.) can see you house-castle taken away by the evil govt.
Prosecution of ordinary crimes like fraud, scam, spamming or running a computer virus megabotnet cannot threaten your hard-earned mansion. They can take the LCD TV, paintings or the toilet seat, but walls and roof remain protected as well as the land underneath.
Florida knows to value and protect its criminals, because they are active, GDP-producing beings, while victims are passive ones per definition. Scarface Al makes good revenue even after permanently closing his eyes in Florida over half a century ago.
He's a thief, his ass-et belongs in jail. Why is it that a poor man who shoplifts food goed to jail, while a rich man who steals thousands of dollars simply has to pay for what he's stolen?
Free Martian Whores!
The key word here is "legal". Just because the President says something does not make it legal. Nor does the opinion of three payed for judges make it legal.
The Second Circuit made the correct and lawful interpretation on December 18, 2003.
The key word here is "legal". Just because the President says something does not make it legal. Nor does the opinion of three payed for judges make it legal. The Second Circuit made the correct and lawful interpretation on December 18, 2003.
It's too bad that the decision you quote was appealed to the Supreme Court, who ruled that the Second Circuit Court did not have jurisdiction, which means that their decision has no legal standing. When the case was re-filed, and the decision appealed to United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, the court ruled that the president has the right to detail people without trial for indefinite periods of time. That ruling remains the current legal precedent on the case. Note that iit was September 9, 2005, almost two years after the (void) decision you quote.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I am aware of that ruling. I am stating that that ruling itself is illegal and in clear contradiction with the constitution. If there is any semblance of law and justice left in America, it will be reversed.
Educating the populace is a non-starter because 50% of people are below average. Even if the overall average is increased, the top half will simply find more clever ways to extract money out of the bottom half.