To err is human, to bullsh-t is Devine

January 15, 2014, 7:56 am

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If you've been keeping up with the saga of jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's Global Information Network (GIN), you know that there has been quite a ruckus as various scavengers fight over the seemingly moribund beast even before its actual demise. I wrote several updates on this post (and in the comments section), and before that here, and before that here, and before that here. Although numerous ex-GIN speakers/principals have gone off to flog their own schemes, inspired at least in part by GIN, the chief factions in the war for GIN itself appear to be (1) GINtervenor and prospective WINner Perry Kiraly and his followers, represented by Perry's Shimkos; and (2) the remaining GIN staff, most notably interim Chief Operating Officer and longtime Trudeau buddy Jeffrey Devine, presumably under the guidance of the court-appointed receiver.

We've been hearing a lot from Perry, but the GIN staff hasn't been idle either. This Devine missive was issued yesterday evening (January 14). I shared it on several Facebook forums then, but here it is for a wider audience.

GIN UNITES! January 14, 2014

We, at GIN Headquarters, would first like to apologize to all of our Members, speakers, believers, and supporters. We have been working tirelessly every day, and many times throughout the night, to regain ground control and stabilize this amazing club! Guess what... it’s working! It's time to thrive. Here is what we have accomplished so far:

Since the Receivership, we have been able to successfully weed out the majority of the compliance issues brought against the club in order to prove that we are operating correctly and legally. We were able to accomplish this because of our staff’s loyalty, efforts and true belief in this club. Without people like Nick, Lisa, Joel, Jeanette and many others, we would not be here today to announce this. Thanks to all of you!

In the last five months, we have been able to reinstate and upgrade previous Members who were unable to continue their GIN Membership due to cost or concern. Our Members are coming back! This cannot be denied and our numbers are showing it! And why not? Everything that the Members have received, learned and earned from this club is life-changing. Now we have begun to regroup. It’s a perfect time to combine our minds and show the world that we can thrive!

A regional education “road show” has been put in place and is ready to launch! This will not only include some of your favorite speakers from the past, but also some new speakers who are sure to inspire! Keep in mind—these will not replace GIN Major Events; they will only enhance the existing event lineup! These regional events are designed to be frequent and more accessible to all.

We have a new and improved Member Reward Program that will be coming out shortly that is sure to impress!

This is the part where we need to apologize. With all of this great news…and more to come…we have failed in one area. As the staff has been working tirelessly to maintain this great club, keep it growing, and offer even more benefits, we have failed to inform you of all of our progress, successes, and achievements.

We have also failed to set the record straight with certain comments and attacks from others. This will not happen any further.

First, let us say we have the endorsement and support of GIN’s key players. Contrary to rumors and other reports, the fact is that GIN has a dedicated faculty of educators and speakers that have been here all along! Troy McClain, Coral Thomas, Ed Foreman, Dr. Tom Morter, Dr. Ted Morter, Blaine Athorn, Chris McGarahan, Dr. Theresa Dale, Ron Ball, Aadil Palkhivala, Jacques Patenaude and many others are with us today, and will be with us tomorrow and in the future.

Secondly, we cannot let the club fold due to misguided management practices from the past. It is imperative that we remain united, informed, and stay the course. Our chief aim must be to comply with legal and ethical business practices in order to move onward and upward with our club. This is in fact what the Receivers are doing. They are allowing us to operate and work within our system of beliefs, while guiding us to create sustainability for the future.

Finally, there is no WIN outside of GIN! Some reports and letters are suggesting that it would be easier to start over and build a new club from the ground up. The fact is that GIN already exists. Our staff is here. Our speakers are here. We will continue to fight. Why? Because we know that its right to fight for what we believe in, what we’ve built, and what we love. As a team, we made it through 2013. As a club, we will grow for all to see in 2014. Together we will thrive!
Sincerely,
Jeff Devine,
GIN Operations

"Life coach" Coral Thomas may be one to watch; she is reportedly a big contributor to the Katie legal defense fund and has been rumored to be working on some new schemes with Janine Nubani Contursi (the one who is allegedly writing those schlocky jailhouse Facebook posts for Katie) and some other Katie cohorts, past and present. In fact most of the folks named in Jeff's letter are reportedly still loyal to Trudeau, and the buzz is that they may be more than willing to hand the keys to the kingdom back to him when/if he is ever released.

Notably absent from Jeff's list of B- and C-list luminaries: Fred Van Liew, aka Fred Van Loony, and Mary Miller. Even so, judging from some conversations on the GIN International page -- I'm not privy to them but someone kindly copied and pasted for me -- Fred van Loony is apparently siding with Perry et al., indignantly claiming that the receiver has no right to sell GIN. He called Perry "selfless." Fred -- who also still expresses loyalty and gratitude to Katie -- appears to still be on board with the plan to starve the receiver out so that the receiver will just leave and give GIN "back" to the members (who, as they don't seem to understand, never owned it in the first place).

I strongly suspect that there is at least a little bit of sour grapes here and that there's no place for Freddy at the new GIN table, but perhaps he is still trying to keep his options open. Maybe when it all shakes out Freddy will still be able to sell his magickal swamp water and E-pendant and other frauducts to the GINfolk. And if not to them, then to Perry's WINfolk. Meanwhile, Fred is hanging out with the Pitcocks and workin' that MLM -- the 90forLife scheme, which is a combo of the Pitcocks' Livinity and veterinarian Dr. Joel Wallach's Youngevity. This is another example of that "no neat and tidy endings" thing.

More importantly, and as I noted on some Facebook forums, one thing to keep in mind is that Jeff Devine is not exactly an unimpeachable source (some of you who know him are no doubt snorting at my understatement). I would be willing to bet that significant chunks of his January 14 letter are mostly wishful thinking (actually the missive sounds more than a little desperate). Reportedly a couple of those fabled "advisory board" members have already quit, and despite Jeff's claims that the GIN staff has been diligently working on "reinstating and upgrading" members, the GIN membership continues to decline. And it seems that Jeff feels at least a little threatened by Perry and gang, since he closed his letter with that tiny snark about "no WIN outside of GIN."

In any case, the final decision is not in Jeff's hands-- and he knows it. Nothing is certain about GIN's legal status until the court makes a decision. Maybe the hearing on January 30 will accomplish something.

I'm only keeping up with this because I find this whole dueling-scavengers thing highly amusing, and I am also entertained by the propaganda war that the opposing parties are waging to win the hearts, minds, and souls of the remaining GIN members and on-the-fence ex-members. I expect another drama-queen missive from Perry Kiraly either today or tomorrow. [NOTE: See update below. ~CC]

Meanwhile, Katie's former marketing director Peter Wink, who since being fired from the Katie scampire has gone on to perpetrate a cheap GIN knockoff called IBMS Master's Society, wrote this on self-described "GIN destroyer" Abe Husein's Facebook page a couple of days ago: "All Gin members should consider getting out now before the receiver lowers the boom, possibly as soon as the end of the month. Simply go into your back-office and delete the credit card information from your account to prevent further charges. The receiver ruined Gin. End of story."("End of story" is one of little Loony Coldwell's fave phrases in his videos. Loony and Peter are becoming more and more alike; have you noticed? They do make quite the team.)

At any rate, I am puzzled. I thought it was Abe who ruined GIN, and did it almost single-handedly, according to previous statements Peter and Loony and Abe had made. But now I guess we have to blame the receiver. In all fairness, though, Peter and Loony have both been righteously ragging on the receiver for months -- at least since last September. Receiver or no receiver, they would probably sell their moms for a chance to suck the remaining GIN members, as well as a big chunk of ex-GIN members, into their failing IMBS-ing U Master Baiter's Society vortex.

Click to enlarge.

And speaking of Abe, he tossed out another difficult-to-understand video early this AM (when he really gets going he giggles and guffaws, and his words stumble over each other -- and the YouTube auto-transcript is worse than useless). However, I was able to understand some of the vid, which seems to be 25-plus minutes of Abe misrepresenting most of the recent communications about GIN, boasting that he was right about everything, touting himself as the most reliable source of all GINfo, bragging about his involvement in the GIN movie, saying he respects Perry Kiraly (though just a week or so ago he was still calling Perry a brain-dead zombie and threatening to sabotage his new club), and inviting Perry and anyone else in doubt to join the IMBS-ing U scam. (The screen shot is from a conversation about a letter one of the Shimkos sent out to Perry last week, which I copied and pasted, with commentary, on this post (scroll down to "Update 9 January 2014: The Shimko weighs in"). I kind of get the feeling that Wink is behind Abe's turnaround re Perry. Perhaps Peter recognized Perry's gift of b.s., and maybe he also considered the fact that Perry does have some followers and even has Jeff Devine worried... so maybe Peter thought Perry's influence might be useful for the floundering IMBS-ing U club.

In his video Abe also emphasizes that "Dr." C (that would be Loony Coldwell) and Wink, the Supreme Founders of the BS klub, still have great relations with some of the beloved GIN speakers, including some of those mentioned in Devine's latest missive. Well, so much for any of Abe's long-time claims not to be involved at all with the Winkwell scam. He's soaking in it. And let's not forget that he is touting THIS MAN -- yes, THIS ONE -- as a leader who can show the way to a successful life.

The two points on which I agree with Abe, and always have, are that the GIN staff is still lying, and that GIN itself was built on lies. But I was writing about that more than a year before Abe had even heard of GIN.

In any event, it's very clear that Perry Kiraly and Jeff Devine don't hold the monopoly on GIN-related bullsh-t.Update, later on, 15 January 2014

Well, we didn't have to wait long for Perry's response.

From: Perry Kiraly
Date: January 15, 2014 at 3:51:24 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject:SWGF/WIN Update 01-15-14

Dear Fellow GIN Members,

This is a brief update to comment upon the "GIN UNITES!" message released yesterday evening from GIN headquarters.

It unfortunately would better read: "Those that work for the legal entity known as GIN FDN have been compelled to unite with the Receiver that was sent there to liquidate it."

In the message it was stated that, "our members are coming back." Whether any members did come back I do not know. What I do know is that the overall numbers show, that before the Receiver, GIN had approximately 8500 active members. GIN now has less than 4000 active members and the decline continues.

Next, it was stated in the message that "key players" are still endorsing the GIN Receiver controlled foundation. I would suggest if one really wants to know where these key players actually do stand; first ask that their identities be reviewed, then call them and ask them personally. As for at least two that have spoken at GIN events and where they stand I re-post the emails received from Mr. Ed Foreman and Fred Van Lew [sic], as follows:

===
December 23, 2013
Perry,
Thanks for your clear message about the destruction of GIN by the Receivers. It has been my opinion, all along, based on similar situations, that they would "milk the cow"'til she goes dry...then barbecue and eat her remains. Afterwards, they would offer the bones to the "dogs" for their highest bid! Like vultures, they usually start with the eyeballs and brains first. It ain't a purty picture!
Luv,
Ed Foreman

===

Fred Van Liew
"You are getting nothing but web access as long as the receivers are in control. They have defrauded you of the people and services you contracted for. No referring payments, no cruise. Just out right theft of our private club owned by the membership. I would send your dues to the legal fund headed by Perry Kiraly. Look him up. You don't even have to resign. Just go delinquent for a couple of months. Our lawyer is excellent. Thank you, Perry!!!"
Sent from my iPad

===

January 3, 2014
Perry,
Heartiest congratulations to you on the tremendous, excellent work and progress you are making in saving our great club...and going from GIN to WIN is terrific! I am out of the Country now...will be back after the 15th and in touch with you. Keep On Keeping On!
Ed Foreman

===
Next, in a previous message from Receiver/GIN headquarters it was stated that the budget wouldn't allow for the payment of Inner Circle or other programs. But it would appear that maybe they could have been paid? See the attached Receiver Report of Oct. 25, 2013. In this report the Receiver mentions having $2,000,000.00 in an escrow account it hasn't accessed yet and an additional $990,000.00 in the Receiver's bank account. That amounts to almost $3,000,000.00 in reserve and that was in October 2013 before the Affiliate program was cut out. So a more accurate statement would be that the budget won't allow the payment of Inner Circle and other GIN programs, and the payment of the Receiver's salary and Mr. Trudeau's fine of 37-million.

Lastly it suggested in the GIN/Receiver message that there is no WIN outside of GIN. Well, yes there is. World Information Network Foundation LTD or WIN is now a legal entity established in the state of Ohio.

Better stated, there is no GIN outside of WIN, for WIN currently consists of those that believe in the ideals upon which GIN was initially founded and welcomes what is left of the membership that believe likewise to join us. The ideals I speak of are truth, integrity, the pursuit of happiness and Freedom.
Thank you,
Perry Kiraly

Let it be noted that I am a citizen of the United States of America and have exercised my 1^st Amendment right to express my opinion herein. Perry Kiraly
###

That escrow account was actually set up years ago by Kevin, as part of one of the agreements he signed with the FTC, to be used specifically for paying on fines in case he violated any more orders. It never belonged to the GIN members or to the receiver.

I will continue to keep y'all posted as new twists and turns surface in this increasingly silly story.

Update, 16 January 2014:Very early this morning, Perry K issued yet another January 15 update, in response to another missive from GIN Headquarters. I don't have a copy of that yet -- I will insert it here when I do -- but here is Perry's response.

From: Perry Kiraly
Sent: 1/16/2014 1:30:59 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: WIN/SWGF Second Update 01-15-14

SWGF Update: PERRY KIRALY
Second Update January 15, 2014

Dear Fellow GIN Members,
I must say that if nothing else I’ve shaken things up enough to get some movement to take place down at GIN Headquarters. I’d also like to thank you HQ for keeping me on my toes…

To respond to the latest release entitled "Fast Facts from Headquarters," I believe we should first take a look at the title which may be quite revealing…"Fast-facts." In fact I had to look up the definition of "fast-facts" after reading the release to be sure I understood the meaning, then re-read those fast-facts in that light definition.

The informal definition for fast..facts is defined as: a deceptive or unscrupulous trick (esp. in the phrase pull a fast one). So let’s take a look at some of the more relevant question/answers and see if they’re trying to in fact pull a fast-one here:

1. Who is the official "voice" of GIN?

GIN HQ answer: something about a collective. .. (i.e. Non Answer)

Truth: The Receiver

2. Is the staff controlled by the receiver?

GIN HQ answer: …Non answer…gibberish.

Truth: Yes

3. Why has the receiver terminated several GIN Staff Members?

GIN HQ answer: …financial stability….

Truth: More money for the Receiver & KT fine

4. Are my Membership dues paying the receivers’ fees?

GIN HQ answer: …for operations… (this is a partial truth + gibberish added)

Truth: Yes and the Receiver Estate fund to pay KT’s fine.
5. Have any GIN funds been applied to Mr. Trudeau’s debt?

GIN HQ answer: None as of the date of this message.(this may be true but…)

Truth: All GIN funds not used for operations and the Receivers fees go to the Receiver Estate fund that will be used to pay Mr. Trudeau’s debt. The only reason it hasn’t gone there yet is the judge will have to order it.
6. Why is the receiver in control of GIN?

GIN HQ answer: Here GIN HQ affirms this truth which answer the above two question HQ asked being: "Is the staff controlled by the receiver? And "Who is the official "voice" of GIN?"

Truth: GIN HQ admitted by their admission here the Receiver is the official voice of GIN and in control of the staff messages.

7. Is the receiver "milking" the organization?

GIN HQ answer: (Non-answer…gibberish)

Truth: Yes, all programs costing money have been eliminated. All cash not use to operate GIN goes to the Receiver’s fund and fund for KT’s fine.

8. Have the receivers cancelled Membership benefits?
GIN HQ answer: …yes…removed for legal compliance…. (so, the BMW winners lease payments was illegal…the Inner Circle payments…the lazyman’s purchases…Really!)
Truth: Yes, 22 to date and counting all legal
9. Why won’t the receiver pay previous promotional obligations?

GIN HQ answer: …blamed it on poor management prior to Receiver interference. (even though all programs were being paid – some over time – but all were being paid before the Receiver interfered with GIN)

Truth: The Receiver won’t pay previous GIN promos because that more cash in their pocket…

11 .If past bonuses and promotions were not fully paid, why should I trust future program rollouts?

GIN HQ answer: …trust the new management…!!!!!!
Truth: If rollouts means payouts…how can they be trusted to do what they have not done to date?

12. Why is the new Leadership Roundtable held in secrecy from the GIN Members?

GIN HQ answer: …there is absolutely NO secrecy as to the members of the new LRT.
Truth: We still don’t know who they are nor did the general membership vote for them.

13. Where is the contract between the LRT Members and the receivers?
GIN HQ answer: … there is no "contract" between these parties.
Truth: in the conference call to the Inner Circle which I have a recording of it is stated that the Receiver has endorsed, in writing the Round Table group.
14. Why does the GIN receiver control the LRT (…Round Table)?
GIN HQ answer: It would not be a correct representation to describe the receivers as "in control" of the LRT.

Truth: GIN HQ admitted in question #6 that the Receiver is in control of GIN and is therefore in control of anyone they endorse in writing!

15. Have the LRT Members endorsed the idea of giving all GIN Members the opportunity to participate in the acquisition of the club?

GIN HQ answer: Yes…

Truth: Oh, now we, the Members, need a self-elected, Receiver endorsed group of yet unidentified Round Table members to endorse "giving all GIN Members" the opportunity to participate in the acquisition of the club? (know that I am holding back what I’d really like to express regarding this).

16. Why did a recent communication state that GIN paid Mr. Troy McClain to write a recently released letter?
GIN HQ answer: …Perry Kiraly claiming Troy McClain was paid to write the letter he wrote is a complete FALSEHOOD….

Truth: I personally spoke with Mr. McClain for over an hour by telephone several days prior to Mr. McClain writing that letter GIN HQ posted. Mr. McClain stated that he was being paid to get communication unstuck between the Receiver and GIN members. He further stated that he would be doing a conference call with the Receiver and HQ on Monday the 6th.

In that I felt it would be a breach of confidence to reveal a private conversation with Troy regarding how I knew Troy was being paid and by whom, I decided to state it as I did in my previous update knowing that Troy was at one time on retainer and believed him to still be so retained. And knowing that having a financial interest in writing what Troy did should be considered.

I hereby publically apologize to you Troy McClain for revealing a part of our private telephone conversation but I do so for what I believe to be the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics in this situation.
17. What was the original intent of the Intervenors’ efforts?
GIN HQ answer: …the original intent was to purchase GIN. It appears that in their latest communications that the intention is to shut down GIN and start a new club; however, they want to do so under their own appointed governing board rather than one appointed by the Membership.

Truth: Purchasing the "assets only" was something considered by us. It then became very clear that the Receiver planned to milk the club until dry then sell what was left to the highest bidder. This left one course of action…find a way to get free of Receiver control.

We also recognized the extensive liabilities of GIN FDN created by the Receiver’s interference of GIN business affairs. The only solution was to form a new legal entity with which to carry on future club activities, hence, we created the World Information Network Foundation Ltd which will be member owned and controlled (please see SWGF/WIN update of 12-31-13 for WIN’s open Member leadership structure).

Note that GIN HQ makes a real issue of stating in question #17 above: "they (the Interveners) want to do so under their own appointed governing board rather than one appointed by the Membership." Isn’t this a funny thing to accuse us of when the GIN HQ secretly appointed a Round Table group endorsed by the Receiver in writing to represent the general GIN Membership which had no part in their election?!!!
18. Would it be easier to keep GIN alive, or just start a new club?

GIN HQ answer: … it would no doubt be a MASSIVE undertaking to start an entirely new club…

Truth: It is a MASSIVE undertaking but as a Founder, Level-6 candidate, Inner Circle, Platinum, Go-Getter I, Sanctioned Speaker, and Member who loves the ideals upon which this club was founded and wants to see them continue I have and am willing to undertake this massive effort for the greatest good of all of the current and future Members that believe in these ideals!

19. Are the numbers stated by the Intervenors and their legal counsel accurate?
GIN HQ answer: No

Truth: Attrition rate over 50% since Receiver interference. Approximately 8500 before the Receive, less then 4000 now. (If these numbers are inaccurate I challenge GIN HQ to post the numbers that are accurate from your non-secret transparent current leadership)?

20. Why has a lawyer stated his opinion is that GIN will soon only have 2000 members and that all of GIN Staff will be fired?

GIN HQ answer: This is not the opinion of a lawyer representing GIN. It is the opinion of the Intervenors’ attorney, paid by the Intervenors.

Truth: This is an honest opinion based upon an extrapolation of the attrition rate and numbers listed above.

21. Will future GIN owners make due on all previous liabilities?

GIN HQ answer: This cannot be answered at this time and can only be answered by future owners. However, acquirers of GIN will have to conduct their own financial assessment of past liabilities to see if it is possible to meet those previous obligations of GIN. It should be noted that new owners of GIN will not acquire GIN's previous liabilities at the time of acquisition; rather only GIN’s assets will be sold.

Truth: No – and note that if the new acquirers do not create a new legal entity as I have already done they will be subject to all of GIN FDN’s liabilities. What you are not being told is that the new owners WILL create a new club or legal entity or be strapped with GIN debt they don’t want. In short the new owners will do what they criticize me for doing regarding the establishment of a new legal entity under which to do club business.

22. How will the GIN Members’ voice be heard?

GIN HQ answer: …GIN HQ…LRT (Leadership Round Table)….

Truth: Receiver controlled GIN HQ & LRT.
23. Who will create the next level of training?

GIN HQ answer: … faculty of expert trainers, LRT, consultants, and staff…

Truth: A Receiver controlled government influenced faculty of expert trainers, LRT, consultants, and staff…

24. If funds are raised by any members of the LRT, would those funds be under the escrow control of the receivers as stated by the Intervenors’ communications?

GIN HQ answer:…Absolutely not….

Truth: The Order Appointing the Receiver gives him complete control, admitted by GIN HQ in HQ’s answer to question #6. So of course the Receiver will have control of funds raised by GIN HQ & Receiver the appointed Round Table group if it chooses to exercise this control.

25. Did the FTC want to dismantle GIN?

GIN HQ answer: In cooperative efforts with the receiver’s office, GIN has made substantial strides to make its operations legally and financially sound. GIN is confident this will demonstrate a clear effort of cooperation with any government authority and to demonstrate that the new GIN management has the best interest of its Members and the interest of consumers in mind.

Truth: If what the Receiver has done so far is any indication of what their employer wants to do the answer is a resounding YES.
26. Why did GIN lower its Membership Level price structure and "fire sale" the organization?

GIN HQ answer: …direct result of continuous feedback from the GIN Membership and statistics, resulting in a recommendation to the receiver

Truth: Fire-Sale. (Raise money to keep operations from folding because of massive attrition rate of membership)
27. Is it a direct violation for a GIN Member to defame or use the information on the GIN website (contact info) to directly solicit, intimidate, insult or defame another GIN Member? Does GIN have a policy to prevent harassment of Members or hurting the reputation of others?

GIN HQ answer: …The Intervenors’ counsel stated that a new club can be started, however he failed to refer to two important sections of GIN's own Membership Agreement listed below:

12.8. I agree to never jeopardize the reputation of GIN, any of its Members and Affiliates, staff, speakers, presenters, and contractors, in any way, including but not limited to using any social media platform (Face book, Twitter, Google+, etc.), email, telephone, print, or public announcement.

12.17. I agree to never solicit Members and/or Affiliates, directly or indirectly, to promote other business opportunities, loans, investments, products, or services.

Truth: Representing and taking sole responsibility for the Interveners [sic] and all 500+ Members that requested to be on the Plaintiff list. My only intention has and continues to be to preserve the club for its current Members out of love for the club. I have been a Member of GIN since June of 2009, even before its official launch, and I will do whatever it takes to see it continues in accordance with the ideal of truth and freedom upon which it was founded.

As a final note please search the historical record and you will see that virtually all oppressive dictator based governments have made painstaking efforts to silence those that shinned the light of truth upon their activities. I mention this because GIN has locked me out of my account though my dues are current and have been current since June of 2009. The above question #27 is asked as a precursor justification to terminate my membership. I kept my dues current anticipating this and for the reason of staying in good standing until our motion to Intervene was heard on January 30th. Do you really want to be a part of a club that takes efforts to silence or punish those that reveal oppressive acts?

Do you really want to be a member of a club who’s leaders and potential purchasers would allow this! If so know that if it has happened to me it will happen to you…
Let it be noted that I am a citizen of the United States of America and have exercised my 1st Amendment right to express my opinion herein.

Thank you,
Perry Kiraly

It's still just a propaganda war, as far as I am concerned: Devine et al. versus Perry et al. I do of course still agree with Perry that "GIN Headquarters" is lying, and good for him for calling that out... but... well, something about pots and kettles comes to mind.

Someone asked my opinion of who is winning this propaganda war. I said that we who are watching it are winning, because we are getting all of this entertainment for free. But on a more serious note, I continue to look upon this as an example of how desperately some people cling to the dream of having a piece of the Scamworld pie. It still seems to me that Perry wants to preserve all of the parts of GIN that were most objectionable, ethically if not legally -- and that the "valuable information" GIN offered was secondary.

In a related amusing development, Abe H continues what appears to be a clumsy (and probably Wink-driven) effort to persuade Perry and his followers into the IMBS-ing U Master Baiter's Club. As snarky as I have been and will no doubt continue to be about Perry, I have a strong feeling that he has more sense than to get involved with those jokers.

This is from early AM, January 16 2014,
less than a week after Abe threatened to sabotage
Perry Kiraly's new proposed club WIN.
(See small screen shot towards the beginning of this post.)

And meanwhile in the MCC, caged Katie is happily playing Gin every day (no, I'm not making that up), experiencing diversity, and "communing with others" in a truly "special" way. They're one big happy band of bros there in the jailhouse. I wonder when he'll introduce his and Lee Kenny's baccarat scheme to his fellow brothers in orange. Word has it that sentencing in the criminal contempt case for which he was convicted will be on Saint Paddy's day, March 17. And life goes on.....

↧

Kevin Trudeau update: GINtervenors reply with fail-whale of a document, as Loony C makes more daft predictions

January 21, 2014, 11:44 am

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau update: Katie still caged, awaiting next hearing, while GINtervenors and receiver duke it out on paper

≪ Previous: To err is human, to bullsh-t is Devine

While serial scammer Kevin Trudeau sits in a cage in Chicago's MCC awaiting his sentencing on the criminal contempt charge (said sentencing has reportedly been moved to March 17, 2014, though I still have seen no docket entry to verify this), the paper shuffling continues in the civil case. As expected, a document was filed yesterday, January 20, by GINtervenors Perry Kiraly and gang's lawyers, the Shimkos, with the unwieldy title of, "Intervenor's Reply to FTC's Opposition to Intervenor's Motion to Intervene."

Holy Busy Prepositions, Batman! That's a whole lotta "to's" in one title.

Here is a direct link to the document. If you don't feel up to reading it at the moment, you have the option of just settling back and letting me blab on about it for a while. Or you can go do something useful. I won't be offended.

As you know if you've been keeping up here and/or on Facebook, I've been snarking about Perry being a drama queen, but when you read the document it is clear that Perry's Shimkos are drama queens too. The doc starts right off accusing the FTC of engaging in sturm und drangin its statement of opposition to the motion to intervene (filed on 20 December, 2013). I assume that this is a fancy-shmancy way of declaring that the FTC's opposition was a tad overwrought. The usage of sturm und drang in this context seems to be a tad overwrought too, but I digress.

Click to enlarge. A close-up of the page
that the fail-whale is holding in its mouth
in the graphic above.

The Shimko argues so passionately, almost as if he really believes what he is arguing, and it must be said again that I am not a qualified lawyer-ish person so I don't know the legal fine points, but it still seems to me that this document is totally missing the point, if I may err on the side of egregious understatement. Even though it seems that at least the Shimkos are finally trying to clarify why they believe that Perry and gang have "standing" in this case despite serious GIN ownership issues, it also seems that they are failing miserably. Perhaps the Shimkos just need to go back and read the hundreds and hundreds of pages of court docs that seem to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that GIN is owned by Katie (or, rather his wife, who now seems to be hiding out in Ukraine), and controlled by Katie. Therefore it was and is part of the receivership.

It's not that I blame the Shimkos for being confused. All of Katie's business affairs were set up to be confusing. But it seems that a lawyer should have a better understanding of these things. Or maybe I'm the dense one and just not reading things correctly. If so, I am in good company because the FTC lawyers are equally dense, so I don't feel so bad.

The Shimko also takes umbrage at the FTC's declaration, in their opposition to the motion to intervene, that the GIN MLM was a pyramid scheme and thus illegal, and therefore the Intervenors themselves are/were pyramid scheme participants. I wrote about that on this December 22 post. For now the point is moot because the MLM part of GIN has been suspended, but it appears to me that the Shimko was distorting and misrepresenting the FTC's declarations. To begin with, he accused the FTC of calling the Perry and his fellow Intervenors "ponzi scheme participants." Actually, no. The FTC called them "pyramid scheme participants."There is a difference between a Ponzi scheme and a pyramid scheme.

On the other hand, the FTC was a bit snarky about Perry and his pals, as reflected in the title I gave my December 22 post. And that hint of snarkiness opened the door for the Shimko to be dramatic and accuse the FTC of waging an ad hominemattack on his client. In any case, the court will ultimately be the one to decide on the legality or illegality of the GIN MLM.

* * * * *

When I read this latest court document, one of the first things that struck me was that it seemed to contradict Perry's and one of his Shimko's clear implications in recent communications that they are ready to give up the ghost with GIN. But then I thought, "Hey, maybe they are simply trying to keep their options open and get in the last word as they are legally allowed to do --- or rather, the second to the last word." As I just mentioned, the court has the final say on all of this stuff (unless of course there are appeals). Presumably major decisions will be made on January 30, when the next court hearing is scheduled.

At any rate, Perry's latest updates sent in the wake of that filing indicate that he and his pals are indeed going full speed ahead with their new club, the World Information Network, or WIN. More on that in a moment.

I noticed too that this latest court document is much more of a direct attack on the receiver than was the original motion to intervene (even though from the beginning the intervention was listed as being specifically against Robb Evans & Associates, LLC (the receiver)). Of course that is understandable, considering all of the missives that have flown back and forth since November 18 (when the motion to intervene was filed). It appears that once the Shimkos detected that they really didn't have a place at the negotiating table, as they had apparently believed originally (or at least had communicated to their client), they changed their tune.

As I have also mentioned before, it seems that in the past couple of months, a whole new meme has grown up around the receiver being the real"GIN destroyer," as opposed to others who have claimed that title for themselves. Perry and some of his fellow GINtervenors have gone on and on about how the club was so fine until the receiver took over with his bad vibes. As I noted in my previous post, even Katie's former marketing director Peter Wink, and Katie's former b.f.f. Leonard Coldwell, have been ragging on the receiver for a few months -- at least since September of last year. Much more recently, Peter even wrote that it is the receiver who destroyed GIN.

But I think that by now, many of us know who the real GIN destroyer was and is: Katie himself. With the help of his professional asset planners, he created GIN and at the same time -- either consciously or simply through his own arrogance and greed -- he planted the seeds of its destruction, nurturing those seeds from day one. The FTC and receiver deserve the lion's share of the rest of the credit (or blame, depending upon your perspective) for destroying GIN.

I noticed too that in the court doc, the Shimko snarks about the receiver letting the FTC do the real work in crafting the opposition to the motion to intervene, with the receiver merely filing a brief "me-too" document at "the eleventh hour." I feel obligated to point out that the Shimko also waited until past the eleventh hour to file his reply to the opposition. As I have mentioned a few times, the reply was due by January 17 (according to the civil case docket), and yet it was filed on January 20. This may not matter, and the Shimko did tell Perry in advance that he would have a reply filed by January 20. But unless the deadline really is NBD, it seems that the FTC and receiver could make a thing of it, and the court could decide that the document was filed too late.

I think I understand why attorneys on both sides wait until the eleventh hour to file in cases where pertinent info surfaces nearly every day, but the point is that the Shimko had no room to snark about this point.

The document contains several boring case precedents, as court docs invariably do. Precedents are like the soggy vegetables on your plate when you're a kid -- good for you, and prolly necessary for a balanced diet, but not nearly as interesting as the meat or the dessert. But I found one of the listed case precedents to be amusing, and so did my pal Tim Donohoe, who wrote:

Let's hope he [the Shimko] takes this argument to its logical conclusion.

[Quoting from the court document]
"The Receiver’s actions in cancelling [GIN] events is akin to the claimed injury in Japan Whaling Ass’n v. Am. Cetacean Soc’y, 478 U.S. 221 (U.S. 1986) wherein it was held that plaintiffs therein undoubtedly 'alleged a sufficient injury in fact in that the whale watching and studying of their members would be adversely affected by continued whale harvesting."
What he really means is that while GIN is being picked to death, all the ex gin scammers are out scamming all the whales, leaving nothing left for GIN's upper levels.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Great cetacean, Shimkos! I mean, great citation.
Here's a close-up shot of the citation (and cetacean) we're talking about, so you can get a better idea of the context.

Of course you probably need to read the court doc in its entirety, if you're interested, so you can make up your own mind about what's going on. And you really should read the document, because despite my snarking and my general cynicism about GIN and any attempt to form an alternative club, the GIN members did get screwed. They got screwed by Kevin and his cronies, though even at this late date some will not admit it. But I don't blame them for feeling that they are now being screwed by the FTC, the receiver, and the courts. And as snarkworthy as so many parts of this latest doc are, it does make the point that the real winners, income-wise, in this whole sorry saga are the lawyers and, more recently, the receiver.

* * * * *

Not surprisingly, Perry sent out an update in response to the latest court docs.

From: Perry Kiraly
Date: January 21, 2014 at 12:31:47 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: SWGF/WIN Update 01-21-14 Motion Filed - WIN Launched
SWGF Update: PERRY KIRALY

January 21, 2014

Dear Fellow GIN Members,
This update contains the most important documents released to date. Documents that will affect the future of our club and the Members in many ways.

These documents were sent yesterday but are resent again today for four very important reasons. Read each of them carefully.
The attached motion and accompanying declaration that was filed in the court on 01-20-14 will affect the future legal standing of all GIN Members and their rightful ownership of our club's property.
The motion and attached updates bring crystal public clarity to the true intentions of Perry Kiraly and the SWGF, and Mr. Timothy Shimko (the attorney retained by Perry Kiraly and the many club Members and speakers backing the SWGF).
The updates contain the Website address of the newly established legal entity by which our club will continue and build from this point on free from interference as the World Information Network Foundation LTD / or WIN See www.winfdn.com.
The accounts are set up to process your credit cards or other forms of payment where 100% of the funds received will be used for the costs associated with the continuance and rebuilding of our great club.
Read each of the attached documents closely. Then act. The instructions of what to do now are in the updates.

Thank you,
Perry Kiraly

Items 1 and 2 are the court docs I've been yammering on about. As noted at the beginning of this post, you can read them here. Item 3 concerns recent communication, including a letter Perry sent yesterday to rally the troops and put a totally positive spin on the January 20 court docs.

At least it seems clear that Perry remains unmoved by the lame efforts of the IBMS Master's Society shills to get him to come on'a their house. He and the gang appear to be going full speed ahead with WIN. The nascent web site is simmering with its own sturm und drang, complete with lofty words and a pic of what appears to be something burning.

In all fairness I should note that the Shimkos and Perry do not have a monopoly on drama queendom and snide remarks. As noted above, the FTC's lawyers have similarly engaged, as have Katie and his legal team. That's the real reason I find these court documents so entertaining -- that, and the inescapable fact that I am easily amused.

Meanwhile, in other GIN scavenger circles...
You may have seen this email that went out to the GIN membership this past weekend from the fabled GIN Leadership Roundtable (LRT), whose names are finally revealed.

GIN LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE ANNOUNCEMENT

Dear GIN Members and Associates,
While we are still in the process of defining our priorities for the next few months, the Leadership Roundtable (LRT) Members would like to submit a collaborative, unified view to you, as a GIN club Member or Associate in good standing. The purpose of our letter is to make our position clear, and to communicate that we are fundamentally interested in the well-being of many, not the interests of a few.

First of all, who are we? The LRT consists of both of GIN’s previous Member Advisory Board and Affiliate Advisory Board Members that were voted on by membership, or appointed by the club Members who expressed interest in continuing to serve our club. Many of the nine of us have been in GIN since the onset of our club. We are Members that have shown our commitment to the club over the years in a number of ways. We are NOT a group that has been appointed by the Receivers, nor do we represent their views. We are NOT a board of directors, NOR are we self-appointed.

We, as a group of Members, are interested in the continuity, and ultimate thriving of our club, and are open to what changes may transpire after the club transitions. In keeping with the intent of GIN’s original Advisory Boards purpose, our desire is that your views and wishes are heard, and impact the direction that GIN takes. Since our priority is to keep the club’s principles and beliefs whole, and allow what GIN stands for to remain intact, we accept the challenge to assist and represent you, in the context of completing our commitment to our previous advisory board’s term. While we are not presently privy to most of the information at GIN Headquarters, our goal as leaders on the LRT is to achieve as much transparency and accountability to GIN’s Members and Associates as beneficially possible and as soon as possible.

It is apparent in our exchanges, both informally among each other, and during our formal inaugural January 9th meeting, that all the LRT Members feel love, respect, and trust for each of you . . . Members and Associates committed to our club. Each of us is genuinely interested, and united in achieving the well-being and continuity of this club. The respect we have for each other, and for the tenacity of our entire club community acting in good faith, remains a constant.

Until recently, there has not been any clarity on the potential "how" during the process of much change, over which none of us had any control. We believe and realize that the best and most viable option to ensure future growth and success of our club is for the Members and Associates to buy it from the Receivers. We are also interested in promoting hope, belief, and excitement for a future GIN owned, and run, by its Members. In the interest of keeping our club healthy and to encourage momentum, we support continuing to pay our monthly dues. Yes, we know some of the money may pay the Receiver’s expenses, but we choose to FOCUS ON WHAT WE WANT, knowing that the future is OURS to write. Any short term decisions can and will be revisited once we have control of the club, so please do not concern yourself with doom and gloom others may be preaching. Those of you who are familiar with the training and use of the words “Cancel, Cancel,” may want to use this to clear the rats out of your head.

Additionally, we as a group of nine committed Members and leaders, speak in a unified voice in stating we are not in general support of those among us who are propagating fear and loss. To those few individuals we say “CANCEL, CANCEL.” To quote from the Myth Busters, “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” The New Year will bring Hope, Life, and Love for GIN.

Again, buying the club is really a no-brainer. Starting over from scratch would be immensely time consuming and a huge and expensive undertaking. Without the basis and infrastructure in place, there would be a need to invest a substantial amount of time and energy to re-build, find, or create: a new Success Mastery Course, the IT infrastructure, the video webinars, the live seminars, the already trained staff, the vendors, the speakers, and on and on. While a degree of rebuilding will be necessary in whichever scenario the club membership chooses, our desire is to have the least amount of disruption in the interest of ensuring the stability and continuity of our club.

One of the outcomes of our January 9th meeting was to endorse the formation of a new website devoted to bringing our Members and Associates together in unity and make a bid to buy the club. We hope this will be accomplished in the next seven days. To reiterate, in keeping with the positive energy and communicative style the LRT wishes to convey, we want to make information available to you as soon as beneficially possible.

You are welcome to ask any questions you may have using the "Member Advisory" (note this is for Members only) section on the Online Community of the GIN Website, which had already been set up to provide feedback. If the answer is available (note that we do not have access to any financial or legal information of the club) and the question is positive in nature, we will do our utmost to answer as soon as possible. We will make available additional information, including a website financed by an LRT Member shortly.

We are grateful to our Chairman, Greg Kramer, for his ongoing commitment, tenacity, and love for our club. These characteristics have been displayed by each of the LRT Members, including our Co-Chair Bob Shontz. Note that LRT membership consists of three One-Star Platinums, a Member of GIN's speaker faculty, a Go-Getter, and many Inner Circle Members. All are Level VI Members or Level VI Candidates, and all were elected GIN Advisory Board Members.

Whatever the club’s overall Members collectively create, and whatever transpires, at this time the nine of us feel blessed to have the opportunity to work alongside each other, as a Member of, and in service to, our fine club. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to a great 2014!

Sincerely yours,
GIN Leadership Roundtable
Greg Kramer, Chairman
Bob Shontz, Co-Chairman
Marjorie Alayon
Nancy Ashley
JoAnn Brownell
Phil Catalano
Roevel Guzman
Jacques Patenaude
Eli Rook

Word has it that two folks who had been named to the LRT have already resigned their positions because they're tired of the b.s. Their names do not appear on this list. I guess they took another look at the drivel that's oozing out of the GIN offices and said, "CANCEL, CANCEL."

Coldwell the Maleficent
Meanwhile, Germany's answer to the late Johnny Carson's fortuneteller character Carnac the Magnificent, Mocktor Loony Coldwell, is making predictions about the upcoming hearing on January 30. Here, unedited, is a January 16 prognostication:

Here is my prediction: on January fist the closing of Gin will be finalized. Many Gin staff and speakers will be personally indicted. Trudeau will never ever see the light of day again. St Patricks day will be just the beginning of the end for inmate # 18046036.

Ah, Loony, Loony. Schadenfreude is such an awful color on you. Stick to pink and aqua. But come to think of it, you wouldn't look bad in orange.

I believe that by "January fist" the little man actually meant "February first," but I could be wrong. Perhaps he is making some retro-prediction, or he is thinking of January 1, 2015. And maybe he is obsessed with fists for some reason. Come to think of it, that's not the first Facebook post in which he has talked about fists. I wonder why he is so interested in them. This might explain things a little.

In a subsequent post on the same thread Loony wrote that he's taking bets about his predictions, and he brags about having all of the inside, behind-the-scenes knowledge (the knowledge that all of the "wannabe's" don't possess), and he also warns that more arrests are forthcoming. Here's a closer-up shot of that thread:

Since then, Loony has been busy on Facebook with more rants and opinions about the "big legal judgement [sic] day" that is coming. Naturally he listed the new Leadership Roundtable members as being conspirators to keep the "criminal organization" going on. He declares that the GIN shell is now "the perfect breading found [sic] for more potential crimes and fraud." (Screen shot below; from one of his rants earlier today, 21 January). It's not that I disagree with the contention that GIN is composed of lies and liars. That's a given. But when Loony talks about those issues, it's another pot-and-kettle deal.

That's it for now, Dear Ones. It's back to work on real, paying projects for me, but I will continue to strive to keep you updated.

↧

Kevin Trudeau update: Katie still caged, awaiting next hearing, while GINtervenors and receiver duke it out on paper

January 29, 2014, 11:44 am

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau update: Katie still caged, while GIN & WIN continue propaganda wars

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau update: GINtervenors reply with fail-whale of a document, as Loony C makes more daft predictions

[NOTE: Be sure to see the January 30 updates, below. ~CC]

On Thursday, January 30, which, as I am initially publishing this post, is tomorrow ("only a day awaaaaay"), serial scammer Kevin Trudeau is due in Judge Gettleman's civil court again for another status hearing. During that hearing, presumably, a few big issues will be decided, including the fate of Ohio Global Information Network (GIN) member Perry Kiraly's "Intervenor" movement, which first hit the civil docket on November 18, 2014.

But before I go any further, this just in: Judge Ronald Guzman, who is presiding over the criminal contempt case (for which Katie is currently scheduled to be sentenced on March 17), has just signed an order denying his previous motion for acquittal. Here's the link to that document.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/203197679/Trudeau-Criminal-Case-Document-161-Acquittal-Denied-01-29-14
(And here's a link to the report by NBC5 in Chicago.)

The past couple of days have been busy ones, court-wise, as numerous documents have been filed in preparation for Thursday's civil case hearing. Apart from the huge ongoing issue of Katie's hidden assets, of which the receiver has still apparently been able to retrieve only a small portion, there's the big scavenger fight over the ultimate ownership of GIN.

I went to PACER and grabbed a bunch of stuff from Monday, January 27 and Tuesday, January 28. I shared them on the GIN Network Truth group on Facebook the afternoon of the 28th, and have since uploaded them to Scribd as well. They're in four groups, as follows:

1. The receiver's "sur-reply" (which just means an additional reply) to the intervenors (Perry Kiraly and gang).Filed January 27, 2014. Here is that link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/203183158/Trudeau-Civil-Case-Document-812-0-and-Exhibits-Receivers-Sur-Reply-to-Intervenors-01-27-14

The receiver calls out Perry for trying to influence people to quit GIN so its value will go down and Perry and gang can buy it cheap. The receivers also seem a little p.o.'d at Perry for what they see as his misrepresentations of their actions and intentions. There's a little legal saber-rattling at the end of the reply, too; this is from page 9 of 10 on Document 812-1, filed on January 27, 2014.

To be certain, to the extent that evidence bears out efforts by an individual or individuals to financially ruin GIN by intentionally interfering with GIN’s relationship with its customers in order to suppress its value and force a fire sale of its assets, the Receiver reserves all rights to bring appropriate claims, including for tortious interference. Notwithstanding such reservation, out of an appreciation of the sometimes extreme passion of GIN’s membership, the Receiver has demonstrated substantial restraint in not pressing its full array of legal remedies against a myriadof parties that have defamed the Receiver and inappropriately interfered with the receivership.

I suspect that they are not only thinking of Perry and gang but also of the loudest mouths in the GIN destroyer camp, e.g., former Katie b.f.f. Mocktor Loony Coldwell and Peter Wink, who have been slamming the receiver non stop for months (at least since September of last year).

More recently Peter has just been snarking about the receiver's hefty fees.

While I seriously doubt that Winkwell's intentions are in any way altruistic, I support anyone's right to snark. It's up to the receiver to decide whether the ramblings of C-list scammers and their enablers are even worth their time and effort. The receiver does seem openly concerned about Perry's gang, though.

I am a little surprised that the receiver didn't make a thing out of the fact that the replies regarding the motion to intervene were due on January 17 and were not filed (by Perry's lawyer) until January 20. The receiver mentioned all of these dates in their sur-reply, but didn't make an issue of it.

[SPOILER ALERT, added 30 January: The GINtervenors lost. See update below. ~CC]

2. The FTC's statement in advance of the hearing that is coming up on Thursday, Jan. 30. Filed January 28, 2014. Here is that link.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/203184515/Trudeau-Civil-Case-Document-814-0-and-1-FTC-Statement-in-Advance-of-the-Jan-30-Status-Conference-01-28-14
The Feds wanted to get some more digs in at Katie to prove their point that his contempt is particularly contemptible and he belongs in a cage. There's nothing particularly new here, but they do a pretty good job of driving their point home.

3. The long-awaited receiver's second report, where they go on about what they've been up to for the past couple of months, and how much it is going to cost. Here is that link.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/203185702/Trudeau-Civil-Case-Document-815-0-and-1-Receivers-Second-Report-01-28-14

This is what has had Wink's panties in a wad for the past few days, and his and Loony's panties in a wad for the past few months. And Perry's panties too, for that matter. And the panties of many who only wish they were making that kind of money. And I'm sorry that I got you started thinking about any of their panties. But since I'm already on that track, here's this, which you may have seen before. I bet it's a real hot seller.

Although I think the receiver has made a pretty good case against the Intervenors, I did raise my eyebrow at their statement that GIN has been profitable for the past few months. The footnote explains that the figures they offered to back up that statement do not include their fees.The receiver also came out and said that there are currently three groups or parties vying for GIN, or at least for its intellectual property. My current best guess, based "upon information and belief," as the lawyerly types like to say, is that if the receiver's statement is accurate, the three are:

1. The Kramer brothers, owners of the GIN store. Greg Kramer is currently head of the new Leadership Roundtable, but that doesn't rule out his competing for rights to GIN. And he does have a lot invested in GIN as a brand.
2. Jeff Devine and Coral Thomas (she is a life-coach scammer and long-time Katie supporter).
3. Perry and his gang.

But hey, I'm willing to change my opinion as new gossip and informed opinions from surprising sources reach my ears.

4. Perry Kiraly et al.'s response to the receiver's sur-reply.Here is that link.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/203186242/Trudeau-Civil-Case-Document-816-Intervenors-Opposition-to-Improper-Sur-Reply-01-28-14

This was filed later in the day on January 28, and among other things the motion accuses the receiver of improperly filing the sur-reply, not addressing the issues, and continuing to hide his (the receiver's) "true motives." I also noticed that Perry (or rather his Shimko) claimed not to know anything about The Hybrid Group, which is Jeff Devine's company and has been in the picture since GIN began. As noted above, Jeff is reportedly one of the parties interested in buying GIN. The Shimko calls The Hybrid Group "a newly identified group...about whom nobody seems to know anything." Shimko, you haven't been doing your homework.

At any rate, the scrappy Shimko is in full dramatic mode, winding up with an entreaty to the court to "let in the 'sunshine'" -- which invariably brings to mind that famous song from the tribal love-rock musical Hair.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, propaganda efforts continue from the aforementioned Blights of the Roundtable, the newly appointed "leadership" in the struggling GIN. On Sunday afternoon, January 26, Roundtable member and passionate Katie supporter Nancy Ashley sent out an email blast with a couple of hilarious audios attached. Unfortunately part of the auds were lost in transmission, but I was able to grab a portion of one. First here's the email...

From: EmpoweringDreams
To: empoweringdreams
Sent: Sun, Jan 26, 2014 12:50 pm
Subject: Action Call for KT

Hello Awesome Ones,

Below is a link to two snippets of a Call to Action Conference Call last night from Dr. Tom Morter, Ed Foreman and Coral Thomas, The Secret to Life Coaching. They are in LA doing a Fund Raiser for KT, and the first short audio is from Dr. Tom explaining the URGENT need right now for this Call to Action, and the second audio is a very short clip from Ed Foreman and then Coral Thomas explaining how you can participate in this call to action............ and what win/win benefits are available to you.

To contribute, go to www.ktlegaldefense dot com and make the contribution you select from what Coral explains is available on the second audio.

After you contribute, please email ktlegaldefense at gmail.com (Janine), and tell her you are contributing from my email for The Secret to Life Coaching Company, and she will know what win/win "benefits" your contribution is entitled to.......

So please listen to the two very short audios below ........ the first is from Dr. Tom, and the second is a very short clip of Ed Foreman, and then Coral explaining the ways to contribute and what amazing things have happened since she started coaching with KT............. and you'll see why a Council spot in The Secret to Life's Coaching Company is a very timely "gem".

Link to both audios: [NOTE: link in email no longer works. ~CC]
Love you all and thank you for your time,
Nancy

Nancy Ashley, President and Founder
The Ashley International Group, Inc. ~ in 53 Countries
Marketing Evolutionary Health and Wealth Concepts

And here's a link to the audio.

The voice on the audio is that of Katie's long time fishing buddy and enabler, Dr. Tom Morter, who runs scams of his own but whose platform was expanded greatly because of his association with Katie and GIN. He talks about how Katie is walking the talk, and is making the best out of things despite being trapped in a cage, subjected to bad food and regular full-body strip searches. And he emphasizes that Katie is not the selfish, greedy person that the folks on the Interwebz are claiming. The Interwebz Katie is not the real Katie, sez Dr. Tom. As proof of his statement he tells a story of how Kevin gave warm coats and blankets to the homeless a few years ago during the cold Chicago winter. And this was while Kevin was at the height of his career and in full glory as the Infomercial King. He didn't have to even say boo to the bums, but he gave of himself to help those down-on-their-luck losers (which was what he probably reallythought of them -- not what I personally think of people who are broken and disenfranchised).

Listening to the heartwarming tale, I had this eerie feeling of deja screw... and then I remembered Peter Wink telling me a very similar story about Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale a few years ago. Joe has been a frequent snarget on this Whirled. Peter told me about Joe handing out money to the homeless on the streets of downtown Chicago, no questions asked. It seems that the downtrodden of Chicago are a handy prop for certain Scamworld gurus.

Peter was telling me this story in a deliberate effort to give me a more balanced picture of Joe; I suppose he felt a little guilty about all of the snarky things he'd said about him to me, things that he knew I was going to write about on my blog. And he was still trying to stay on pretty good terms with Joe at the time; even though they'd had a stormy breakup when Peter went to work for Kevin, he and Joe had more or less made up and were apparently planning some ventures together.

Anyway, here's what I wrote, back in April of 2010, and it seems to apply to Kevin as well.

Where self-help gurus are concerned, though, Peter said there are other unpublicized everyday acts of kindness. He spoke, for example, of times he walked through the streets of downtown Chicago with Joe, and Joe would just hand out money to homeless people, no questions asked. Again, I have no problem letting anyone know about things like that. Nor do I have a problem with Peter’s attempt to present a more nuanced view of Joe and other industry leaders. In my observation, however, few critics of the New-Wage leaders actually think the gurus are completely heartless and selfish; that’s really not the point of their criticism. The question is: Do these acts of kindness and generosity make up for the extravagant promises and unfounded claims about products, services, and events? Or for the greed and the egotism? Or for the lamentable way some of these folks treat those closest to them? Or, in some cases, for the real harm they do to others?

I'm thinking that most critics would say no.

Yeah. What I said. There are few things more disingenuous than conspicuous altruism by proxy, where the conspicuous altruist doesn't do his or her own bragging but leaves it to others to do it. It's a transparent ploy, generally used when the apologists know that really don't have much to work with.So what do I think of these latest developments in the ongoing GIN saga? I think the whole "hidden motives" meme re the receiver is mostly histrionics from those who want to continue to milk the GIN cash cow. The receiver is still following a court order, and of course they're going to want their piece of the pie for the work they've done -- but ultimately Kevin is to blame for all of that. And I think that for the most part those who are scrapping over GIN, and some of those watching from the sidelines while flogging their own seekrit societies, are scammers or schemers in their own right, some worse than others. The IMBS-ers are among the worst of all of the sideliners, in my opinion -- for many reasons, but most notably the Coldwell factor. And I still find it amusing that Loony C is so full of schadenfreude that he is practically selling tickets to his ex-b.f.f.'s court appearances. These are from January 22...

In this part of the thread, Loony C appears to be celebrating the
fact that everybody in GIN lost money (see his last comment).
However, I think he probably meant to say that it was a good thing
that the previous commenter, Dana A, never had enough money to
join GIN because everyone who did join lost money.
But Loony doesn't understand basic punctuation so his comments
are often very difficult to understand. In addition, he often
gloats over the misfortunes (real or imagined) of those who disagree
with him, so it's not surprising that some people may have
misinterpreted this comment.

I have no delusions that the Feds are heroes in this whole thing, although I do think that certain individuals who have been fighting this battle all along -- since long before the self-serving "GIN destroyers" came into the picture -- are actually concerned for consumers who may have been screwed by Katie. But I also think that at the same time the court is trying to decide Katie's fate, it is, unwittingly or not, presiding over the building of a new, refined, legal scam. And I have the feeling that GIN will live on, in one form or another, and the big sick machine will just go on and on and on.

Meanwhile, the entertainment continues. Stay tuned...

Update, 30 January 2014
Things didn't go so well for Katie today in court. No new court docs on PACER as of now (6:00 PM CST) but I'm watching for them. Meanwhile, here's Jason Meisner at the Chicago Tribune with his account. Seems that despite those feel-good posts that Janine has been spitting out, Katie would rather be waterboarded than stay in the MCC another minute.

Here's the report from Phil Rogers at NBC5 in Chicago.

And here's James Hill at ABC.com. (Hill produced the Lookout episodes last year slamming Katie and GIN.)

One totally unsurprising bit is that the judge denied the GINtervenors' motion. According to the ABC piece...

In court today, the judge denied a motion to intervene in the case brought by two-dozen members of GIN who had accused the receiver of “draining and diverting” the organization’s resources to finance the receiver’s quest for Trudeau’s assets to pay off his debts.

“It’s too late,” Gettleman said, before abruptly cutting off the group’s attorney.

So after all of the histrionics -- the dramatic references to sturm und drang, the pleas to "let the sunshine in," and so forth -- that scrappy little Shimko was defeated, and Perry and his pals are stuck with a big legal bill.

↧

Kevin Trudeau update: Katie still caged, while GIN & WIN continue propaganda wars

February 5, 2014, 2:12 pm

≫ Next: Kevin has a birthday, and WIN soldiers on

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau update: Katie still caged, awaiting next hearing, while GINtervenors and receiver duke it out on paper

Oh, goodness. February is already five days old and I've been away from my Whirled for most of that time. I did share some of the latest updates regarding serial scammer Kevin Trudeau and his latest court hearing, but it's time for another update. I swear, really I do, that eventually I will get back to my roots -- to the foundation on which I built this Whirled. In other words, I'll write about something besides Katie and his scammy Global Information Network (GIN), which is now out of his control but not dead yet. For now, though, it's back to the Katie saga.

First of all, as noted on the post linked to above, and as you may have known even if you didn't read that post, the upshot of that January 30 hearing is that Judge Robert Gettleman denied Perry Kiraly and gang's motion to intervene (more on that below), and Katie is still jailed on his civil contempt charge, with the next status hearing scheduled for March 19. On the criminal contempt charge he awaits sentencing, currently scheduled for March 17.

As reported by James Hill at ABC News, among several other mainstream journos, Katie pleaded for mercy and even half-jokingly volunteered to be waterboarded to prove he was telling the truth, in lieu of being in the clink even one more day. (I had made note of this in my previous post but I'll bump it up here too.) The judge was not amused. In fact he threatened to leave Katie in the MCC indefinitely, even past his criminal sentencing date, until Katie can purge himself of the civil contempt charge. And he noted again that no matter how long Katie stays in jail on the civil charge, it won't count at all as time served for the criminal one.

Here is a link to the the order signed by Judge Gettleman at the hearing on January 30. Mainly this document concerns the judge's reason for denying Perry Kiraly et al.'s motion to intervene, but as indicated above, Judge Gettleman also stipulated that Trudeau must stay in jail for now on the civil contempt matter.

Here is GINtruth.com's Bernie commenting on some of the latest events.

Meanwhile Katie's phony jailhouse posts on Facebook continue, though not as frequently as before.

Perry and his Shimkos: down but not out
Although I previously reported that the Shimkos had been defeated in court, Perry apparently does not see it that way, and says that his Shimkos are prepared to go on fighting. Couple of days ago he sent this out [there are a few Cosmic annotations in this one. Also note that the embedded links to the Receiver's Report of Jan. 28 are my additions]:

From: Perry Kiraly
Date: February 3, 2014 at 3:02:43 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: SWGF Update 02-03-14

SWGF Update: PERRY KIRALY

February 3, 2014

Dear SWGF Supporters,

Okay the details you’ve been waiting for: What exactly happened in court on January 30th?

Well the hearing was very brief regarding our motion to intervene; to paraphrase the gist of what was said the court began with stating that it hadn’t seen the complaint from the interveners and didn’t really know what it is they wanted. Mr. Shimko then responded with his first of approximately 10 words total allowed by the court and expressed that the interveners did in fact file a complaint (note: the complaint made it clear what the interveners wanted).

The FTC attorney then reminded the court that yes the interveners did in fact file a complaint and the court responded stating in essence it didn’t matter because the court was denying the motion to intervene based on untimeliness – specifically stating that the interveners should have filed their motion in 2007. Yes 2007, some two years before the club was launched.

Mr. Shimko then asked the court, "may I be heard?" and the court said "No. Counselor, if you don’t like my ruling, you can appeal it."

The only other relevant comment by the court was in relation to the Receiver. The court suggested that the interveners might have an issue in another court or venue and if they, the interveners (or GIN Members) had an issue with the Receiver’s activities in its handling of GIN FDN the Receiver would have to deal with that on his own with his own budget. This might be of interest to Inner Circle members and others financially harmed by the Receiver’s handling of GIN FDN business commitments and affairs.

So where does this ruling denying the motion to intervene leave the members of GIN - that would like their voice heard and their property returned? Well, in my opinion, it actually leaves the members of GIN in a potentially more powerful position than had the motion to intervene been granted. And here’s why:

Denying the motion gives the interveners standing to file an appeal of this ruling in the 7th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals where three judges unassociated with this case will decide the issue. It also gives us the right to immediately file a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Receiver, which right we did not have in front of Judge Gettleman until he granted our motion to intervene. By denying our motion to intervene, we now have the right to seek an immediate injunction in the Federal Court of Appeals.

The chances of success in an appeal are excellent according to Mr. Shimko since the court essentially made a ruling on a motion it admitted not reading both sides of, and denied it for a reason that was impossible to know at that time by GIN Members. The court stating it did not see the intervener’s complaint, and did not know what it was they wanted, essentially expressed it did not read the interveners motions or responses to briefs in opposition. The court further stated that the interveners (Members of GIN) should have known about this situation at a time (2007) the Members could not possible have known about it since GIN was not even in existence yet.
[While it seems like a Catch-22 situation, it appears to me that in reality the court essentially said that intervention was not appropriate in this specific civil case, which has been going on since 2003 -- particularly since the intervenors did not specify whether they were plaintiffs or defendants. Whether the judge read every word of the Intervenors' complaint or not seems irrelevant. Here's that link again, so you can read the judge's order and decide for yourself. I realize that this one document did not record everything that went on in the court room on January 30 but nevertheless it appears that the legal issues and the judge's reasoning are summed up in the document. ~CC ]

Once an appeal is filed a motion for injunction can be filed to stop the Receive from doing anything with GIN FDN assets and cash. If the Receiver is stopped from selling or using GIN FDN assets, including the now 4+ million dollars of Members’ dues & fees under its control, the GIN Members that wish to buy those assets will be in a powerful negotiating position pending the appeal.

This is so because GIN FDN is losing more and more members every day and is not profitable with the Receiver there, when taking the Receiver’s fees & expenses into consideration, as shown by the Receivers own report (see attached Receiver 2nd Report released 01-29-14[actually Jan. 28 ~CLS]).

In this report the Receivers released the actual active GIN membership numbers which are in line with what the interveners stated in an earlier release. The interveners stated there were less than 4000 GIN members currently "the Receiver listed the exact number to be 3908, down 45% from after the Receiver came in in August 2013 (see middle pg.2 of the attached report of 1-29-14).

The Receiver’s report further states that GIN made an approximate profit of $118-thousand per month excluding the Receivers fees & expenses (see pg.2 bottom of Receiver report of 01-29-14 attached below). Thus if the Receiver’s fees and expenses are included, of between $125,000 to 175,000 per month, GIN FDN is not profitable with them there.

Further it has been suggested that GIN is not going out of business but in the Receiver’s report it is also interesting to note that they mention now trying to sub-lease the GIN FDN’s office space to save on lease obligations as well as additional staff layoffs to the already significant layoffs to date (see top of pg.2 of Receiver's report of 1-29-14).

Why is this information important? It is important only for the remaining GIN Members that wish to either purchase the GIN assets or have them returned to them at a significantly reduced price.

And therein lays the first golden opportunity. This opportunity is only an opportunity for those that wish to remain with the legal entity known as GIN FDN or acquire, or compel the return of, its assets on principal if nothing else. I list it here because this was the initial focus of the Stand with GIN Fund (SWGF).

The Stand with GIN Fund has accomplished its initial goal of putting the remaining GIN Members in solid legal standing with the court to have a voice. All GIN Members now have legal standing in the 7th Circuit Court. If those that have expressed a desire to purchase the GIN FDN assets or better yet have them returned to them for little or nothing here is your opportunity.

Vote, as described at the end of this update, to have Mr. Shimko file the appeal and injunction and then, if the motion to enjoin the Receiver is granted by the 7th Circuit Court, which is very likely, you will have control of the GIN assets for 7 to 8+ months pending appeal to negotiate a favorable arrangement for the return of GIN FDN’s property to the remaining membership.

SWGF also accomplished an ancillary benefit to the current and former Members of GIN FDN, especially Inner Circle Members. The court in essence stated that the Receiver will have to answer for any improprieties in fiduciary responsibilities with its own budget during its stewardship of GIN FDN. A class action suit is now an option for the collateral damage caused by Receiver interference of GIN FDN business.

Finally, what I, Perry Kiraly, consider to be the ultimate achievement which grew out of the SWGF’s goal to be free from interference; and where the most Golden of the golden opportunities lie is the creation of the World Information Network Foundation LTD or WIN.

WIN, as recently suggested by the Receiver, was not created as a competing club to GIN. Quite the contrary; it was initially set up as a sanctuary where former GIN Members could go. A place free from interference, A place where those tired of funding the Receiver to dismantle what they grew to love, could rebuild. WIN was set up as a place to go where Members are not considered "customers" as the now Receiver/GIN Co. labels them; but a place of reuniting as Members of a family. [There's that familiar meme used by cults and MLMs alike: "We are family!" ~CC]

WIN is not interested in nor in need of that which many of its supporters possess and can freely share with those they consider their family just as one can share a CD of a favorite song.[In other words, if we can't charge out the a$$ for it and possibly make some money for ourselves, we ain't selling it. Or am I just over-thinking this? ~CC]

WIN knows where to acquire and has access to the highest level materials which enable one to be happy, and free in ways most couldn’t possibly imagine [where does this magickal material come from? The Church of Scientology? Xenu? Do tell, Perry. ~CC] ...And WIN can truly provide those higher level materials which will pick up where others before us have left off. And enhance the levels others have since passed through. [This seems like a transparent effort to invalidate the existing GIN material, most of which is now available for free or cheap, at least up through Level 5. ~CC]

WIN now consists of individuals from all over the world; some of the best of the best that recognize the only way out is through. Individuals with the courage to stand up, individuals with the courage to confront and fight and pass through the battleground and fire of circumstances, and prevail.
WIN is now in the process of building its structure and content with the mission, as stated on our web-page winfdn.com of providing the tools, training, events and gatherings that will enable all who wish to take part in and practice them the ability to create whatever they truly want in their life.

This recent court ruling has fulfilled SWGF’s mission. It is complete and two golden opportunities are now before you.

One, utilize the legal standing SWGF has provided and fund the furtherance of a power position to reclaim what’s left of the GIN FDN and its content by way of an appeal and injunction. And know that time is of the essence to act upon this option for there is a short legal deadline on filing an appeal.

And two, transition from that which has fulfilled its purpose - join us now in WIN and help create and be a part of the vision of those willing to do whatever it takes to be happy and free.

Or, as a third choice, vote for both. Utilize the SWGF to take back control of the GIN assets that were so violently taken from GIN Members and support and be a part of the creation and development of WIN – the future home of the highest level training and fighters and advocates for personal freedom this world has ever known.

The choice is yours. Let your vote be cast in whichever endeavor(s) you fund. The method to fund either or both is the same. Go to swgf.info and click the "Donate" button for SWGF and/or WIN. [Or donate to the Cosmic Connie cause. Just a suggestion. ~CC]

My blessings to all of you no matter what you choose.

Thank you,
Perry Kiraly*

*As a post script to this update, let me make it clear that I am a citizen of the United States of America and have exercised my 1st Amendment right to express my opinion herein. I am not a lawyer and nothing in this update/opinion should be construed as legal advice. The information herein is my personal opinion and provided solely for educational purposes. The opinion expressed in this update is not meant to suggest or encourage any course of action without consulting with an attorney or one licensed to practice law. Everyone must evaluate and make up their own mind on any course of action they take.

Old scams never die,they justrebrand
Though the fate of GIN remains in the hands of the court for now, the remaining GIN staff is busy with the rebranding effort, although they seem a little paranoid about what they are willing to share on the fairly-recently redesigned web site. Apparently most of the real info, such as it is, requires a login.

But I have to give them props for the rebranding efforts. Gone is that stuffy old logo that was deliberately designed to look like the seal of numerous government agencies; gone are the staid gold and royal blue color themes. It's all been replaced by an orange and blue motif, set off by a modernistic, faintly sinister looking logo that looks like a combination of a power button on an electronic device and half of one of those portable prayerwalking labyrinth things. I suppose orange and blue is what marketing experts consider a winning combination. A 2011 piece on the shopify.comsite says:

Orange radiates ambition and energetic warmth. It also represents passion, originality, and fresh beginnings. Orange paired with cool shades of blue can give off a positive and exciting vibe.

Here's more about colors and branding, from Fast Company.

Orange and blue apparently worked for AT&T Mobility after they took over Cingular Wireless. You might even say that it's been working for the Denver Broncos, notwithstanding that Superbowl 48 fiasco. Now maybe it'll work for GIN, assuming they intend to keep the color theme and design after GIN is sold. Or maybe that whole orange bit is kind of a solidarity statement to honor their fearless ex (for now) leader, who is rockin' the orange himself these days at the MCC.

Anyhow, the GINfolk, not to be outdone by Perry and his pals, are busily spewing their own drama-laden propaganda. This past Friday (January 31) the Kramers at the GIN store (reportedly they are among the contenders who are scrambling to purchase GIN) sent out an email promoting "GIN Strong" T-shirts and hoodies, with a pic of headless models sporting the gear in lovely shades of blue and orange, respectively.

STAND GIN STRONG!
Dear Fellow GIN Members and Associates,

Our club has seen its share of controversy in the last several months. The mainstream media, government agencies, internet cynics, ex-members and other people who do not share the values and the vision of GIN have been obsessive in their efforts to try and shut GIN down. They want us to be denied our freedom of association as club members. But they don’t know who they’re up against!

It is a beautiful thing when thousands of members, who are well trained in the greatest philosophy of personal success ever known to humanity, have taken a stand for our club and have committed to not only remain in GIN, but look forward to growing it beyond anything we can ever imagine! Some people long for GIN to be restored to its "former glory," but many of us believe wholeheartedly that GIN’s best days are still ahead of us!

Many of the greatest movements in history didn’t fully take off until they found themselves in their darkest hours. But once they made it through their wall of fire, they were unstoppable! But the success of these movements was only possible because of the steadfast dedication of their members, and their ability to hold true to what they believed in despite the most persistent opposition. GIN is going through its own wall of fire right now, but remember this – when you’re taking lots of flack, it means you’re over the target!

GIN WILL pull through these days. GIN WILL regroup, recover, and RISE AGAIN! We believe it; let’s create it!

At the GIN Store, we are 100% dedicated to seeing this happen. Our mission is to edify, support and uplift GIN and its members. To help fulfill this mission, we have created a new and unique line of GIN STRONG merchandise for Members and Associates to help you declare your support for GIN to the world! This new line of products consists of T-shirts, Hoodies and Jewelry for you to proudly wear for all to see! This is an excellent way to not only declare your loyalty to GIN, but to support the organization itself, as well as to have something to commemorate this pivotal and defining moment in our club’s history. Watch as your inquisitive friends and family see you sporting your GIN STRONG gear and wonder what it is that gives you that sense of purpose, that spring in your step, that zeal for life, that certainty that your dreams are coming true!

Stand up for your club! Stand GIN STRONG!

To purchase a new GIN STRONG T-shirt or hoodie CLICK HERE

Our line of GIN STRONG exclusive Jewelry is coming soon!

Jewelry! Oh, I can't wait.

Just in case you didn't get enough drama from that, here's one of the latest missives from the GIN web site. Someone had to get this for me because I don't have a login. I think they've even blocked my IP so I can't use anyone else's login. Oh, well. Their loss. Think of the wonderful publicity I could give them. Anyway, here is the post-court-hearing rundown from the GIN office.

GIN Facts
January 31, 2014

Dear GIN Members and Associates,

We are committed to provide you with official, ongoing, transparent and factual updates and position statements. Below are the trending questions that we have received over the past week:

On January 30, did the Judge say that GIN will not or cannot be sold?
No. The Judge did confirm on the record that it is the Receiver's intention to sell GIN as a going concern. There was no talk about shutting GIN down.

Is GIN currently accepting new Members?
Of course! GIN is accepting new Members and Associates every day. We are open for business and pleased to welcome our new Members! Due to recent price restructuring, we have allowed for our exclusive club to maintain a high level of integrity while making the club accessible to a wider range of like-minded people.

When will the next Level V Test or Level VI Training be scheduled?
We are happy to announce a Level V Test and Level VI Training in Chicago, on the days before the first GIN PowerUP! event on February 22. If you are interested, please contact Support@GlobalInformationNetwork.com and an Account Specialist will help you. GIN Staff is working diligently on scheduling more tests and trainings in the coming months. We know that Members are excited to expand their minds and get to a level of unconscious competence. Keep an eye on the site or check your GIN Newsroom for further scheduled trainings.

When is the next major event?
We were all a little disappointed in January. As Members, we all count on the positive vibrations and energy of the sea on our GIN Leadership Cruise. The good news is that we are still hoping for a late spring or early summer major event. Venues and locations have been researched, and pending a transaction and a new owner(s) decision to move forward with the event, GIN Staff is ready to go.

Will Members of the LRT be representing at PowerUP! Chicago?
Yes!

Will there be any Member seminars included in my GIN Membership?
Currently GIN has a Dr. Morter seminar and a Dr. Dale seminar scheduled and GIN is accepting registrations FREE for all Members. The one day Member seminars will continue.

Why is there a fee for PowerUP! events?
The PowerUP! events are a new concept, introducing a whole lineup of speakers and fresh innovative training blended with some of our legacy speakers and fundamental GIN training. These impactful events will likely all include a social event for fun networking with our GIN family! Register for PowerUP! Chicago today and meet us later that evening at Hofbrauhaus Chicago for some live music, German grub and a few shouts of ‘PROST!’ Remember, you can attend PowerUP! Chicago for no cost! If you have become a Member of GIN or have personally enrolled a new Member into GIN since January 1, 2014, email our Member Support Team at Support@GlobalInformationNetwork.com and an Account Specialist will help you register for the event at no cost!

When will the website have more translated material?
GIN HQ is active in continued efforts to make GIN available to more Members across the globe. Audios, videos and written materials are being translated and made available upon completion. The French website is our current priority, however we are moving forward with Spanish and many other languages as well. THIS IS WHERE WE NEED YOUR HELP! If you are interested in helping with audio or written translation, please reach out to our International Liaison at Translation@GlobalInformationNetwork.com.

Have the Receivers hired their own GIN HQ Staff?
No. The GIN HQ Staff is the same staff that has built the club from the ground up. There have been no newly hired employees while under receivership. Come see us in Chicago at PowerUP! as we miss our GIN family!

How do I find out more about participating in the purchase of our club?
Although we previously directed you to contact the LRT about a Member acquisition, we are finding that Members are actually gathering on the GIN Community to discuss interest and possible future plans. Please reach out to your fellow GIN Members via the Community for more information.

When will the Receivers be gone?
The Receivers have begun discussions about a potential sale. As the club is sold to a buyer or buyer group, the receivership over GIN would come to an end. Only assets are sold to the purchaser. All liabilities will remain with the estate and will NOT be the responsibility of the new owner. For factual information about GIN’s current status, please read the newly released court documents.

That is all for this week, stay tuned!

As I noted above, when it comes to sharing info the GIN site folks like to play it close to the vest. Even their FAQ page isn't very informative. Or maybe they're just hiding the Q&As from the riffraff such as moi.

And the pages with the legal stuff also betray a distinctly suspicious nature, one case in point being these items on the Membership Requirements page:

3. MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS
3.1. You represent and warrant that you have been referred to GIN by a Member and/or an Affiliate that is currently in good standing.

3.2. You represent and warrant that if you are an employee, agent or other representative of any federal, state or other governmental agency, including without limitation the Federal Trade Commission or the Food and Drug Administration, you agree to comply with the terms stated in 3.5

3.3. You represent and warrant that if you are an employee, agent or other representative of, or otherwise affiliated with, any media outlet or organization, including without limitation any news or entertainment publication or broadcast agency, you agree to comply with the terms stated in 3.5

3.4. You represent and warrant that you are not falsely representing yourself as a consumer and you further represent that you will not share material, ideas, or intellectual property from the Global Information Network in any way for use in other businesses, media outlets, or potential lawsuits.

3.5. GIN reserves the right to reject any membership application for any reason or no reason at all, in its sole discretion. If you are now or ever have been a member of the Media (print, web, radio or television) or Regulatory Government Agency, please submit your request in writing to join the Global Information Network at compliance@globalinformationnetwork dot com. Approval is at the sole discretion of the officers of the Global Information Network. You will be required to provide proof of identity along with details of your role within that organization. Any person or agent who falsely represents their intention when joining the GIN Affiliate or Member organization, is subject to immediate termination from the organization.

3.6. Any Sponsor who knowingly endorses a member who is intentionally defrauding and/or not pursuing the best interests of the Global Information Network is subject to suspension or termination of their membership. If you suspect that you may in violation of these terms, please email the Global Information Network at compliance@globalinformationnetwork dot com for clarification.

But actually one of the first things I noticed was that GIN is still described as a "multiform foundation established Nevis," and furthermore...

9.6. The party that wants to initiate arbitration shall call a well-established arbitration organization in the country of Nevis and request arbitration with a single arbitrator to begin on a date and time that is mutually agreeable to both parties and the arbitrator, but no later than fourteen business days from the date of the request. The party that initiates the arbitration will notify the other party in writing of the arbitration within one day of making that request.

11.2. This Membership Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the country of Nevis, without regard to its choice of law provisions.

Some things never change.

But some things DOchange.
Within the past few days, a couple of ex-GIN members who were, until quite recently, passionate defenders of Trudeau and GIN, have come forward with heartfelt posts in some of the Facebook forums regarding their change of heart. In both cases, revelations about the totally unethical way GIN was being run for years was the big factor in the reversal, and it appears that much of the damning information that influenced their decisions was info that had come out in the court documents. In the end, though, it was their own soul-searching that led to their decision to stop supporting Katie and GIN. One of them pointed out that people who cling to irrational or destructive beliefs will never be won over by ridicule -- something that I have taken to heart, although no doubt I will continue to ridicule the scammers and some of their more nefarious enablers.

When and if I get their permission to quote these people, either by name or anonymously, I will do so. For now, suffice to say that I applaud them for their decision to turn their back on Katie's scampire, and I wish them well. The big sick machine will still go on and on, and there will be no neat and tidy endings... but individual hearts and minds can be changed.

PS ~ If you'd like to send Katie a nice postcard or letter telling him how much he has changed your life, here is the address -- for now, anyway:
Kevin Trudeau - 18046036
MCC CHICAGO
METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER
71 WEST VAN BUREN STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60605

Tell him Cosmic Connie says howdy. And don't forget to leave a birthday wish on his public Facebook page tomorrow, February 6. He's already getting birthday wishes from people in parts of the world where it's already February 6.

↧

Kevin has a birthday, and WIN soldiers on

February 6, 2014, 2:14 pm

≫ Next: Hidden transcripts, media whores, and the lipstick on the pig

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau update: Katie still caged, while GIN & WIN continue propaganda wars

Happy Birthday
to serial scammer
Kevin Trudeau
who's in the slammer.

I'm sorry to be all flowery and sloppy and sentimental, but this is, after all, Katie's birthday, and my birthday wishes are sincere. After all, he has made my blogging job so easy and effortless for more than five years. How could I not be filled with gratitude and love? Gratitude, anyway.

Originally today was also supposed to be the day that Katie was sentenced on his criminal contempt charge (Judge Ronald Guzman's court), but for some reason it was changed to Saint Patrick's Day. I expect that before long we'll see an announcement that the sentencing has been moved to Easter, and then maybe to Memorial Day, and then perhaps to the Fourth of July. Meanwhile Judge Robert Gettleman is keeping him in the clink on the civil contempt matter, and he can keep him there until Kingdom Come if he wants to, and Katie won't get to start serving the criminal sentence, whatever that may be, until Judge Gettleman releases him. Between you and me, I think the judges are kind of f-----g with him, but I think maybe that could be because they are finally fed up with his lies. I'm not saying it's right to play games like that, if in fact that's what's being done, but on the other hand...

Anyway, while Katie celebrates his big day in the Big House, the fight is going on for control of his big boondoggle the Global Information Network, or GIN -- whatever "control" of GIN may ultimately mean. Several people or groups have reportedly been making efforts in this direction, and I've reported a few rumors here. Two of the names I've mentioned are Jeff Devine and Greg Kramer, both of whom have recently denied that they are interested in purchasing GIN as individuals. Greg says he only wants to help interested GIN members and ex-members get a fair chance at purchasing GIN when the time comes. We'll see. Both Greg and Jeff are involved in the GINUnited group, which I previously mentioned here.

[Update, added later on:] In addition, Greg has ventured on to one of Abe Husein's older Facebook groups, The Truth About the Global Information Network, to solicit support, in his own politely disingenuous and manipulative way, for GIN United. Here is the direct link to that conversation, for those who can access it. Greg's invitation was not well received, although I have been polite. Apart from the fact that Greg disavows "Kevin worshiping" while reportedly being one of the ultimate Katie worshipers himself, and apart from his usage of that well-worn manipulative tactic of praising even his harshest critics in the convo in order to get them on his side, I caught him in at least one outright lie. He claimed ignorance of there ever being any products from James Arthur Ray in the GIN Store. Screen shots are below; as usual, click to enlarge. (For the benefit of those who aren't able to access the entire conversation, earlier in the exchange Greg had used the old "separate the message from the messenger" argument in relation to Kevin and the good things he supposedly taught.)

Sorry... I'm not buying it, Greg. I hear that you knew about James Ray's products being in the store and you also knew of the efforts to dump them once he was in prison. What else are you not telling the truth about? Hmm? James Ray's stuff was still in the GIN Store as of February 2013, when I wrote this blog post about ex-GIN marketing director Peter Wink'sfaux-heroism. I called Peter out for his own hypocrisy (apparently he was trying to solicit Ray's friendship; see this shot from August 2013). But the one useful thing he did with his February post was provide a thumbnail with a link leading to GIN Store page featuring Ray's products. They do not seem to be there any longer, but they were at one time. Here's a snapshot -- again, this is from February 2013 -- to refresh your memory, Greg.

Bleat, sink and be Perry
One person who emphatically is in the running is recently defeated but not dejected GINtervenor Perry Kiraly, whose motion to intervene in the civil case was denied by Judge Gettleman on January 30. On yesterday's post I shared his February 3 update and renewed call to arms, but yesterday evening (February 5), he sent out yet another update with an even more passionate call to arms. Or at least it's a call for funds to pay his Shimkos, who are willing to take the fight to the next level and help Perry help GIN members and ex-GIN members take advantage of a golden flopportunity. Perry and gang's fundraising site and communication portal is here. The new club he has started is strategically named World Information Network, or WIN, though I just now noticed that there are a couple of other WINs already, such as this investor's group, and this little Amway group.

At any rate here is Perry's latest update, cosmically annotated in blue as per usual.

From: Perry Kiraly
Sent: 2/5/2014 9:27:27 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: SWGF Update 02-05-14 Take the Shot!

SWGF Update: PERRY KIRALY

February 5, 2014

Dear SWGF Supporters,
Attached you will find copies of Monday’s update and the Receiver’s report issued 01-28-14. [Here is a direct link. ~CC]If you haven’t already read these documents read them now. For their importance cannot be overemphasized in regard to the assets of GIN.

This update is twofold. The first is to reemphasize the importance of the attached documents. The second is to awaken the 3000 or so members that are left in GIN and haven’t contributed to the SWGF; you may want to do so now.

GIN members have never been in a better more potentially powerful position to reclaim and control the assets of GIN then now.

At the January 30th hearing, denial of the SWGF motion to intervene gave all GIN members solid legal standing in the 7th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. Now an injunction can be filed in that court to stop the Receiver from interfering with GIN FDN assets and money, some 6 million dollars of Member’s dues and fees, for the next 7 to 8 months pending an appeal.

Granting of an injunction against the Receiver means the Receiver cannot continue the collection of his fees and expenses for his services from GIN member’s dues and fees. It additionally means the Receiver will not be able to use the $6,000,000.00 in accounts of Member’s dues and fees (see attached Receiver report of 01-28-14) to pay Kevin Trudeau’s fine – which Member’s do not owe and did not pay their dues to be used for.

As anticipated, after Monday’s update the Receiver’s minions immediately sent out solicitation for bids to buy the club before an injunction is filed to put a stop to all of the Receiver’s interference with GIN FDN’s property and money. Know that a purchase of GIN FDN or its intellectual property form [sic]the Receiver will forfeit all of the forementioned [sic] money including the $6,000,000.00 of GIN Members fees and dues in Receiver controlled accounts.

Ask yourself why any Member of GIN would want to pay more money to the Receiver to buy the club’s assets when the Members of GIN now have the best chance ever to be in total control of their rightfully owned and already paid for property?

Why would any member trust anything the Receiver says or those appointed, endorsed, or controlled by him with six million dollars of Members paid in dues subject to forfeiture to the Receiver if Members buy the club from him? If you are willing to fully confront this issue, to get a clear view of exactly what is going on, ask yourself the following questions:

Why would the Receiver, who claims he is there to help the GIN Members, file a motion just a few days before the January 30th hearing to try and prevent the GIN Membership from having a voice and legal standing in court?

Put another way: why wouldn’t the Receiver want the Members of GIN to have a voice in the court?

And why does the Receiver spend thousands of dollars of GIN member’s dues on a PR (Public Relations) contract, with one who has already denied being paid by GIN, to pacify, placate, and keep calm the membership of GIN? [I assume he is talking about Trudeau buddy Troy McClain, mentioned a few times on this Whirled. ~CC]While the Receiver continues to cut staff and even attempt to sublease the offices the staff works in to save money? PR in this case I think is missing a few letters. PRopagandize is a more accurate term.

And if the answer to those questions are not enough for you I will let the Receiver’s own words speak for themselves as an indicator of his mentality and the extent he is willing to go to collect money. The following is an excerpt from the Receiver report filed 12-19-14[actually filed 12-17-13; see my link below.~CC], pg.8 (bottom) + pg.9 (attached); Note: this is the Receiver’s lawyer talking to the court:

"Mr. Trudeau has failed to make a full disclosure and accounting of his assets and should remain coercively incarcerated until he does so. For such sanctions to have a coercive effect, Mr. Trudeau must understand that he will remain incarcerated until he takes action to purge such contempt, rather than merely wait for the next status hearing to see if the Receiver has discovered any new assets or has completed his report."

[Here is a direct link to the above-mentioned December 17 Receiver’s Status Report. ~CC]

Rather than continue to set short status dates, the Receiver believes that coercive sanctions will be most effective if longer status dates are set with the caveat that Mr. Trudeau may at any time request a hearing in order to demonstrate that he had taken some concrete actions that have had the effect of purging his contempt.

It appears the Receiver has no qualms about the endorsement of even taking a man’s freedom and locking him in a cage to compel him to pay them money? Is this really the vibration you want to be aligning with and make a deal with, GIN members?! Do you really want to give this Receiver more money than he has already taken from the Member’s to buy back your own property from him?!

Well you don’t have to. Now is your opportunity to take control of the assets that rightfully belong to you. The many that have contributed to the SWGF have made this opportunity happen. Take advantage of it while this brief window of time is open.

Lastly, for those that suggest I have some ulterior motive; that I’m vying for ownership, control or the destruction of GIN, consider this: The Receiver/GIN Co. has terminated my GIN Membership for essentially exercising my 1st amendment right to express my opinion and right to legal counsel. …Seems there was another outspoken member in the club this was done to for the very same reasons… [Seems like this was done to lots of good members even during GIN’s heyday, Perry… back when you were supporting GIN, KT, and possibly supporting these very actions yourself. Ask my friend Paul Wilson how dissenters were treated back in the day. And you DO seem to be vying for control of GIN and working towards the goal of restoring your GINcome stream (or establishing a WINcome stream). ~CC]

Now the Receiver/GIN Co. has suggested my membership was terminated because I started or solicited members for a competing club. But the truth is World Information Network Foundation or WIN was not created to compete with or soliciting members of any club. Its initial formation was out of necessity; that necessity being to provide a legal entity, as a place to rebuild and provide sanctuary for former GIN Members that had had-it with being violated, stolen from and lied to.

WIN was formed to provide a home for those that love the truth and embrace it. Those with this mentality are naturally attracted to WIN.

The quality of the content it will provide is the foundation WIN stands on; for it began in transparency and truth as its foundation with access to the informational source that can, if utilized, free and empower an individual in ways that are nothing short of astounding; and access to that information is what WIN intends to provide to its Members. [I am still wondering about this mysterious "informational source," which is supposedly so superior to anything now available. My best guess:
SCIENTOLOGY.
Am I warm, Perry and Yon? ~CC]

So why do I spend countless hours of my time, and put myself on the front line and at risk in expressing my opinion in these updates? [My first guess would be that it beats safecracking, breaking and entering, and arson. ~CC] Because I gave my word to hundreds of former and current GIN Members that continue to back me, and are counting on me to present the blunt truth, as hard as it may be for some to swallow, and to do my best to do whatever it takes to look out for and see that their best interests are represented. And that is exactly what I am doing, and why I am doing this.

SWGF has truly completed its mission with honor and afforded the former and current Members with two golden opportunities as listed in the attached update of 02-03-14.[If the mission is running up big legal bills, then… mission accomplished! ~CC]

And GIN Members have one strong play left afforded them by the SWGF and those that have backed it. That play is to have Mr. Timothy Shimko file an appeal and injunction and take this shot at finally controlling the Members rightfully owned and paid for assets. To date Mr. Shimko’s fee & expenses have exceeded that which SWGF has taken in but he is willing to continue if Members are willing to contribute enough to fund what remains of this effort – the heavy lifting has been done. So I call out to those interested in taking this final shot at seeing control of GIN assets returned to the Members - Send in your contributions now to see this play through.

Like life, this is a game my fellow travelers, it’s a big one with big players and big stakes. That’s what makes it interesting. That’s what makes it a game! And if even the most reluctant up to this point jumps in to play…none will even feel the bite it will cost so little. $150.00 from even half of what’s left of the GIN Members, that have everything to gain from a favorable ruling, will overfund this effort. [But the top priority for now is to fund the Shimkos. ~CC]

In our training Caveat Roberts is quoted as defining Character as: "Following through on a decision long after the excitement and emotion of the moment has passed."[But after a while, that could also be a definition of "obsession." Just saying. And… um… Caveat? As in Caveat Emptor? Methinks Perry actually meant Cavett Robert, the late motivational speaker and founder of the National Speakers Association. ~CC]

In the book Think & Grow Rich we are told that one of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat…and the illustration of the story of R.U. Darby is given who, after his long and arduous effort in search of gold, quit just 3 feet from one of the richest veins of gold ever discovered. [Nice use of an egregiously over-told inspirational story that is impossible to verify. Besides, it was the mysterious R.U. Darby’s uncle to whom this supposedly happened. ~CC]

We’re 3 feet from the Gold here people… Take a risk, take a chance, and get in this game for the final round! You’re in this ring called life, and life is sometimes a tough ass opponent - so take a swing and it! It’s what life is all about. It’s the final shot at GIN members gaining control of what’s rightfully theirs. Take the damn shot!! [Or better yet, get out of Scamworld and try to find an honest way to make a living. ~CC]

…and have a nice day,
Perry Kiraly*

*As a post script to this update, let me make it clear that I am a citizen of the United States of America and have exercised my 1st Amendment right to express my opinion herein. I am not a lawyer and nothing in this update/opinion should be construed as legal advice. The information herein is my personal opinion and provided solely for educational purposes. The opinion expressed in this update is not meant to suggest or encourage any course of action without consulting with an attorney or one licensed to practice law. Everyone must evaluate and make up their own mind on any course of action they take.

All I can add to that is to reiterate what Perry said at the end: Have a nice day. And don't forget to go share birthday wishes on Katie's public Facebook page. My friend Kalea Makana shared a nice link to the picture above.

↧

Hidden transcripts, media whores, and the lipstick on the pig

February 9, 2014, 3:26 pm

≫ Next: SciWINtology: One step closer?

≪ Previous: Kevin has a birthday, and WIN soldiers on

GIN doesn’t exist :: it’s the lipstick on the pig … after you wash it off with a hose that whore pig is going to tart right back up. It’s the pigs involved that need to be stopped if anything is going to be stopped … not the shell corporate entities organized in the name of young Ukrainian wives.*
~ Salty Droid, December 11, 2012

Since there's no earth-shattering new news in the saga of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, and I'm too distracted in a good way with real-life stuff to go back and finish one of a dozen or more half-finished blog posts about other topics, I'll just copy and paste some of my comments from recent Facebook threads, and add a few paragraphs and links to make it seem a little more substantial. If you've already read the content below, I apologize for the redundancy and for my own laziness. But here goes anyway.

Recent court transcripts now available -- for those who want to go to the hassle of getting them
Two documents were filed on February 6 in Trudeau's ongoing civil case, but aren't available yet through PACER and won't be until May 7. One doc is the transcript for the December 19, 2013 hearing and the other is the transcript for the January 30, 2014 hearing. If anyone is interested in pursuing this and possibly obtaining the transcripts before they are released to PACER, the instructions are on the docket as follows:

Document 818, filed 02/06/14:
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS held on December 19, 2013 before the Honorable Robert W. Gettleman. Court Reporter Contact Information: Nancy L. Bistany, CSR, RPR, FCRR, nancy_bistany@ilnd.uscourts.gov, (312) 435-76

IMPORTANT: The transcript may be viewed at the court's public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained through the Court Reporter/Transcriber or PACER. For further information on the redaction process, see the Court's web site at www.ilnd.uscourts.gov under Quick Links select Policy Regarding the Availability of Transcripts of Court Proceedings.

Redaction Request due 2/27/2014. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 3/10/2014. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 5/7/2014. (Bistany, Nancy)

..........................

Document 819, filed 02/06/14:
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS held on January 30, 2014 before the Honorable Robert W. Gettleman. Court Reporter Contact Information: Nancy L. Bistany, CSR, RPR, FCRR, nancy_bistany@ilnd.uscourts.gov, (312) 435-7626.

IMPORTANT: The transcript may be viewed at the court's public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained through the Court Reporter/Transcriber or PACER. For further information on the redaction process, see the Court's web site at www.ilnd.uscourts.gov under Quick Links select Policy Regarding the Availability of Transcripts of Court Proceedings.

Redaction Request due 2/27/2014. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 3/10/2014. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 5/7/2014. (Bistany, Nancy)

If I were getting paid for doing this I would certainly go the extra mile and nab the unredacted transcripts while they are available. As of now, though, I'm kind of adopting the Katie attitude and platitude: "Care, but not that much." But if you want to go get them and share them with me I won't argue with you.

Tabloid(ish) editorial calls out Katie and his infomercial enablers
The New York Post has been criticized as a tabloid-ish newspaper, perhaps a baby step above The National Enquirerbut a few giant steps below the New York Times -- although for better or worse, the division between highbrow and lowbrow, or respectable and "yellow," journalism is becoming ever more irrelevant. Be that as it may, the Post's Phil Mushnick came out with an editorial on February 8, 2014, calling out TV execs for helping perpetrate Kevin Trudeau's frauds by accepting his infomercials. My friend Julie Daniel found this and shared it on one of the Facebook forums.

Mushnick's editorial contains some minor inaccuracies; he indicates that Trudeau is in jail right now for fraud, which isn't technically true. Right now he's in jail for civil contempt (related to probable fraud, I'll grant that), and is awaiting sentencing on his criminal contempt conviction (also related to probable fraud, and there may be more criminal charges forthcoming). For now, though, Katie's in the cage for civil contempt. Mushnick also insinuates that Kevin Trudeau isn't Katie's real name but may just be a "TV stage name." But everything I've read indicates Katie's real name is Kevin Mark Trudeau -- though granted, he has used other aliases over the years for various purposes. The meat of Mushnick's editorial, though, is pretty sound. He thinks that the TV networks and stations should be held more accountable for running Katie's infomercials, and that the lame pre-infomercial disclaimers just "don't cut it."

Of course Mushnick is hardly the first person to call out TV networks and stations for their complicity in Scamworld; I've mentioned it a few times on my blog (including on this November 2012 post; see under "Media: a two-edged sword"). Salty Droid and other critics have also made note of it more than once -- not just in relation to Trudeau but to other infomercial fraudsters as well (e.g., Anthony Morrison). Then there are selfish-help gurus who are not known for their infomercials but have achieved fame and infamy in their own way -- such as one of The Secret's "teachers" James Arthur Ray, who was enabled for years by prominent talk show hosts and their producers. Even after having been charged, tried, convicted, and imprisoned of killing some of his followers, Rayhas some big-time TV and infotainment media in his corner.

But back to Katie. On the thread about the Mushnick piece, Julie wrote, "I have decided that maybe to pull off a con as good as the one's kt is behind it takes a village." Indeed.

And what about all of the enablers and partners and pals behind the scenes -- those who have profited by helping perpetrate the lies and fraud? Like ITV Venture's Donald Barrett (who produced some of Katie's most notorious infomercials)? And Reno Rolle (who helped Katie create and promote his first books, and is even now profiting from his association by being one of the producers of a fictionalized movie about Katie)? And Janine Nubani Contursi (she's everywhere Katie is and has been for years)? What about Trudeau's foreign cohorts, such as Lee Kenny, who's safely in the UK for now? What about cohorts he may still have in Australia, Europe, and other parts of the world? It's been argued that these folks were only doing what they were hired to do or told to do by Katie, and that Katie is the true mastermind. But as Julie says, it takes a village -- and in Katie's case it's a global village.

My guy Ron had a good point, though, when he wrote: "If the TV stations were to be required to vet all the infomercials, they'd also have to vet the claims of all products that appear in their commercial spots, and would likely begin using network/station management's personal agendas as litmus tests... And besides, we already know that the media are whores, right?"

Right.

And the rebrand plays on
Meanwhile, the struggle for control of Trudeau's big flopportunity the Global Information Network, or GIN, continues. The fate of the rebranded (new logo, no Katie) GIN remains uncertain but there are, as noted in recent blog posts such as this one and this one, some passionate contenders. At the moment it appears to me that the current GIN establishment has the best chance of assuming control of GIN, but you never know what's really going on behind the scenes. (Some are saying that the original folks interested in buying GIN have dropped out, but I've heard buzz to the contrary, so I am taking a wait and see attitude.)

While you're waiting for more news, if you're feeling a little rundown and hormonally imbalanced or erectiley dysfunctional and/or challenged by electromagnetic fields (EMFs), and if Fred Van Loony's swamp water and/or E-Pendant hasn't worked for you, why not sample a little bit of raw, vegan, "wild crafted" and egregiously overpriced pine pollen from the Kramers' GIN Store? A February 7 email sent from the GIN Store bore this header:
Boost Testosterone and Block EMFs for Under $70 (Website glitches fixed)

Imagine your spouse, family, and friends commenting on how much younger you look!

Imagine experiencing these benefits in just the next few days!

Yes, just imagine! And keep on imagining, because with placebos, imagination is the key.

Oops, there I go sounding like one of those naysayers again. After all, according to one of the testimonials in the email, a man named Todd in Utah took the pine pollen and oh my, on the very first day, he "definitely experienced a boost in sense of well being, strength, and even confidence." And he apparently woke up the next day with a boner. Goodness.

Actually, the bit about blocking EMFs refers not to the magickal pine pollen but to a special magickal frauduct called the Performance Amulet Bracelet, a $24 value that you get free when you order your pine pollen for only $64 plus shipping and handling. But you have to do it by midnight February 8, so you're already too late. Oh, well.Better luck next time.

The special brand of pine pollen that the GIN Store is peddling is "Surthrival," which, when you say it, sounds like you have a speech impediment. But hey, don't listen to me. Maybe you need to buy some and take it, and maybe, as promised in the promos, you'll get a renewed spring in your step, which all of your friends will notice, and they'll shower you with compliments, especially if you're wearing your GIN Strong hoodie.

I'm sorry, but I can't think about pollen without thinking about this.

Anyway. In light of all of the bad press Katie and GIN have been getting, the big branding challenge remains. I've discussed this matter here before, but the way I see it is that the big branding dilemma the GIN "leaders" are faced with now is figuring out how to appeal to two opposing factions:

1. Those who want nothing more to do with Kevin and the lies on which he originally built GIN -- lies such as the mysterious GIN Council; Kevin's background in a seekrit group called the Brotherhood, and so forth. In addition many people have a very bad taste in their mouths from the many broken promises -- the bonuses and incentives not paid out, the seekrit knowledge promised but never delivered. These people may always associate GIN with Kevin, which, from the perspective of those trying to promote GIN, is not such a good thing.
2. Those who still very much love or admire Kevin and fear that GIN will be an empty shell without him -- but are willing to do anything to carry on his legacy. These people won't let Kevin's name die either, no matter how hard the leaders might work to de-Kevinize GIN.

I realize there are gray areas and that many people fall somewhere in between those extremes, but it seems to me that those two factions are the major points of concern.

Can GIN leadership have it both ways and somehow manage to win the hearts and wallets of Katie haters and fans alike? Maybe. In the end, though, it may be that shoving Katie into the background is probably the way to go for now in order to trick... oops, I mean to appeal to the most folks. It will also be one way to convince the court that GIN deserves another chance at life. Accordingly the GIN site has been scrubbed clean of Katie, and at least one of his big GIN lies has been publicly negated -- the one about the apocryphal "GIN Council."

But there's this to consider: Many anti-KT ex-GIN, having given up on ever getting money owed to them, will at the very least be expecting apologies -- big time apologies -- from the leadership. If they can't get an apology from Kevin, which would no doubt give them the most satisfaction but which seems the most unlikely, they'll expect the leaders to apologize. And if they have lost a lot of money in GIN, they will probably not be satisfied with anything less than a full scale renouncement of Kevin on the part of the GIN leadership, and possibly some intense self-flagellation on the part of some of those same leaders.

But then... um... this could alienate the Trudeau fan base. What to do? Well, that's GIN's problem. I'm sure they're busy planning their strategies even as I write this.

Some may be asking:. What is GIN without Kevin Trudeau? Well, ask yourself what Landmark Education is without Werner Erhard (the founder of the 1970s selfish-help craze est). Of course their rebranding involved several name changes over the decades, but they are still a farce to be reckoned with in the selfish-help industry. And yes, I know I have used this example several times before but it seemed appropriate to bring it up again. Here's more from Mother Jones about Landmark; this is from 2009. And here's a whimsical graphic that compares Landmark and Scientology and other selfish-help and LGAT trends.

But I digress. The advantage GIN leaders and any eventual owner(s) have is that the public has a short memory and a seemingly endless capacity to be taken in by hucksters, so the anti-KT contingent should not be much of a problem long term.

And the passion of Trudeau's remaining fan base cannot be overestimated. It is both pathetic and frightening that so many folks still seem so worshipful of Kevin and that they really seem to believe he has some sort of magical or messianic powers. This belief is still being ruthlessly exploited and I have no doubt that even though Katie is caged for now, there are some folks who do not actually believe that he really is even remotely magical or messianic -- but they have a stake in encouraging others' beliefs in that regard.

In other words...the lies and manipulation continue.

What seems clear is that people are desperately fighting to keep GIN alive and/or to form a GIN spinoff or ripoff, no doubt hoping it can be a cash cow for them -- either again, or FINALLY. Perry Kiraly's World Information Network (WIN) is one case in point.

Insidious brainwashing
Others -- the truly brainwashed -- are simply desperate to cling to what they have come to see as their "family." MLMs and cults alike nurture this type of sick dependency. Scientology does it -- and Kevin certainly did it and now his minions are carrying on his work. Read the Rick Ross cult education forums and you will see this same story repeated over and over.

In this July 2012 post I discuss some of GIN's Scientology-like indoctrination tactics. I linked to some suggested GIN "checklists" that were almost disturbingly obsessive, including the 515-question "Monthly Checklist" that included these little gems to reinforce belief in both GIN's scammy MLM and the scummy leaders. Though apparently not official GIN material, they were, as I have now come to understand even better, congruent with the GIN mindset.

6.Would you rate your belief that the MLM, network marketing, or referral marketing industry works for those people who work it; and it can and does lead to financial freedom and independence, at a level of 5 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
7. Would you rate your belief that the MLM, network marketing, or referral marketing industry works for those people who work it;and it can and does lead to financial freedom and independence, at a level of 6 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
8. Would you rate your belief that the MLM, network marketing, or referral marketing industry works for those people who work it; and it can and does lead to financial freedom and independence, at a level of 7 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
9. Would you rate your belief that the MLM, network marketing, or referral marketing industry works for those people who work it; and it can and does lead to financial freedom and independence, at a level of 8 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
10. Would you rate your belief that the MLM, network marketing, or referral marketing industry works for those people who work it; and it can and does lead to financial freedom and independence, at a level of 9 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
11. Would you rate your belief that the MLM, network marketing, or referral marketing industry works for those people who work it; and it can and does lead to financial freedom and independence, at a level of 10 on a scale of 1-10?
12. Would you rate your belief that the leadership in GIN has ethics, integrity, experience, and expertise at a level of 5 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
13. Would you rate your belief that the leadership in GIN has ethics, integrity, experience, and expertise at a level of 6 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
14. Would you rate your belief that the leadership in GIN has ethics, integrity, experience, and expertise at a level of 7 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
15. Would you rate your belief that the leadership in GIN has ethics, integrity, experience, and expertise at a level of 8 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
16. Would you rate your belief that the leadership in GIN has ethics, integrity, experience, and expertise at a level of 9 or higher on a scale of 1-10?
17. Would you rate your belief that the leadership in GIN has ethics, integrity, experience, and expertise at a level of 10 on a scale of 1-10?

And so on, and so forth. It is the same type of mind-numbing, maddening, obsessive repetition of the same question, over and over and over, that is employed in Scientology "auditing."

I am now even more cognizant than I was a year and a half ago of the Scientology influence on these checklists, which are actually a creation of GIN member and avid Scientology fan Yon Coleand are part of a web site he created, mygin.ws, to suck people into GIN. (Yon even did a "reverse blind auction" to sell memberships in GIN's early days so he could become a "founder" of GIN.) Yon, as I've mentioned previously, has since cast his lot with Perry Kiraly and WIN, and there's some buzz that the WIN "training" will be based on Scientology content. But for all I know Yon may be hedging his bets and working with the GIN establishment too (in any case, trying to get to the home page of mygin dot ws now leads to the official GIN site -- which may simply indicate that Yon surrendered the domain because he is no longer involved at all in GIN).

My point is this: whatever you do, whenever you're around an earnest GIN leader or one of the earnest, long-winded WINners -- or anyone else who is pushing a GIN alternative to you -- hang on to your wallet. Be especially cautious if you are approached by individuals who are walking with a special "spring in their step," wearing GIN Strong hoodies and possibly sporting pine pollen-induced boners. What they are offering you is nothing you really want.

As for the new rebranded GIN: It may be a new shade of lipstick, but it's still only lipstick, and it probably has all kinds of toxins in it... and that's still only a pig underneath the garish paint.*

* Standard disclaimer applies: no offense intended to pigs or to lipstick. Or to whores.

PS ~ In related news, my pal Bernie at GINtruth.com just got a phony lawsuit threat from Trudeau's ex-b.f.f., Mocktor Loony Coldwell. Read all about it here.

↧

SciWINtology: One step closer?

February 11, 2014, 2:26 pm

≫ Next: "The Stupid...it Bernd!!"

≪ Previous: Hidden transcripts, media whores, and the lipstick on the pig

As serial scammer Kevin Trudeau cools his heels in jail, awaiting his March 17 sentencing on criminal contempt charges and waiting out Judge Robert Gettleman on the civil contempt thing that has him caged at the moment, the struggle for the remains of his biggest scam, the Global Information Network (GIN) continues. Ohio GIN member Perry Kiraly and his Shimkos, whose motion to intervene in the civil case was denied on January 30, are going ahead with the court part of their Plan B. Previously they had legally established an alternate club, the World Information Network, or WIN. And now, according to Perry, the Shimko is preparing an appeal. Yesterday evening, February 10, Perry sent out a brief update, with attachments that he had sent with previous updates. He urges his readers to read all of the attached documents again... and then again... and then again.

And then again, just for good measure. He asks his readers to keep in mind that Each. Word. Was. Carefully. Selected.

Smells like Scientology! And/or other manipulative, coercive varieties of word-flinging. Given that Perry's biggest champion (besides the Shimkos) in this whole Intervention-and-beyond phase has been Scientology fan Yon Cole, I don't think I'm too far off base for continuing to harp on this. (For more about that, see my previous blog post.)

Anyway, here is the update.

From: Perry Kiraly

Date: February 10, 2014 at 9:28:30 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: SWGF Update 02-10-14 Appeal in Process

SWGF Update: PERRY KIRALY

February 10, 2014

Dear SWGF Supporters,
This update is to inform you that Mr. Shimko is in the process of preparing the appeal. Its completion and filing will soon follow. Accompanying the appeal will be a motion for injunction to prevent the Receiver, pending appeal, from continued interference with, or use of, GIN members paid in dues, fees, and cash on hand which currently amounts to approximately $6,000,000.00!

Granting of this injunction and subsequent appeal will put GIN Members in the most powerful position to date to reclaim the assets of GIN that rightfully belong to them.

Attached are copies of the SWGF updates of 02-03-14, 02-05-14 and the Receiver’s reports issued on 01-28-14 and 12-19-13. If you haven’t read these documents read them now. Even if you have read these documents, consider re-reading them; for their importance to members in GIN is paramount in regard to the return of GIN assets.

Some of the many questions that are answered in these two attached SWGF updates of the 3rd & 5th are:

Why this appeal & injunction puts GIN members in a very powerful position to compel the return of GIN’s assets which includes the Intellectual property as well as cash.

Why buying assets from the Receiver is not a good option.

What the true mentality of the Receiver is -- using his own words.

The golden opportunity that has arisen from this situation in the creation of WIN for the club’s future.

How to stand with and contribute to this valiant effort by those that truly embrace the ideals upon which the club was founded.

Read the attached SWGF Updates carefully and thoroughly. Each word in them was carefully selected to deliver an important point. Then contribute to this battle for the club and its future.

Thank you,
Perry Kiraly*

*As a post script to this update, let me make it clear that I am a citizen of the United States of America and have exercised my 1st Amendment right to express my opinion herein. I am not a lawyer and nothing in this update/opinion should be construed as legal advice. The information herein is my personal opinion and provided solely for educational purposes. The opinion expressed in this update is not meant to suggest or encourage any course of action without consulting with an attorney or one licensed to practice law. Everyone must evaluate and make up their own mind on any course of action they take.

The important message is that you need to send money to continue to feed the Shimkos.

If you need to get up to speed on some of those documents Perry mentioned, you can find what you need on this Whirled. Not only do I have the February 3rd and 5th SWGF updates, but I also have links to relevant court docs, including the receivers' reports. Here are those links:

That's it for now... stay tuned. Meanwhile, if you have nothing better to do, I want you to read this blog post again. And again. And again. Then read it backwards. Then print it out and read it upside down. Or stand on your head to read in onscreen -- same difference, except the blood will go to your head. Then print it out and hold it up to a mirror and read it again. Really think about what each word means. If you discern any hidden messages, let me know.

↧

"The Stupid...it Bernd!!"

February 15, 2014, 2:03 pm

≫ Next: Ojai rummage sale: Kevin Trudeau's house of horrors plundered over the weekend

≪ Previous: SciWINtology: One step closer?

It's been a while since I've paid homage to the wackadoodle shenanigans of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's former b.f.f. and alt-health spokesnut, "Dr." Leonard Coldwell, the former Bernd Klein, aka Bernd Witchner (Witchner was the last name of Bernd's first U.S. wife). For those of you who aren't up to speed on Lenny C's name changes, seriously questionable credentials (I'm being polite for the moment) and other iffy background issues, I refer you to my very first blog post about him, first published in May 2012 and updated in September of the same year. Here is the link. Go read it if you need it. I'll wait.

I've written quite a few times about Coldwell since then. But the most damning posts have come from other bloggers such as Salty Droid, Bernie at GINtruth, and Omri Shabat at Glancingweb. These guys have had the courage to tackle some of the more unpleasant allegations that have come out about Coldwell, based in part upon a 2007 police report that, while not resulting in any charges, seems very much like a smoking gun.

Yesterday, February 14, Bernie wrote about Coldwell again (actually it was already February 15 for Bernie, since he's in Japan and many hours ahead of those of us in the U.S.). It appears that Coldwell has outdone himself in stupidity, having sent a draft of a legal document to Bernie, titled "COMPLAINT AT LAW FOR DEFAMATION PER SE."

The draft, which purports to be a defamation complaint against "Omri Shabat a/k/a Jason Michael Jones," is daft on many levels. First it was crazy to send it to Bernie -- who, as I mentioned, resides in Japan -- since he is not even listed as a party to the prospective lawsuit. But even more daft -- downright stupid -- is the declaration that Salty Droid, aka Jason Michael Jones, is the same person as Omri Shabat, who writes the Glancingweb blog.

Of note, the document centers around Omri's blog posts, not Jason's. Also of note, Omri is in Israel, and Jason, aka Salty Droid, is not. Granted, Omri's style is somewhat similar to Salty's, and his blog design resembles Salty's former Wordpress template, but you know what they say about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Actually Omri has his own style, which I've come to appreciate more and more as time goes by.

At any rate, here is a link to the "defamation complaint" sent to Bernie, with the name of the lawyer and law firm redacted, per the firm's request.

It's amusing that the document mentions all of Coldwell's dodgy creds, including his "honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities."Bernie wrote about that recently as well. That "degree" is from an iffy, unaccredited religious "university" called Louisiana Baptist University.

The February 14 missive is far from the first harassing communication Bernie has received from the Coldwell camp. Previously he received rants and threats from Coldwell via Facebook, usually by private message, and Coldwell also wrote about him on numerous Facebook threads, claiming that Bernie is mentally ill and dangerous. That is pretty much the same claim Coldwell makes about virtually all of his critics, including me, though some of us get extra special treatment.

As I've mentioned a few dozen times, and I have screen shots to back it all up, Coldwell has told actionable lies about me, such as claiming that I am a former prostitute who has AIDS and has given "bad STDs" to her customers. Here's a post from Salty about one of Coldwell's numerous rants about me. In this rant Coldwell simply says I'm an ex-hooker with STDs, and that I'm being paid by Big Pharma to discredit well-meaning natural cure experts such as Lenny. Lies, lies, lies. Coldwell also says that I am a cancer that needs to be gotten rid of, which has always sounded to me as if he is trying to incite others to do me harm.

Here's a post from Bernie regarding one of Coldwell's more recent, and one of his most ludicrous, lies. In this one the little twerp says I'm an AIDS-sick prostitute who now has cancer because I'm jealous. He also tells the worse than stupid lie that I tried to get his buddy Peter Wink (Kevin Trudeau's ex-marketing guy) to fix me up on a date with Coldwell, and when Coldwell refused I flipped out and went on a hate rampage against Coldwell and Wink.

I know I've written about these before, but I thought it was a good idea to post reminders, for the benefit of newbies, such as lawyers who might be trying to make a decision about whether they really want to represent a lying psychopath. You're welcome, lawyers. If any of you are interested, I have dozens of screen shots of rants and threats Coldwell has made against me.

Anyway, Bernie had previously been getting most of his communications from Coldwell via Facebook, but recently Coldwell sent him a draft of a cease-and-desist letter from an attorney who is associated with the law firm Merritt Webb (a name Coldwell had been waving around for a few months as the firm that will be filing a class-action lawsuit on his behalf against Kevin Trudeau). Here's a link to Bernie's hilarious blog post about that. Once again, Loony made a blunder because the document was clearly listed as a "proposed letter." In fact, this is exactly how it was headed:
DATE/PROPOSED LETTER

In the email, Coldwell claimed that Interpol is after Bernie too, but there was no mention of that in the Proposed Letter. Bernie never received a signed copy of the letter by post from the law firm, only the draft via email from Coldwell.

As I write this, Jason, aka Salty Droid, hasn't heard from the law firm himself, and to my knowledge Omri hasn't either. But both are aware of the communication and are following up to see what's what. If either one reports about this on his own blog, I'll be sure to link to the post(s).

Jason has had his own round of fun with Loony, who famously put a bounty on Jason's head back in September 2012. I've told this story here before, but this is for the benefit of those who are new or who would just like to relive good times. Coldwell actually offered $500 to the first person who could send him Salty Droid's real name and a current address. All of this info had been made available by Salty/Jason himself long before that, and was easily available on the Web. Coldwell even offered an extra $100 if the person could also send him a recognizable photo of Jason. Here's Jason having fun with that.

You get what you pay for
Some folks who have been keeping up with Coldwell's daft missives were wondering why the little man has mentioned several different law firms in some of his more recent communications. (Most of the law firms with which he has been associated seem to specialize in personal injury and whatnot.) Over the past year and a half or so he has made a lot of noise about his "legal team" and how he is "rich like sh-t" and can afford the best lawyers available, and is prepared to use them to ruin all of his critics. According to recent information I heard, however, he pays a service $25 a month to get free advice from different lawyers. But it's limited advice and doesn't have any legal standing unless he pursues a case, for which he would need to pay real money.

Hmmm... smells like Pre-Paid Legal Services, known as LegalShield since 2011. I don't know if that is the service Loony uses, but here's a January 2014 article that pretty much explains why pre-paid legal schemes in general are like really lame insurance that doesn't cover much of anything. From the article:

You get simple services
Benefits seem large but are typically basic and low-cost: Advice given over the telephone, brief office consultations, the review of simple legal documents, short letters or phone calls made to businesses or neighbors who bedevil you, uncontested divorce and maybe some "free" necessities, such as a simple will. But that freebie is a loss leader to sell you more complex legal services that might not be covered, such as drafting trusts or child guardianships, because plans are also clever lawyer-marketing devices.

Fact is, while many consumers fear costly legal nightmares, an estimated 65 percent to 85 percent of all problems brought to lawyers through legal plans can be resolved with advice and a small amount of follow-up, says the American Prepaid Legal Service Institute, a trade group for plan providers.

Limitations shrink coverage
What's more, big-ticket items often aren't covered, including a messy divorce; criminal defense; representation if you're charged with driving under the influence; applying for a patent; lawsuits in which you're the plaintiff suing someone else [emphasis mine ~CC]; and — of course — suits against the legal plan itself. And if your plan is employer-sponsored and you want to sue your employer, the plan won't bite the hand that feeds it.

Note that this article was about a company called Primerica, but I mention it because Primerica offers legal services similar to that of LegalShield and other pre-paid legal services companies. And if you're interested, here's the Consumer Affairs complaints page about LegalShield.

Was it Lenny or Amy? Or does it even matter any more?
It is possible that Loony's emotionally troubled young assistant Amy Chappell (who has more recently been going by the name Amy King, at lest on Facebook) was the one who sent the email about the latest "court document" to Bernie. This morning, February 15, someone forwarded an email to me, which I include below. It was sent out on 8:56 PM on Friday, February 14, many hours AFTER Bernie published his blog post about the matter. The date stamp on Bernie's blog post says February 15, but remember that Japan is many hours ahead of the U.S. -- 15 hours ahead of me (I'm on Central Time) and 14 hours ahead of Coldwell (Eastern Time). I happen to know that Bernie was writing in the wee hours of the morning, his time, because he told some of us on Facebook. Here's Amy's message:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Amy Chappell
Date: Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 8:56 PM
Subject: Dr. C filed Lawsuit for Libel/Slander/Defamation- Document Attached
To:

Hello,

I just decided since there were some absurd doubts about some criminal rumors made some time ago (some IBMS Coaches were even believing there could be truth to some ridiculous posts), I wanted you to have first knowledge that we have filed one of many lawsuits to come. Please keep this email and document confidential. Please see the attached document below.
We really appreciate those who have been loyal and trusting in Dr. C

Thank you,
Amy Chappell

Here's Amy in action at a Coldwell boot camp in October 2012, explaining why she turned her back on her family and ran away to be with Coldwell, whom she utterly idolizes, and apparently vice versa (in the video just linked to, he describes her as the most important person in his life). One wonders what Coldwell's present wife, whom he married in June 2008, thought about this. Listening to Amy, it is clear that this is a young woman with serious problems.

But that doesn't let her off the hook when it comes to harassing bloggers. If Amy is indeed the one responsible for sending this latest missive she is even more moronic than Loony.

Frankly it's hard to tell at this point whether Coldwell or Amy sent the missive to Bernie, because the email address from which Bernie received the document simply says IBMS VIP, and also because as we know, Coldwell has done similarly stoopid things too. In any case I wrote back to the person who forwarded the email; I am trying to find out more about the entire context of the communications, and I will update info as necessary.

Meanwhile, a member of my own non-legal team voluntarily redrafted the defamation complaint so that it makes more sense. Here ya go.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/207308831/Coldwell-Filed-Complaint-at-Law-Droid-Omri-Parody-Redacted

I seriously suggest to any lawyers contacted by Coldwell that they do some actual research before they agree to take him on as a client.

↧

Ojai rummage sale: Kevin Trudeau's house of horrors plundered over the weekend

March 3, 2014, 4:26 pm

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau's pyramid continues to crumble as FTC snarks at GINtervenors

≪ Previous: "The Stupid...it Bernd!!"

Dear Ones, I apologize for neglecting jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau for a couple of weeks, and not blogging about anything of importance in the interim. I got pretty busy with actual paid work assignments, and I was also weakened from laughter at the worse-than-stupid shenanigans of one of Katie's former b.f.f.s, Mocktor Loony Coldwell. I did manage to get in a blog post and a couple of updates about the latter, and you can read all about the little Teutonic twerp's latest lunacy here. But I'm bored with him. Let's get back to Katie.

So. There was a big rummage...um...estate sale at Katie's gaudy Ojai, California McMansion over this past weekend (Feb 28-March 2, 2014). The picture above was taken at the beginning of the sale as buyers were flocking in, with lines all the way out the door. Proceeds from the sale, as well as from the sale of the home itself, will go to pay the court-appointed receiver and the lawyers... and then if anything is left over, it's possible that some of it might go towards Katie's big fine to the FTC... and then at some point some moneys might possibly trickle out to the customers who were screwed by Katie's dumb diet book. That's the plan, anyway. (Sorry GIN members who were screwed. Y'all are way at the back of the line. And not the line of eager shoppers going into Katie's house of horrors.)

The lamestream media were reporting the Ojai estate sale as an "auction," but it was merely a tag sale, a fact which I confirmed, even though I had pretty much figured that out myself after reading the write-ups from the people who were actually running the sale. I don't know how much longer the link to the catalog will be valid, but if you haven't seen it already, do pay a visit and take a look at some of the items that were up for grabs. I am sure you will sigh with envy over missing a chance to get a little piece of Katie.

Among many other places, the sale was announced on Katie's Facebook page on February 25. His proxy (presumably his longtime friend/business partner/ex-g.f. Janine Nubani Contursi) wrote on his behalf:

If anyone is interested in buying any of the furnishings/personal items at the Ojai property please see the link... The receiver will be selling everything. The items in the home are in my opinion priceless. Many are antiques. All have my energy infused in them. They are all like amulets. Remember...I shall return!

And his fawning fans responded with comments such as this:

You have some wonderful treasures. When you get out you'll have fun once again finding more.

So many beautiful things! I used the pictures to do some dream building. Felt so good. You can always create other beautiful spaces. Thanks for your positive posts. They encourage me to find joy in every moment. I love being alive. Your posts remind me every day how blessed we are. Thanks, KT.

Wow, Kevin! Every piece there is as unique as you are. But I have to say, I sure do admire you for being able to let go of material things so easily. "It's not about the money you make, it's the person you become." You taught us this at the events. It is so true, because this is why people love you so much. You practice what you preach. Kevin, we love you because you have a beautiful heart!!!! I am looking forward to your next post.

...making room for bigger and better things..!

KT it's not right what they are doing to your stuff, I know it's just stuff and you will get more if you want to. But it's still disgusting how any human being can be this vicious and inflict intentionally pain on others. I hope you could save at least the most irreplaceable books from the distant past. We love you!

If i had the money to buy the house with all in it, i would buy it and after, when this situation is over, i would give it back to him, but i am sure that after this situation Kevin is going to be more powerful than ever , i am sure Kevin is laughing about all this, because he knows that what is coming is imaginable, all the best

WOW...what magnificent treasures indeed! And now your soul seeks for treasures of another kind, and may you be blessed with an infiinite [sic] abundance of them of every kind, shape, and form wherever you are!

...if I had the money I'd buy everything, even the house and hold it for Kevin so that he can have it all back. But we look forward and look for the good, look for the gold.... Feel good now. I believe that everything will be just fine for you KT!! You're a good soul KT.

Kevin's situation reminds me The bible story about the man that lost all his children and fortune and then God gave him back and much more.

Okay, you get the drift.

Shockingly, not everyone was so enamored of Trudeau's treasures. After looking at some of the pictures on the estate sale managers' site, my friend Tim Donohoe remarked, "I see he had Saddam Hussein's decorator."

Some of the participants on the Skeptical Inquirer Facebook page had similar responses (here is the link to that thread):

Having looked at the pictures all I can say is that his interior decorator should be charged with crimes against taste. Just saying....

[Goes] to show you, you can have money without taste. More fit for an establishment in Nevada
Good grief, the catalog sounds like Liberace's house

So who was right: the Katie fans, or Tim and the skeptics?

I was informed by a very credible source that the stuff in the house was "mostly imitation crap bought from a warehouse sale," a fact that is readily apparent when looking at some of those photos. (Although I was also informed that the bedding was of good quality and the pool table was decent.) Kevin spent some good money on gaudy kitchen work and faux-finish paint work, which was of decent quality but reflective of terrible taste.

I also talked with someone who noted that much of the stuff was overpriced but nevertheless a lot of it was going out the door over the weekend anyway. Suckers!

I wonder who got Katie's prized autographed picture of Rush Limbaugh. (Rush and Kevin always were kind of turds of a feather, politically speaking. Particularly when Trudeau got on his racist rants.)

If you're just simply kicking yourself for not being able to attend this white elephant sale, not to worry: There will be another one in the spring, at Katie's Chicago-area (Oak Brook,Illinois) McMansion. Details to come.

* * * * *

The Ojai home has finally been sold too, and one of my sources told me that the place has to be cleared out because of that, though the new owners did get the pick of the loot. I guess this crushes Katie's dream of having someone buy the home and all of its furnishings so that all of those magically, mystically infused things could remain together (see below).

I also found out, from reading more than 200 pages of documents filed by the court-appointed receiver, that the home actually had been on the market for years, but due in large part to Trudeau's tacky taste, unloading it was a challenge. Here's a snippet from that pile of papers:

"Therefore anyone looking to purchase the property... will be confronted with a high cost of removing what Kevin Trudeau desired." That just about says it all.

I wrote about the Ojai house previously in my April 2013 post about Trudeau's doomed attempt to declare bankruptcy. In that post I visited Trudeau's past, citing a fawning November 2005 piece about Katie in Billiards Digest. That piece was written as he was launching his doomed International Pool Tournament (IPT). In describing himself as a visionary, he said, "I see things." Too bad he didn't see that orange jumpsuit and those bars... Anyway, the pic on this page is of Katie standing in the very home whose contents are now being sold off.

After studying the catalog of Trudeau's treasures, I asked someone who has known Trudeau very well for many years if Kevin's taste was really that atrocious, or if he was just being ironic (although Trudeau doesn't really strike me as the ironic type). "Or," I asked, "were the purchases calculated -- just props to employ for marketing a sense of opulence, in order to attract customers and investors for his schemes? Or were the gaudy appointments simply affirmations to convince himself that he had 'made it?' Or am I over-thinking this when I should just be having a snarking good time?"

The response was that I was both over- and under-thinking. "He had a desire for high-end things and bought what he could. He did well with clothes and cars, but anything else that took culture or class, major fail. Where you under-think is that his core personality is the little adopted boy who never grew up. Lots to prove, be better than everyone, become king. With matters of home and family and relationships he was like an eight-year old."

That makes sense to me.

By the way, the media made sort of a thing out of the February 25 blurb on Katie's Facebook page about his stuff being like amulets. But that wasn't the first time that in the interest of priming the pump for a rummage sale, Katie tried to convince people that his stuff has magical properties and special energies. Back in December, Kevin's proxy Janine tried to convince his gullible followers that his stately homes and all of the things in them were specially infused with special magickal energies. This is from December 2013.

"Perfect abundance/luck energy... The energy is off the charts!" As long as there are people who continue to believe in this kind of nonsense, there will be the Kevin Trudeaus to part them from their money.

↧

Kevin Trudeau's pyramid continues to crumble as FTC snarks at GINtervenors

December 22, 2013, 6:12 pm

≫ Next: SciWINtology: Flopportunity knocks!

≪ Previous: Ojai rummage sale: Kevin Trudeau's house of horrors plundered over the weekend

SEE UPDATE AT THE END (after the PS)
~CC, 23 December 2013

While serial scammer Kevin Trudeau continues his proxy prison ministry, allowing his long-time companion Janine Nubani Contursi to babble on the Facebooks about life lessons and miracles, the paper shuffling in his long, drawn-out civil case continues (Case number 1:03-cv-03904, Judge Robert Gettleman presiding). On December 20, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed its opposition to the November 18, 2013 motion by Ohio GIN member Perry Kiraly et al. to intervene in the case. In its statement the FTC calls the suspended-for-now MLM arm of Trudeau's Global Information Network (GIN) an illegal pyramid scheme. The first clue that the FTC is not going to be gentle on the Intervenors is in the main document's title:

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION’S OPPOSITION TO PYRAMID SCHEME
PARTICIPANTS’ MOTION TO INTERVENE

The "pyramid scheme" participants = Perry Kiraly and his fellow Intervenors.

Here is a direct link to the document and the exhibits -- all 256 pages.

Heck, I could have told all of 'em that GIN was a pyramid scheme. In fact I believe I first suggested it back in... oh... 2009, when I first heard of GIN. I kind of mentioned it again in 2011. But then, I'm no credentialed expert.

To those who have been following (and swallowing) Perry Kiraly's Stand With GIN updates, these documents may come as a little bit of a shock. After all, Perry made it sound as if the receiver's attorney and the FTC attorneys were quite sympathetic to the Intervenors' desires to take over GIN. But to the rest of us, particularly those who have been casually exploring the background of some of the Intervenors and their lawyers, the Shimkos, for the past two months, the lack of accuracy might not be such a shock. Background research or not, anyone reading the GIN Membership Agreements, which most of the Intervenors signed, could see that they had no legal ownership in GIN. It would appear that Perry may have been erring on the side of optimism in some of his reports and updates. Or maybe he was simply misled by his Shimkos. If so... bad, bad Shimkos.

The FTC called upon their senior economist, Peter J. Vander Nat, Ph.D., who has been with the agency for 25 years and is an expert on MLMs and pyramid schemes. Dr. Vander Nat, unlike so many gurus of Scamworld (John Gray, Joe Vitale, Loony Coldwell), is what is known as a realPh.D. His detailed analysis of GIN's pyramid-ishness is included in the exhibits accompanying this document. In their motion to oppose intervention the FTC cites Dr. Vander Nat's findings several times.

The Intervenors have until January 17, 2014 to reply to the FTC's opposition to their motion to intervene. Another hearing is scheduled for January 30 at 9:00 AM. At that time, presumably, the court will rule one way or the other. It's important to remember that the final decision will still be made by the court.

I am of course no legal expert, but from what I can see, both the FTC and Dr. Vander Nat make a very good case for GIN's MLM having been an illegal pyramid scheme. As noted above, the court still has to rule on this, of course. But Dr. Vander Nat has an excellent track record, at least according to him and to the FTC, who claim that to date no court has ever rejected his conclusion that an enterprise was a pyramid scheme.

The part of the latest court docs that details exactly why the FTC believes GIN is an illegal pyramid scheme is Doc 803-3, "Declaration of Dr. Peter Vander Nat" etc., supported by FRC PXC:1. It is part of that large doc I uploaded. Here is the link again.

On page 2 Dr. Vander Nat goes into "The Meaning of a Pyramid Scheme." He also explains Ponzi schemes, which are clearly illegal in the US. Both his report and the FTC statement of opposition cite numerous case precedents, including the 40-year-old Koscot case (involving old-school motivational huckster Glenn Turner) that first brought MLM dodginess to the public's attention in a big way. I have a three-quarters-finished blog post about Glenn Turner; I really do need to finish it.

Anyway, in his conclusion, Dr. Vander Nat says that in his opinion GIN's program fully meets the "Koscot test" for being a pyramid because "the firm offers substantial rewards for recruiting members without any requirement for retail sales; i.e., product sales outside the network."

And the FTC makes no bones about its contempt for the Intervenors:

In the latest obstacle to achieving consumer redress and concluding this matter, twenty-five participants in Kevin Trudeau’s Global Information Network (“GIN”) pyramid scheme (collectively, "the GIN Participants") seek to intervene—apparently because the Receiver halted their pyramid payments. For several reasons, however, their misguided motion is both legally meritless and factually baseless. First, because the GIN Participants neither own GIN nor have any right to unlawful pyramid payments, they lack a sufficient stake in this litigation to satisfy Article III standing requirements. Second, their motion is untimely because, through its attorneys, GIN knew about this litigation for nearly two years before anyone moved to intervene—after extensive litigation concluded, after the Court resolved the key factual issues, and after the Court created a receivership that the GIN Participants now seek to unravel.

Third, even if the motion were timely—and it is not—the GIN Participants still fail to satisfy the requirements of either Rule 24(a) or (b) because they lack any cognizable interest in this case, they raise no question of law or fact that has not already been litigated, and their intervention would prejudice the FTC substantially. If everyone involved with Trudeau’s machinations were permitted to intervene, there will be thousands of parties before the Court. It makes no sense to spend public resources and the balance of the Receivership Estate sorting through the mess that intervention will precipitate. In short, the interests of justice demand that the Court deny the motion.

The FTC also gets a little snarky about the Intervenors' MLM expert, Thayer Lindauer, who, by the way, wants to be "your network marketing attorney." Thayer will help you structure your MLM scheme to get around the regulators. But even Thayer thought GIN was operating an illegal pyramid scheme (and I'm sure he would be glad to make it a legal pyramid scheme, for a price). Here is a link to a page that contains Thayer's test about whether a company is an illegal pyramid scheme (for the record, Thayer thinks Herbalife is illegal too). And here is Thayer's discourse on "pyramid consequences," including his take on the ethical dilemmas faced by attorneys who advise MLM-ers.

But back to the court docs at hand. This is from Document 808-0, the FTC's statement of opposition to the motion to intervene:

D. The Pyramid Scheme Participants
Significantly, more than half of the twenty-five GIN Participants received payments from GIN for their “recruiting” efforts... In fact, their own alleged “expert,” Thayer Lindauer, opines that GIN operated as an illegal pyramid scheme:
My review of the current sales program of Global Information Network indicates that [it] was almost certainly operating as a pyramid promotional scheme as defined by various administrative decisions of the Federal Trade Commission under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

That was an excerpt of a letter from Lindauer to Timothy Shimko, one of the Intervenors' lawyers.

The FTC statement continues:

The FTC’s pyramid scheme expert concurs. Specifically, economist Peter Vander Nat—arguably the country’s preeminent expert on pyramids—provides an expert report including thorough economic analysis. Dr. Vander Nat “conclude[s] that GIN is a pyramid scheme.”... Among other things, he opines that the overwhelming majority of GIN pyramid participants will lose money: GIN promotes its business opportunity as a “perpetual money-making machine.” In reality, it is a perpetual recruitment scheme that dooms the vast majority of the participants (well above 90%) to financial losses by the very design of the compensation plan...

But the FTC seems to have Perry and gang's numbers too (in more ways than one).

...Although almost everyone loses, a very few do not. Perry Kiraly, the lead proposed intervenor, made almost $48,000, and would stand to make more if the Receiver had not dismantled Trudeau’s pyramid...Several other GIN Participants who seek to intervene also made money, and stand to make more at the expense of lower-ranking members. Many others have not yet recouped their pyramid payments, but apparently hope to do so if Trudeau’s pyramid continues functioning...(as Dr. Vander Nat explains, for this reason, it is typical for middle-level pyramid scheme participants to want the pyramid to continue—so they can recover their “investment” from lower-ranking members... This is why the GIN Participants allege that they “benefit financially from their membership in [GIN] in the form of residual income paid to members for attracting new members”... and why they complain that the Receiver deprived them of their purported “rights to income disbursements...

This may not necessarily mean that Perry's gang or some other group has zero chance of acquiring GIN at some point in the near future and re-creating it as a "legitimate" club (and possibly a legit MLM). They have a Plan B in mind too, which Perry has indicated since he first started doing his Stand With GIN updates. In fact, that is supposedly why they've been working with Thayer Lindauer: to clean up GIN's MLM and start 'er up again.

But if the FTC has its way, the court will not recognize their right to act as Intervenors -- after all, as the FTC patiently explained, they were members, who signed membership agreements stipulating that they had NO ownership. Moreover, their "intervention" wasn't timely, according to the FTC. So if they have any chance whatsoever of making GIN their baby, they will more than likely have to find some other way besides "intervention."

Some of us have thought all along that they were fighting a losing battle with the "Intervenor" effort, but they did manage to get themselves added to the docket and have become part of the case. In other words, they weren't laughed out of court right off the bat. Still, my sense is that the court will agree with the FTC that the Intervenors have no ownership in GIN. But again, that doesn't mean GIN is completely dead... yet. Even so, it looks as if the well-intentioned folks who contributed to the Stand With GIN fund may have just been throwing their money away, as many did for years in GIN. But at least those Shimkos will have a little extra spending money.

Bottom line is that the FTC, with the help of their economist/MLM expert, have defined GIN's pyramid dodginess pretty accurately -- which is another nail but possibly not the final one if GIN can somehow be taken over, revived, and turned into a legal scam. Though Perry Kiraly's "Intervention" effort will probably fail, Perry and his pals are probably not going to give up. And there are no doubt other parties fighting for the remains of the moribund beast.

More popcorn, please.

PS ~ Self-proclaimed GIN destroyer Abe Husein is excited because he, Peter Wink and Loony Coldwell were mentioned in a March 2013 email from Kevin Trudeau to some of his cohorts. Katie apparently panicked and clumsily tried to do some damage control after ABC News showed up outside of his luxury digs in Zurich in March. It was apparently those "ambush journalists" who spooked Katie into trying to discredit some of his detractors. It's almost as if he didn't really realize what they were up to until he got shaken out of his complacency by ABC's visit. More than likely he was also inspired by his looming court cases and upcoming hearings and trial. But his main concern besides discrediting his detractors seemed to be to get tons of pro-GIN testimonials into the right hands. In fact, he seemed more concerned with getting those testimonials than with discrediting Abe, Wink, and Loony.Word has it that no one in the GIN offices actually embarked upon a campaign to discredit the Three Stooges, reasoning that the Stooges did their own self-discrediting better than anyone else ever could.

Here's a shot of the emails.

"Video testes from cruise"... that kind of sounds like he's talking about naughty movies. I'd heard that some of those cruises got a little wild... Well, Katie is not the world's best speller or punctuator.

Obviously any efforts at damage control that may have been made in the wake of the ABC "ambush" were ineffective; ABC aired their episodes of The Lookout, one in May and a followup in August, with, it must be noted, a segment featuring Abe (but with no mention of Loony or Wink). I think that most journalists who have had any interaction with Loony or Wink, particularly Loony, can sense that showcasing them as sources would not be the best move, credibility-wise, for any news media outlet. (Peter did give a "press conference" after one of Katie's hearings, and some of the Chicago journos used some quotes from him, but that's about the extent of Peter's front-and-center exposure in this saga. I hear that some of the Chi-town journos think he is a little sleazy.)

The one major point that Loony, Peter, and Abe were and are correct about, of course, is that Trudeau is a scammer and GIN is a scam, which I've been saying for years. Where they are concerned it may be a pot-and-kettle situation, but they are correct about that one point and yes, they (particularly Abe) have earned themselves some media coverage for criticizing GIN and Katie. I did find it interesting that Katie's fans talk about him taking the "high road" when it comes to dealing with his detractors, when his emails indicate that he so clearly did not want to take the high road. It's worthy of note, I think, that this is the way that most Scamworld gurus handle their critics, when ignoring them does not work: by trying to discredit them. Loony Coldwell has tried that with all of his critics, including me, of course -- this being just one example. In this case, Loony was totally making up lies about me (major fail in the discrediting effort), whereas if Katie's guys had wanted to discredit Loony and Wink and Abe, they would have had some legit info on which to draw. But Katie's own lack of credibility was kind of an issue, to say the least, and ABC had enough goods on him to neutralize any efforts to discredit sources. They obviously did their own research and digging.

And so the saga continues, with no neat and tidy endings in sight.

UPDATE 23 December 2013:
Perry Kiraly sent out another update today (actually the update is dated December 20, but the email has today's date). Apparently, after discussion with one of his Shimkos and with other GIN members, he has changed his tune about the receiver and now agrees with those who feel the receiver is interfering with and destroying GIN. The receiver has bad vibes and it's ruining the club, I tell you... ruining it! Here's a sample of what Perry wrote in his email:

Exposure to the Receiver's vibration is changing the vibration of our club and a few of the members have already succumbed. The recent claim of the Receiver of being assisted by members of the club (whom the Receiver refuses to identify and plans to make an advisory board of), is an ominous signal that such is occurring. Are these members suffering from Stockholm syndrome? Maybe, but it is sure that the presence of the Receiver and his minions are the culprits.

More details to come.

Other relevant Whirled links about MLMs and pyramids:

MLM: Kevin Trudeau's GIN is just one toxic drop in a huge ocean of fraud: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2013/10/mlm-kevin-trudeaus-gin-is-just-one.html
Gimme that old time scamming... Back in Time with the big sick machine
How MLMs can tear lives apart...
Tin Promises, Part 1: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2013/12/tin-promises-how-mlms-can-tear-lives.html
Tin Promises, Part 2 http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2013/12/tin-promises-how-mlms-can-tear-lives_11.html

Out of this Whirled...
Here's more information about the difference between a "legitimate" MLM and an illegal pyramid scheme. Many activists argue that there really is little difference when it comes to results, because all MLMs are structured so that only the top few people ever make any significant money -- and they do so at the expense of hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file members.
http://www.dsa.org/ethics/internalconsumptionwhitepaper.pdf

↧

SciWINtology: Flopportunity knocks!

March 11, 2014, 9:54 am

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau news: Banjo David comes out of hiding, and government issues sentencing memo

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau's pyramid continues to crumble as FTC snarks at GINtervenors

I really apologize for not tending to my blogging duties, Dear Ones. Some things have happened over the past week or so that really took the wind out of my sails. And no, it has nothing to do with alt-health/cancer quackadoodle Mocktor Loony Coldwell's profoundly stoopid lawsuit threats against me. Those were and are comic relief. No, what happened is something deeper and sadder and more personal, something that was unfolding while I was preoccupied with taking potshots at two-bit scammers. Sometimes, real life is what happens while you're blogging. Yet blog I must, and I will be blogging about this too... soon-ish, I think. I have blogged about personal things here before, so there's a precedent. I just need some time.

But for now, the Whirled must go on as it was originally created.

And there's a lot that's been happening regarding some of this blog's favorite snargets, most notably, currently jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (former b.f.f. of the aforementioned Loony C), whose criminal sentencing is due to take place this coming Monday, March 17, 2014, at 2:00 PM in Judge Ronald Guzman's court. Katie wants you to be there; he wants a packed courtroom. His proxy put out a call for it on his Facebook page the other day:

I plan to be there in the front row.** See you there!

The other news is that former high level GIN member Perry Kiraly of Ohio, last visited on this blog post, is going ahead in earnest with his GINoff/flopportunity, WIN (World Information Network). Last week he sent this update:

From: Perry Kiraly
Sent: 3/2/2014 11:51:59 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: SWGF/WIN Update 03-01-14
SWGF/WIN Update: PERRY KIRALY
March 1, 2014

Dear SWGF Supporters,
The following is the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decision regarding our motion for injunction to prevent the Receiver’s interference with and confiscation of GIN FDN’s Member dues and fees:
Northern District of Illinois - CM/ECF LIVE, Ver 6,1
Notice of Electronic Filing

The following transaction was entered on 2/27/2014 at 11:14 AM CST and filed on 2/25/2014

Case Name: FTC v. Trudeau, et al
Case Number: 1:03-cv-03904
Document Number: 827

Docket-Text:
COPY of order dated 2/25/14 from the 7th Circuit regarding notice of appeal [820]; Appellate case no. : 14-1344 IT IS ORDERED that the motion for Injunction Pending Appeal is DENIED. The appellants have not offered an adequate reason why the assets of the Global Information Network should not be sold. Any dispute about how much money the members of that organization are entitled to is not something that requires an injunction.
SWGF’s motion for injunction was filed on 02-19-14; it was denied on the 02-25-14, that denial was posted electronically on 02-27-14.

So what does this mean? It means that the Receiver will remain in complete control of GIN FDN and likely make off with the six-million+ dollars of GIN FDN Member’s dues and fees currently on account and any and all dues & fees members are still paying in to the GIN/Receiver Company from this point on. This money will be used by the Receiver to pay themselves and Mr. Trudeau’s fine. Be aware also that any purchase of GIN or its assets is likely to include continued Receiver influence to one degree or another…even if they call it periodic conferencing with their endorsed and secretly appointed management.

So, is there still a play here? Yes, in my opinion it is the same as the one many Member’s decided to do shortly after the Receiver was given control of GIN FDN. Stop paying dues that go straight to the Receiver’s accounts - not member benefits. And keepin mind that the Level’s 1 thru 6 materials all belong to the members that paid for those levels; and that these members or former members can all share all of this material with those they choose. So why would anyone pay the Receiver any more money to buy them?

Lastly, what does this mean for those that contributed to the SWGF? It means that you can hold you head up high, for every one that contributed to this fund has identified themselves as one who was willing to stand up and fight for what they believe in. It means you were willing to go the 12-Rounds with one of the toughest opponents one can face. It means that you are among the very few that were willing to take 100% responsibility for our club and prevail!

Prevail? How so when the motion was denied? We prevailed in many ways; three of which come to mind immediately. One, just standing up to fight is a win in itself; for no matter what the outcome of a fight if you stood up you feel good about it in the end.

Two, it allowed each and every Member to see exactly what he or she is made of. It enabled you to observe first hand your own response (or reaction) to intense circumstances which put your resolve to the test – did you run from the predator that blocked your path; did you succumb to it and let it have its way; did you try to avoid it or pretend it wasn’t there; or did you roll up your sleeves and attack!? This will be valuable intel to those that wish to strengthen their character…

And three, in our efforts to prevail over the circumstances and put our club (the true Members) in a defensible position WIN was formed which put us in control of the future of our club.

WIN’s progress & plans to date:
WIN or World Information NetworkFoundation LTD is now a legally established limited liability corporation in the state of Ohio.
The trademark WIN is now registered in the state of Ohio and the property of World Information NetworkFoundation LTD.
Member and commission compensation agreements are currently being reviewed and edited by our MLM attorney. The commission compensation plan is being structured so every member, if they choose to participate, can earn commissions with very minimal effort and eligibility requirements.
A fund raising investment opportunity to be made available to accredited investors is written and also under edit and review by our attorney to insure 100% compliance to applicable law to get WIN up and running as fast as possible and make available a way for interested Members to be a part of building the club and their wealth as the club grows.
Our website and the computational programing to organize and calculate sponsored members and applicable commission is under construction.
Our management structure is in place to get our club up and running with the positions confirmed of Executive Director, Deputy Executive Director, 3-Board of Directors (2 Confirmed to date), and 11 Regional Directors (9 Confirmed to date) in East & Western USA, East & Western Canada, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Northern Europe (Scandinavia), Western Europe, and Hawaii. As other areas grow in WIN Members so too will Region Director Positions.
A survey is completed and being distributed to our 2 current Board of Directors and subsequently to all Regional Directors to determine what benefits and value members of our club want enabling all Members to participate in WIN’s direction.
Written and audio content of training levels 1 thru 12 (possibly more) is planned to begin as soon as our site and sponsorship program is launched.
A planned window of approximately 2 to 4 weeks will be made available (as soon as our computational programing is in place) for former GIN members to join and have their former level of training recognized in WIN without additions fees for those achieved levels. However all training levels 1 thru 12+ in WIN will be enhanced for greater impact and ability derivation from participants and these specific requirement must be met by Members to receive that official level pin in WIN.
Last but not least I have WIN’s Deputy Executive Director working on a Family Reunion Event for late October/early Nov this year. Now this is our short term dream at this stage but with the help of the best of the best of you I think we have a good shot at it – and I think the Wynn Resort Hotel in Las Vegas http://www.wynnlasvegas.com/# would be the perfect spot for WIN’s major 1st event launch!
So I close this update with that exciting dream. Plant that seed in the garden of your mind and water it daily. The funding, timing and people coming together is all that is necessary to get our club WIN on a roll and make our family reunion event at the Wynn Resort a reality...

Go to the current WIN site at http://winfdn.com/scroll down to the Donate button and contribute what you can, or even better begin your $150 per month reoccurring equivalent dues payment now – to help build the club - and have your $1000 initiation fee waved once we launch the new site.

We have everything we need by virtue of what we truly are, and we can make this dream come to Be. Doing and having are the next steps. Let’s create it together.
Thank you,
Perry Kiraly *

*As a post script to this update, let me make it clear that I am a citizen of the United States of America and have exercised my 1st Amendment right to express my opinion herein. I am not a lawyer and nothing in this update/opinion should be construed as legal advice. The information herein is my personal opinion and provided solely for educational purposes. The opinion expressed in this update is not meant to suggest or encourage any course of action without consulting with an attorney or one licensed to practice law. Everyone must evaluate and make up their own mind on any course of action they take.

It's no big surprise that they lost the appeal; that seemed to be a foregone conclusion. But Perry should be accustomed to losing appeals, because it seems to have happened to him before with some of his criminal cases. And he has a decades-long history there, spanning more than 30 years (the latest one indicates "Case Closed," yet the case summary lists a continuance date of 28 March, 2013, so I don't know what's going on there).

Anyway. Undaunted by losing the appeal, Perry soldiered on, and on March 10 he sent this update, dated March 9:

From: [Perry Kiraly]
Sent: 3/10/2014 12:21:40 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: WIN Update 03-09-14

WIN Update: Perry Kiraly

March 9, 2014

Dear WIN Members and Supporters,
The opportunity is now available to be a part of building WIN and your wealth as our club grows.

This opportunity will be available for the next seven days ending on March 16, 2014.

200 “Units” total are being made available for purchase at $2,000.00 per unit through a Private Placement Memorandum. Each “unit” will pay the purchaser of that unit or units a share of 3% of the gross sales of the World Information Network Foundation LTD (WIN) for the next five-years. This five-year period will be extended, if necessary, until a minimum total of 500% is paid back on each unit purchased. During the initial five year period this percentage could well exceed 500% depending on the growth of the club.

Please contact me by March 16, 2014 at [phone number redacted], or email me at [email redacted] with your contact information for further details or questions and the legal documentation to purchase units. WIN’s attorney is also available for consultation regarding this offer.

Now is your chance to be a Founding Member in WIN. Take advantage of this opportunity and contact me now as 200 units is the limit of this offering.

Thank you,
Perry Kiraly

Seriously, Perry?!? That must be that "fund raising investment opportunity to be made available to accredited investors" -- item number 4 in last week's update.

Well, I guess it costs money to feed those hungry Shimkos.

The rest of y'all can do the math to calculate just how floppy is the flopportunity that Perry and his Scientology bud Yon Cole are offering. Honestly, it seems like a potentially limitless flop. The only limit to how much money you can lose is how much money you can give! At least that's how it looks to me. To tell the truth I have never been a numbers person. Numbers make my head hurt.

But I think I have gotten pretty good at recognizing scams and scammers.
** I'll be in the courtroom in spirit. You don't honestly think I would travel to Chicago in the dead of winter, do you?

↧

Kevin Trudeau news: Banjo David comes out of hiding, and government issues sentencing memo

March 12, 2014, 11:12 am

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau: Mad professor hippie Magoo begs judge for mercy

≪ Previous: SciWINtology: Flopportunity knocks!

Now, here's some good news. My friend Julie Daniel just noticed this today. The guy that many of us have known for a few years only as "Banjo David" has finally revealed his full name on now-jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's public Facebook page. He is one David G. Bragman of Chicago, a recording engineer, bluegrass musician, radio host, and teacher of banjo, guitar, singing and sound recording. Go, David!

I had mentioned Banjo David on my blog a few years ago(see Addendum 19 July 2011); I linked to and quoted his 2010 post on The Straight Dope board. Over the past year or so, several of us on Facebook have linked to the same post.

Under the thread, "Did you spread your cheeks for Kevin Trudeau?" Banjo David wrote a "public apology," relating his experiences with Trudeau at motivational info-product purveyor Nightingale-Conant way back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

On March 10, David copied and pasted his old comment on Trudeau's Facebook page. See the screen shot above (as usual, click to enlarge). Here is the direct link, which is good at this time, but you never know if and when it will be taken down:
https://www.facebook.com/TheKevinTrudeau/posts/636421049744287

And here again is the link to David's original (2010) comment on The Straight Dope.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=554566

Although David's story hasn't varied between that 2010 comment and the one he posted two days ago -- except for the fact that he updated the number of years since he got "sh-t-canned" from Nightingale-Conant, -- you can see that some diehard Katie fans are claiming that he is just making it up, and they won't believe it till others come forth. Till others come forth?!? Um.... that train left the station long ago.

David, if you want to share your thoughts on this Whirled, feel free to do so. I've been writing about your old not-friend Katie for more than five years now. Or drop me an email at the address listed at the top of this page. Or just join the conversation on Facebook at GIN Network Truth.

I know that a lot of people will be interested in what you have to say.

And by the way, I love banjo music.

Meanwhile, in court... gummit asks for a min of ten
Here is a link to the latest document (plus exhibits) from Kevin Trudeau's criminal contempt case.

The actual pre-sentence investigation report is still sealed but this document, filed on March 10, 2014, is the government's Sentencing Memorandum. It recommends that Trudeau be sentenced to at least ten years in prison, based upon legal sentencing guidelines. Remember that it is still up to Judge Ronald Guzman to make this decision, however. Sentencing will be this coming Monday, March 17, at 2:00 PM.

The main document gives a good summary of Trudeau's misdeeds, but the exhibits -- particularly the emails from his former partner Donald Barrett -- are very revealing. I still think that if Katie is going to be caged, Barrett deserves it too, but then, so do many of Trudeau's other cohorts and former cohorts. But I guess that's not my call to make.

↧

Kevin Trudeau: Mad professor hippie Magoo begs judge for mercy

March 14, 2014, 10:36 am

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau: Government gets its wish, Katie sentenced to ten in the pen

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau news: Banjo David comes out of hiding, and government issues sentencing memo

As currently-jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's sentencing for his criminal contempt conviction approaches (it is scheduled for this Saint Patty's Day at 2:00 PM), there's been a lot of busy-ness in the courts. As reported here a couple of days ago, the government filed a sentencing memorandum on March 10, recommending at least a ten-year stint in the cage for Katie. I linked to the memo and exhibits on that previous post, but for your convenience here it is again.

More documents were filed over the next couple of days. On March 11 Katie's lawyers filed a plea for leniency, and on March 12 Katie himself wrote a letter to the judge in the civilcase, Robert Gettleman, asking him to puh-LEEZE intervene on Katie's behalf with the criminal-case judge, Ronald Guzman.

At the moment I'm having Scribd glitches with PDFs and MIME stuff so I can't upload the documents and give you a handy Scribd link. But you might be able to get to the docs from the Facebook thread on the GIN Network Truth group, where I shared them yesterday.

Here is that link.

Since both the March 11 criminal case document and the March 12 civil case doc are about Katie begging for mercy in preparation for the sentencing, I felt they belonged together, even though I usually upload the criminal docs separately from the civil docs. Accordingly, if you can get to the links provided, the first one you'll see is from the civil case; that's Katie's plea to Judge Gettleman for mercy. He makes mention of nearly 90 pleas to Judge Guzman on his behalf, including one from his rabbi. Oy, vey, such a nice Jewish boy he is, having to suffer so needlessly.

By the way, keep in mind that Judge Gettleman is actually the one who is currently holding Katie in the cage for the civil contempt case. The sentence Judge Guzman hands down will be (I know it's hard to keep up with all of this stuff. Did you know that the civil case has, in nearly eleven years, generated more than 15,000 pages of court docs? Whew.)

Anyway. Katie's melodramatic letter was filed along one exhibit: a two-page order from Judge Gettleman dated April 16, 2010. Following that, you'll see the plea that Katie's lawyers made in the criminal case on March 11, asking for a max two-year sentence.

Naturally, Katie's ex-b.f.f. and alt-health spokesquack, Loony Coldwell, has taken a brief break from his recent rants and frivolous lawsuitsto quote and gloat about Trudeau's letter, calling Trudeau a sociopathic con man who's scared crapless. True enough, Loony, but coming from a psychopathic con man like yourself, the message is amusing in ways you probably didn't intend it to be.

In the court documents there are references to the PSI -- pre-sentence investigation -- report. The original PSI report as well as a supplemental one are still sealed, so I can't read or share them at the moment.

As for Katie himself and that whole begging-for-mercy thing, it's deja screw all over again. I know I've linked to a 2005 Smoking Gun article numerous times here and on Facebook, but I am sharing it again in case you haven't seen it or would like to revisit it. If you follow the links you will see a couple of people begging for mercy, on Katie's behalf, back in the 1990s. Of note, a psychiatrist and Kevin's mommy wrote letters asking the court for leniency (there is some dispute over whether Mom wrote the letter herself or Kevin wrote it). Anyway, here's that link; it's to the home page, and you can follow the other links from there: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/.../would-you-buy-used-cure-man

Meanwhile back at the MCC, Katie preps for his nextmercy plea. So far he's been spectacularly unsuccessful in getting mercy from Judge Gettleman, who has clearly lost patience with him after more than a decade of listening to his lies. So apparently now Katie is growing his hair out and continuing to wear his Coke bottle glasses that make his eyes look itty-bitty, despite the fact that, according to court docs filed late last month, Katie was granted permission to get his contacts as well as his personal glasses back (click to enlarge).

Anyway, on March 13, his proxy had this to say on Trudeau's Facebook page:

My sentencing date is Monday, March 17th. How long will I have to be in prison? 6 months? 6 years? 20 years? No one knows. But we all will find out soon! I know I will get out as soon as is perfect. The universe knows what is best for my highest good. (28 years was for Mandala and the country of So Africa's highest good!) Whatever it is it is. A piece of coal needs a certain amount of time and pressure before it transforms into a diamond. I need a certain amount of time and "pressure' for me to reach my spiritual goals and desires and for me to release all the abilities I want to release. The universe knows the answer. I am thankful for this experience and the growth I am achieving. I could have never achieved spiritually what I have if it were not for this experience, environment, and all that has happened. And I am doing things I always wanted to do…like let my hair grow! I have not cut my hair since I have been here! I look almost like a cross between a crazy professor and a hippie! And my grey hairs are pouring in! I also am not wearing contact lenses and letting my eyes rest after all those years of contact lenses use. My super thick "coke bottle" glasses make my eyes so small looking! I feel like Mr .Magoo!! I look so funny! We all have a great laugh with my crazy greying long hair and Mr Magoo glasses! Everyday is a great day for me as I am one day closer to being free, and I to continue my "lessons" and training exercises!. Be happy everyday...life is way too short! Much Love...KT

"Thankful for this experience and the growth I am achieving..." I guess maybe he means his hair growth? Maybe we'll find out on Monday. Or maybe his lawyers will talk him into cleaning himself up and making a dignified appearance. Perhaps he'll even be allowed to wear street clothes instead of his orange jammies. Anyhow, say what you will about him, mad hippie Professor Katie Magoo still has his fan base. So far nearly 700 people have "liked" the comment above, and there are more than 200 comments, many of them supportive (though more dissenters are showing up). Here's a permalink to the thread.

My guy Ron, quoting a news article about the upcoming trial, wrote this on Facebook:

In their pleas for mercy, Trudeau's lawyers say Trudeau “is a man who has consistently displayed kindness” and “generosity.”

Kind enough to go through his entire teen & adult life bilking people out of their money. Generous enough to foist Coldwell upon a trusting public. Give him 10 years and a very tight leash for life.

I don't necessarily agree with a ten-year sentence, but everything else Ron said in that comment is spot on.

The government sentencing memorandum I linked to above, and on my previous post, notes that Trudeau...

...preys upon the sick who want to be made healthy, the poor who want to become rich, and the insecure who want to feel better about themselves. He exploits consumers’ insecurities and weaknesses, promising them an easy fix for whatever hurts or embarrasses them.

True enough, Feds. But... duh... the same could be said of just about every Scamworld guru, including some of Trudeau's present and past cohorts who are still running free and filing frivolous lawsuits. This isn't to dismiss the egregiousness of Trudeau's offenses at all. I'm just making an observation.

As for Katie's sentence, I'm told that the smart money is still on two to five, but I'm not a betting woman, and I have given up trying to make predictions... except, of course, for my usual prediction that there will be no neat and tidy endings.

↧

Kevin Trudeau: Government gets its wish, Katie sentenced to ten in the pen

March 17, 2014, 2:42 pm

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau freed from jail! (sort of)

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau: Mad professor hippie Magoo begs judge for mercy

Deets later, but for now, here's the Chicago NBC story:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/tv-pitchman-kevin-trudeau-sentencing-250594051.html

Yep, despite his pleas for mercy and some last-minute histrionics, as noted on this Whirled the other day -- and despite his numerous Facebook postings about the miraculous changes he'd undergone since being caged (here's just one of many, many examples), on March 17, Kevin Trudeau was sentenced by Judge Ronald Guzman to ten years in Federal prison.

Good thing I am not a betting woman, because this sentence did take me a little bit by surprise. But not a whole lot by surprise, considering that the court has been granting the government pretty much everything they'd requested so far, and their latest request had been for a ten-year minimum sentence.

Also not surprising was that former GIN member Abe Husein, the self-proclaimed GIN destroyer, was all over this, as was his mentor (or Dementor) Loony Coldwell, with the rumor that the FBI is going to send other speakers to prison as well. If that is true, I have a great suggestion about where they could start. Just saying.

As for the scuttlebutt about grizzled old former Congressman Ed Foreman, a long time friend, supporter and enabler of Trudeau, early buzz was that he was forcibly restrained by Federal marshals and then escorted out of the courtroom because he lunged at the judge. He was reportedly arrested. But that's not even remotely the same as being sent to prison for being part of the fraud, as reported in the screen shot above.

This Chicago ABC story has a vid that mentions the disruption by Foreman and says he will probably be issued a citation and have to pay a $150 fine.

UPDATE later on:This Chicago Sun-Times piece notes that it was a $175 ticket.

The courtroom was packed with Trudeau’s supporters. During arguments, one of them, a former congressman from Texas, tried to address the judge. The judge told him to sit down, and he did, but later on he spoke out again and was carried out by federal marshals. Ed Foreman, 80, of Dallas, got a $175 ticket, according to Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.

In a piece for the Chicago Tribune, reporter Jason Meisner, who has been providing excellent coverage of the courtroom proceedings, wrote:

... As Guzman was questioning one of Trudeau’s attorneys, an elderly supporter suddenly stood in the front row of the audience and bellowed, “Judge, I am a former U.S. congressman!” before being ordered to sit down.
After another outburst a few minutes later, the man, later identified as Ed Foreman, 80, of Dallas, was ordered to leave the courtroom. He refused, and when security officers tried to stand Foreman up, he went limp and was eventually carried out as other spectators shouted in protest.
“You are not entitled to disrupt the proceedings,” Guzman told the remaining audience members, some of whom sobbed loudly. “I urge you to simply keep quiet and listen.”
Foreman, a former Congressman who represented districts in Texas and New Mexico four decades ago, was ticketed for creating a disturbance, a petty offense payable by a $150 fine and court fees, officials said. According to his website, he is a motivational speaker who has previously touted Trudeau’s Global Information Network, touted as an international club that charges membership fees in exchange for success “secrets.”

I'll let the mainstream journos fight it out over whether Ed is going to have to pay $150 or $175. But in any case, some of us have been snarking about ol' Ed for a while. It's good to see the journos catching up to the bloggers.

Again, though, I can easily think of other GIN speakers and former speakers who are much more deserving of being thrown in jail -- or thrown out of the U.S. for good.

Just saying.

And now for old times sake, here's ol' Ed and Katie cutting a rug at the birthday party of Kevin's now estranged wife Natalie Babenko at a Global Information Network "Family Reunion" in the Bahamas a few years ago. Oh, those crazy young people. Here's the album from which the pics were taken.

Meanwhile, in the civil case...
The next court hearing for Katie is in Judge Robert Gettleman's civil court on Wednesday, March 19. There the court-appointed receiver will present their latest bill, and the FTC will continue to argue that Katie is a liar who belongs in jail. (Here is a link to two documents filed on March 14: the receiver's summary of the expensive things they have been doing for the past couple of months; and the FTC's latest Kevin-is-a-liar summation.) I am not including all of the exhibits because they would make the file 28 MB.

At this point, of course, the FTC is preaching to the choir. It remains to be seen whether Judge Gettleman will end Katie's civil contempt jailhouse stay so he can start serving the criminal sentence. The fate of GIN may or may not be decided on that day too. This is from the Receiver's Third Report, filed today (March 17):

Operations of the Global Information Network (GIN)
The Receiver, working with company management in Westmont, Ill, has continued to operate GIN profitably and lawfully.

On March 17, 2014 the Receiver will announce that it is now prepared to consider letters of intent from potential purchasers of GIN’s assets which include the membership list and any intellectual property that may exist. The Receiver’s announcement will state that any letters of intent must be submitted by March 28, 2014. Thereafter, the Receiver will negotiate a purchase agreement with the prospective buyer and will submit any such agreement to this Court for its consideration.

Here is a link to the Receiver's Third Report. Among other things you will learn that one of the Katie entities, Trustar Productions Inc., invested in a failed movie project called Hellbenders. As my friend Tim noted in a Facebook conversation, "even kt gets ripped off by kt ventures." Well, yeah. It just goes to show what an expert ripoff artist Katie is.

What I think about the ten-year sentence
If you've been following this blog for the past year or so you won't be surprised to know that I am ambivalent about the sentence. Trudeau is without question a serial scammer and has been scamming most of his life. And of course I have been writing about this for years. I understand the criminal and civil judges' reasoning, the prosecutors' reasoning, the FTC's reasoning. I've read most of the relevant court documents in both the civil and criminal cases. The FTC and the prosecutors laid out a strong case. And I'm sure their case will be made even clearer to those of us on the sidelines when the Pre-Sentence Investigation (PSI) reports are unsealed.

I also understand why those who have lost money, time, and energy to Trudeau's scams feel that this is a victory. I understand why most (though not all) of my fellow critical bloggers and supporters feel it's a victory too. Most of them think I'm pretty off-base for feeling that ten years in the clink, even for Katie, is excessive.

But I have always felt -- and have stated numerous times on this blog -- that putting a nonviolent scammer in a cage for years and years isn't right. I wish there were some way our justice system could legally, non-violently and effectively protect the public from Katie without caging him.

And when I think of how killers such as James Arthur Ray served less than two years for killing three people in his phony sweat lodge... well, something seems off kilter. Or when I consider some of the loathsome scammers and alleged predators whom Trudeau unleashed on the world, who have yet to even be charged of anything, say nothing of be tried, convicted, sentenced.... it makes me think our justice system is really broken.

I'm also uncomfortable about the fact that someone can be jailed indefinitely for contempt. That's a whole other issue and also points to problems in our justice system.

On the other hand, Trudeau is a serial scammer, deceptive to the core, as the judge put it. And as my guy Ron noted, "In my opinion, the only way to stop Trudeau from scamming was to put him in a cage to give the people he entrusted with hiding his money enough time to turn on him and leave him genuinely broke, as he left so many others.The criminal justice system is first and foremost there to protect society, and this is the only way to protect society from Trudeau."

So it may be a "victory," but it's one that leaves me wondering if justice is really being served. At the very least, Trudeau isn't the only one who should be donning an orange jumpsuit.

PS added 18 March ~My pal Bernie at GINtruth weighs in on the sentence and other related matters.

↧

Kevin Trudeau freed from jail! (sort of)

March 19, 2014, 5:35 pm

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau released to custody of his parents

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau: Government gets its wish, Katie sentenced to ten in the pen

Ha. Made you look, didn't I?

Another hearing was held today, March 19, regarding serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's civil case. And indeed, Judge Gettleman signed an order suspending Katie's coercive incarceration on the civil matter.

Obviously the court decided they aren't going to shake any money or info out of him, though they've been trying for months and months. That whole "coercive incarceration" thing has yielded little more than huge receiver bills and a series of schlocky Facebook posts from Katie's long-time associate, former co-defendant, and ex-squeeze, Janine Nubani Contursi (who reportedly admitted in open court today that she is the one writing those stupid posts, although I've yet to confirm that from a credible source).

So Judge Gettleman suspended the civil incarceration.

But don't be too quick to either celebrate or become outraged. The only reason His Honor suspended this cage gig is so Trudeau can begin serving his ten-year criminal sentence, which was imposed this past Monday, March 17. Here's a closeup (click to enlarge):

So for Katie, it's out one cage and in the other. Moreover, as soon as he is released from prison on the criminal case -- whenever that may be -- he has to report to Judge Gettleman's court (or whoever is there in the judge's place) so the court can determine if he needs to be thrown back in jail for the CIVIL case. While he is serving his criminal sentence he doesn't have to appear in court for future hearings.

The next status hearing regarding the receivership and other matters is scheduled for June 27, 2014 at 10:00 AM.

Some of the GIN destroyers who so deeply long for that neat and tidy movie-script ending are crowing that GIN is finally, finally, finally dead. Well... not so fast.
I wasn't in court today so, obviously, I don't know what was said there, but so far nothing has been posted on PACER that contradicts the information in the receiver's March 17report, which says that they plan to sell the GIN intellectual property and that there are several interested buyers. The court has to approve, of course.

After that the buyers, presumably, can do what they want with it. They can continue to call it GIN or they can re-name and completely re-brand, and even create new content based on the content for which they have bought the rights. For many folks, though, the dream won't die, and there are other similar "clubs" and "master's societies" that are a ripoff of GIN. Some of them are run by characters as shady as Katie, or worse.

Speaking of which, Ohio's Perry Kiraly -- former high-level GIN member, former Intervenor in Katie's civil case, and now founding honcho (along with Scientologist Yon Cole) of a new GIN ripoff called World Information Network (GIN) -- sent out another update on the evening of Trudeau's sentencing. Not one word did he say about his former fearless leader being sentenced to a decade in lockup. But he did reiterate his great flopportunity, discussed previously here.

From: Perry Kiraly
Date: March 17, 2014 at 9:39:04 PM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipients

Subject: WIN Update - Announcements 03-17-14

WIN Update: Perry Kiraly

March 17, 2014

Dear WIN Members & Supporters,
WIN has two new extraordinary announcements.

First, the opportunity to purchase the FIVE YEAR THREE PERCENT OF MEMBERSHIP GROSS SALES UNITS is being extended until the end of this month.

Second, in recognition of the extraordinary commitment by those former GIN members known as Inner Circle, WIN intends to initiate an exclusive gross membership sales offering after WIN’s official site launch on or about May 1st 2014 for former Inner Circle Members who have participated in this offering.

This opportunity for the purchase of units and participation in the exclusive Inner Circle offer will be made available for 14 more days until March 31st 2014. All payments must be received or in route and verified via tracking number by March 31st 2014. The computation for payment on this offer will begin on April 1st 2014.

200 "Units" total were made available for purchase at $2,000.00 per unit through a Private Placement Memorandum on March 9th 2014. Units are still available for purchase but purchase requests come in daily and once the 200 total is reached no further units can legally be sold from this offer.

Each "unit" will pay the purchaser of that unit or units a share of 3% of the gross sales of the World Information Network Foundation LTD (WIN) for the next five years. This five-year period will be extended, if necessary, until a minimum total of 500% or $10,000.00 is paid back on each $2,000.00 unit purchased. During the initial five year period this percentage could exceed 500% depending on the growth of the club. A more detailed grid of the payout based on membership growth is in the Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) that will be sent to you upon request.

Be sure and email WIN before March 31st 2014 at [email redacted] to receive the Private Placement Memorandum necessary to purchase units or call [phone number redacted] for further details or questions. WIN’s attorney is also available for any questions regarding this offer.
WIN is just getting started. It is the vehicle that will take our club into the future. It is the vehicle backed and driven by the best this club has known up to this point.

Be, Do, & Have is the process we were trained in and that process has begun. WIN now is. It exists, and you and I and all of its supporters know what we intend this club to Be.

We are now at the Do stage and funding is an integral part of that doing. It is the accelerating catalyst that will move us toward our goal quickly. Our goal - the continuation of creating a club dedicated to providing the tools, training, events and gatherings that will enable all that make use of them, the ability to dream again, create whatever life they choose, and recognize what truly powerful Beings they are.

Come to present time and take advantage of this opportunity to play your part as a Founding Member in the ongoing creation of the highest ideals upon which our club began and the ultimate creation of the best club on the planet.
Then we will Have - and not just us but all of those that join our club in the future and utilize what we’ve initiated here, to change their lives and change the world.

Thank you,
Perry Kiraly

So, GIN or no GIN, Scamworld will go on. Those of you who need to join a club and throw large amounts of money down a hole in order to feel special can take your pick of several flopportunities.

And meanwhile, Katie sleeps peacefully in a cell somewhere, content to trust in "Devine Timing" (could this have something to do with his long-time buddy from the Hybridgroup?)... while Janine natters on and on and on, and Nelson Mandela rolls over in his grave.

↧

Kevin Trudeau released to custody of his parents

April 1, 2014, 12:37 pm

≫ Next: Salty Droid corners Coldwell and kicks him right in his Krautsack*

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau freed from jail! (sort of)

BREAKING NEWS
Chicago (WM WireNet) April 1, 2014 -- Infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau, who was convicted of criminal contempt last November for repeatedly defying court orders regarding infomercials for a diet book, and was sentenced last month to ten years in a federal prison, was released Tuesday to the custody of his parents, Robert and Mary Trudeau of Lynn, Massachusetts, for an indefinite period. Judge Ronald Guzman signed the order releasing the pitchman to the elder Trudeaus' custody until the courts make the final decision about the prison in which he will be serving his sentence. "It's the compassionate thing to do," said Guzman, "since after all, his parents are getting on in years and are in very poor health."

When asked if Trudeau was considered a flight risk, Thomas Kirsch, one of Trudeau's attorneys, responded, "Mr. Trudeau has indicated that he will indeed be flying to Massachusetts, where he will be staying with his parents and helping them put their affairs in order. As for the question of being a risk, this trip is no more risky than any airline travel. There is always some risk of course, but flying remains one of the safest forms of transportation. No, we don't see any particular risk."

Trudeau was also given back his passports so he can travel to his luxury apartment in Zurich, Switzerland "to pick up a few things" that might look nice in his elderly parents' Massachusetts bungalow, which according to a recent report by noted inferior decorator Augusta Wend, is "sadly lacking in faux-finishes, puffy gold couches, and pretentious reproductions of Renaissance art."

Once back in the US, Trudeau will surrender to the custody of his parents, where he will be placed under house arrest at night and will not be allowed to travel outside of North America during the day, except on weekends.

April Fools! Real updates coming soon. I'm kind of busy today.

Meanwhile here is a real court document, filed on March 31, 2014..
Kevin is begging the court to let him go see his aging parents one last time before he begins serving his sentence. This motion will be presented before Judge Guzman on Thursday, April 3, 2014.

UPDATE 3 April 2014:
Who was it who said, "You can't go home again?" Judge Ronald Guzman, that's who. MOTION DENIED. And that's no April Fools joke.

↧

Salty Droid corners Coldwell and kicks him right in his Krautsack*

April 3, 2014, 6:51 pm

≫ Next: AXS of evil: GIN sale pending

≪ Previous: Kevin Trudeau released to custody of his parents

So there is this little Teutonic twerp, Mocktor Leonard Coldwell, the former Bernd Klein of the Republic of Germany, holder of several faux-HD degrees and some iffy-at-best naturopathic doctoring creds. Once he was once a b.f.f. of jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau. You know the guy I'm talking about; you've met him here before. Anyway. On February 10, 2014, Coldwell filed a comically stupid defamation per secomplaint against Jason Jones, aka Salty Droid.
For those of you who haven't yet seen it, here is the actual signed, dated, stamped, official copy of the complaint.

LoonyC was all over Facebook crowing about this suit, which was filed in Chicago (Cook County), Illinois -- as snarked about previously on this Whirled. The little pufferfish also sent out the unsigned, undated draft of the complaint to his email lists. And when the Cook County Legal Journalposted a short piece about the filing of the suit, he shared that link on Facebook. (Of course the piece was quickly spoiled by comments about the "doctor" who had accused the blogger of libel.) Lenny bragged, and bragged, and bragged. He boasted about how he was going to ruin Salty, and take some other bloggers -- such as Bernie at GINtruth, and yours truly -- down in the bargain. Some of his minions and sugar babies gleefully shared the news of the defamation complaint on Facebook threads of their own.

Alas, Coldwell didn't do his homework, and neither did his rent-a-lawyer. As you may know if you read previous posts about this matter, the defamation doc conflated Jason Jones, aka Salty Droid, with another blogger who has also written about Coldwell, Omri Shabat, who writes the Glancing Web blog. Omri lives in Israel, and Jason lived in Cook County, Illinois but no longer resides there, and hasn't since some time in 2013. But he's not in Israel.

And by the way, contrary to Loony C's totally made-up stories on Facebook, Jason did not "run away" from Chicago because he found out the little Loon was suing him. He moved long before this dumb lawsuit was started. It had nothing to do with Coldwell's bluster.

Point is, Jason and Omri are two different people. I've seen the affidavits that prove it, not that I ever doubted it. Nevertheless the defendant in the suit was named as, "Omri Shabat, aka Jason Jones." And all of the cited blog posts that had Herr Teutwerp's panties in a wad were penned (or keyboarded) by Omri, not Jason.

Like the good non-practicing but nevertheless legally savvy lawyer he is, Jason replied to the complaint.And here is the first part of his long-awaited report about the case, published just today (April 3).

Jason as Salty mentioned Loony's rants about how he and several other bloggers are engaged in the "federal crime" of "conspiracy to destroy the grounds of a business." Wrote Salty:

“Conspiracy to destroy the grounds of a business” is not a crime of course :: or a real thing even … it’s just creepy old man babbling. And what business? Is swimming in Kevin Trudeau’s wake with your mouth wide open a business?

That sounds about right.

In this post, Jason has links to two legal documents he filed, complete with juicy exhibits. There's a Motion to Dismiss this totally silly case, as well as a Sanctions Memo, which gently and very professionally suggests that Loony and the lawyer should, at the very least, get their wrists slapped and slapped good, for the record.

I had been expecting something like this to emerge at some point, since I've been following the case summary. The case summary only provides the basics, though. Salty filled in some much needed details.

Interestingly enough, on February 27, Loony's rent-a-lawyer, Dennis Kellogg (who is apparently mostly a personal injury attorney), filed a motion to withdraw as counsel.

Notice that the lawyer said he had to withdraw "for professional reasons." I'll say. He also said that the address of the Plaintiff (Coldwell) "cannot be disclosed due to the sensitive nature of the case."

Huh. Coldwell doesn't mind plastering his critics' addresses all over the place (even if they happen to be the wrongaddresses). He has actually done this before, implying that he hoped that some of his more rabid fans would go after the critics. He did that with the "marinated Droid" (Salty) a few times and even with the "cosmic slut."

But his address cannot be published, due to sensitive natures and whatnot.

But I digress. I imagine Lenny got a bit flustered when he found out that his hack attorney had made a motion to withdraw from the case. I base this conclusion on the fact that on the very same day that the motion to withdraw as counsel was filed -- February 27 -- Coldwell sent Jason a hilarious email, saying that the "district attorney is taking care of this now federal case." Actually, in the email Loony seems to be pretending that he is someone else, since "Dr." C is referred to in the third person.

By the way, district attorneys don't take care of federal cases. U.S. attorneys do.

On the same day that Kellogg filed his motion to withdraw and Loony had his email exchange with Jason, Loony also wrote some Facebook posts about how he had found out that the case was a "federal" criminal conspiracy case. What a way to try to save face. I wonder if anyone actually believed him.

Both of the screen shots below were taken on February 27, 2014. The first one also shows up as part of Exhibit B in Jason's Sanctions Memo (here is that link again).

In the second one, Coldwell tells the fib that Jason wrote emails begging for mercy and indicating that he was scared of Loony. Um... wrong. He goes on and on about Jason not having insurance, totally overlooking the fact that on his own bio on his own blog -- as well as many other places -- Jason has said that he is not a practicing attorney. He makes no secret of that. But never mind that; Loony has his tiny mind set on slamming Jason's real credentials, as a red herring to distract from his own phony creds. In the same rant he says that "the other" (probably meaning Omri, but also possibly referring to Bernie and me as well) will have fun too because he is "coming." Eeeew. TMI, Lenny.

At any rate, the judge allowed Attorney Kellogg's withdrawal from the case on March 17, the same day that Trudeau was sentenced. We'll have to see if Mr. Kellogg's daft decision to take the case will result in sanctions, as Jason requested. Here's that link again.

Apparently Loony was also frustrated because he never could serve papers on Jason. So on March 20 he offered a $500 reward for anyone who could find Jason.

This wasn't the first time that Loony had put a bounty on Jason's head. Who could forget this hilarious incident from September 2012? That was back in the day when Salty actually did live in Chicago in a posh high-rise apartment, contrary to Coldwell's claims that Salty was lying about living in such a nice place.

I guess those ace bounty hunters got right on it because just yesterday, April 2, Lenny posted a Facebook threat insinuating that thanks to all of his supporters or lawyers or private dicks or whatever, "we" had finally tracked "the Droid" to to the place where he was "hiding." I wonder if anyone who has done any reading or research at all still believes Loony's totally bonkers version of these tales.

A case management conference is currently scheduled for April 17, 2014, presumably to decide on the motions that haven't already been decided. At the very least, the case should, in my non-professional and totally unqualified legal opinion, be dismissed, as per Jason's Motion to Dismiss. Here again is thatlink.

I'm not making any concrete predictions about the outcome of this case. At the very least, these legal documents provide another record of Coldwell's daftness. And this case may serve as a cautionary tale for any other lawyers who might be tempted to take on any of his future silly cases. I don't really expect Loony to give up his side career of filing frivolous lawsuits and threatening to do so. It's just part of his M.O. But every time he does this, it erodes his credibility just a little bit more. I think even some of his business partners realize that, and may be trying to distance themselves from his legal blunders.

As for his choice to take Jason on, it's very possible that Lenny has really backed himself into a corner this time. But he seems to like sitting in corners, if that famous desk pic is any indication (thanks to my special Aussie pal for suggesting this...um...angle). Anyhow, many of us have stocked up on popcorn, awaiting the results. I have a feeling that Jason isn't finished slapping the little twerp around yet. Meanwhile, it's awfully good to see the little fake robot back in action, and feistier than ever.

* One of the case law citations on Jason's Motion for Sanctions was Krautsack v Anderson, 329 Ill.App.3d 666, 768 N.E.2d 133 (1st Dist. 2002). Maybe I am just too easily amused, but I giggled when I saw that, particularly when I thought of this picture, which was published on this September 2012 post.

↧

AXS of evil: GIN sale pending

April 17, 2014, 12:42 pm

≫ Next: Lunatics, lawn chairs, and sweet little lies

≪ Previous: Salty Droid corners Coldwell and kicks him right in his Krautsack*

Remember what I've been saying all along about there being
no neat and tidy endings
in Scamworld?

Well, after months of speculation and flying rumors, it seems there's a sale pending for jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's huge scam, the Global Information Network, or GIN. Yesterday GIN sent out an email (screen shot courtesy of Bernie O'Mahony at GINtruth.com):

Seems there's this group called AXS Investment Group, with Troy McClain, longtime Trudeau buddy/cheerleader and hustledork in his own right, at the helm.

I wonder what AXS stands for. Could the "A" be for Athorn, as in Blaine Athorn, an even longer-time Katie buddy and co-huckster? (Here's an April 24, 2013 Whirled post with a bit of Blaine and Katie's history.) Some speculate that Athorn is indeed involved, along with two other slimy Katie buds, Chris "Voldemort" McGarahan and Jeff Devine of the Hybrid Group ~~money-funneling operation~~... oops, I mean EVENT PLANNING COMPANY. Other buzz has it that Jeff isn't part of the purchase group but that Greg Kramer, of GIN Store fame, is.

My understanding is that as a private investment group, the AXS of evil is not under any obligation to reveal the names of all of the parties involved. So at this point I have not been able to confirm for sure if Athorn et al. are involved; the only name on the "official" announcement was Troy's. I'll let you know when/if any more documents become available for public consumption. But given that Athorn's nose has been up Katie for decades, it would be surprising if he didn't have his fat little hand in the pie somewhere, somehow.

At any rate it goes without saying that a lot of people will be pretty ticked off if this sale, which of course is subject to final approval by Judge Robert Gettleman, goes through. As I understand it, the court has wiped away the liabilities so any purchaser(s) will be buying GIN free and clear (at least from a monetary standpoint; courts don't directly address matters of karma).

In case you don't recall who Troy McClain is, he was one of Kevin's cheerleaders, and one who was pushing hard to keep people from leaving GIN in droves in the latter days. He's apparently most famous for having been on the comically repulsive Donald Trump's "reality" show, The Apprentice. Troy was the country boy that everyone fell in love with, according to Troy. He failed three times as project manager, and got fired on Week 12 of Season 1, original air date April 1, 2004. He was fired mostly because he sometimes used unethical business practices during the interview process, and partly because he only had a high school diploma.

The Jan. 12, 2014 update towards the end of this Whirled post has a bit about him, as do some of the comments.

Troy was/is a proud member of the GIN "faculty."

Troy has been very close with the GIN United group of GIN"leadership" and Katie buds, who have been talking for months about purchasing GIN.

And here's Troy in 2011, shilling with old-school hustledork Ron Ball on behalf of Katie and GIN. I think this one is pretty disgusting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgr9UjW1Ops

And here he is around the same time, lying to people about how easy Katie's version of the hCG diet is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WRIkLBhegY

Here's more about what a superstar and master brander and co-brander he is. http://theitfactorradio.com/alycia-kaback/tune-check-factor-features-troy/

And here's more about why you should hire Troy for all of his expert expertise.

Anyway. You get the drift. Troy seems perfectly poised to be a front guy who will take GIN to the next level of scamming. (His web site does say he specializes in "turnarounds.")

And besides, Katie has been on his client list for a few years now; note the "Natural Cures" and "Stand With KT" (his original legal defense fund) logos in the lineup below:

I see new infomercials in the making, with Troy as one of the spokes-hucksters. Maybe they can even get some really big names in Scamworld to join in the fun. It remains to be seen whether or not the GIN MLM/"affiliate" program will be reinstated; I do know that several of the prospective purchasers were very interested in exploring this possibility.

It also remains to be seen how or if the SciWINtologists, led by former GINtervenor and ex-con Perry Kiraly (and Scientology fan Yon Vetter Cole) will be involved. When their Plan A to snatch GIN from the clutches of the receiver failed in court, they began focusing in earnest on Plan B, and have been trying for months to cobble a GIN ripoff called WIN, or World Information Network. In the process they probably ran up a huge attorney bill, so expect some Shimkos to still be hovering around somewhere. But they have been kind of silent for the past several weeks, although Yon did send me a private message on Facebook explaining exactly why he is NOT a Scientologist. I told him to tell it to the blog. He said he might, but hasn't yet.

The heads of another failing GIN ripoff, the IMBS-ing U MasterBaiter's Society, are already telling folks to write to the judge, though.

In his blog post about this pending sale, Bernie made note of this bit from the announcement email:

AXS and its management team will now be actively working hard to make our club the best it can be with the commitment to never over promise and under deliver.

Spoken like a true Scamworld scammer. "We promise not to screw you; trust us!"

At this point it seems entirely possible that even the hopelessly caged Katie might still have a hand in the club, even from behind bars. (Unless Judge G says no to the sale, of course -- but another group of Katie pals could always step up to the table.) The point is that Trudeau's legacy lives on. And despite the many folks who will be outraged if the sale is finalized, there are also many, many people who still love Katie nearly to the point of worship, and think that his conviction and sentence are gross injustices, and want more than anything for his legacy to continue through GIN. As I've noted on this blog before, the GIN "leadership" are going to have to find a way to pander to both the Katie lovers and the Katie haters.

But one way or the other, it seems that GIN is still alive and kicking.

As I said... no neat and tidy endings. There rarely are, in Scamworld.

↧

Lunatics, lawn chairs, and sweet little lies

April 23, 2014, 1:50 pm

≫ Next: WIN, GIN... I just phoned this in

≪ Previous: AXS of evil: GIN sale pending

One of the weapons of choice in the arsenal of certain types of New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality gurus is some version of the cause-and-effect fallacy, or to put it in more snooty and educated-sounding terms, cum hoc, ergo propter hoc. Basically it goes like this: "If A and B regularly occur together, then A is the cause of B." But the hucksters often take it a few deceptive steps further, either exaggerating, cherry-picking or outright lying about "the effects." Generally this is in the service of convincing people that the guru in question was the cause of the marvelous, miraculous effect that they are claiming occurred or is occurring. If they're really clever, they'll bring the followers in on the miracle too, like Whirled favorite Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale did a few years ago when he led his followers in an effort to redirect Hurricane Rita -- which actually did quite a bit of damage, but never hit his area (which was never in any real danger anyway).

Still, his followers believed and praised him. Some were no doubt thrilled that he gave them credit for helping him "stop" Rita.

A few years later, Joe tried the same tack with Hurricane Ike. He selected and replaced "Rita" with "Ike," and basically sent out the same email to his followers. Ike did some devastating damage, including in my area. But Joe's neck of the woods, which once again was never in any real danger, remained unscathed, and while the Houston/Galveston metro area reeled from the devastation -- some people were out of power for weeks -- Joe, from his Hill Country hideaway, was tweeting away about sitting out by his pool on a sunny day, reading an Abraham Hicks book about attracting money.

Still, his followers believed and praised him.

Logic be damned: the gurus' fawning followers will continue to believe and heap praise upon their idols, which is why it comes as no surprise that serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's followers continue to believe and praise him as his proxy pours more stupid posts onto the official Kevin Trudeau Facebook fan page. In this April 21 post, which is mostly recycled crap about the paradise of diversity that is the MCC, Katie's proxy clearly implies that Katie is raisin' those jailhouse vibes, just by his very presence.

(My friend Julie Daniel wrote on a Facebook conversation: "[He writes that] you get what you expect. kt never expected 10 years." On more than one occasion, in fact, Katie cried and begged to the judge to puh-leeze set him free.)

I bet that if someone were to actually go and ask the wardens and other workers at the MCC, or even some of the prisoners, if things really have become more calm and balanced and harmonious in Katie's cell block over the past few months, we'd get a far different perspective.

But I suppose it doesn't matter. There are people who needto believe in Katie. There are those who seem to thrive on their gurus' sweet little lies.

Consider the now-famous miracle story, spread by our pal Mr. Fire, about the ward of criminally insane patients in Hawaii State Hospital back in the 1980s. Supposedly, "the world's most unusual therapist," Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, cured that entire ward without ever seeing a patient. And, the legend goes, he did it all by working on himself, sitting in his office using techniques from a modern, "proprietary" form of an "ancient" Hawaiian healing method called Ho'oponopono.

Joe first wrote about the miracle cure on a blog post around 2005. It spread around the Internet "like crabs on '60s hippies," as a certain Whirled blogger put it in Part 1 of her review of Zero Limits, the book that ultimately resulted from this amazing story of the miracle cures in the loony bin. (If you follow that link you'll be able to get to Part 2 as well.)

Since 2007, when Zero Limits was released, that "proprietary" form of Ho'opo has served both Vitale and Hew Len quite well, individually and together. Dr. Hew Len was doing his own thing with Ho'opo before that, but no doubt Joe's book gave him tons of new exposure.

I have heard credible buzz that in more recent times, the two had somewhat of a falling-out (no surprise, in light of Joe's ego), which is perhaps why Joe appears to sort of be throwing Hew Len under the bus in his sequel to Zero Limits,At Zero: The Final Secrets to "Zero Limits" -- The Quest for Miracles Through Ho'oponopono. (Final secrets? Huh.)

A friend who bought and read the book sent me some quotes from Chapter 17, which Joe titled, "Did It Really Happen? The Big Fat Lie." He begins:

People who've read Zero Limits often ask if the story was real. “Did Dr. Hew Len really heal the entire ward of mentally ill criminals? If so, why didn't I hear about it on the news? Where's the public record of it?”

Joe explains that he didn't believe the story either when he first heard it, but after talking to Dr. Hew Len on the phone, he did. Subsequent workshops he and Hew Len did further convinced Joe of the latter's authenticity. He says that while researching Zero Limits, he contacted social workers who were at the hospital when Hew Len was there, and they told him they "felt something" in his presence, but never claimed he was a messiah, and never attributed any healings directly to him. No one said the inmates were cured or the ward closed directly because of any of Dr. Hew Len's actions. Joe continues:

That doesn't surprise me. Life is so interconnected that my breath out affects your breath in, but you'd never consciously look at me and say, “Hey, thanks for breathing!”

The fact that the media never reported on the hospital doesn't surprise me, either. Years ago ABC News came to my home and interviewed me for an hour. We covered a lot of territory, including my books and people who have been transformed. Yet they didn't select the positive news for airing -- instead, they edited out the good stuff and broadcast a few seconds of me fumbling for an answer after they blindsided me with a question. [More on that below. ~CC]

Mainstream media aren't designed to tell you positive news. They need you to stay in fear so that you'll buy their advertisers' products. (I say this as I'm cleaning on it.) This is why they broadcast horrible, tragic, and unhappy news. When nothing bad happens locally, the news stations look for an unhappy story from another area, even other countries...

...But I don't want to dodge the question: Did Dr. Hew Len actually help heal 99 percent of the inmates in the mental hospital for the criminally insane? I believe so. But how can we be sure? Look at it this way: if I secretly pray for your well-being, and one day your sickness is gone, will you give me any credit? Probably not. How could you if you didn't know I had been praying for you?

...Now stop and consider: if someone silently cleans on something you want, and you get it, will you give him or her any credit? Of course not. How could you? You had no idea he or she was doing anything for you. He or she did it covertly and benevolently.

The same may be true for the story of Dr. Hew Len and the hospital. His clearing of himself sent out an attractor field that affected everyone else. They got better but can't give him any credit since they had no idea he was doing anything for them.

Mainstream news has no way to report on a story like this. They want to see visible cause and effect. If Dr. Hew Len dispensed horse pills and people got better, they might give him airtime. (Most likely they would find something wrong with the pills, though, and report on that.)

In short, believe in the story of Zero Limits, if for no other reason than it gives you power to create your own miracles. And if that still seems incomplete for you, clean on it.

Nice dodge, Joe. I mean, really. For someone who says he doesn't want to dodge, he does seem kind of dodgy, in every sense of the word. But the point is probably moot, because, as I've said so many times before, people who want to believe willbelieve, no matter what. Sweet little lies are better than bitter or even bland-tasting truths any day.

Here's another perspective, though. I recently heard from a real, legitimately credentialed psychiatrist who says he was actually at the Hawaii State Hospital when Hew Len was supposedly working his magic. Actually, Dr. George Gharda-Ward is recently retired, but I've seen and checked out his CV, which he sent me without my even asking for it, and he has authentic creds (he's also a J.D. but never practiced as a lawyer). Long ago and far away, Dr. G. was at Esalen for a while; this was back when the self-realization, touchy-feely movement was in its infancy. He spent the majority of his lengthy career in more buttoned-down settings than Esalen. (The things that this properly credentialed and qualified, board-certified psychiatrist (and that's a real board, not a made-up board) has to say about this Whirled's favorite psychopath and armchair diagnostician, Mocktor Lenny Coldwell, are truly amusing, but I'll save that for another blog post.)

Dr. G. became marginally involved in Trudeau's huge Ponzi-like Global Information Network (GIN) through someone close to him, but early on saw what a scam it was, and what a liar Trudeau was and is. Like so many others, he says that he met some really good people through his short-lived association, but he agrees that GIN was a scam and Katie a scammer. In the process of making these discoveries he stumbled upon my blog. His initial messages to me were about Katie and GIN, but in an early email he also wrote (and he has given me permission to quote him):

I worked at Hawaii State Hospital in 1987. I did my psych residency at the University of Hawaii. Guess what? I worked on the forensic unit where all this Ho'oponopono was supposed to have happened...I worked there in 1987 as an attending psychiatrist. I assure you there was no "magical" healing going on there. It is all a fairytale. There is a letter from a social worker, identified as Omaka-O-Kala Hamaguch on page 180 of "Zero Limits." Sorry, don't believe a word of it...

Dr. Gharda-Ward was further inspired to write a book review about Zero Limits.

THIS BOOK IS TOTALLY FALSE, March 25, 2014 By G. Gharda Ward MD
This review is from: Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More (Paperback)
I am a Board-Certified Psychiatrist. In 1987 I worked at Hawaii State Hospital. ON THEIR FORENSIC UNIT, where Joe Vitale says these "miracles" took place. I can assure you this is completely phony and false. IT NEVER HAPPENED. There were no psychotic murderers and rapists that were "cured" by this Ho'oponopono. It is false and misleading. Many of the things in the book are completely untrue. There were no car washes (can you imagine letting murderers and rapists off the unit to go outside and wash cars?), patients did not walk around in shackles nor were they held for long periods in seclusion. This is a STATE HOSPITAL!! Can you imagine what would happen if the Honolulu Advertiser (the local paper) had gotten wind of these patients being allowed outside? What if one of them escaped?? The Doctor, the hospital administrator, heck, the Governor of the state would be in big trouble. Think about it!! The events described in the book simply did not happen.

PERIOD!!

Joe addresses these issues in Atzero by saying that if it didn't happen it doesn't matter. Sorry Joe, that baloney doesn't wash in the light of reality. Joe bases the ENTIRE BOOK and Atzero on the premise that it DID work. If it didn't happen as Hew Len said it did and as Joe "believes" then there is no validity to the book.

THIS WHOLE BOOK IS BASED ON A MYTH, NOT ON REALITY!!

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the 4 magic sentences. There is nothing wrong with loving people or asking for forgiveness or trying to be as kind and thoughtful as one can be. And there is nothing wrong with myths.

But anyone who "believes" that repeating a mantra, no matter how well [meaning] it might be, can cure a whole ward full of psychotic criminals lives in Fantasyland.

The book should be labeled a fairytale, because that's what it is. It should sit on the same shelf as the books that say,
"When you wish upon a star......."

Well, you get my drift.

Dr. G. and I continued our correspondence over the next few weeks. I asked him:

During your time in Aloha Land were you even aware at all of Hew Len's presence in or around that ward? He said he never saw patients, but supposedly he was hanging around the place and attended the occasional staff meeting. He was a psychologist, of course, not a shrink.

His response:

There was no Hew Len in my consciousness. One thing that might help you in your pursuit of what is or is not truth, is that NO practitioners, be they psychologists or psychiatrists or social workers or nurses, were outside the radar of the administrators. They always knew what you were doing, how many hours you spent on the ward, etc. The most specious thing about Hew Len is that he sat in his office all day, never went on the ward (except to bake cookies and run a car wash) and never saw patients. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. The activities of all the professional staff were continuously monitored.

Hew Len admits he was "fired" (in so many words.) He was fired because he didn't do anything...
Just the fact that you still cling to some belief that this dude was hanging around Hawaii State Hospital and "may have", "maybe"'"even though it seems crazy""cured" even ONE person with this hocus-pocus, just shows how much ALL of us want to BELIEVE!!
I want to believe. It is just my damn mind getting in the way!!

To which I responded:

The only belief I cling to is that Hew Len might have physically been working in the vicinity -- not that he actually cured anyone. But thank you for the additional insights...I still like my satirical version of the story the best. :-)

Just in case you haven't read it yet and don't want to interrupt your flow right now, I'll tell you that in my satirical version, "Mahalo, Dr. Yew," a "therapist" named Dr. Ihavascama Fer Yew admits, among other things, that all he ever did at the Hawaii State Hospital was sit in his office reading naughty magazines and "working on himself."
Dr. G. responded to me:

I think your satirical version is closer to the truth than the truth.
He probably was reading Playboy. I did when I worked there (LOL),
What else can you do. Those people [the criminally insane] are, literally, incorrigible.
Which is why the whole FANTASY that anyone, or anything, can cure these people is completely insane.
And why people who cannot handle reality HAVE to believe they CAN be CURED with a prayer.
Otherwise, LIFE is too complicated.
I think your "satirical" version is 1000 times more likely then the Vitale version.

Mahalo, Dr. Gharda-Ward.

Dr. G. cited some other examples in Joe's writing that, in Dr. G.'s view, indicate Joe has, at best, a casual relationship with the truth and a penchant for exaggeration. He doesn't even really buy the bed-wetting story that Joe tells in his "spiritual autobiography,"Adventures Within. (Wrote the doc: "He claims that his URINE burned THROUGH the mattress and then THROUGH PLASTIC. Why not metal? Does he pee ACID? Did he watch ALIENS one two many times? [Could he be] making it all up???")

But I don't want to piss anyone off too much, so let's move away from that subject. In a recent email Dr. G. wrote to me:

One of the MOST vexing things about people like Fireball [Joe Vitale] and Katie is that they take some really good things and distort them to fit their pocketbook. Ho'oponopono is a wonderful concept. It is a meditation or mantra. Those are useful tools to guide us humans in our quest to live a more peaceful and harmonious life. I frequently find myself repeating the mantra: I'm sorry Please Forgive Me I Love You Thank You. It is a lovely mantra and the spirit of Hawaii (though overstated) has its place.What is truly disturbing is that psychopaths do a better job of spreading this message then us regular folks. I wonder why that is so?

To which I responded:

Keep in mind that the "Thank you/I love you" etc. is part of a "proprietary" form of Ho'opo invented and taught to Hew Len by his late mentor, Morrnah, a woman for whom he apparently left his wife and family to go live with for many years. The traditional Ho'opo is a form of conflict resolution, from which Morrnah supposedly borrowed a few concepts and then made up her own stuff. No doubt Hew Len added to that, and Joe of course took it and ran with it.

I even admit on my own blog (in my 2007 review of Zero Limits) that this modern Ho'opo can be used as a meditation and a way to inner peace (yes, I even use the four phrases sometimes to calm my whirling mind), but it's not a miracle cure for everything, the way Joe strongly implies it is.

Psychopaths do such a good job of spreading good messages for their own bad purposes for the obvious reason: because they are master manipulators and will use every tool at their disposal. Pander to people's deepest secret longings and/or fears, and you've got it made.

They do it for the same reason that a dog licks its private parts: because they can. Ron and I call it the DLB (Dog Licking Balls) syndrome. When all rational explanations fail, DLB explains a multitude of atrocities, from psychopaths to governments to those infamous neighborhood Nazis known as Homeowners Associations. "Because they can."

And yes, I confess that I do rather like that four-phrase mantra. Really. But I don't think it has any magical powers. I even liked parts of Zero Limits, as I wrote in my 2007 reviews. I thought that Joe sounded relatively honest in some parts, and to me the book read as if he had put more work into it than he had in many of his recent (at the time) books, and in several of those that were published after Zero Limits.

* * * * *

Looking over the chapter from Joe's newer book, At Zero, I notice how he once again slams the mainstream media, even though they've been his friend as much as they've been his foe. (Remember how the media fawned over The Secret, back in its early days? Joe has had numerous mainstream media appearances since then, such as appearances on Fox and Friends(though he probably paid for that exposure).)

As I've mentioned here a few times before, Joe is always nattering on about how the media refuse to run positive stories, instead preferring to focus on the negative. But that is incorrect. From what I've seen, the media are all too willing to run "positive" and even woo stories stories on miracles and angels and so forth. They go for the ratings, and it seems that both horrendously negative and sappily positive stories get good ratings. Joe is clearly still steamed because of that ABC debacle a few years ago, which he mentioned in the above-cited chapter from At Zero.

He's miffed because ABC refused to portray him and his beloved selfish-help industry in a completely positive light. In fact they made him look a bit foolish. As many of you may recall, ABC's Dan Harris went on one of Joe's Rolls-Royce ridealongs a few years ago, and also interviewed him at length. Despite Joe's hopefulness and proactive kissing-up, Dan ended up not portraying Joe in the most flattering of lights.

Recently Dan got in another potshot on a Nightlinesegment. You need to watch the whole thing for context, but the lead-in to Joe starts at 7:29 and really begins in earnest at 7:50. Dan Harris' declaration that Joe Vitale "folds like a cheap lawn chair" in an interview will go down on my Whirled as one of the classic comments.

So now, in addition to his other fine credentials, such as the Buddha of the Internet and the Charles Atlas of the Internet, Mr. Fire can boast that he is the Cheap Lawn Chair of the Internet. Or maybe the Cheap Lawn Chair of ABC. The CLC of ABC... it almost sounds like a credential to add to his faux-hDs: Joe Vitale, PhD, MSCD, CLC.

But at least Joe isn't behind bars like his good friend Kevin Trudeau (whom Joe defended several times online while helping Katie push GIN). So I guess that's something. Besides, even if Dan Harris' amusing simile doesn't sit well (so to speak) with Joe, cheap lawn chairs have their place in the world too.

I write all of this knowing full well that in the end, no matter how much I jab at Joe, make sport of Mocktor Loony, or kick at Katie, the lure of those sweet little lies will continue to win more hearts and wallets than a snarky little hobby blog ever could.

But if you think that knowing this is going to stop me, you have seriously misunderestimated me.

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WIN, GIN... I just phoned this in

April 28, 2014, 2:39 pm

≫ Next: Kevin Trudeau: passport pleas and a piss-poor movie

≪ Previous: Lunatics, lawn chairs, and sweet little lies

So while we're waiting to see what kind of protests will be launched against the pending sale of jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's huge scam, the Global Information Network (GIN), there's plenty of entertainment to be had for those who are following this and related Scamworld sagas. Just a few snippets today, Dear Ones. And if some of you have a feeling of deja vu, it's because most of this post consists of comments of mine that I lifted from various Facebook conversations. I'm lazy that way, sometimes.

A sepia-tone scam with a portrait of Winston Churchill in the background = still a scam

Well, the long awaited introductory video for the new GIN ripoff, WIN (World Information Network)has been uploaded to YouTube. I watched it. And wow. Dignified sepia tone! Big important looking desk! Portrait of Churchill on the paneled wall!* Slow, careful, 'hypnotic' speech!

What could possibly be wrong?

What's not to trust?

A friend of mine watched the vid and noted that WIN spokesman and exec-direc Perry Kiraly is no KT, and comes across as a tad creepy. My pal remarked, "At least KT had charm while he picked your pockets." Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Another Facebook friend noted that Perry seemed kind of like Neo-tech's Mark Scamilton. Yep.

At one point Perry says, "I could tell you that I believe WIN will make you rich... but I'd rather say that WIN will remind you that you are already rich." That's a paraphrase (Perry-phrase?), but... hey, nice dodge, Perry!

KATIE still begging
Meanwhile, Perry's mentor and inspiration, Kevin Trudeau, is still begging, or letting people beg on his behalf. As reported on one of several updates to my April 17 ("AXS of evil") post, Katie's legal defense fund managers are still pleading for money to help his cause, and there's going to be a big to-do in L.A. on May 10. As I also reported, Katie's appeal has run into a roadblock: his alleged "poverty," which he claims is preventing him from being able to come up with the filing fee. Here is the docket for the Appeals case so far (click to enlarge).

Kevin has until May 27 to either come up with the filing fee for his appeal, or convince the court that he really, really is poor. But since his request to file as a pauper and waive the fee has already been denied (as of April 24), I doubt if he will have any luck with the poor-boy tactic. But no worries! Since the fees only come to a little over $500, perhaps one of his prosperous pals could step up to the plate. Now, I'm not talking about the legendary GIN Council. I'm talking about some real peeps who are still defending him to this day. Fred Van Liew? Morters? Lee Kenny?

Or maybe the guys from AXS -- the group who is trying to buy GIN -- could pool their resources and pay the fee for Katie. Troy? Blaine? Chris? Greg? Jeff? Come on, guys. Y'all said you were his friends! On second thought, I can see why Troy and the gang would be reluctant to openly give money for his appeal, at least until after the judge approves the GIN sale. The purchasers have to be on their best behavior and not do anything to annoy the judge. But what about all of those other friends?

Or what about some of you loyal fans? If you're so rich from the stuff that Katie taught you, surely you could donate a few Benjamins to the cause. Anybody?

My understanding is that if he doesn't come up with the money to file by May 27, that kills the appeal, unless the judge changes his mind and decides Katie is a poor boy after all. Which isn't likely, considering that, as noted above, the judge already rejected his pauper claim. The April 24 court doc denying the poor-boy excuse has the exact figures, including the amount Katie has in his prison piggy bank. I shared it on Facebook the other day and there is a screen shot on my blog too, on my "AXS of evil" post. Here is that shot again.

So if he doesn't come up with the filing fee, and this appeals case is dismissed, I wonder if he can start another one, or if he only gets one chance. I am not sure how these things work.

If his appeal is dismissed for lack of fees for filing, and if he doesn't get another chance at an appeal, I wonder if it will even be valid for the fundraisers to keep on begging for money for his legal defense fund going forward. No doubt he owes his lawyers money for what they have already done for him, but it seems kind of sleazy to beg his fans to give money with the implication that it will be used to help overturn his conviction and set him free, when there is no chance that this will happen.

I am just thinking ahead and speculating; this may all be moot. As I noted, the big rally is May 10 and he has till May 27 to come up with the $500.

But I still wonder why none of his buddies stepped up to pay his filing fee. Fair-weather friends? Is it that they're all too willing to still talk about him like he is a hero, but apparently not willing to put their money where their lying mouths are?

On the other hand, knowing how manipulative Katie is, he may still be orchestrating a lot of this from jail. Maybe someone did offer to pay his filing fee but he said no and decided to make a big drama-queen thing of it to win more sympathy and ultimately get more money from suckers. After all, even if he got the money for the filing fee now he would still be in jail. He has nothing to lose by waiting a few weeks.

While we're waiting for the story to unfold, here's a lovely song for Katie by the late genius Nick Drake.

Katie is still on TV, and here's why.
Ever since Trudeau was convicted, and even before, people have been wondering why his infomercials still run on TV. Actually Katie hasn't been in charge of most of those for quite some time now, at least on paper. Other people are making money off of those atrocities; well, at least on paper they are "others." The Chicago Tribune's Jason Meisner, who has been providing excellent Katie coverage for many months, posted this story today. A reader wondered why Katie's "Free Money" infomercials are still running. Meisner explained:

The "Free Money" infomercial that Churchman saw was actually shot years ago and produced by a California company called Free is My Favorite LLC, which also owns the rights to Trudeau's book, records show. Under their sales agreement, the owners of Free is My Favorite were to pay Trudeau a small percentage of the sales in royalties.

That money is now being forwarded to the government and being held in a trust. Eventually it will go toward paying off a whopping $37 million fine levied against Trudeau by the Federal Trade Commission, a fine that Trudeau has long claimed he's too broke to pay.

Repeated efforts to reach owners of Free is My Favorite were not successful.

I strongly suspect that Free Is My Favorite, which was founded in 2009 (the same year GIN was launched) has some connection to Trudeau beyond the royalty deal. The same guy who owns Free Is My Favorite, Nicholas J. Esayian, also owns Debt Cures, LLC, and thoseKatie-mercials are still running on the tube too. In 2008, Nick wrote a five-star review on Amazon for Trudeau's Debt Cures book. Hmmm.

Nick owns a couple of other entities that also seem to be Katie-ish, such as Natural Press, LLC. Apparently Katie was one of his "clients" at one time for one of Nick's many bidness entities, Revenue Solutions. But on Katie's profile page, it seems that they never got past Lorum ipsum (the dummy-text placeholder).

Google has some interesting search results for Nick E. He's a pro car racer who was nabbed for misdemeanor DUI back in '03. A March 2014 UT San Diego article describes him as an infomercial mogul. That makes sense. Here's a 2012 piece that describes him as conservative, proudly politically incorrect, and "a shrewd businessman." And here's his Linkedin profile.

And here's a 2012 discussion forum that shows that some folks "get" Nick.

The point is that Trudeau still gets a percentage of the Free Money infomercial sales, as part of his agreement with Free Is My Favorite, LLC, and now that money is supposedly being forwarded to the gummit. But I wonder where and how the rest of the revenue is being funneled. Maybe Nick can take some time out from his busy schedule to write to this blog and tell us. But if Jason Meisner's comment above is any indication, Nick doesn't seem to be very interested in talking to the press.

Jason is the reporter I emailed a few months ago about Katie's jailhouse Facebook ramblings (I sent him a link to my December 19, 2013 McMiracle post). At that time he said he hadn't been paying attention to Katie's jailhouse ruminations but would from now on. I'm glad to see he has been doing just that. In his piece he confirms that Katie is actually writing at least some of those schlocky posts and emailing them to a "colleague" so they can be posted on the Kevin Trudeau Facebook fan page.

In addition to the TV spots, Trudeau also maintains an active Facebook page, where missives he emails from the Metropolitan Correctional Center to a colleague are regularly posted. In the writings, Trudeau often likens himself to jailed civil rights leaders of the past and waxes poetic about the positive effect life behind bars has had on him.

"Had a great nights sleep after the sentencing!" Trudeau wrote in a March 19 post. "Mandela got 28 years, I was blessed to get only 10. I have deep love and appreciation for the Judge and the prosecutors."

The traffic Trudeau's posts attract suggest he still has a large number of devotees, despite his convictions for fraud. His Mandela posting, for example, received more than 1,200 "likes" and 323 comments. Most of the comments expressed support, but some were less than kind.

This is what the admins on the page had indicated some time back. So Katie does indeed have limited email access at the MCC, per their policies and procedures, despite what Katie's ex-b.f.f. Mocktor Loony Coldwell had been saying. But I continue to refer to them as being posted by Katie's proxy (usually his long-time friend/business partner/past co-defendant/ex-gal pal Janine Nubani Contursi) because his Facebook page is indeed being admin'd by others, some of whom write posts for him, referring to him in third person.

And even in jail, and despite the occasional "less than kind" comment to his Facebook posts, Katie still has a larger and more loyal following than Loony. And my guess is that he always will.

* Re the Churchill portrait,Perry seems to be imitating his idol Kevin Trudeau, who had pics of Churchill and other great historical leaders in his tacky McMansion.

I wrote about the rummage sale at the McMansion on this post.

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