So goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Where the scammers and predators howl
They've planted me in the jailhouse
There isn't much to do now
Maybe you'll get a replacement
There's plenty like me all around
Predators hungry for money
Sniffing for marks, who are easily found.
With apologies to Bernie Taupin, Elton John, et al.
Even though he's behind bars, serial scammer Kevin
Trudeau continues to provide entertainment for those of us who
are easily amused -- even if he provides it unwittingly or in the
most tangential way. But before we get to the rollicking fun, I
should mention that as of the time I'm publishing this, people
who object to the sale of the Global Information Network (GIN)
assets to AXS Investment Group (or AXS Consulting, LLC) -- a group consisting of some of Kevin's bestest, most
loyal buddies -- have less than an hour to file their
objections with the court. Deadline is today (Monday, May 12,
2014) at 5:00 PM Central Daylight Time. I'll keep you posted.
Mama mia, Katie wants his
passaporto!
Last week I found out, and shared on Facebook, that
Katie wants his passports back -- both his U.S. and Italiano passports. Or his lawyer does, anyway. The lawyer filed a motion
with Judge Guzman's court on Thursday, May 8. Maybe it's for
sentimental reasons. Or maybe Katie wants to put them in a
scrapbook or on a vision board. Except I think they probably
don't have scrapbooking and vision boards at the MCC.
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| Click to enlarge. |
The gummit has till tomorrow, May 13, to respond to this motion.
Katie's lawyers will be in court this Thursday, May 15, at 9:30
AM to present Katie's passport plea before Judge Guzman.
Naturally we are having some fun with this on Facebook. My friend
Bernie O'Mahony of GINtruth.com wrote, "Maybe he needs them in order to get from
Cell Block B, to Cell Block D?" Tim Donohoe wrote: "In
an unrelated motion, his lawyer has asked for his release from
prison pending his appeal. Nothing to see here." In a
subsequent remark Tim wrote, "Another idea is that maybe his
lawyer needs access to some offshore accounts when his next bill
is due."
I thought that there might be a specially infused seekrit
magnetic strip in the passports that can override the biometry in that biometric safe in Zurich where all sorts of
seekrit things are hidden. As you may
recall, last year Katie told the courts that he couldn't
surrender his passports because they were in that safe in Zurich,
but a little while later the passports mysteriously turned up
anyway in Chicago. But suppose they really do contain some
magickal seekrit strip and can help open that safe. What manner
of treasure may be hidden therein? Next up: court docs demanding that whoever has his $6,400
cufflinks return them to his lawyers immediately.
By the way, on that passport motion Katie's lawyer, Thomas
Kirsch, got the date of his client's criminal conviction wrong.
It was November 12, 2013, not November 7, 2014. November 7, 2014
hasn't happened yet. But I guess I am not too surprised that
Kirsch would get that detail wrong; he was the one who bungled
Katie's criminal trial by opening with that lame "cheesy moon"
argument, and later on in the trial he
and his team made the judge kind of mad.
UPDATE 13 May: The government responded with an opposition to
Kirsch's motion. Here is a link to that document. The government points out that the usual procedure with convicted criminals is to return their U.S. passports to the State Department, and any foreign passports to Homeland Security. It hasn't been done yet but the government expects that to happen. It also points out that by the time Trudeau is out on supervised release, his passports will have expired anyway.
UPDATE 15 May: Motion denied.
Judge Guzman agrees with gummit and thinks that giving the
passports to a third party might constitute a security risk.
Here's that doc. (Note: I incorrectly titled the document 05-15-14; it was actually filed on 05-14-14.)
I still have to wonder why the lawyers wanted the
passports badly enough to file a motion. But maybe this is much
ado about little; perhaps it is just a routine thing for criminal
lawyers to file to get all of their clients' documents back from
Pretrial Services. Or... maybe Katie needs his passports to
return to Oz.
Good buy Yellow Brick
Road? Well, not so much.
The long-awaited animated movie, Legends of Oz:Dorothy's Return, was finally released theatrically across
the US on Friday, May 9. This project was one of the "investment opportunities"
offered by a couple of GIN members to other GIN members. My
friend John Foster, an ex-Katie fan, former founding member of
GIN and author of a new book about his GIN experiences and
the scam GIN was, wrote on Facebook,
"Investors spent around $100 million and [the movie] is
opening in 1800 movie theaters. If it makes money it will be the
first GIN opportunity that was promoted that made money."
There was a lot of skepticism about this movie when the
discussions came up on Facebook last year, and one reason for the
skepticism -- beyond the obvious fact that the
"investment" op was being offered within the framework
of GIN -- was that the folks involved with the production firms,
Summertime Entertainment and Alpine Productions, have been
involved in some dodgy business deals and have had some
complaints made against them (more on that in a moment). People were even getting spam phone calls from folks
asking them to invest in the project.
(Here is another link about that, from the same thread.)
But now that the project has indeed come to fruition, I would
like to know if any of the GIN members who "invested"
-- either the ones originally offering the opportunity to GIN
members, or anyone else in GIN who took advantage of the
"opportunity" -- will actually be making any money from
the movie. My email box is open!
Of course they are buzzing about it on the GIN Facebook pages: "In case you are not aware, a group of GIN Members utilized
their training to help manifest the money to partially fund this
movie."
Um-kay. But will they make any of that money back? Or was that
even their intention in the first place? Inquiring minds want to
know. I don't even know how to begin to pursue this matter
because I don't think I ever knew the names of the GIN members
who were pushing it. Can anyone help?
Brief update: A person in the know
sent me a message clarifying that the Oz movie had nothing to do
with GIN (which I knew), but the connection was simply that there
was one GIN member pitching the project from the time he joined.
He was able to pull a little money from a few members but nothing
major. My source noted that
on a conference call last week, Chris "Voldemort"
McGarahan (one of the members of the group who is buying GIN)
apparently gave GIN credit for raising all of the money for the
film production -- which isn't even close to true, but even if it
had been...well, it was nothing to brag about. And that gives this story double
snarkitude points: for the fact that the GINvestors are claiming
credit that they don't deserve, as well as for the fact that the
movie they're taking so much credit for is an embarrassment (see
next paragraph). Nice job, guys! [NOTE: See May 13 updates
and addenda below. ~CC]
In any case the GINvestors who pitched in a few bucks should be very proud
of themselves, because the movie is just getting splendid reviews. That is, if you define "splendid" as being "[An] eyeball-gougingly ugly, charm-free animated
musical sequel, which is inexplicably opening in thousands of
theaters instead of going direct to video." Or a movie that feels "like the cheaply made knockoffs you find in a
dollar store: garishly shiny, flimsy and not built to last." As another reviewer wrote, "The bricks are still yellow, but the road doesn't
lead anywhere special."
My friend Kenneth, another ex GIN member, said he went to see a
movie this weekend but the show he wanted to see had sold out for
the show time he wanted. He inquired about other movies and was
told that aside from Spiderman, which only had a few
tickets remaining, Legends of Oz had only a handful of
people in it. "Needless to say, people had no interest in it
whatsoever," he noted.
THIS JUST IN: Record breaking lousy debut at the box office (even worse than Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil).
But it's all sweetness and light on the official pages: the one
for Summertime Entertainment and
for Legends of Oz.
Still, there were hard feelings along the way to production and
release, as I suppose there often are in the movie biz. Someone wrote a nasty note to Ripoff Report in October
2012.
And guess who wrote the rebuttal? One Marc J. Lane, whose law
firm represented Summertime's Ryan and Roland Carroll and the
production team behind the film.
As you may recall from reading this Whirled and
various court documents and forums, Marc Lane was the asset protection lawyer who, as it happens, was
hugely instrumental in helping Katie create and structure GIN.
Marc participated in social media buzz about the film while it
was in production last year. 
He was responding to this March 2013 post on "The Royal Blog of
Oz," an Oz enthusiast blog. (By
the way, after the fanfare on that blog, the actual movie review by one of the blog's team
members was kind of anti-climactic.)
Marc also participated in one of the discussions
about the spam phone calls that I mentioned above. Here's another page on that scam phone call thread. (It's basically the same spiel he wrote on the
Ripoff Report thread.)
But Marc has been curiously silent about the movie on Facebook
since its release, but he has "liked" several Oz-movie
related pages... among other things. My goodness.
I can't say that I think Marc is a bad guy. I mean, lots of folks like porn; I don't think that's really that big a
deal as long as it all involves consenting human adults. Besides,
maybe the porn site people are clients of his. Or maybe a
mischievous member of his household got into his Facebook account
and "liked" that naughty page. There could be any
number of explanations.
And judging from some of his Facebook posts Marc has a social
conscience, or at least wants to make it appear that he does. In
fact, when it comes to several issues regarding social and
economic justice he appears to be embracing a side that is
contrary to that embraced by most of the one percent. I like that
in a person. But I have to wonder what sort of
"conscience" or moral compass allowed him to
participate so extensively in helping Kevin Trudeau create a
scammy scheme such as GIN. I'm told by those who seem to be in a
position to know that Marc gave Kevin sound advice that was well
within legal frameworks, but that Kevin chose to ignore a lot of
it and did as he pleased, and that was what caused all
the trouble. I'm only halfway buying that. Because, really...
Kevin Trudeau? Well-known lifelong scammer? Seriously, Marc, what
were you thinking?
At any rate, my understanding is that various investigations are
still ongoing. I've alternately been told that Marc isn't out of
the woods yet regarding the Trudeau investigations, and that he is
out of the woods because he cooperated with the Feds and
didn't do anything with criminal intent. That story is still
unfolding. I know only small parts of it and have reported what I
know.
But I would not be surprised to learn that Marc Lane may have
somehow been involved in the push for GIN members to invest in
that animated boondoggle. If anyone has any insights into this
I'll be glad to add that info to this post, and of course you can
remain anon if you wish.
The infomercial wizards of Oz
Speaking of Oz, which also happens to be another name for
Australia, I wonder if the investigators were ever able to
uncover any more of Katie's hidden assets Down Under, which the receivers were going on and on about last
September.
And partly because my mind is jumping around all over the place
today, but mostly because so many of these stories are
interrelated in some way (because they are all part of the same,
much larger and grimmer story), I'm reminded of another Oz
character and Katie b.f.f., the late Rene Rivkin, who killed
himself in 2005 and whose assets were also mysteriously hidden. He and Katie had a few things going together, for a while.
I think the authorities finally gave up looking for Rene's riches.
But something tells me that if the right authorities did a little
more digging, they might be able to find some more Rivkin assets
as well as some more Katie assets -- in some cases, maybe even
under the same rocks. [Although someone who knew Rivkin just told me
that it's very doubtful if he had anything left, which may have
been one reason he ended his life. Tragic story, there.] Anyway, I really should get off of my duff
and finish that half-finished Rivkin post that's been in the
hopper for a year or so. But I'll leave you with a pretty picture
for now -- Rene and Katie and someone else (maybe one of you can
tell me who it is?) in happier days. Rub-a-dub-dub!
Update: Someone just
tipped me off that the other guy in the tub is the UK's Andrew Malcher, currently of High Street TV, "the leading multi
channel retailer of direct response TV products." Here's a July 2012 article about him in the UK's
Financial Times). From the article:
If the mark of a great retailer is not
selling you what you want but selling you what you didn’t
know you wanted, Andrew Malcher must be a great retailer.
And here's a November 2013 article about High Street and
Alliance Health Care signing a
lucrative As Seen On TV-ish agreement. High Street has also signed deals with Disney and Hasbro.
So Andrew is basically an infomercial mogul. My correspondent
says he's a super nice guy.
More updates and addenda, 13-14 May 2014:
Return to Oz...
Since I published my post yesterday, I've heard from a couple of
people. I inserted a brief update in the body of the original
post above (in green text), but here's more.
One person wrote to me:
The name of the [GIN member pushing the
investment in the Oz movie] is John King. He is listed as one
of the Co-Executive Producers. If gin people raised more than
$1M I would be impressed. There were a bunch who invested,
but gin wouldn't have had anything to do with it other than
John pitching it to people he met there.
The movie may stink but I wouldn't hold
any negativity toward it because of GIN.
Another friend, an ex-GIN member, wrote to me,
also mentioning John King, who was the head of his local GIN
chapter:
He is an executive producer on the
film. ...I got to know him and his wife pretty well.
He never pitched the movie to any of the GIN folks in [our local]
group, as far as I know. And he and his wife seemed like
pretty nice folks.
Apparently he was in great despair, with a failing career and
marriage (this is public knowledge as he said it on stage),
when he came across Your Wish Is Your Command. He truly
believes that GIN and KT turned his life around. As far as
I can tell, he is not simply a sociopath, nor do I think he
sought any gain other then typical commissions and the chance
to go "Hollywood."
There WAS misleading info. On stage he implied that HE had
raised 100 million for the film.
In a subsequent email my friend wrote:
...We were all impressed by his Platinum status and by the
fact that he had raised millions of dollars as a venture
capitalist, under the GIN rubric, to "make" a
movie. One takes a person for their word, or should. And
words can mean everything and nothing. When someone states,
"we just raised the most money in the history of
independent films, $100 million, I just got word as we were
boarding the ship"... and if that person is someone
whose house you had visited, and whose friendship you wanted,
why wouldn't you trust them?
Why, indeed? Well, at least my friend wasn't
suckered into investing in this lemon. What I find interesting is
that according to THIS article (which I also linked to above), Summertime Entertainment says they spent only $70 mil on production, and the author of the
piece speculated that they may have been exaggerating because
"smaller production companies often inflate budgets to make
a production appear more legitimate." So where did that
other $30 mil or so go? Well, maybe to promotions and parties --
who knows. If I were a GINvestor, though, I'd be asking some
serious questions rather than crowing about this bloated cartoon on their
Facebook pages.
Anyhow, as far as
I am concerned, the Whirled angles specifically in regard to the
movie remain the same:
- Some GIN folk are taking undue credit for
this flick
- It's a stinker -- so those who invested
and are so GIN-proud of it probably won't see any decent
ROI... meaning that once again GIN fell flat as a
networking op.
In other words: I am not the one who spiked
this insipid punch with GIN. Various GINfolk did this
themselves.
Then there is the Marc J Lane connection, however tenuous it may be. As noted on my post,
Marc was hugely instrumental in helping Katie structure GIN to
hide money from the Feds. It's all there in the court docs. Marc
was also an attorney for the production companies responsible for
the Oz debacle -- and he even wrote a rebuttal on their behalf on
Ripoff Report, threatening to sue the anonymous complainant for
defamation. It could, of course, all just be a big fat
coincidence. Or it could be something as simple as a common hometown connection. Marc is a Chicago lawyer and Summertime Entertainment's Carroll brothers were born, raised, and went to
school in the Windy City. Maybe they all knew each other from back in the day. As I said, I
welcome insights from others.
By the way, the friend I quoted at length above
also reminded me that a Trudeau entity called TruStar
Productions, Inc. -- an enterprise in which Marc Lane was also
involved -- had invested in a failed movie project called Hellbenders. It was
noted in the Receiver's Third Report (17 March 2014), and I mentioned it on this blog post.
You can find a lot more about the Trudeau/Lane/TruStar
relationship -- and their other business relationships -- in
various court documents, such as Document #713 from Katie's civil
case, filed on July 15, 2013, titled, "PLAINTIFF'S PROPOSED
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW." I've written about and
inked to this before, but here's a handy link on the receiver's web site.
For more, check out this link and the individual name links on
Advanced Background Checks.
Not surprisingly, on
Marc's Wiki page there is no mention
whatsoever of Trudeau or any of the Trudeau entities, or of
Marc's involvement in this high-profile case. A shame, that, since Marc worked so hard on his
client's behalf, including trying to get data under the Freedom
of Information Act regarding some of the ongoing investigations
of the various Katie companies. Here's some interesting correspondence from 2011 and 2012. It's
in .txt format and you'll need to scroll down to the bottom and
work your way up.
I have put all of this on my Whirled and have included links in
order to raise legitimate questions and encourage others with
more resources than I have to continue the investigations.
At any rate -- getting back to the current cinematic flop -- here are some more links. This one handily lists all
the major folks involved in the Oz project:
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/legends-of-oz-dorothys-return/5071489.article
Here is John King's Facebook page. He doesn't
seem to be very active, except for a few nods to the Oz project,
which currently dominates his cover photo and profile pic:
https://www.facebook.com/john.king.14019338
Here's John King's IMDB link, which links back
to the IMDB page for the project: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6359182/
Here's John King's stik.com link: http://www.stik.com/king_john2
And here
is a link to Elevate Entertainment, one
of whose principals claims to have been involved with John's
"110 million dollar private equity raise" for the Oz
movie.
Natalie King - CEO
After graduating cum laude with a degree in Finance from
Jacksonville University, Natalie moved to Los Angeles to work
with Executive Producer Greg Centineo and Co-Executive
Producer John King on a 110 million dollar private equity
raise for an upcoming movie Franchise titled Legends of Oz -
Dorothy’s return. It is set to be released worldwide in May
2014...
...Natalie enjoys bringing her analytical and creative side
to develop powerful content that will reach a diverse
audience.
But wait... there's more! Other
peeps are claiming credit along with John King for raising some
of those millions for the Oz thing. Here's one Franco Rosado, who describes himself as a "Youth Empowerment Specialist," on Linkedin:
Excited to be brokering our first
motion picture deal with Mr. John King and Summertime
Entertainment COMING SOON - MAY 9TH - OVER 3000 THEATERS
LEGENDS OF OZ, DOROTHY RETURNS (3D Animation Film) MISSION
ACCOMPLISHED! We raised the $5 million needed for our film!
Stay tuned for more to come! Franco Rosado CEO, Deep Sea
Innertainment Youth Empowerment Specialist [email and phone
number redacted ~CC]
So I'm sure there's a whole tangled story here.
I don't know much about the film biz, but what I do know is that
many movies go through a long and sometimes contentious process
in their journey to release. So no doubt there were a lot of the
normal Hollywood egos and financial struggles, which ordinarily
would not interest me all that much. But when there is even a
marginal Scamworld connection --- when, in other words, it
intersects with my beat in some way -- you can bet your last flying monkey that I will jump on it,
especially if it's a slow news day.
By the way, here is the link to page 1 of what
is currently a 15-page, five-and-a-half-year-long thread about
the efforts to get people to invest in the Oz movie (I linked to
a few pages in this thread above). http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-818-909-6800.
