Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Kevin Trudeau in court again: Something big... something really big!... or maybe not

From courtship to the court room: it's been a whirlwind five years
for Kevin Trudeau and the lovely Nataliya Babenko,
who celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary June 26!

Today, beginning at 10:00 AM Central Daylight Time, serial scammer Kevin Trudeau is appearing in court for a hearing related to his long-dragged-out civil case with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). [Case number 1:03-cv-03904, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, the Honorable Robert W. Gettleman presiding.]

The last time he was in court regarding this case was a little over a month ago, on May 21. Today the court will be hearing from Marc Lane, one of Kevin's former legal eagles who helped him form his huge scam, the Global Information Network (GIN). It remains to be seen whether Marc will invoke his Fifth Amendment rights a few hundred times, as KT did in May.

Even though Kevin Trudeau is presumably not the star of this show, he has been ordered to appear in court for this hearing, and is currently prevented from traveling outside the jurisdiction.

And it's this latest bit that has excited ex-GIN member Abe Husein, who gleefully shared the news on his Facebook forums yesterday. The news apparently invoked a multi-sensory experience for Abe, who could just "smell the sweet taste of justice and victory."


Several people had questions about Brandy's "testimony." Abe replied:


My own first response was that I wasn't surprised that Brandy might eventually turn on Kevin. I think Kevin has placed her in an untenable position. However, that assessment was a bit premature. It seems that Brandy -- "mistress" or not (officially she has been Trudeau's producer and assistant) -- is still loyal to her Katie, at least on Facebook.



Here, if you can get to it, is the Facebook thread from earlier today, indicating that Brandy is still supporting Kevin -- and that at least a few people are willing to "testify" on Trudeau's behalf, if only by email. https://www.facebook.com/brandy.kt/posts/618748794816990

Meanwhile, Loony Lenny Coldwell, whose name change from Bernd Klein just celebrated its fifteenth birthday yesterday (we had a Quinceañera fiesta on this very Whirled, and we're still celebrating!) has been crowing about the prospect of his ex-b.f.f. being in jail. He just can't quit talking about Katie and Bubba... or Babba, as the case may be. Loony seems to have an almost unnatural obsession with jailhouse rape, which I don't actually think is anything to joke about.


I know this will come as a huge shock to you, Dear Ones, but the actual court documents seem to tell a slightly more nuanced story. First off, Kevin hasn't actually had his passports "revoked" (or "revocked," as the blurb on Abe's newest vid says) -- he has simply been ordered to surrender them, at least temporarily, because the court deems him a flight risk at the moment. The same thing happened back in
February of 2010 after a contempt issue revolving around a Kevin-fueled email blast to the judge in his civil case, Robert Gettleman.

Here are the June 25 documents that Abe and Lenny were so excited about. You can judge (so to speak) for yourself, though I have it on good authority that the judge himself is not expected to make any decisions today. As usual, click on the pics for an enlarged view.


Kevin's next scheduled court appearance will be on July 8 at 11:00 AM. Subject to change, of course -- as always.

What does seem clear in these latest documents, as well as numerous other recent court docs, is that the plaintiffs -- that would be the Federal Trade Commission -- as well as the judge, are running out of patience with Trudeau. But whether he will end up in jail or not, thus giving some of the faux-heroes of this saga their fake happy ending, is anyone's guess. And whether he will stay in jail -- again, that is anyone's guess, though right now I am pretty much doubting it. All the FTC is really interested in is getting their $37.6 million fine from Kevin, or satisfying themselves that he really, really, really does not have the money, as he has been claiming for a while now (when he wasn't busy claiming that he is not going to pay it because it's simply an unjust fine).


Abe originally said that he would be in the court room giving live updates via Facebook, but apparently he will not be there after all, although he will still be giving frequent updates via Facebook. Unfortunately Facebook has temporarily blocked him again, so he may be posting under one of his Facebook aliases, "Angel Sharp." He'll also be posting via a Facebook event page he set up specifically for this hearing. Here's his first video update.

I suppose it's just as well that he won't be in the court room, since his high vibrations -- as noted in a June 24 Facebook post -- apparently upset the proceedings on May 21, causing KT's attorneys to kick him out.


Of note, that email blast, though kind of lame and last-minute, was actually only directed to people who had bought Kevin's weight loss book, had successfully tried the hCG protocol Kevin recommends in his book, and did not feel deceived. After all, the book's claims are at the center of this longstanding civil lawsuit. A German Facebook friend of mine received a copy of the email, and here is what it said:
Kevin needs your help
As you may know, Kevin is being sued by the FTC for saying the weight loss protocol in his book, “The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to know About,” was easy. Kevin has another court date coming up soon in Chicago.

Here’s how you can help .... if you saw information about his book, and you bought the book, did the diet and did not feel misled, would you be willing to come to Chicago to testify on Kevin’s behalf?

If you are willing to help, please email [redacted by me] for more details.

Thank you for your continued support!

Global Information Network

The point is that unless there was another email blast that I don't know about, this email was not an open invitation to "all the zombies" who support Trudeau to come to court "and testify on his behalf about how good of a man he is." The email was directed to a specific subset of Trudeau customers. It's the same campaign in which Brandy is apparently still engaged.

Anyway. It's a bit past 10:00 AM as I finish this, and I'm sure that somewhere in Chicago, a court room is buzzing in antici....pation.

But I don't want to let this day go by without wishing Kevin and the lovely Nataliya Babenko a happy, happy fifth wedding anniversary. Yep, '
twas five years ago on this very day that the lovebirds tied the knot in an extravagantly unromantic ceremony at a Massachussetts courthouse. Kevin stressed at the time that they wanted it to be a U.S. marriage, and they chose that courthouse because it was so lovely, and so near to the little town where Kevin had grown up and where his parents still live. He also said that at some point they would have a much more elaborate ceremony overseas.

Well, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Not long after the touching courthouse ceremony, Kevin presented his lovely bride with a huge shot of GIN for a wedding present, a present she may currently be regretting. But no matter what happens today in court... no matter what the fate of Kevin and Natalie and a possible third in the threesome, Brandy... they'll always have Paris.

 And contrary to the graffiti on Jim Morrison's grave, what happens today will almost certainly not be... The End.

Update, PM:
My source was correct; no ruling was made today. It was not, after all, Doomsday for Kevin or GIN. Both judges -- Judge Gettleman for the civil case, and Judge Ronald Guzman for the related criminal contempt case -- are expected to make rulings some time on Thursday morning, June 27. Meanwhile,
here's a clip from Chicago's ABC 7 (it may not play on all devices). Those rascals stole my "True-dough" pun, which I've been using on this Whirled for more than four years.



Update, 27 June 2013: This just in from the Facebook page of Ryan Kath at KSHB-TV (Kansas City), who had just posted an update earlier today:

UPDATE FROM MY PREVIOUS POST:
Folks in the courtroom in Chicago are telling me that Trudeau's hearing is continued until Monday morning. In the meantime, he's been asked by Judge Gettleman not to transfer assets "outside of ordinary and customary living expenses." Trudeau has been asking to make a trip to Canada, but they want him to surrender his passports and post a collateral bond first.

Also--it sounds like Marc Lane spent a considerable amount of time on the stand yesterday, and even more today. FTC attorneys would've asked him about what kind of advice or knowledge he had about shielding money in offshore accounts.

The saga continues next week...

So it would appear that June 26 really wasn't Doomsday and GIN didn't end and Katie wasn't thrown in jail. (I know you're as shocked as I am that Loony Coldwell and his little buddy could be wrong.) And today wasn't "huge" either. Maybe Monday, July 1, which is currently KT's next scheduled court appearance... maybe THAT will be the huge day that everyone has been waiting for. And maybe not. And so the story goes.. on and on and on and on...
 
Addendum, a little later...
Chuck Goudie at Chicago's ABC-7 posted
a follow-up story about Kevin's latest court woes. Seems that the court is not going to be getting its hands on Katie's Italian passport. Trudeau told the court that he had left the passaporto in his Swiss residence inside a biometric safe that requires his fingerprint to open. Something tells me that Katie, though on a short leash for now, will not be ending up in a cage any time soon. Unless of course the Feds decide to escort him back to that safe in Zurich to get the passport.



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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Waltz time for Bernd/Lenny

Happy 15h Birthday to Bernd's new name!
(Click on pic to enlarge)

Today on this Whirled, Dear Ones, we are celebrating! We are here to celebrate the momentous Quinceañera -- fifteenth birthday -- of
the former Bernd Klein's new legal name: Leonard Coldwell. Bernd was apparently using this moniker as an "artist's name," or Künstlername, for years in his homeland of Germany, but he became "known legally only as Leonard Coldwell" by order of a court in the great state of Virginia, USA, on June 25, 1998.

It was perhaps symbolic of the beginning of a new life in his adopted country. He moved from Virginia to South Carolina in the summer of 2000, and a few years later -- I don't know the exact date, and am too lazy to research it, but I believe it had to have been some time between 2002 and 2007 -- he became a naturalized US citizen, reportedly with the help of a few notorious South Carolina Republican politicians such as
Joe Wilson and Lindsey Graham. (I've said it before and will say it again: the fact that Coldwell was able to become a US citizen shows that the US is definitely in need of immigration reform. For one thing, Coldwell the proud American citizen has actually spent a great deal of time undermining the US by telling people they don't have to obey laws, and preaching that if they vote or participate at all in the political process, they're fools. See, for instance, this post, and this one (scroll down to "And let's not even get into the fear-mongering...").)

At any rate, Coldwell has boasted numerous times about being friends with, and loved and endorsed by, both Wilson and Graham. More recently, however, he
has kind of thrown Graham under the bus, by copying and pasting a SHTFplan.com article that is critical of Graham's apparent police-state leanings.

I've never really learned the exact reason that Bernd Klein became Leonard Coldwell -- or for that matter, exactly why he left Germany -- though I have heard several stories. What does seem clear is that Bernd Klein is not the only other name Lenny has used. He also used the name Bernd Witchner on his German passport; I'm told he
borrowed that name from a former wife. I have no idea if that is true, or if he still uses the name Witchner on his passport or on any other records in the US or abroad. But he did use it at one time, according to this document, which was initiated in September of 1998, when Bernd's new legal name was a mere infant of three months. Germany is kind of weird about names and name changes, so back when he was still Bernd, he may have been within his legal rights to use the name Witchner if he was married to a Witchner. But you do have to sort of wonder why he didn't use the name consistently in his everyday life.

Anyway. We are observing this occasion, the fifteenth anniversary of Bernd's legal name change, with a lovely Latin American tradition because, alas, the Fatherland appears to have no special celebration for fifteenth birthdays or anniversaries. I realize we are mixing cultures here, but isn't that, after all, what Bernd/Leonard's adopted homeland is all about? The US is a melting pot, or so I've heard. So a Quinceañera it is!

The Quinceañera -- pronounced KEEN-say-ahn-YEH-ra -- is a lovely tradition, usually held for girls on their fifteenth birthday. It's kind of like a Sweet Sixteen party, but a year early. Marking a young girl's passage into womanhood, it is a time when the honoree is truly a princess-for-a-day. Done properly, a Quinceañera is nearly as elaborate (and expensive) as a wedding, and some girls do choose a white wedding-ish gown for their special day.

In fact, a few months ago at my favorite country auction, there was a Quinceañera doll on the block. More than likely she was intended as a table centerpiece for a Quinceañera party. (Yes, I know I've told this story before on Facebook and possibly here as well, but I'm afraid you'll have to hear it again.) At first I thought the little figure to be a bride doll, because she was decked in a gorgeous white gown. But then I looked at the sash the doll was wearing, which read, "Mis Quince Años." (Mis Quince años (pr. MEES KEEN-say AHN-yos) literally translates to "My Fifteen Years," and is of course a reference to one's fifteenth birthday.)

I thought nothing more about it till much later on when, half asleep, I heard the twangy, Texas-accented voice of the obviously Spanish-impaired auction floor assistant holler out:
"Miss Quint's anus!"

Startled into full wakefulness, I looked up and saw that he was holding the Mis Quince Años doll high up in the air. There were a few shocked faces in the audience; no one who was paying attention knew quite what to make of it. But others, like me, were trying heroically to suppress their mirth. Said the dapper British auctioneer, who was clearly trying to stifle his laughter, "Um, what was that again?"

"Miss Quint's anus!"

A few in the audience tittered. Confused, the poor floor guy said, "Hey, don't blame me. That's what it says on the doll's ribbon!"

Once the confusion was cleared up, the proceedings continued, but alas, there were no buyers for Miss Quint or her anus. I kind of felt sorry for both of them.

But I digress. It's time to party, amigos! I've earned the right to do so because I have to tell you, it has not been easy being a Quinceañera planner. Shopping for the gown, for instance, was no easy task. There were so many breathtaking varieties from which to choose! White seemed dreadfully inappropriate, so that was out, but I couldn't decide between two of Bernd/Leonard's favorite colors, pink and aqua. After long minutes of agonized mulling, I chose a lovely number that is pink and aqua, set off by a glitzy little tiara. I think it really brings out the shine in Lenny's forehead.

But my trials were not over once the gown and tiara were chosen. When I was creating the cheesy commemorative graphic, my graphics app, CorelDraw (I know, I'm a rebel) crashed several times. Each time it did, I could hear my computer making little puking noises, kind of like the ones Gollum makes in Lord of the Rings, but with something that sounded more like, "Bernd! It Bernd us, Precious!" I think the problem was that the textured pink-striped bitmap in the frame takes up a lot of memory, for some reason. (Also, you should see the way I work when I am creating something; I clutter my Corel desktop with all sorts of miscellaneous memory-hogging elements. It drives Ron nuts, but that's the way I roll.)

But I soldiered on. I wasn't going to disappoint Bernd's new name by not having a virtual party in its honor.
(Never mind that a name can't actually wear a gown; the face of a little Teutonic twerp who owns the name can be crudely Corel Photo-Painted into a pic of the gown.) I overcame the technical challenges, knowing that you simply cannot have a virtual party on my Whirled without a cheesy commemorative graphic. A video would possibly be better, but I don't do vids, so this will have to suffice. (By the way, I redacted Bernd's mommy's maiden name from the graphic, because, as Bernie O'Mahony mentioned on GINtruth.com recently, Lenny's alter ego Rudi Kauder gets really, really mad and tends to threaten me with violence when I mention Mommy.)

What about refrescos? Well, I can't bake worth a darn, and Ron is busy, so I decided to skip the cake. I hope y'all don't mind. You are certainly welcome to bake your own cake, or pies, or Very Special Brownies, or other sweetmeats as you wish. And I know some of you will be popping some popcorn and pouring yourself a few cold cervezas. It's up to you. After all, it's your party too!

I didn't bother with balloons and decorations either because I am lazy, but here are some good ideas, with lots and lots of pink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_PvSHWaEw

I knew we needed music for our celebration, and that was easy. For the traditional choreographed Quinceañera waltz,
I chose a contemporary favorite.


The song that is playing is
Tiempo de Vals (Waltz Time) by Chayanne.

If you want the English translation to the lyrics, try this link:
http://lyricstranslate.com/en/tiempo-de-vals-waltz-time.html

Like so many things, the song's lyrics lose something in the translation...
just like this German document, when it gets translated into English by Google. But the meaning is fairly clear. You should, of course, feel free to go surfing all over the Tubes for more Quinceañera waltzes. But don't get carried away, lest you become burned out on "Tiempo de Vals."

I leave you for now, Dear Ones, with yet another waltz (since we're already en tiempo de vals anyway): an oldie but goody,
Joan Baez' "Brand New Tennessee Waltz," which at least is culturally closer to the former Bernd's adopted region than all of those lovely Latino themes above.


I have been a fan of this song for years, and the last verse never fails to choke me up.

So let all of your passionate violins
Play a tune for a Germany kid
Who's feeling like leaving another land
With no place to go if he did
'Cause they'll catch you wherever you're hid
Maybe I messed up a little on some of those lyrics. But it's quite a lovely tune anyway, don't you think?

Friday, June 07, 2013

Kevin Trudeau and justice: muddy waters

Kevin tells the same old sob story... or is that S.O.B. story?

Well, Dear Ones, there have been a few developments in the continuing saga of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau since
I blogged last week about his latest dance with the mainstream media. F'rinstance...

The Stuporhero strikes again
On Thursday, June 6, Kevin posted another dramatic video about his legal problems. I can't embed it
but here is the link. I'll give you my standard warning about stupid videos: this one is 52-plus minutes you'll never get back. But maybe you can do something constructive while you're listening to Kevin emote, such as cleaning your cat's litter box, or scrubbing the gunk from under the lip in your toilet, or simultaneously playing one of Loony Lenny Coldwell's patriotic video rants while drinking a beer. See which video -- Loony's or Kevin's -- makes you squirt beer out of your nose first. That should be a lot of fun. It is something to do with your Friday night, anyway. (Or your Saturday morning or afternoon, depending upon where in the world you are.)
 

Actually I have to say that Kevin's June 6 video, in which his co-star is an extraordinarily loud shirt that almost steals the show, is a marvelous performance overall. (The shirt doesn't have any lines but really does not need any.) And if one didn't know the entire context of the story, one would be tempted to believe that Kevin is indeed the hero he makes himself out to be, though he doesn't call himself a hero in so many words; in fact he comes out towards the end of the vid and says, "I'm no hero" -- the one thing with which many of us will fully agree. Kevin does such a masterful job of passionately stating his case that by the end of the video, I found myself saluting (well, actually it was a middle-finger salute), and I could almost hear "The Star-Spangled Banner" playing in my head (though in a clearly discordant key, with a cartoonish wah-wah flourish at the end).

As good a performance as it is, the video is filled with Kevin's usual lies and half-truths, diffusions and distractions, cherry-picked details and straw-man arguments. He employs his favorite strategy of exploiting the growing public distrust of the US government, jumping right in at the beginning with a list of some of the real atrocities and violations, past and present, that have been going on with the government and ordinary citizens -- and then, as usual, conflating all of it with his own ongoing civil and criminal cases.

The prevailing theme is his usual one, which basically is this: Despite being hounded half to death, the brave Mr. Trudeau is continuing to fight the good fight, and for him it's not about the money at all, but about protection of all of our civil rights, most notably our rights to free expression and our rights to be protected from unwarranted search and seizure. He employs that characteristic True-dough "truthiness" (
which I wrote about nearly two years ago) to get the masses fired up and inspire them to send more money to help him with his legal fight.

Kevin repeats several things that are outright lies, such as bragging about his high customer satisfaction rate and lack of customer complaints and refund requests. (He told the same fib to the ABC reporters.) Now, strictly speaking in the context of the FTC cases, it may be true that the $37.6 million dollar fine does not accurately reflect the number of customers who were dissatisfied with and/or asked for refunds specifically for his
Weight Loss Cure book. It may even be true that the FTC fine is arbitrary and inflated. But there are plenty of complaints about Trudeau. Hundreds of them. I've linked to this several times over the years, but here are a few hundred to get you started.

Trudeau also tells his usual less-than-half truths about what the FTC case is about, saying it is basically about the government's objections to his declaration that he found the hCG diet he promotes in his Weight Loss Cure book "easy." In truth it is about so much more than that, but I think Trudeau has only himself (and his lawyers) to blame for the whole thing getting so out of control.

And, far from backing away from the marketing tall tale for which so many have ridiculed him (I was one of the first), he uses his latest video to once again tell the story of having been in a seekrit society called The Brotherhood. He reveals that he left the org because the Brotherhood was too elitist; according to him, they believed that certain people -- that would be the elites of the world -- are genetically superior and should keep their knowledge (and of course their riches) to themselves and shouldn't spread any of it to the inferior masses. Kevin,
great egalitarian that he is (not), says in the video that he believes anyone can change by learning these great secrets. Kevin himself, however, has not only used elitism on many occasions to promote GIN, but he has reportedly slammed his own adoptive family, saying he belonged in a more genetically superior one.

Another silly Kevin-ism: He asks, rhetorically, who else has been fighting the good fight for the past ten years. Who else has our backs? Who else, he asks, is fighting Goliath on our behalf? Hmmm... well, now, how about the ACLU? How about intrepid jornalistic media such as Mother Jones? How about dozens of commercial-free, non-government consumer and activist organizations? How about all of those entities, Kevin? And they don't have their slimy hands in our pockets like you do.

Seriously, someone needs to run this vid through a FactCheck.org-type analysis. As I said, even though this video, like pretty much all of Kevin's videos, is mostly lies, there is a smidgen of truth. There are real government atrocities going on, all the time, against genuinely good citizens. Things are arguably getting worse, not better. And as for Kevin...okay, I'll concede that this whole FTC case may end up being totally the wrong way to stop a serial scammer.

You're not going to find a genuinely objective and comprehensive analysis in this post, and certainly not on the forums of the angry ex-GIN and KT fans such as Loony Coldwell. But it goes without saying that you will not find much of anything resembling the true story in any of Kevin Trudeau's content.

The Dow deposition
Gosh, that kind of sounds like the name of a Robert Ludlum novel, doesn't it? But it's not. On May 30, 2013, a document was filed, and made available via PACER.gov, regarding certain depositions relevant to Kevin Trudeau's ongoing civil case. One of those depos, a portion of which was made available, was from Michael Dow, the former director of finance and accounting for one of Trudeau's many companies, Natural Cures, which later became Website Solutions USA. According to Dow's testimony on the depo, he was hired by Suneil Sant, aka Neil, then the president of Natural Cures. (Neil's deposition was taken the day after Dow's, but so far does not seem to be available.)

No doubt Loony Lenny grabbed the Dow doc the moment it was available, and fed it to Abe Husein, who posted a couple of screen shots from the depo on his Facebook page, and then made
another over-wrought "this is the end!" video.

A couple of days later, Lenny published the depo excerpt -- which had clearly been marked
CONFIDENTIAL -- on his blog. He published it as a text document, which totally fudged up the formatting, making it almost impossible to read, but you can still see the words "Dow-Confidential" at every page-break designation. The doc is currently listed as "NEW Public Court Papers #60" on this page on Loony's blog. You can get to the document if you follow that link. (This is the same page that is still proudly headlined by Loony's prediction that KT will be in jail on October 30, 2012.)

Given the timing of the depo -- May 8 -- and the fact that it is marked as being related to the civil case, I tend to think that all or most of the salient matters from the deposition were already discussed
at the May 21 evidentiary hearing. That's the hearing where Kevin famously invoked his Fifth Amendment rights nearly 400 times. So despite Abe's over-the-top excited update video about this depo, and Lenny's ongoing "I know something you don't know" act, this is not really new news and, I suspect, was brought out in court already. However, I wasn't at the May 21 hearing and have only seen capsule summaries of it, so I really do not know. Anyone who has additional information or informed opinions about the significance of the Dow depo, please feel free to share them.

Even so, this doesn't mean that the depo contains no material of interest. It has some pretty eyebrow-raising stuff. And I almost felt sorry for Dow as I was reading his sometimes stuttering responses to the questions. (He even got "caught" fluffing up his resume, which must have been a tad embarrassing for him.* ) I was amazed, however, at how much he claimed not to know, such as the true ownership of the many Trudeau companies whose finances he dealt with on a daily basis. Was it willful blindness, or was he really being kept in the dark and just so desperate for a job that he was not inclined to ask too many questions?

At any rate, the more I study this and related court docs, the more I think that despite his apparent lack of anything resembling a moral compass, Kevin Trudeau has most of his legal ducks in a row... and he may very well walk, perhaps after settling with the FTC for pennies on the dollar.

(There is still the matter of
the criminal contempt case, which may possibly result in Kevin's incarceration, though that seems increasingly unlikely. Presumably we'll know more after June 26, which, besides being Kevin and Nataliya Babenko's fifth wedding anniversary, is the day Kevin is due back in Judge Gettleman's court for attorney Marc Lane's hearing. But this is in relation to the civil case.)

As indicated above, the file that was made available on PACER is not Michael Dow's complete deposition. Rather, it is an attachment to a document filed by Trudeau's lawyers, titled, "DEFENDANT KEVIN TRUDEAU'S DEPOSITION DESIGNATIONS AND OBJECTIONS TO THE FTC'S DEPOSITION DESIGNATIONS." The depo itself, listed as "Exhibit A," is 116 pages, and these are the pages that are missing:
  • 37-40 (4 pages): following a mention of Website Solutions
  • 65-80 (16 pages): following a mention of Synergy Worldwide
  • 85-88 (4 pages): following another mention of Website Solutions and Kevin's drivers and other personal services
  • 97-104 (8 pages): following mention of Dow's conversations with Peter Wink regarding declining GIN membership
  • 109-112 (4 pages): following a request for some "wrap-up questions"
That's a total of 36 pages missing. I cannot say for sure why those pages were deleted. I'm just stumbling blindly through all of this information trying to figure it out, just like many of the rest of you. It could be that the deleted pages didn't hold anything of interest to support the point that KT's lawyers were trying to make with the "Deposition Designations" document.

Or it could be, as some have speculated (see my pal Tim's comments below), that the deleted pages had something to do with
Peter Wink's role in the FTC investigation. Although in this doc, Peter's name was only mentioned immediately before the missing pp. 97-104, it is also true that Peter listed Website Solutions on his resume/Linkedin profile, a fact that had been noted in other court docs. http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwink And several of the missing pages in the Dow depo seemed to follow a mention of Website Solutions. So perhaps there is a connection.

What does seem clear is that Lenny Coldwell just posts the links to the Trudeau court documents because he can, though despite his constant boasting, he almost certainly has an incomplete understanding of the content or real significance of most of the documents. Lenny is passionate about bringing Kevin to "justice," however, and has even said more than once that he has spoken to the "lead persecutor" (sic) in Switzerland, so Kevin will have nowhere to hide. And he continues to boast that he is the only one who really, really knows what is going on with the court cases.

Apparently Lenny is going to go into the movie-making business too, as this June 6 comment indicates:



[Update June 9: Maybe Lenny can have Abe write the screenplay. After all, Abe is apparently thinking of writing a book about how one young heroic guy (that would be Abe) almost single-handedly brought GIN to its knees. He talks about it towards the end of this video, which is a response to Kevin's June 6 vid. I see good times and giggles ahead for movie reviewers and literary critics alike. And possibly more money in the pockets of Kevin's lawyers. Meanwhile, I'm imagining a script for A Life of Slime: The Leonard Coldwell Story.]

Lenny's followers who are disgruntled ex-GIN do not seem to realize that Lenny, with his semi-literate Facebook boasts and phony email campaigns (see below), is probably doing more to hurt the cause of bringing Kevin to justice than help it. But Kevin's fans should be tickled pink -- as pink as one of Lenny's shirts.

Dispatch from Deutschland: the phony letter from the "GIN Council"
Speaking of possibly crapping on the cause of justice -- that is, if you define justice as stopping Kevin Trudeau -- an email went out this past Monday from a German -- ahem -- email address, gincouncil at ks-reifenservice.de

Being severely German-impaired, I can't quite figure out exactly what sort of site
ks-reifenservice.de is -- "reifenservice" literally means "mature service" -- but I'm thinking that the email address is one of numerous proxies utilized by Loony Lenny Coldwell. The writing "style" of the email certainly has Loony and his sidekick Peter Wink written all over it. I'm sure Peter tried to make it literate, but then Loony popped his semi-literate, oddly capitalized and poorly punctuated prose into it before sending it.

Dear GIN Members & Affiliates,
You may be aware that some revealing news stories have been released revolving around KT and his ongoing legal issues.

Here are the most recent two for your knowledge...

http://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/Prosecutors-Want-Kevin-Trudeau-to-Pay-Up-209283781.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lgnPnnZvYNw

Further ---

On May 21st, 2013, our founder and leader KT, appeared in Federal Court in Chicago.

Here are a few of the highlights...

- KT pleaded the 5th almost 400 times.
- His former attorney Marc Lane is being ordered into federal court this month to explain his role in a possible scheme to hide monies from the FTC. (Substantiated by the FTC through numerous undeniable emails.)
- Millions of dollars, presumably from our GIN funds, were used to pay Marc Lane and various other attorneys.
- Kimball Anderson (KTs latest lawyer), attempted to stall proceedings by submitting hundreds of pages of new documents. It did not work and did more harm than good.
- FTC showed public documents proving all Trudeau-owned companies are bankrupt including GIN.

- The next phase is for Marc Lane and KT to appear in Federal Court in Chicago later this month for what is called an evidentiary hearing. It appears that the Judge (by his admission) feels that the two executed a scheme to hide funds from the FTC. Disturbingly, there are emails to back up this claim. This undoubtedly spells trouble for our organization. It is possible that this could have a major impact on our ultimate survival. To counter, you may have noticed we are moving our operations overseas --- as well as all monies.

On top of the FTC case, KT is also facing a Federal criminal contempt case this month in Chicago with Judge Guzman. This one is actually more serious than the FTC case. KT stated at his VIP dinner in Las Vegas that he will go to jail and that it is only a matter: If he goes for 2 years or for 5 years to jail.

The Director of Finance Michael Dow stated in his Deposition that GIN lost over 66% of its members within the last couple of month [sic] and told the FTC all the really bad things about KT and his [sic] that his Wife ( mail order bride ) is the sole owner of GIN Natalia [sic] Babenko, Basically he confirmed that Gin in [sic] Bankrupt.

It also came out that KT never was a member of any secret society and has no secret knowledge of anything.
His CD set Your Wish is Your Commend [sic] - was also not taped in the Swiss Alps It was taped in Chicago in a studio year [sic] before GIN for a different purpose.

While it is impossible to predict the outcome of either case, it goes without saying that this kind of publicity will have an impact on the future of Gin. The reality is that if we are not able to retain the services of our founder KT, our survival is more than in question. We are also in the unfortunate position of defending attacks from people that are very angry that KT claimed to be a multi-millionaire, and has now admitted he is broke, and officially filed bankruptcy. Because it has been revealed that we are bankrupt, we are looking into the legalities of being able to collect any more dues from members. There are laws prohibiting organizations from collecting monies from people, after the organization has revealed they are financially bankrupt. For now, we are going to keep collecting your dues and sending your money overseas. We fear that there will be no future payments to you since KT stated in court that Gin ( owned as the only owner by his wife Mail Order Bride, Natalia [sic] Babenko ) is broke and unable to pay it [sic] bills.

We don't want to leave you in the dark about the fact that now the FBI and the IRS are very interested too.

On behalf of Gin, we apologize for putting your monies at risk. We are afraid that some club members that still sold Memberships after it was out in the open that it was only based on Fraud, Deception and False Advertisement, will have to answer to the law too. Over 1 million dollars in charge backs have been also proof of the massive fraud. Over 5400 complaints to the FTC are speaking volumes.

We will keep you updated on future developments.

Sincerely,
Gin Council
Cheers and pop the Champaign [sic]
Amazingly, the email, as semi-literate as it is, got enough people concerned that they contacted the GIN leadership about it. One of the leaders, GIN exec director Lee Kenny, has tried to do a little damage control by reassuring the worried ones that the email contained mostly falsehoods, and that, among many other things, GIN operations are still in Chicago and are staying there; that GIN is not bankrupt; that the chargebacks are under 1%, which is in keeping with the industry standard; and that GIN's merchant processor and banks are all happy with GIN's financials. There's a lot of info in various court documents, including the Dow depo, that would make me question the accuracy of Lee's statements -- and that's putting it mildly.

But no matter what you may think about the GIN leadership, GIN, or Kevin Trudeau himself, that "GIN Council" email was pretty stupid and transparent. And don't think that the GIN leadership aren't fully aware of who is behind it. Nice try, Loony and Peter.

Tim weighs in
I'll wrap this up by sharing some thoughts from my friend Tim Donohoe, who has been so helpful in providing research tidbits for some of my blog posts. (He gave me permission to quote him.) On a Facebook forum earlier this week, Tim wrote:
I just had the chance to read [the Michael Dow deposition]. It seems that kt's defense(s) [when speaking to the ABC reporter], "So what if I did [spend GIN money on myself]" and "I was helping out friends and family" [Kevin's explanation for why so many businesses are in his wife's or other people's names] could prevail in this case. I can't imagine a GIN member accepting the fact that kt was using GIN funds to support his parents and several empty houses but I can see how kt can win this part of his case with this.

For instance, the entire argument that kt spent a huge sum per month on his rented house in Chicago and leased Bentleys was blown out of the water by the testimony of Michael Dow. Dow testified [in his deposition] that the current CEO of GIN is now living in that house, therefore it is GIN's property and not controlled by kt at all. Sucks that GIN spends this much on luxury for its CEO while not paying bonuses, but it certainly proves that GIN controls the money and not kt.

I can see why Abe and Lenny are keeping this one [mostly] under wraps right now; even Lenny understands that this testimony is exactly the opposite of what he wanted. Another funny thing about the [depo] is that the withheld pages are the pages following a mention of Peter Wink
[see my comments about that, above. ~ CC]. I wonder if Wink realizes that he can void his immunity from prosecution if he lied... And it is very unlikely that an unsophisticated boob and pathological liar like Wink could tell lies that hold water during an investigation of any kind. He's no kt, after all.

In another communication, Tim had this to say about the contents of the Dow deposition:
Looks like a lot of plausible deniability for KT... That seems to be the tactic employed by Team Trudeau: let the FTC push and feel like it has a weapon to use, then pull a rabbit out of a hat to derail them and force them to prove something else before they can use their weapon.

The contempt trial was their big club; on June 3rd [Kevin was supposedly going] to jail for contempt [
that was actually the day that the criminal contempt trial was originally scheduled to begin ~ CC].... but wait, Kevin filed bankruptcy [on
22 April, 2013] which makes the contempt impossible, but they have to prove kt is not bankrupt before they can prove he is in contempt. Thus wasting more time, requiring more lawyers and costing more money. Plus the bankruptcy hearings can be derailed at every turn and no Federal judge is going to risk denying kt a fair hearing by making a decision on his own.

He doesn't care if they prove he isn't bankrupt because Dow's testimony gave them 50 new pieces of evidence they can use to derail the proceedings. I assume they will use them one at a time, requiring weeks of work on behalf of the FTC for each and let the FTC prove what they can prove. At which time he will pull out inconsistency #2.

No matter what evidence they have from previous hearings, Kevin has 48 more stunts ready to go. He probably welcomed them to bring GIN into this since he set it up just for this purpose at a time when he knew they had this fine hanging over his head. The miscalculation he made was how much GIN would make. He planned to use GIN to hide his other assets and maintain his lifestyle safely out of reach of the FTC, but when GIN started raking in money above what kt could spend, he needed to scramble and spend or hide it.

Additionally it looks as if he is using Marc Lane, Michael Dow, and whoever else as roadblocks and nothing else. He set it all up in the beginning with nobody knowing all the moving parts and everyone knowing they were up to no good, so no matter how hard they try to shift the blame to Kevin, he still has plausible deniability and several layers of protective ignorance before they pin anything concrete on him.

This also explains why he hasn't said a negative word about Wink, Lenny and Abe so far
[except when asked directly, and then Kevin has been very circumspect. ~ CC]. They are his parachute if things get desperate. Mistrials, influencing the court, local news stories trying him on TV without the facts. Plus if he gives them credit for the demise of GIN he can blame them for being bankrupt in the US. He can claim that they ruined GIN and GIN is now in the red so it COULDN'T be a source of income for him. He can claim all sorts of prejudice based on Lenny's own words. For instance, Lenny [has claimed that] kt owes him 20 million dollars, I am sure a good lawyer could translate that into reasonable doubt about Lenny's motives, especially when Lenny's lies are so easily documented. Get that Nazi twerp in front of a judge and ask him about his education, past career, life in Germany, Frontal21 [the German TV investigative show that exposed Coldwell as a phony back in 1999], police reports, etc., and THEN ask him what he thinks of Kevin's integrity. I rest my case already.

In summation, evidence is worthless when there are so many levels of deception, layers of protection, and stupidity from adversaries. Kevin is not trying to prove he is innocent in any way, so evidence is just more opportunity for his lawyers to delay and change the subject. What he is trying to do is befuddle and annoy them into submission so they will accept a miniscule settlement for his guilt. The FTC has already spent [millions of] dollars trying to collect 37, and kt is just getting started. If he can push that number past 50 the FTC could get the 37 million and still lose. KT's next book (published in Nevis) will be about how crazy the FTC is.
Indeed, Kevin said in his June 6 vid that if he goes to jail he will write a book while imprisoned, and will emerge victorious and stronger than ever. He asks us to just imagine the book, the movie, the TV shows that will result from the tale of his long struggle, as told by him.

* * * * *
I will concede that taken as a whole the court docs may provide a more realistic perspective of Kevin's legal troubles and possible fate than you'll generally find on Abe's Facebook page or vids, or in Lenny's rants. I came to this conclusion some time ago and have, as you may have noticed, even backed down on my own predictions on this Whirled, except for my usual mantra that there will be no neat and tidy endings. That is pretty much a no-brainer prediction.

As one of Kevin's diehard fans has pointed out to me more than once, the publicly available court docs still do not tell the whole story. Of course they don't. That is something we all need to keep in mind. Nevertheless -- and here is where I agree with Abe Husein and countless other ex-GIN and ex-KT fans -- the docs we have seen do have some pretty damning information, and in my view they paint a more solid picture of Kevin as a clever, scheming liar who is indeed shuffling/hiding funds.

But Kevin may very well get away with little more than a slap on the wrist, and he may very well find a way to continue to run his scams and schemes, even if he has to live outside his beloved US for a few years. That is pretty much my mindset now. although I am watching and waiting and willing to adjust my views as more info comes to light. However, my basic opinion of KT and GIN has not changed in years -- and is not likely to do so, no matter how long this saga goes on... and on... and on... and on.


* Here are a couple of examples of what I meant when I wrote about Michael Dow being caught "fluffing up" his resume, and being forced to kind of admit as much during his deposition:
  • Page 61, lines 23-25:
    Q. On -- I believe you mentioned in your résumé,your LinkedIn résumé, that you're also involved in financial planning activities. Is that right?
    A. It was -- it was my hope.
  •  Page 16, lines 11-16:
    Q. You indicate here [on Dow's Linkedin page] that you do your accounting functions for an organization with 10 entities generating revenues of over 100 million.
    A. The hundred million was my estimate of what -- where we were going to go. We never hit a hundred million while I was there.
###

More True-dough on this Whirled:

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Monday, June 03, 2013

Lenny's ladies' camp: Worst. Idea. Ever.

It's not enough that a few months ago, Loony Lenny Coldwell and his sidekick Peter Wink targeted vulnerable women who are in abusive relationships. Now Loony, the former Bernd Klein of the Republic of Germany (German passport name Bernd Witchner), is advertising self-defense classes for "ladies" as young as fourteen.

Maybe he can teach them
how to defend themselves against filthy alleged forcible fondlers.

This is beyond disturbing.