Court To Scammer, "Give Up Your House Or Go To Jail" 152
coondoggie writes "Too many online scammers get away with what amounts to a wrist-slap, but a case if Las Vegas this week seems to be heading the right direction. According to the Federal Trade Commission, a business opportunity scammer has been held in contempt for the second time by a federal court and ordered to turn over the title of his home in Las Vegas or face jail time. The court found that the operator of the scam, Richard Neiswonger, failed to deliver marketable title to his home, in violation of a previous court order entering a $3.2 million judgment against him, the FTC stated. The FTC charged that the defendant deceived consumers with false promises that they could make a six-figure income by selling his 'asset protection services' to those seeking to hide their assets from potential lawsuits or creditors."
Re:My scheme really works!!! (Score:4, Informative)
problem. This is contempt of court. He stays in jail until he complies. Contempt of court is the only thing that can legally get you sent to jail indefinitely without a jury trial in the US.
case background (Score:5, Informative)
The FTC has an archive of case materials [ftc.gov]. Looks like a complaint was brought in 1996, and he settled in 1997, which included agreeing to a permanent injunction. The FTC brought another complaint in 2006, got a temporary restraining order, and a finding of contempt of court in 2007. The 2007 filing [ftc.gov] is the one that instituted a $3.2 million fine and ordered Neiswonger to turn over title to a specific residence in Las Vegas as part of paying it.
It's not clear to me if that's his primary residence or a secondary one. Usually primary residences are shielded from civil judgments. If it's a secondary one, this case isn't unusual at all, since ordering a 2nd home to be sold to pay a judgment is common. If it's a primary one, I'm not sure if the rules are different because it's a contempt proceeding. (In theory it seems the rules might also be different for even primary residences purchased with ill-gotten money, but none of the complaints seem to allege that specifically.)
The FTC also has a slightly more detailed version of this news [ftc.gov], fwiw.
Re:My scheme really works!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Civil contempt means that the person who is locked up holds the keys to the jailhouse doors in his or her own hands. Comply and be freed. Stay defiant and stay locked up. If you don't like it, you can appeal.
Courts wouldn't work without civil contempt sanction.
In Jail without trial [Re:My scheme really works!! (Score:5, Informative)
Contempt of court is the only thing that can legally get you sent to jail indefinitely without a jury trial in the US.
No, in fact, the (former) president of the United States stated that if you are suspected of terrorism, you can be held without charge indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, and without any right to challenge the fact that you were so designated (or even to see any of the evidence used to designate you a terrorist.)
For example, Jose Padilla was a U.S. Citizen, picked up on U.S. territory, and put into solitary confinement without being allowed to see talk to a lawyer and without any charges against him. On September 9, 2005, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled that President Bush indeed has the authority to detain Padilla without charges, in an opinion written by judge J. Michael Luttig.
So, no, contempt of court is not the only thing that can legally get you sent to jail indefinitely without a jury trial in the US.
Re:Absolutely... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In Jail without trial [Re:My scheme really work (Score:3, Informative)
Good thing the current President has changed all that [wsj.com]...
(Note: First news link I saw when I Googled it. I'm sure there are plenty better ones out there.)
Re:Not really... (Score:3, Informative)
The fuck it was. That has been bullshit from day ONE.
What caused the problem was Wall Street and the Banks. Speculators had NOTHING to do with it. Don't for a minute keep spreading the lies about how regular people, the speculative investors, caused our current economic crisis. It implies that there is not a group of people who have gotten away with murder, and are continuing to do so at this very moment. Those investors have been destroyed 99/100 times. They have lost their shirts and have most certainly been punished. The big shots on Wall Street and the Banks have not even had a dent in their lifestyles.
That's like complaining about the fly's causing you discomfort and blaming everything on them while giving a free pass to the asshole in the corner slinging his shit out that attracted the flies in the first place.
What DID cause the real estate bubble and the corresponding crash was .... SECURITIZED MORTGAGES . Wall Street was greedy with an insatiable appetite for taking thousands of loans and packaging them up as commodities to be bought, sold, and traded. Worse yet, more often than not, title was not properly preserved throughout each sale. Quite a number of savvy people have maintained ownership of their homes by demanding a TRO during the foreclosure and actual proof that the people appearing in court were the same people that had the mortgage note. Deutsche Bank is the biggest culprit of this bullshit and there are quite a number of instances in which those securitized mortgages were sold to multiple people at the same time.
Obviously, only so many responsible mortgages could be created. Greed is what caused Wall Street and the Banks to start creating more and more reckless loans to people who could never qualify. It's called fucking loan fraud. Of course, those same speculative investors were also lying about owner occupied, but what about the regular people who were not?
There were people that through ignorance and slick salesmanship were sold loans when their current debt ratio was 40 to 50 percent. That was at the start of the loan. I have seen some cases where the interest rates rose after the first 2-3 years so much that the debt ratio exceeded 100%.
Those speculative investors could not have affected the market in any way, shape, or form had it not been for the availability of stated income fraudulent loans. Those loan origination companies would give you a loan as long as you had a pulse. They had to do it. The enticement of the origination fees and pushing the problems forward, and the incredible pressure from Wall Street to keep providing those securitized loan packages with 10+% rate of returns.
NO. It was not the investors. Take a good long look at CitiBank, Countrywide, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merril Lynch, etc.
The longer you keep spreading those ignorant lies (probably not your fault) the longer you let those demons get away with their actions.
It needs to stop.