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."
Haha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Can anyone else see the irony in the seller of "asset protection services" to "hide assets from potential lawsuits" failing to hide his assets from potential lawyers?
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't give him a choice, take everything AND put him in jail...
Not really... (Score:5, Insightful)
think about it - if his service actually worked, he wouldn't have been prosecuted for running a scam :)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't say if the scammees get their money. (Score:5, Insightful)
What I tell friends and family and anyone who wants to listen: consider all unsolicited emails as scams. The same for telemarketers - if you're on the DNC list, then those people are breaking the law by calling you which makes them criminals. You don't want to do business with criminals, do you?
Junk mail a lot (too many) of times are crooks too - you know the "checks" that come in the mail for you to deposit and send money via Western Union to others.
Some day, one of these assholes is going to scam the wrong person and they may end up wishing they've gone to jail.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
He's going to be in need of "ass" protection (Score:3, Insightful)
...once they ship his scamming ass off to Federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison.
Re:case background (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Educating consumers, I believe is a lost cause. Not for lack of effort mind you. In the words of the amazing Ron 'Tater Salad' White, "You can't fix stupid".
All we as a society can do is punish this guy (appropriately) and make sure we keep our laws up to date with technology.
Remember kids there is a sucker born every minute.
Debtors Prison (Score:1, Insightful)
While scumbag scammers need to go to jail, they should go to jail for being scumbag scammers.
It sounds like they couldn't get this guy for a real crime, so they decided trump up fraud charges and fish out people who fell for the scam and enter a judgment of $3,200,000.00 against him.
That's fine. If the fraud charges are valid they'll withstand appeals. If he covered his ass with "results not typical" and etc., then he should win the appeals.
The move to hold him in contempt of court until he pays up is a thinly veiled attempt to put him in prison ("justice" for his non-criminal crimes) while he works on further appeals. If he hands over the deed and otherwise pays up, it'll bankrupt him so he can't afford to proceed with further appeals.
Courts have way too much power in regards to putting you in jail if you can't afford whatever it's been decided you owe.
People need to pay their debts, and cough up for actual damages, and courts should have the power to take your assets if need be. But a lot of judges act like 12 year olds with an @ sign on IRC and abuse thier power to no end in order to shoehorn their idea of justice in.
The typical bullshit is "Pay up or go to prison. Your choice.". When a person can't pay (see 95% of "deadbeat dads"), prison isn't a choice - it's a jail sentence for a private debt that should be settled between the parties in arbitration and, if necessary, asset valuation and seizure.
That's some old world shit we were supposed to have left behind.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that as soon as you make a monetary system idiot-proof, nature goes and creates a better idiot.
Re:Selling illegal services? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not all forms of asset protection are illegal:
1. A Prenuptual agreement is technically a form of asset protection. Putting assets into some forms of trusts for dependants or descendants is also. In general, when there's a marriage or a child involved, or a business partnership, a second person's rights to privacy may mean a creditor has at best limited rights to know about assets, particularly ones they also can't legally claim. In the ordinary course, there shouldn't be legally shielded assets that a creditor could somehow legally claim if they only knew more about them. But there are often legally shielded assets that the creditor either believes aren't really shielded or that the creditor would try to take if he or she could get the debt resolved that way. If you've heard the phrase "Possession is nine tenth's of the law", maybe that explains how legal asset protection actions are possible.
2. One reason for people to form LLCs is having multiple income sources. For example, if you run a dog grooming clinic and an auto repair service, separate limited liability corps are a perfectly legal way to limit damages you can be sued for. A lawsuit effectively can't take more than the related S-corp's total assets, So if you were, for example, sued for an inadequate repair job, they can't garnish the money that comes from the dog grooming business. Note that there are ways to get around this sometimes if the case rises to criminal negligence or there's other proof the corporate structure was itself intended for criminal purposes, but the basic idea here is legal.
Re:Not really... (Score:3, Insightful)
why does the judge even need the Title. If a court orders it forfeit, can't they just issue something like a "court's lien" to the county department of deeds... the feds seem to do it all the time with no trouble.
Re:I don't see the actual *crime* here... (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, but if you knew the intent of the person wishing to find those bomb-making instructions, and you help him anyway, wouldn't that make you an accomplice to the crime?
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well they are profiting from crime.
Re:Not really... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what I find interesting. Delivering marketable title seems to mean that he has to pay off all the liens. That may not even be possible for him given the current state of things.
He could simply sign over his existing "ownership" of the property to the court. There are plenty of real estate deals in which the loans are preserved, but the person paying them changes. I forget right now what that was called though.
However, AFAIK, judges have the power to effectively transfer ownership. So why all this drama? It does not make any sense. I guess I might be missing something here.
If the judge wants money, why not just ask for money directly?
Even if title is delivered there is no fucking way on God's green Earth that property is worth 3.5 million dollars still. This guy probably got a loan with 10-20% down at most, so how can the court:
A) eliminate other lien holders to get access the full value of the home
B) Sell it for more than 10% of what it is worth?
C) Justify him giving millions of dollars to the bank to get the title, when he can just give those same millions directly to the court?
P.S - A very high end subdivision with a golf course recently had 2 million dollar homes being sold for 300-400K. According to some published reports out of 600 approx. properties worth more than 1 million dollars in Vegas, ONLY six sold so far in 2009. Just no way for the judge to get any money out of that home. It was never there...