ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

[Tednewsom]

Ted, I think you had best stick to playing it straight and avoiding comedy and/or sarcasm, since you don't do either well.

Now, that hurts. PS. It's been five minutes and it no longer hurts, but it hurt at first.

If you really want to bother to check, I believe that you will find that the only one making any real noise about the Receiver getting paid or how the Receiver is getting paid is Grimmy. The rest of us live in the real world and know how these things work, and both myself and Observer have previously commented on the not at all salubrious news that the Receiver has chosen to get paid by the hour rather than on commission.

Quite right, it is grimreaper who still conjures the spectre of a greedy Receiver nabbing all the dough to pay his operating costs, and you & observer grumbling that said Receiver wants to get paid hourly-- assuming there's even enough money to cover those expenses. But I never understood anyone's objections to a third party -- charged with figuring out everything about a 17 year criminal scam, a massive, expensive and time-consuming assignment -- getting paid, whether it's a percentage, or hourly, or piecework. What are the options? Working for free out of the good of their hearts (as sarcastically suggested by some unfunny guy above)? Charging the public for it (ridiculous, considering this is a private, not a public matter.)?

[The Observer]

...[A]nd you & observer grumbling that said Receiver wants to get paid hourly...

First off, it is not the receiver who wants to be paid hourly - it is the attorneys handling the litigation for the receiver who are asking to be paid hourly.

Secondly, all that notorial dissent, Gregg and I have said in commenting on the above is that it implies that the attorneys expect to collect more money on an hourly basis than on a contingency basis, meaning that they don't have confidence that the litigation is going to result in large payouts.

Finally, the fact that we have made this observation does not mean we are "grumbling." Nor does it mean that we are "cheering", "clapping", "grousing", or having any other emotional feeling about this particular result. We are just pointing out that this is merely more evidence that, contrary to what grimreaper has been saying, this Ponzi scheme, like most Ponzi schemes, is going to result in minimal recovery for the victims.

But I never understood anyone's objections to a third party -- charged with figuring out everything about a 17 year criminal scam, a massive, expensive and time-consuming assignment -- getting paid, whether it's a percentage, or hourly, or piecework.

I can understand some people' objections, if they are based on pure emotion and are tied up in this mess. But the problem is that the people that you are claiming to be objecting to the reimbursement of the receiver's office are not objecting to it. We have no emotional investment in this situation, we are just sharing our experience and knowledge on what can and is likely to occur.

[Lost Income]

Would you prefer a "lazy", slower, full accounting of what actually occurred before sentencing so sentencing could be appropriate?

Or would you prefer a "rushed", faster, mistaken filled accounting of what's occurred such that might actually end up with the case being dismissed and the guys not only walking free now - but in the future as well.

Personally - I'd rather they walk free now and spend time in prison later then manage to avoid any prison time at all because the case was so badly managed.



Are you kidding me!!!! The crooks have been caught red handed and admitted to the crime. These guys did not grow a ponzi biz that made them lots of money for 19years, because of dumb luck. So while our lazy legal system continues to allow their living on the street and an angry investor has yet to beat them to death, they've had plenty of time get their financial affairs in order and the Receiver is earning himself money to retrieve table scraps. So currently the investors are the only sufferers in all this.

[Hyrion]

Personally - I'd rather they walk free now and spend time in prison later then manage to avoid any prison time at all because the case was so badly managed.

Are you kidding me!!!! The crooks have been caught red handed and admitted to the crime.

No, I'm not kidding. Yes, they were caught and pled guilty.

And all they are awaiting - as I understand the situation - is to be sentenced.

The sentencing will have a minimum and maximum possibility and various mitigating factors in play. I give the situation - and those making the decision with regards when to sentence - the benefit of doubt that it hasn't cleared sufficiently for the Prosecution to identify all mitigating factors that would increase the sentence.

I would rather they be walking free today instead of serving a 6 year prison sentence if it means a potential 15 year prison sentence tomorrow.

That doesn't mean that they'll get a longer sentence once all the mitigating factors - like fully how much was stolen from the net losers - have been identified as there is the possibility there won't be anything to add that isn't already known.

But whether they go to prison today or tomorrow for a 6 year sentence doesn't have as much importance to me as the situation would if they get off with a much lighter sentence because the full mitigating factors that would add to their sentence was not identified. And yes, avoiding prison time is a possibility in sentencing unless the Laws for the crime identify a mandatory minimum prison sentence.

I'm sure any of the regulars here that have worked criminal Law will correct me on any of my points if I'm mistaken in my understanding.

[Lost Income]

Your're not considering their age, because at their age even a six year prison sentence could kill them (assuming an angry investor doesn't do that before they reach prison). So meantime the crooks continue living life and enjoying plenty of time to get their financial affairs in order, while the Receiver earns money struggling to retrieve any meaningful monies for investors, and all the legal people involved earn money the longer the obvious drags out. All for what, to ensure a couple old farts with serious heath problems get a long prison sentence...big deal.

[notorial dissent]

AS I understand it, and I may well be wrong, the law as it is currently written REQUIRES that the size and scope of their crime be taken in to full consideration at sentencing, and from what I can see they still don't really have a handle on that. The bigger the dollar amount the longer the sentence. I really don't think either of them is going to walk out of prison, and again here I could be wrong, since I haven't seen the sentencing guidelines for something like this in a long time. A lot will also depend on the judge, although I don't think this one will be in the least bit charitable. Health issues have also been an (real)issue. The other factor, is that their lawyer is apparently trying to mitigate the possible time to be served by quibbling over who was cheated and who wasn't, which is part of what he is being paid for.

I can understand the anger and frustration, but the plain fact of the matter is that this farce is actually moving with fairly good speed for what I have seen on some of these. The civil end of this is pretty cut and dried, and for the most part over for the "boys", the criminal part could drag on for years, I don't think this one will, but I couldn't hold my breath either for anything major before the first of the year the way things are going. Also bear in mind that the civil restitution should be included in the sentencing and that will finalize it. The civil part for the "investors" isn't even close to over, but I have no idea where it is going at this point.

The nasty part of this one is that the records were such a, as Webhick puts it, clusterbunny that it is taking forever to just figure out what happened. To me it appears that a great deal of money was siphoned off, at least over time, into various affiliates, rat holes, and getting an accounting on that seems to be taking a great deal of time.

We still haven't seen any kind of from and to accounting to Oasis yet, and until we do it means they are still looking. The other telling factor, at least to me, unless i have missed it, is that they haven't sent out the tax reports yet, and that is usually almost the first thing that is done after the initial papers go out. That it still hasn't happened, almost a year now past due date, is telling and concerning.

[Lost Income]

Thanks for your logical input here.

If the Receiver can't force them to tell where the money went (or is at) and how the rat holes are organized, how can they be expected to pay for restitution? In fact where are they getting money to live on and pay attorneys for all this time?

[The Observer]

If the Receiver can't force them to tell where the money went (or is at) and how the rat holes are organized, how can they be expected to pay for restitution? In fact where are they getting money to live on and pay attorneys for all this time?

Those are good questions, LI, and I wish there were answers we could give you. So far there has not been a lot of information provided in the little that has been provided by the receiver's office, and I suspect much of that is because of the horrible record-keeping that passed for accounting at NASI. The other reason for the lack of information is based on whether Joel and/or Ed cooperated. You are correct that our fine-feathered scammers cannot be "forced" to tell anything about their current finances or how much money they pilfered and if so, where they stashed it. The court, of course, will take into consideration the extent of Ed's and Joel's "cooperation" on this point when determining a sentence. But if even a minimal sentence means that these two will most likely die in prison, there is little incentive for them to "cooperate" and tell where the money is. You could hope that their consciences might kick in and want to make amends, but I fear that they lack one, given that they were able to perpetuate this scheme for 19 years.

It is going to take experienced and expensive detective work to track down where the money went to. You are right to presume that there is not a good chance of court-ordered restitution being met by Ed and Joel under the best of circumstances. And if the assets that Ed and Joel pulled out were strictly cash, it is going to be very difficult to trace where it went to. This is why the longer the receiver remains silent on the issue of the final accounting of NASI, the more pessimistic I am about recovery from the scammers.

The fact that Ed and Joel are able to retain lawyers would suggest that they have a sizeable amount of money or assets to sell or borrow against. But again, unless someone is building a financial profile and securing credit reports of these two, it would only be speculation as to where those funds are coming from.

[Hyrion]

Your're not considering their age

I don't recall anything governing due process that would mean they are required to be sentenced before a full accounting of what they've done has been established.

Perhaps you can point out aspects of the Law - whether in the actual code or in case history - where the older a person is, the quicker they should be sentenced even without a full accounting of what has occurred.

You still haven't answered the core question, let me ask it this way:

• If they were already sentenced, and because a full accounting was not done it resulted in only 6 months in prison or a suspended sentence: would you be any happier with the Legal system?

You feel what's going on is due to "lazy" - not being thorough, or one of a dozen other reasons like being overwhelmed with other criminal work - but because the Legal System is being lazy.

• If, due to haste, the two only received a 6 month sentence, would you be any happier or would you feel it was a miscarriage of Justice?

[notorial dissent]

Part of the sentencing requirements should be the "boys" cooperating with the Receiver to recover what they can. That doesn't mean it will happen. As bad as their records were they may not know where and how much a lot of it went. Just my speculation, but unless they actually were keeping two sets of books, one considerably better than what they left behind, they probably don't know where it all went. Everything I have seen about Oasis so far is that it is/was a money sump, it went in and went somewhere else pretty quickly. The current operator is not by report exactly cooperating at all, and their books seem to be about on par with NASI's. As near as I can see the main business of Oasis was playing games with money and property that it may or may not have ever owned, kind of reminiscent of certain ATM's. The only thing that could have been worse would have been a movie production company.

I have to go along with Observer on another factor, about where the money went, since nothing has been said, and having reconstructed at least some of the check book, I have the sinking feeling that a lot of the money that went missing went bye bye as cash, which means tracking it is going to be a bear. They are probably going to have to get a forensic financial detective to trace the rest of it, and I don't know if that is going to be even remotely cost effective.

Again, I have to take the lack of the tax filing, more complete financials, and a more complete accounting as not a good indicator.

[Lost Income]

HYRION

Please stop defending Joel & Ed and the legal system, they are crooks that ruined many lives and so far they continue to get away with it. At this point, I'd be happiest if the legal system stopped farting around and beat them repeatedly until they got satisfactory answers to all these unknowns.

[Hyrion]

Please stop defending Joel & Ed and the legal system

I'm not defending Joel & Ed.

I am defending a Legal System - specifically the prosecution - that takes it's time to get it's ducks in a row before proceeding with sentencing.

It's very telling you choose to completely ignore the key question of whether you'd be happy with Joel & Ed only serving a 6 month sentence. Of course you wouldn't be happy with that.

You want immediate gratification with them serving a long sentence without the Authorities actually having anything to back up that long sentence. However, that's a recipe for a nice appeal to overturn the sentence. And if that's overturned and they get sent up for 6 months because it was still rushed without the full accounting of what they've done:

• Again, you'd be unhappy!

If you disagree with the alternatives I've identified, then please list another alternative to the Prosecution awaiting sufficient detail to proceed with sentencing so Joel & Ed get what they deserve without it ending up being overturned on appeal.

I'm sorry if you've lost a LOT of your retirement income on the situation. I'm sorry if you're angry and frustrated because the authorities have not yet imprisoned the duo. But rushing it is not going to end up making the situation better for you and the rest of the victims.

[Lost Income]

Further to above....

These crooks have been smart enough to grow this ponzi biz and make money for 19yrs, avoid jail while finding money to live off of and retain lawyers, and keep the Receiver off balance....so don't think for a minute that these crooks do not have the resources to permanently disappear while our legal system is limping along.

[Hyrion]

Further to above....

These crooks have been smart enough to grow this ponzi biz and make money for 19yrs, avoid jail while finding money to live off of and retain lawyers, and keep the Receiver off balance....so don't think for a minute that these crooks do not have the resources to permanently disappear while our legal system is limping along.

Totally Agreed!

But they'll still "walk away" if the sentencing is rushed, is unsupported by available evidence, is appealed and drastically lessened to a point where the currently available evidence supports.

I put "walk away" in the context above in quotes because if they get even a 3 year prison sentence, it's far less then I'd say they deserve.

How I feel about the matter doesn't change the reality that the available evidence of wrong-doing must support the sentence provided.

[Tednewsom]

Yes... and yet they haven't fled. Weird. What to make of that? Confidence in their own confidence games? Assumption they can bullshit their way through prosecutors' and the Receiver's determination? Stupidity? Expired passports?

It would be cool if they had an epiphany that they've wronged thousands of innocent people, stolen futures and lives from strangers, and decided to admit all their wrongdoing, flood the good guys with information on where the dough went and turned over the Cayman Islands bank account numbers, and then calmly accepted their just punishment, plus got buttbanged a few hundred times by a big smelly guy named Bubba for about ten years, who'd occasionally rent them out to Levon in the Laundry Room for Friday night live shows.

However...

[The Observer]

At this point, I'd be happiest if the legal system stopped farting around and beat them repeatedly until they got satisfactory answers to all these unknowns.

That would be a great improvement to the legal system - until the day that someone in the legal system mistakenly thinks you are involved in a crime and decides to beat you repeatedly so that you provide some satisfactory answers.

I don't think Hyrion is defending Ed and Joel. I think he is defending our legal system and I think it is about the best we have in the world. It is not perfect, but it is what we have and has allowed us to survive and succeed as a society for over 200 years. I understand that this is not the answer you want to hear now. As a victim, the most important thing to you is knowing that these two criminals have finally have justice served upon them. You also want to know how much of your money can be recovered and how soon that will be. Those are events that I would like to have happened already, but they haven't. The old saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly is particularly true in this situation.

I would suppose that the health problems of Joel(?) have been one reason for why the sentence has not been handed down. And built into the system of sentencing is the right of the defense and prosecution to request delays in the sentencing while they prepare their reports for the court. Judges tend to grant delays in order to avoid any possibility of an appeal being granted for reversal of the sentence and to ensure that the defendant had adequate time to prepare and respond. And I would not be surprised if our two crooks have taken advantage of this period of time in order to delay reporting to the grey bar hotel as long as possible.

There has been a restraining order in place for a little over a year against Ed and Joel from moving or transferring assets of theirs. It wasn't in time to prevent Ed from paying off the mortgage on his house and transferring it to his wife's name. It isn't out of the realm of possibility that during the two or three months prior to the TRO being issued, that Ed and Joel had time to move assets out of the immediate reach of the government. If there are assets out there that are not on the government's radar, realize that the TRO is not going to be effective against these. It will take further litigation to put these assets back into the name of Gillis, Wishner or NASI - if they are located. This is why I and others have been consistently reminding the victims that recovery will neither be simple, quick or significant.

[The Observer]

Yes... and yet they haven't fled. Weird. What to make of that? Confidence in their own confidence games? Assumption they can bullshit their way through prosecutors' and the Receiver's determination? Stupidity? Expired passports?

They may have been required to turn in their passports. And if they haven't, the government may have already put their names into the Customs database so any attempt to leave the country will be noticed. I have mentioned before that, given the age of these 2, escaping is not really an exciting attractive option. Too many countries have extradition treaties with the US, some countries don't want our felons coming to them, and as for the countries that don't care, they expect big bribes or are just to dangerous to consider moving to. Joel and Ed may be counting on their age and health as being factors that may cause the court to hand down lenient sentences or at least getting a cushy place to serve their sentences in the Club Fed system. It will also allow them to be in contact with their families on a periodic basis, which is far better than trying to spend Christmas with your family while hunkering down in Mozambique.

[Lost Income]

This is not about whither these guys are innocent or not because that's obvious, its about the legal system failing to find sufficient assets after 19 yrs and failing to keep these guys off the street to prevent their further financial manipulation. I too wish the system could do better, but apparently it can't, so at this point if the system had no choice but to beat it out of them they would well deserve it and I'm confident we'd have more info in 15 minuets than the Receiver will ever find. So even when things are obvious, our legal system is not so great. At this rate, this will end with the crooks families finding money to live well off and the crooks going to jail just in time to die there soon after.

[Tednewsom]

Or they get religion and invoke the Law of Return, living happily on the beach in Haifa in their twilight years, occasionally flying their families over for the holidays. Both would qualify, and would certainly be as embraced just as Meyer Lansky was.

Note to Lost Income: a well-planned kidnapping and electrodes applied to the testicles works wonders to get people to talk.

[Judge Roy Bean]

... So even when things are obvious, our legal system is not so great. At this rate, this will end with the crooks families finding money to live well off and the crooks going to jail just in time to die there soon after.

A reality check is in order here.

This isn't the crime of the century, let alone the decade.

As yet, we have no evidence that would support some kind of "dynastic" family criminal legacy.