The Second Fraud Film Premiere

Thu, 5 Aug 2010 13:32:31 -0500

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Second Fraud: A Ponzipalooza will be screening at the Uptown Theater on August 25th at 7pm. Those who RSVP on the site get free passes. After the screening there will be a panel discussion with Thane Ritchie of Ritchie Capitol Management, Author James L. Merriner and others. Come see the film BANNED by Minnesota television!

Read more at TheSecondFraud.com

Lawsuit filed against the Star Tribune by the Stop The Petters Scam Foundation...

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:05:55 -0600

MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Stop The Petters Scam Foundation, a Minnesota non-profit corporation, today filed a lawsuit against the Star-Tribune Company alleging breach of contract and related charges, and against 30 unknown "Doe" defendants for interference with contractual relations and related charges.
The Foundation's lawsuit asserts that the Star-Tribune "admittedly was pressured by certain unidentified persons to abruptly stop the publication" of a series of 15 advertisements that it had contracted to publish. Although the Star-Tribune agreed to run all the ads and accepted payment for them, it "apparently succumbed to pressure from as yet unknown powerful interests, and breached a fully executed oral agreement and abandoned its journalistic obligation to educate and enlighten its readers," the lawsuit states.
"Ultimately, this lawsuit is about the value of free speech in America," said Garrett Vail, president of the Foundation. "The Star-Tribune concedes that they received pressure to halt our ad series. The public has a right to learn what's been going on in the handling of the Petters assets. Somebody doesn't want us to continue asking questions and raising embarrassing facts. We intend to identify who pressured the newspaper, and hold them and the Star-Tribune accountable."

Read more at PRNewsWire.com

Local Twin Cities blogger mentions launching of SecondFraud.com

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:15:05 -0600

Tom Petters has been found guilty of masterminding a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme for more than a decade. Justice has been served…but has it?
What happens to the victims of Petters’ crimes, those who invested in the legitimate pieces of his empire? Where is their money?

The man appointed to protect their interests is Doug Kelley. Incidentally, Doug Kelley is the very same man retained by Tom Petters himself following the FBI raid of his offices in 2008. It doesn’t end there. Doug Kelley was also appointed bankruptcy trustee for PCI and PGW. In the Bernard Madoff case in New York these roles were filled by three different people. There are clips from the documentary on the website.

Read More at Blog by Avidor

Controversial ads by Stop The Petters Scam Foundation published in the Pioneer Press...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:46:59 -0600

It was in September of last year that Deanna Coleman revealed to the FBI that her boss, Tom Petters, was running a huge scam. Within weeks, Petters was under arrest and his financial empire was in ruins. Looks like fast action by the authorities. In fact, the feds !rst heard serious allegations about Petters’ frauds 10 years ago. Maybe it’s easy to say, in hindsight, that law enforcement officials should have been more on the ball and gone after Petters then. Or maybe, according to some people involved at the time, they really
have no excuse.

Garrett M. Vail is a lawyer in Mahtomedi with a specialty in bankruptcy litigation. A local bank hired him in 1999 because a borrower had defaulted. After investigating, Vail decided that the debtor, along with an accomplice debtor, were fronts for Petters.

Vail scheduled Petters to make sworn statements, routine in such cases, but Petters didn’t show up and a bankruptcy judge declined to make him do so. At that point, Vail says, “I contacted the FBI, going through these documents, showing the notes… the transfers and the misrepresentations” and so forth. Some of the investigators had little understanding of basic finance. “At the end of the four-hour interview the young FBI agent says to me, ‘I got one question for you: What’s a guarantee?’”

So Vail went to the newly elected Hennepin County Attorney, Amy Klobuchar, now a U.S. senator. Klobuchar already was looking into the cases of the two debtors in default. Klobuchar filed no charges against Petters, but put one of the debtors in jail as a swindler and a deadbeat dad.

That’s hardly the end of law enforcement’s contacts with Petters. One of the recently confessed felons who laundered money for Petters was taking government payments the whole time. Larry Reynolds, it turns out, is really named Larry Reservitz, a one-time mobster who was under the federal witness protection program. The feds had set Reynolds up with a new identity and a monthly stipend while he laundered billions of dollars for Petters under their noses.

Besides Deanna Coleman and Larry Reynolds, who else must have known what was really going on?

FOX 9: Stop The Petters Scam Foundation's ad campaign and upcoming documentary (See video)...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:48:45 -0600

MINNEAPOLIS - Now that Tom Petters is convicted of running a $3.5 billion investment scheme, many are wondering what happen to all the money and if investors will get it back.
Open up the Pioneer Press and you'll see the quarter page ad, 'Where's the Money? Part eleven. The “where’s the money” ads were created by Bill Hillsman, who says no one is following the money trail. "A lot of money ends up in the coffers of government and the professionals but very little money getsback to the people who were really victimized in these situations," Hillsman said.

"Where's the money refers to where's the 3.5 billion dollars that they government says went out the window," says Garrett Vail. Vail is a bankruptcy attorney who's the front man behind the Petters Scam ads, but he won't say who's paying for the ads or a slick website, laying out the complicated web of key players in the Petters drama. Including Doug Kelley, the court appointed receiver in charge of selling Petters assets and raising money for victims.Kelley is keeping a book with the ads so he can follow what's being said.
"I think they are riddled with lies and false innuendos," Kelley told Fox 9.

The ads question how Kelley, a former assistant U.S. attorney got so much power in deciding how Petters’ assets are distributed. Allegations also made in a lawsuit filed by Ritchie Capital Management, a Chicago-based hedge fund that lost $100 million in the Petter's Ponzi scheme. The endgame is who will be first in line to get Petters assets, whether they're big time hedge funds, or the small investors. Kelley says regardless, they're all in for a long wait. "This has been a transparent receivership and we have done right by them and we're not finished yet and we ask for their patience." Kelley said.

Read More at Fox 9 website