Some investment fraud schemes sound crazy, but leave just a enough truthful-sounding bits to catch people. But Thomas Lawler’s scheme sounds completely bonkers. He established the Freedom Foundation to offer investors the chance to erase their debts and collect lucrative profits through the purchase of “administrative remedies”.
Never heard of profit-making “administrative remedies”? Lawler can sell you the secret.
Lawler investigated the banking system and discovered the startling “truth.” At birth, we each have an account established in our name. When you borrow from the bank, you are actually borrowing your own money that resides in your account. For a mere $1000, Lawler will prepare notices to the creditors, using the Uniform Commercial Code, international admiralty law, and papal decree to cancel the debt.
At least that is according to the SEC’s complaint. I checked out the Freedom Club USA website to find more information. The website is a big collection of crazy.
Here is a snippet:
The Vatican created a world trust using the birth certificate to capture the value of each individual’s future productive energy. Each state, province and country in the fiat monetary system, contributes their people’s value to this world trust identified by the SS, SIN or EIN numbers (for example) maintained in the Vatican registry. Corporations worldwide (individuals became corporate fictions through their birth certificate) are connected to the Vatican through law (Vatican to Crown to BAR to laws to judge to people) and through money (Vatican birth accounts value to IMF to Treasury (Federal Reserve) to banks to people (loans) to judges (administration) and sheriffs (confiscation)
The website includes ramblings about a lost 13th amendment to the Constitution, the illegality of the 1040, the Cosmic Time Plan, and an audio recording from the Prime Creator.
In sorting through the crazy, it’s hard to tell if it’s a securities fraud issue. It’s certainly a fraud. Anyone giving money to this kind of full-blown crazy is throwing their cash away. It sounds like Lawler may be selling a service and not an investment. There is too much crazy on the website for me to discern what Lawler is actually selling.
You can look to the Howey four-part definition of an investment contract. There is certainly an investment of money and the reliance on others. There is a reasonable expectation of profits. Cancelling debt is income, so the SEC can probably get over that hurdle.
But I’m not sure there is a “common enterprise.” Lawler’s scheme seems more like fraudulent credit reduction scheme than a securities investment.
Sources:
- SEC Charges a Self-Proclaimed Ordained Minister in Georgia and His Company with a Fraudulent Offering of Securities
- SEC Complaint against Lawler and the Freedom Foundation
- SEC Enforcement Update – A busy (and entertaining) week, July 28 – August 1, 2014 by Jay Gould in the Investment Law Blog
- Freedom Club USA (International) the truth shall set you free
Image of Insanity by Albert Einstein by Marla Elvin
CC BY SA
“Securities fraud” does seem like a stretch. The FBI describes this particular form of crazy as “strawman” or “redemption” fraud, which is linked to the sovereign-citizen movement (http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud/fraud#redemption). It’s a close cousin to a recognized tax-evasion strategy: both suggest that the government and legal systems are fundamentally illegitimate but contain exploitable loopholes, and both are based on the concept of a fictitious, administratively created doppelganger corresponding to each real person. It’s supposedly this fictitious person (the “straw man”) through which entities such as the IRS try to control you, but–once someone shows you the way, perhaps for a modest consideration!–you can “redeem” your straw man in order to wipe out debts, access secret funds, spite your enemies, etc. It works about as well as you might expect, but holds great appeal for black-helicopter, underground-militia types.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s good that the SEC is trying to shut him down. I just don’t think they have subject-matter jurisdiction.
Lawler is so over the top I can’t believe that anyone actually falls for this scam.