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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

SLEAZY COME, SLEAZY GO: MISS FORTUNE'S 2013 YEAR IN REVIEW!



The year started with a whimper and ends with a big bang!

Although they're not listed in order of importance, they are your girl Miss Fortune's favorites.

Michael Moore Files For Divorce

Miss Fortune scooped the world's entertainment press and broke the news on June 24 that Michael Moore had filed for divorce from Kathleen Glynn. In an update that appeared on June 30, Miss Fortune reported that Moore had hired attorney Joseph Aviv, an expert in handling splits for "high net-worth individuals". 

While Moore spends his time shambling around his 17th floor apartment at the Bromley on West 83rd Street in New York City, Miss Fortune hears that Kathleen Glynn is quietly spending time with friends and family here in Michigan.

You go, @torchlakegirl! Miss Fortune will be the first to volunteer for the Kathleen Glynn Film Festival.

Craigslist Scammer David Lee Hunter Captured!

The State of Michigan's Department of Corrections calls you #890892, but you'll always be El Davo the Hunted to me!

From that first little story on December 26, 2012 to the moment I heard Judge Rodgers sentence you to 23-60 months in prison, it's been a perverse Harlequin romancea story so convoluted even Lifetime TV would laugh at the screenplay.

The crazy train pulled into its last stop on the morning of October 25 when Miss Fortune witnessed Hunter's sentencing hearing.

With his shaved head shining like the top of New York's Chrysler Building, Hunter withstood Judge Rodgers' withering take on his character. Echoing Hunter's attorney's comment, Rodgers allowed that he had read "wild, unsubstantiated statements" in Hunter's version of the events.

Rodgers listened as the kleptopath Hunter launched into a convoluted tale of how he was simply working "to make his victims whole". Hunter revealed his ignorance of commonly accepted past participles while admitting to Rodgers that he "couldn't stop the web I had weaved from unraveling".


Weave on, little man, weave on!


Fugitive Michigan Welfare Cheat Craig S. Gibson Discovered in Colombia; Accused Miss Fortune of Artificial Dissemination

Gibson's December 14, 2011 Wedding
Welfare cheat Gibson is the former owner of  Versatile Mortgage Funding Company and previously an area real estate agent. According to State of Michigan's business entity records, Gibson also operated Versatile Debt Management, an unlicensed debt management firm he ran out of 801 S. Garfield in Traverse City--otherwise known as mailbox #310 at the UPS Store.

Here's where it gets a little confusing (by design, I suppose): Gibson was neither licensed as a mortgage broker or a debt management company and the debt management arm of his corporation was simply an assumed name.


The former Long Lake Township resident faced felony charges in 2012 after authorities said he duped state officials into providing nearly $17,000 in undeserved welfare benefits.


But Gibson never showed up for a meeting with DHS investigators. He'd already flown the coop--to Cali, Colombia!

Miss Fortune tracked Gibson to Cali, and discovered that he'd remarried and spends his days lounging poolside while running a number of specious online businesses.

In July, Gibson reached out to Miss Fortune and accused her of artificial dissemination. He never responded to my email when I asked him to remind me just who he was and what he did.

What a kidder! 



Dr. Bruce Langlois, The Seriously Twisted Story of a Registered Sex Offender Traveling Veterinarian


MDOC photo
What Dr. Bruce Langlois won’t tell you when he meets you in the back of his Spay Neuter Express van is that he’s a registered sex offender, with lifetime supervision by the State of Michigan as a two-time loser...but Miss Fortune will!

Dr. Bruce's story was told in this March 29 post with the help of his official 173 page criminal and license violation history.

Can't we let someone ever live down the mistakes that haunt them, and allow them to move on with their lives and contribute to society?

Oh, hell no! 

(No wonder Dr. Bruce hates Miss Fortune.)

Traverse City's Northern Express: "Tales Of Miss Fortune"


Your girl Miss Fortune, shown in a Northern Express photo at left (the clothes were borrowed but the roots are mine), was featured in the November 4 edition of the weekly newspaper. 

I'm pleased the story didn't make me look like a loony crank--I can do that very well all on my own.

Thank you to Patrick Sullivan for the story...and my first paparazzi photo.





Chris Paganes and Ship4Charities.com

What do you do after you burned hundreds of hedge fund investors for millions of dollars, been permanently barred by the SEC from the securities industry and declared bankruptcy?

Well, if you're Detroit-area resident Chris Paganes, you start again.

And if starting again means a new scheme, then Bob's your uncle!

Paganes, a former associate of Robert "the crooked chiropractor" Buckhannon (more about him below), is running Ship4Charities.com, a so-called "charity" website that claims to give a portion of its revenue to a number of Michigan-based charities. 

However, a five-part investigation series I wrote established that Paganes' claims are built on sand.

In 2011, the SEC accused Paganes, his business associate Robert Buckhannon (based at the time in Las Vegas, but now a Battle Creek resident and owner of the Smoldering Embers Sports Bar), five cronies and an investment firm of duping investors out of $34 million by bankrupting two hedge funds and skimming more than $16 million off the top. The SEC complaint said the men "looted and bankrupted the hedge funds by steering millions of dollars to themselves."

Defendants Buckhannon, Terry Rawstern, Dale St. Jean and Gregory Tindall were the managing members of two Bradenton, Florida-based hedge funds, Imperium and Vestium.

Aided by Paganes, defendants Richard Mittasch and Glenn Barikmo and Imperium Investment Advisors, the gang "commingled investor money from three separate offerings and then looted and bankrupted the hedge funds by steering more than $15 million into loans and other deals with companies in which they had undisclosed financial interests" the SEC complaint said.


In November 2011, Paganes was ordered by the SEC to “disgorge $650,000 and and prejudgment interest of $90,339.19 and to pay a $650,000 civil penalty".

Paganes and his wife declared bankruptcy on November 30, 2012. Paganes' debts were officially discharged on June 13, except for his SEC fines and penalties.

Here are the links to my series on Ship4Charities:

Part 1: Shipping With Benefits

Part 5: The Final Chapter?

Robert Buckhannon, Battle Creek's Newest Con King!

Did I call it or did I call it? 

Yup, I called it! On June 13, I posted my first story about the man I dubbed "the crooked chiropractor" and speculated that he could become Battle Creek's newest con king.

And while he's been in the news somewhat over the last couple days--wait, you've heard about the fire at the On Deck Sports Bar and Grill, right?--you really don't know dick about Rob.

In December 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed suit in federal court in Tampa, Florida, against the crooked chiropractor Robert Buckhannon, and codefendants involved with two now-defunct Bradenton, Florida-based hedge funds, Arcanum Equity Fund LLC and Vestium Equity Fund LLC.

The SEC said the funds, which worked with investment advisor Imperium Investment Advisors LLC, told investors they would earn handsome profits through conservative investments.

Instead, much of the money was misappropriated, the SEC alleged in its lawsuit.

The defendants from early 2008 through April 2010 "commingled investor money from three separate offerings and then looted and bankrupted the hedge funds by steering millions of dollars to themselves,'' the lawsuit alleged.

For instance, the SEC said Buckhannon was involved in a deal to steer $6 million in investor money to Shea Mining and Milling LLC for a project called the "Tonopah Mine.'' Buckhannon, however, didn't disclose he had a conflict of interest because he was a founder of Shea Mining and planned to enter into an employment contract with Shea and receive a share of the firm's revenue, the SEC alleged.

The SEC also complained Buckhannon had funneled at least $390,000 of investor money to himself, his father, two brothers, his fiance's cousin and a friend. 


The SEC said in August 2008 he wired $60,000 out of a fund account to a jewelry store for the purchase of an engagement ring for his fiance and in July 2009 he wired another $80,000 to a title company for the down payment on a Las Vegas home.

"Buckhannon knew he was not entitled to these funds because he asked the funds' controller to classify these personal expenditures as business expenses of the funds without any reasonable basis for such classification,'' the SEC lawsuit alleged.

The suit said the defendants told investors in 2009 the funds were profitable when in fact they had lost $8.1 million in 2008 and 2009.

"Buckhannon knew the monthly account statements and newsletters (sent to investors) were false because he simply made up a monthly percentage return figure and reported it to the Vestium Management Group consultant who prepared the funds' monthly statements,'' the lawsuit alleged.

Buckhannon, Terry Rawstern, Dale St. Jean and Gregory Tindall were the managing members of the two Bradenton, Florida-based hedge funds, Imperium and Vestium.


And if you visited the On Deck Sports Bar and Grill before the roof collapsed, you may have enjoyed a signature cocktail courtesy of the crooked chiropractor.

That's right, there actually was an Arcanum & Vestium Cocktail on the On Deck menu.

Your girl Miss Fortune suggests a better name may have been "Fuck You, Investors"--made with Angostura bitters, of course.

PER WICKSTROM: SCIENTOLOGIST, RECOVERY PIMP...AND FORCED LABOR ENTREPRENEUR

Per, Per, Per...did you honestly think I'd forgotten about you? After all the shizzle about you I stirred up? And all the shizzle about to hit the fan in 2014?

Dude, you are this year's Numero Uno!
 
If I had to choose one story that I'm particularly proud of, it would have to be "Per Macht Frei", which revealed that Herr Wickstrom was cited by the State of Michigan for violating the human rights of AFR and BDR clients paying upwards of $25,000 for drug rehabilitation by forcing them to clean the facilities—without payment for their labor.

And you thought it might be time I revealed you hired a convicted bank robber as a Best Drug Rehabilitation security guard? Or the story I wrote that exposed the convicted felon who was Director of Security at BDR? Or the drug trafficker that spent 11 years in federal prison and became a security guard at BDR? 

Or the time I refuted your hollow boast to State Senator Randy Richardville that "we've just opened up in South Bend", when your paperwork is delinquent and incomplete.

Or maybe you though I'd choose the story I wrote about Richie Almstead, who let a Tranquility Detox staffer slide and skip a scheduled drug test after he'd been using crack?

Oh, wait, I know! You probably though I'd choose the story the exposed the truth about your appearance on "COPS"...it didn't happen!

OK, I know which one you'd pick!

The time I revealed that you told the Wright Township audience that BDR was "non-denominational" when a few months before BDR's website carried the Narconon logo!

Nah!

The "Per Macht Frei" was the best, even though I couldn't shoe horn in a Pol Pot reference.

Merry New Year, Per.

Uneasy is the head that wears the crown...even with hair like yours!



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