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Several of you have posted comments about receiving checks from the US Treasury, referencing the Dickwad Duo.  Okay, maybe they didn’t print that on the check.  Maybe.   These checks are very likely not related to the Receivership but related to the restitution.  I checked the docket a few hours ago and there is no mention of the Receiver filing a plan to pay the victims.  Also, the Receiver filed the eleventh report today and there is no mention that payments have been issued. You may recall that the criminal case concluded with not only prison time, but also a combined restitution of $124,542,945.55 – meaning that between the two of them, they need to pay all that back to the victims.  To the best of my knowledge, they can garnish a portion of prison wages, monies dropped into their prisoner account, and SSI (although prisoners can’t collect while incarcerated) for restitution. I don’t have much information beyond that.  I don’t know what’s been garnished or seized, nor do I know if or when more checks will be issued. All I can say is, <sarcasm>don’t spend it all in one place.</sarcasm>

Clawbacks The Receiver has managed to recover $28,969,711 from 164 net winners, with another $984,379 due in payments.  So we’re looking at close to a $30 million recovery…on IIRC $125 million in losses.  There are another 100 demand letters still out there and there are 16 cases still in court. ATMs There are now only 158 ATMs still in service.  Remember, we keep losing them because contracts expire and the ATMs are too expensive to replace or because they’re just too old.  Honestly, guys, this ATM business is dwindling.  We’ve lost almost half of what we started with.  And there’s no mention of a sale, not that I expect to be one. Oasis/Fiji/Studio Maui The Receiver seems determined to go after Oasis to sell of any viable assets as well as get back large amounts money that Oasis wrongfully took from NASI and Oasis.  They have been dragging their feet with the paperwork, only sending part of what was requested and the Receiver offered them a settlement.  They did not bite and now the Receiver is suing them.  As for Studio Maui, they only have four trailers, which I gather are all crap.  Richmand (Studio Maui’s principal) agreed to purchase

Holy crap.  Nearly 6 months behind.  I think we can do most of this in one post.  I’ll cover the what’s left of the criminal case and then cover the three Receiver’s reports that have been released.  I’m also temporarily removing the “By the Numbers” page so I can have a chance to update all the numbers. When we last saw the Dickhead Duo, they were freshly incarcerated and we were awaiting the restitution hearing.  Well, the hearing has come and gone and Ed & Joel owe $124,542,945.55 in restitution combined. The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Receiver’s reports were filed.  To date, he Receiver has settled with 41 Net Winners and has recovered $13,924,461.03 with another $2,375,571.86 due in payment arrangements and $1,690,000 in settlements pending court approval. In the The Receiver states that he has sent another 36 demand letters. The percentage of settlements vs the amount of letters sent is 52.6% and 12 complaints have been filed.  The higher the percentage, the better.  Since there are 36 letters outstanding, 50-ish% is really good.  The percentage of cases filed vs total claims is only 15.8% and the rate of active cases vs the total claims is 3.9%.  The lower

The Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator now shows that Ed and Joel are both in custody. Ed’s registration number is 68555-112 and he is currently residing in Terminal Island FCI, a low security prison in San Pedro, CA. Joel’s registration number is 68556-112 and he is currently residing in Lompoc USP, a medium security prison in Santa Barabara, CA with adjacent minimum security camps.  I’m not sure if Joel’s staying in the camp or not.  Medium security seems a little high for a white collar crime.  If he’s staying in the camp, then he’s got a bit easier than Ed, since low security has more security than medium.  

Just in on the Quatloos forum, per an email from the AUSA and posted by Lost Income: Defendants Joel Gillis and Edward Wishner were sentenced today (November 16, 2015) to the following: Gillis: 120 months imprisonment, followed by 3 years of supervised release Wishner: 108 months imprisonment, followed by 3 years of supervised release A restitution hearing has been scheduled for February 1, 2016 at 10:00 AM before Judge Otero, courtroom #1, on the 2nd floor of the U.S. Courthouse, 312 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. the notification system will be updated after the restitution hearing. The court ordered the defendants to surrender to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons on December 28, 2015. So, Joel got 10 years and Ed 9 years.  Given their ages, these sentences may result in life in prison. That’s a far cry from the 2 years in prison and 3 years supervised release that they both wanted.  If you’re looking for where I mentioned that before, I didn’t.  Joel and Ed posted their take on the whole situation in two separate documents and I was slowly chipping away at responses but missed the boat on getting it done before sentencing.  Crap. 

I apologize that this update has taken so long.  I’ve been pulling between 50 and 60 hours at work a week and the shifts keep bouncing around.  We’re all zombies. The Receiver’s fourth report is fairly short this time around (as is the legal report), mostly because it seems that they’re just continuing to chug along doing what they’ve been doing  There have been some developments to report on though. There are now 205 ATMs in use and 36 not in use because they’re outdated or need repairs.  Didn’t the Dickwad Duo say that their ATMs were top of the line or something?  Ah, surprise!  More bullshit. ATM income increased in the 2nd Quarter and the Receiver thinks that it’ll be about the same for the 3rd Quarter.  The Receiver is actively seeking to sell.  Cardtronics and National Link were initially interested but now the Receiver is in talks with a different buyer. They hope to complete the sale by the end of the year.  This will decrease the amount of monthly income the receivership takes in, but it will also cut back on the expense of operating the ATM business. The Receiver is continuing to figure out which equipment

First off, sentencing has been rescheduled until November 16th at 9AM.  Read on though, there was some drama leading up to it. Joel’s lawyer (obviously with Ed’s lawyer’s consent) attempted to push the date to mid-December.  There’s a heavy amount of whine in that document, which starts off with how they need more time because there’s just so many documents to review.  Apparently, Joel met with the Probation Officer for a Pre-sentence interview.  At that interview, Joel gave the Probation Officer his version of the amount of loss.  I find this a bit funny.  The Dickwads didn’t keep any records but Joel magically has a full loss “analysis.” Those are sarcastic finger quotes.  It was probably done up in crayon on a bar napkin using some unauthorized version of new math.  Considering that Joel thinks that the government hasn’t properly accounted for returns on investments made to corporations and trusts, etc, I’m not sure what the hell he’s trying to pull. Anyway, Joel also gave reasons why he thinks that he deserves a departure from the sentencing guidelines.  Since I doubt he’s arguing for a worse sentence, he basically stated why he thinks he should be punished less.  If you

Joel & Ed’s sentencing has been rescheduled to September 21st. In a document filed May 21st (I really need to start checking these dockets more frequently), Ed’s lawyer, in agreement with Joel’s lawyer, tried to push the hearing to December 14th. There was a short list of what they call “declarations,” which I like to call “excuses with some random statements:” The discovery in the case exceeds 137,000 pages and is likely going to grow; the amount of losses will factor into the sentencing, and that still hasn’t been fully realized; both the boys continue to cooperate with the government; Ed is 76 years old, not in good health had a stroke in March of this year and their probation officer would have to file a less thorough report (which I can see as a problem). The government sent in their opposition, basically saying that December was too damned far out and instead recommended a more reasonable September 28th. And then the court shaved a week off and went with that.

The receiver’s site is a little behind on uploading new documents.  I know because I checked Pacer late last night and sure enough, the receiver filed his 3rd report on May 27th, and the second round of billings on June 7th.  I pretty much blew through the last of my $15 free Pacer usage for the quarter downloading them.  The last fifteen days of the month are going to be tight on the downloads, folks! So why the fatalistic title?  The fees actually went up.  UP.  This time around, the receiver had to spend a lot of time getting the tax forms out and trying to get a handle/their hands on the Relief Defendant’s stuff.  The Relief Defendants seem to be more complicated than previously thought.  Initially, only Oasis was really mentioned but now there’s at least six other related companies coming up in these filings.  They finally got Keller (of Oasis) into a deposition in March and it really helped locate assets.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like they’ve cooperated much beyond that. ::sigh::  I’ll update the By the Numbers page with the new figures early next week.  The way I set things up on my spreadsheet isn’t meshing as

I spent a considerable part of yesterday evening sipping drugstore Merlot, binging on the Almighty Johnsons and playing with numbers.  After a sober re-read, I present a new blog page – By the Numbers!  That page will be updated with new figures as they become available.  It’s mostly speculation, but we don’t have much more than that to go on.  And I’ll be saving all the drafts of the page so we can all laugh (or cry) about how wrong my figures have been.