Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
This is a short update to keep you posted on our activity. After sending out the update last week of our rejection by Timothy Morrison to consider Airleaf's action a "crime" in Indiana, 128 of you responded to date that you will sign a petition to request the reversal of that decision, and 53 of you sent me a notice that you emailed Mr. Morrison to voice your objection to his decision. If you haven't had time to respond to the petition, please drop me a note as soon as possible so I can add you to our list. If you haven't sent your message to Mr. Morrison, please take a moment to do so at USAINS.Webmaster@usdoj.gov, The more of us who stand up, the more powerful our case will be.
On Tuesday, I will send out a press release to the Indiana news media about our case. I will announce the launching of my new site www.IndianaWelcomesCrooks.com which you can now click into and read. I have also had our Airleaf Victims website with your stories redesigned to look more professional. You can view it at www.AirleafVictims.com. I want to make sure that our message is heard loud and clear.
Last Sunday, I sent a letter to the 83 state legislators in Indiana. In addition, I sent the letter to the Governor's office, the Senators and Congressmen. It stated:
Dear (Indiana Legislator),
My name is Bonnie Kaye. I am the organizer of the Airleaf Victims group which can be seen at www.AirleafVictims.com. There are over 600 authors in our organization who were defrauded of over 2 million dollars by Airleaf Publishing in Martinsville, Indiana until we forced it to close through stopping its cash flow by exposing its fraudulence. In spite of our pleas for help to the agencies in your state which are there to protect people from consumer fraud, no action was taken to stop the company from operating until after the fact. Last May, your Attorney General handed down a half-million dollar judgment against the company from a cohort of 120 of our authors. The owner, Carl Lau, is declaring bankruptcy, so there will be no restitution. We pushed for retribution by requesting this man be punished for criminal charges. For 18 months, I worked with the FBI and Postal authorities presenting case after case of criminal action on Airleaf's part. On Friday, I was informed by the FBI that your U.S. Attorney, Timothy Morrison, has decided that our case doesn’t constitute “criminal action” in Indiana. My members, many of whom are elderly and disabled victims, are in shock.
The FBI and Postal authorities presented hard core evidence of criminal action by this company. Mr. Morrison has decided it’s not worth his time to pursue the case. This is unacceptable to our authors from this country and other countries who are victims of one of the largest predatory publishing scams in American history.
I am appealing to you as an elected official of Indiana to ask Mr. Morrison to reverse his decision. I will be coming to Indiana from my home in Philadelphia with other victims in June to present him with petitions from our group. As a result of the inaction of your state government, another company, Jones Harvest Publishing in Bloomington, IN, has set up a second publishing scam and has robbed hundreds of authors of their money. Brien Jones, the owner, was the Executive Vice President of Airleaf who left in 2007 to set up his own scam. You can see that site at www.JonesHarvestFraudVictims.com. This decision by Mr. Morrison only allows crooks like this to keep stealing money from honest and vulnerable people.
We plan to make this a national publicity campaign if we can’t find justice in your state. Please help us. Some of our authors are your constituents, and you owe it to them to fight against this injustice.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at Bonkaye@aol.com or call me at 215-288-6959.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
Out of the 89 letters I sent, two state reps responded to date telling me that it is not the job of the state senators and representatives to handle this. I guess in Indiana, it isn't anyone's job.
I wrote a letter to my predatory publishing guru, Victoria Strauss, of Writer Beware! asking for her support in having other authors send petitions to express their support of our case. Victoria was very gracious, as always, in printing my letter in her blog yesterday. You can read it here:
Writer Beware Blogs!
I have had six authors respond already stating they will sign petitions to support us. Therefore, I will have a second petition for authors who are not part of our Airleaf group who want to support our cause. When I speak in Connecticut next month about predatory publishing at the CAPA University event, I will ask authors to sign the support petition.
I believe that if we stand up together, we can make a change in this wrongful decision. If we don't stand up, we will be known as "victims" in history. If we fight back, we will be remembered as "victors." We are a group of winners--and we will show this to the government of Indiana.
With love and hope,
Bonnie
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Indiana U.S. Attorney Timothy Morrison's Refusal to Bring Criminal Charges Against Airleaf Publishing
Dear Airleaf Victims,
I am writing this letter to you in great sadness, disgust, and anger. On Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from our FBI agent who was investigating our case. He felt obligated to call me personally since we have worked so much together over the past year and a half to compile a criminal case against Airleaf Publishing and Carl Lau, the owner. He told me that the U.S. Attorney’s office, headed by Timothy Morrison, has decided not to proceed with our case to bring criminal charges against Airleaf and its owner, Carl Lau. Naturally, I was in shock.
He explained that according to the criminal law statutes in Indiana, the U.S. Attorney’s office did not feel that our case constituted criminal acts. I’m glad I was sitting down when that call came in or else I may have fallen directly to the floor. I told him that this is UNACCEPTABLE. We can account for over 2 million dollars that has been stolen from us—and plenty more from other victims that never found their way to our group. I went over all the fraudulent acts—the never booked cruise that people paid for, the book reviews paid for while the books sat under Carl Lau’s desk, the authors’ royalties that were collected long during and long after Airleaf closed that went into Carl Lau’s private account, the trip to Germany that people paid for while Carl Lau sat in his office playing computer games and telling the staff to tell authors what a successful time he was having, the Lite Stone pretend movie site where authors were told their books were in production or pre-production as movies, and the list went on and on. The FBI agent was on our side. He investigated the case, has piles of files, interviews, computer records, and actual testimony from former employees attesting to the fraudulence. He and the Postal Inspector know we are right, but somehow, Timothy Morrison, the U.S. Attorney can’t equate these actions as criminal.
I told the FBI agent that I am in the process of collecting petitions so I can deliver them myself to Mr. Morrison in Indiana in June. Now, more than ever, we need to speak out and demand justice so we don’t have to remain victims anymore. I want to be able to change our name to the Airleaf Victors rather than the Airleaf Victims.
If you haven’t responded to my request to sign the petition yet, please email me and let me know that you are willing to do this. If you live in or around Indiana and you can go with me, please let me know. I intend to make this a media event to embarrass the government of Indiana into action.
My site www.IndianaWelcomesCrooks.com will be up by next week. I will make sure to send that to the media as well. I will notify you next week when it is up so you can view it.
This is a slap in the face to all hard-working authors who invested hard earned money in a dream that was nothing more than a money-making scheme and con game. It sends a message to the other predatory publishers like Jones Harvest that nothing will happen if they keep stealing money from people. For those of you who live outside the United States in countries including Canada, the UK, Australia, and Scotland, I send a big apology on behalf of our government that allows this fraudulence to go unpunished.
Here is a copy of the email I sent to Mr. Morrison yesterday:
Dear Mr. Morrison,
I was informed by the Indiana FBI today that you will not be following through with our case of fraud against Airleaf Publishing. I want you to know that I and the members of group find this totally unacceptable. I have provided the federal authorities with more than enough evidence proving criminal fraud. We have nearly 600 members who are part of our group from the United States and other parts of the world who have been robbed of our money, hopes, dreams, materials, and dignity. There are hundreds of more victims of this company that haven't found their way to us yet. Just within our group, the money stolen is in excess of TWO MILLION DOLLARS.
We want justice against Airleaf Publishing and Carl Lau, the owner who not only took our money while he was in business, but continued to steal our royalties after he closed his company for many months to come.
By allowing this crime to go unpunished, you are sending out a message to the other predatory publishers that continue stealing money from unsuspecting authors that it is okay to perpetrate fraud in Indiana without getting punished.
We are committed to finding justice against this fraudulence. I will be coming to visit you in Indiana in June to present you with petitions from our victims with their stories. We will contact every government agency in your state asking them to intercede on our behalf. We will also contact your local media and the national media to bring attention to this injustice. We have been patiently waiting for a year and a half for justice, but now you have decided not to help us find it.
This is a true disgrace, Mr. Morrison.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
Organizer, Airleaf Victims
I would appreciate it if you could send an email to Mr. Morrison this week letting him know about your disgust in his refusal to help us. His email address is:
USAINS.Webmaster@usdoj.gov
Tell Mr. Morrison that you are a victim of criminal fraud. I have provided the Indiana government with a ton of information that proves our case. If what happens to us doesn’t constitute fraud in Indiana, then Indiana needs to change its laws. Please take a moment to send Mr. Morrison an email telling him that you do not agree with his decision and request a reversal of his decision. Let him know how violated you feel after being robbed by a company in his state and then feeling doubly victimized by his decision that it is not a crime.
Please send me a note if you do this so I can track how many people have sent a message. It can be a short note just expressing your outrage, or a note stating your story. The important thing is to let him know we want action, not dismissal in this case.
The government of Indiana is counting on our discouragement to make us feel defeated, hoping we will throw up our hands in surrender. They want us to walk away from this issue as some as you have told me to do. A handful of our authors told me to give up—“we can’t win. It’s not worth the fight.” But I don’t agree. I think about the hours, days, months, and years of anguish so many authors went through, and how their lives were forever changed by losing their hard earned savings to a greed and fraudulence. I think of the whole new group of over 70 victims of Brien Jones at Jones Harvest who is now laughing and telling people the government of Indiana doesn’t do anything while he continues to re-victimize many of our original Airleaf victims and a whole new group of unsuspecting authors who fell for his bait. This decision will give him the green light to keep hurting authors.
We need to stand up for ourselves and our dignity. If you have not sent back your response to being part of our petition campaign, please do so AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. To date, I have 72 responses. We need a lot more to make this a cause that won’t be forgotten. Please write to me at Bonkaye@aol.com to let me know you are willing to join our team of Airleaf Victims No More, so we can become Airleaf Victors.
I will have the petition ready by the end of the week and send it out to all of you who are on my list. You will be able to either email it back to me or send it back to me by mail.
Let’s not give up. Thank you for your support and words of encouragement.
With love and hope,
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed., Organizer
www.AirleafVictims.com
www.JonesHarvestFraudVictims.com
I am writing this letter to you in great sadness, disgust, and anger. On Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from our FBI agent who was investigating our case. He felt obligated to call me personally since we have worked so much together over the past year and a half to compile a criminal case against Airleaf Publishing and Carl Lau, the owner. He told me that the U.S. Attorney’s office, headed by Timothy Morrison, has decided not to proceed with our case to bring criminal charges against Airleaf and its owner, Carl Lau. Naturally, I was in shock.
He explained that according to the criminal law statutes in Indiana, the U.S. Attorney’s office did not feel that our case constituted criminal acts. I’m glad I was sitting down when that call came in or else I may have fallen directly to the floor. I told him that this is UNACCEPTABLE. We can account for over 2 million dollars that has been stolen from us—and plenty more from other victims that never found their way to our group. I went over all the fraudulent acts—the never booked cruise that people paid for, the book reviews paid for while the books sat under Carl Lau’s desk, the authors’ royalties that were collected long during and long after Airleaf closed that went into Carl Lau’s private account, the trip to Germany that people paid for while Carl Lau sat in his office playing computer games and telling the staff to tell authors what a successful time he was having, the Lite Stone pretend movie site where authors were told their books were in production or pre-production as movies, and the list went on and on. The FBI agent was on our side. He investigated the case, has piles of files, interviews, computer records, and actual testimony from former employees attesting to the fraudulence. He and the Postal Inspector know we are right, but somehow, Timothy Morrison, the U.S. Attorney can’t equate these actions as criminal.
I told the FBI agent that I am in the process of collecting petitions so I can deliver them myself to Mr. Morrison in Indiana in June. Now, more than ever, we need to speak out and demand justice so we don’t have to remain victims anymore. I want to be able to change our name to the Airleaf Victors rather than the Airleaf Victims.
If you haven’t responded to my request to sign the petition yet, please email me and let me know that you are willing to do this. If you live in or around Indiana and you can go with me, please let me know. I intend to make this a media event to embarrass the government of Indiana into action.
My site www.IndianaWelcomesCrooks.com will be up by next week. I will make sure to send that to the media as well. I will notify you next week when it is up so you can view it.
This is a slap in the face to all hard-working authors who invested hard earned money in a dream that was nothing more than a money-making scheme and con game. It sends a message to the other predatory publishers like Jones Harvest that nothing will happen if they keep stealing money from people. For those of you who live outside the United States in countries including Canada, the UK, Australia, and Scotland, I send a big apology on behalf of our government that allows this fraudulence to go unpunished.
Here is a copy of the email I sent to Mr. Morrison yesterday:
Dear Mr. Morrison,
I was informed by the Indiana FBI today that you will not be following through with our case of fraud against Airleaf Publishing. I want you to know that I and the members of group find this totally unacceptable. I have provided the federal authorities with more than enough evidence proving criminal fraud. We have nearly 600 members who are part of our group from the United States and other parts of the world who have been robbed of our money, hopes, dreams, materials, and dignity. There are hundreds of more victims of this company that haven't found their way to us yet. Just within our group, the money stolen is in excess of TWO MILLION DOLLARS.
We want justice against Airleaf Publishing and Carl Lau, the owner who not only took our money while he was in business, but continued to steal our royalties after he closed his company for many months to come.
By allowing this crime to go unpunished, you are sending out a message to the other predatory publishers that continue stealing money from unsuspecting authors that it is okay to perpetrate fraud in Indiana without getting punished.
We are committed to finding justice against this fraudulence. I will be coming to visit you in Indiana in June to present you with petitions from our victims with their stories. We will contact every government agency in your state asking them to intercede on our behalf. We will also contact your local media and the national media to bring attention to this injustice. We have been patiently waiting for a year and a half for justice, but now you have decided not to help us find it.
This is a true disgrace, Mr. Morrison.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.
Organizer, Airleaf Victims
I would appreciate it if you could send an email to Mr. Morrison this week letting him know about your disgust in his refusal to help us. His email address is:
USAINS.Webmaster@usdoj.gov
Tell Mr. Morrison that you are a victim of criminal fraud. I have provided the Indiana government with a ton of information that proves our case. If what happens to us doesn’t constitute fraud in Indiana, then Indiana needs to change its laws. Please take a moment to send Mr. Morrison an email telling him that you do not agree with his decision and request a reversal of his decision. Let him know how violated you feel after being robbed by a company in his state and then feeling doubly victimized by his decision that it is not a crime.
Please send me a note if you do this so I can track how many people have sent a message. It can be a short note just expressing your outrage, or a note stating your story. The important thing is to let him know we want action, not dismissal in this case.
The government of Indiana is counting on our discouragement to make us feel defeated, hoping we will throw up our hands in surrender. They want us to walk away from this issue as some as you have told me to do. A handful of our authors told me to give up—“we can’t win. It’s not worth the fight.” But I don’t agree. I think about the hours, days, months, and years of anguish so many authors went through, and how their lives were forever changed by losing their hard earned savings to a greed and fraudulence. I think of the whole new group of over 70 victims of Brien Jones at Jones Harvest who is now laughing and telling people the government of Indiana doesn’t do anything while he continues to re-victimize many of our original Airleaf victims and a whole new group of unsuspecting authors who fell for his bait. This decision will give him the green light to keep hurting authors.
We need to stand up for ourselves and our dignity. If you have not sent back your response to being part of our petition campaign, please do so AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. To date, I have 72 responses. We need a lot more to make this a cause that won’t be forgotten. Please write to me at Bonkaye@aol.com to let me know you are willing to join our team of Airleaf Victims No More, so we can become Airleaf Victors.
I will have the petition ready by the end of the week and send it out to all of you who are on my list. You will be able to either email it back to me or send it back to me by mail.
Let’s not give up. Thank you for your support and words of encouragement.
With love and hope,
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed., Organizer
www.AirleafVictims.com
www.JonesHarvestFraudVictims.com
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