andrew badolato

SEE BANNON WALL FRAUD

NO MERRI

how involved in Cambridge anal?

https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20180610/cambridge-analytica-scandal-has-sarasota-ties

an 4 23

former president Donald Trump's border wall was used by an associate of his former campaign CEO, Steve Bannon, to fraudulently raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself. That associate has now been handed a four-year prison sentence.

Brian Kolfage, a veteran of the United States Air Force, reportedly admitted to conspiring to defraud those who contributed to an online campaign to build a wall along the border of Mexico. Bannon, who also served as a White House strategist under Trump, received a presidential pardon by Trump after being charged in connection with the same case, according to the Guardian.

"Bannon remains a prominent presence in far-right media and politics. In September, he was indicted in New York state court in Manhattan on money laundering and conspiracy charges over the planned wall," the outlet reported. "He pleaded not guilty. Trump's pardon of Bannon covered federal crimes but not alleged state crimes."

The Guardian further said that Kolfage, who lost his legs and a hand in Iraq, pleaded guilty last year in the federal case to misappropriating money meant for the "We Build the Wall campaign."

"On Wednesday a US district judge, Analisa Torres, announced the 51-month sentence at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan," the Guardian wrote.

In 2021, it was reported that the theembattled "We Build the Wall" group admitted it couldn't pay lawyer fees despite raising millions of dollars.

Another former Bannon associate, Andrew Badolato, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison, according to the Guardian's article.

an no lnx

no lnx

3rd guy going to trial and bannon may be forced to testify?

Two Steve Bannon associates plead guilty to criminal charges in 'We Build the Wall' case

Alex Henderson April 22, 2022

“War Room” host and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was among the Donald Trump allies who Trump granted a presidential pardon near the end of his presidency. Bannon was facing criminal charges in the We Build the Wall case along with fellow MAGA Republicans Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who continued to face charges after Trump left the White House — and Kolfage and Badolato, Business Insider reports, have pled guilty to charges that include conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and making false statements on a tax return.

We Build the Wall was a crowdfunding campaign for a U.S./Mexico border wall, and according to the indictment, it raised $25 million. But federal prosecutors alleged that some of the money was diverted to nonprofits linked to Bannon. Kolfage served as president of the We Build the Wall project, and both Kolfage and Badolato agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors in March.

Business Insider’s Rebecca Cohen reports, “Prosecutors said (that) Kolfage paid himself $200,000 a month using donations during the scheme and also used supporters' money on luxuries like jewelry, an SUV, and payments for a boat. Kolfage also admitted to underreporting said donations on his tax returns to avoid paying taxes.”

When Kolfage and Badolato appeared in federal court on Thursday, April 21, Cohen notes, they “apologized for their actions and admitted they knew what they were doing was wrong at the time.”

Although Bannon, thanks to Trump, enjoyed a get-out-of-jail-free card in the We Build the Wall case, he is now facing unrelated charges in another matter. Bannon was charged with contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s select committee on the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

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https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20180610/cambridge-analytica-scandal-has-sarasota-ties

herald

Sarasota firm listed as creditor in bankruptcy of Cambridge Analytica, which was once run by former Trump presidential adviser Steve Bannon

Cambridge Analytica, a bankrupt political data firm at the  epicenter of a multi-continent furor over the manipulation of unwitting  social media targets, has been called a “full-service propaganda  machine” and a “grossly unethical experiment” by a whistleblower who  testified before the U.S. Senate.

It is now something else: Connected to Sarasota.

The company, once run by former presidential adviser Steve Bannon,  harvested more than 80 million profiles of unsuspecting Americans on  Facebook and allegedly used the data for targeted psychological  messaging in political campaigns — including President Donald Trump’s —  and to suppress voting among African-Americans in the 2016 election,  according to Senate testimony.

Amid an evolving scandal in the  U.S. and Great Britain that reportedly includes investigations by the  FBI, Department of Justice and special counsel Robert Mueller into the  firm’s business dealings, Cambridge Analytica recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, and a Sarasota-based company called The USA  Exchange is among 125 creditors listed in the matrix.

The USA Exchange is described as a digital community that can  be utilized by individuals and cities for business opportunities. The  company, yet to be fully launched, is run by Andrew Badolato, a  52-year-old Nokomis resident who has recurrently been associated with  Bannon for 15 years.

According to a document obtained exclusively by the Herald-Tribune, The USA Exchange had a one-year signed agreement in place with  Cambridge Analytica for at least $440,000 before the company filed for  bankruptcy on May 17.

In exchange for payments, Cambridge  Analytica said it would direct as many as one million registered users  to the Sarasota company’s website in the first year, “design and execute a qualitative research project, which will uncover additional  psychological and behavior factors at play in the decision-making  process of the aforementioned entities,” and set up 10 “creative  concept” displays for a digital campaign.  The agreement was signed on Jan. 18, 2018. According to a source connected to the company who declined to have his name used, Bannon had a role in setting up the deal even though he sold his stake in Cambridge Analytica in 2017 because he was serving in the  White House. According to Bannon’s financial disclosure form, his stake  was $1 million to $5 million.

Bannon and Badolato share a long history. They have been in several businesses togethersince 2003, shared office and residential spacein Sarasota County under questionable circumstances, appeared as producers on conservative documentaries such as “Clinton Cash,” and analyzed  voter data on satellite radio shows just before the 2016 election.

“I love data, and I love looking at numbers,” Badolato told Bannon in one radio interview.

The two men are well enough acquainted that Badolato was with Bannon inside Trump Tower the night Trump was elected president, a source said.  Bannon was Trump’s campaign CEO at the time. He later served as the  president’s chief strategist for a year before being fired on August 18, 2017.

A spokesperson for Bannon did not return messages.  Badolato, whose past was reported in the Herald-Tribune through an April 24 story, deferred comment tohis attorney, Wil Florin.Florin did not  contact the newspaper.

According to county and federal court  records, state business filings, Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office  reports, interviews with former associates and internal documents,  Badolato’s past includes: numerouslawsuits, substantial monetary judgmentsand sizeable Internal Revenue Service liens filed against him; business dealings with convicted felonsfor stock-related fraud; an extortion attempt after he borrowed money from a self-described mobsterthat led to him wearing a wire for the FBI; an association with a Costa Rican offshore firm that was called a “money laundering hub”by the Justice Department; and sexual assault allegationsmade by three women from 2006 to 2010 that allegedly took place inside his home in south Sarasota County.

The relationship between Bannon and Badolato first came to light on Aug. 19, 2016, when Bannon registered to vote in Florida by listing Badolato’s Casey Key Road address as his residence, even though multiple sources have told the Herald-Tribune that he never lived there[timeline]

once inside the White House, Bannon was required to list Badolato’s address  on a form when he applied for top-secret security clearance so the FBI  could vet his background. It is not known if he did as the forms are not public record. Withholding required information is a felony and  punishable by up to five years in prison.

Continued connections

Cambridge Analytica’s filing also is not the first time Bannon and Badolato have been connected to a bankruptcy.

Badolato has filed for personal protection four times, once on the day beforea Rico Act case concerning stock fraud was set to go to trial in 2005 and he was among the defendants.

Bannon was 16th on a list of creditors, though the amount of the claim was not  revealed. At No. 19 on the list was a Costa Rican company called Red Sea Management, which was a “money laundering hub,” according to the Justice  Department, and run by a former Sarasota resident named Jonathan  Curshen, who is serving 20 years in prison for stock fraud. Badaloto’s  final bankruptcy filing in the case would show he owed $15,631,334.62to creditors, according to his trustee. 15 MILLION $

The connection between The USA Exchange and Cambridge Analytica became  public at 11:30 p.m. on May 25 — the Friday night of the Memorial Day  weekend. That’s when the Sarasota-based company appeared on an amended  bankruptcy document filed in New York The business agreement between the two parties went into effect on Jan. 18. Badolato signed the document, as did Cambridge Analytica COO Julian Wheatland. Alexander Nix, the company’s CEO who appeared last week before British  lawmakers about whether Cambridge Analytica played a role in England’s  vote to leave the European Union, is named in the agreement with  Badolato’s company.

The USA Exchange, a company in the works since 2009, was supposed to launch this spring but has yet to do so. At least $2 million has been poured into the company’s website, according to a  source who called it “sophisticated.” The company is currently in a  holding pattern as Badolato solicits more funding to build the site.

In state business filings the company’s address is listed as 2033 Main  Street, Suite 505. For six years up until 2017, Bannon listed Suite 400in the same building for a film company he owned. Suite 400 is the same  office space Badolato has used for several businesses over the years.

The USA Exchange switched to an address in Nokomis over a year ago, and is  now believed to be based in Melbourne, though it continues to be  registered with the state as being in downtown Sarasota.

[audio]

harvesting profiles

Former Cambridge Analytica developer Christopher Wylie shed light into the  company’s inner-workings — and Bannon’s far-reaching ambitions — when he became a whistleblower and testified before the Senate last month. He  also gave interviews to the Guardian newspaper in London and the New  York Times, which has reported that the FBI is now investigating the  company, and Robert Mueller has interviewed former employees as part of  the Russia investigation.... Wylie did not respond to requests for comment.

In an  interview with the Guardian Wylie said, “We exploited Facebook to  harvest millions of people’s profiles and built models to exploit what  we knew about them and to target their inner demons.” He called the  company “a grossly unethical experiment because you are playing with the psychology of an entire country without their consent or awareness.”

Bannon, according to Wylie, subscribed to the “Breitbart Doctrine,” which means politics flows downstream from culture and that cultural warfare was  the key to political change. Bannon, he continued, “wanted to build an  arsenal of weapons he could deploy on the American population. Mr.  Bannon wanted to use the same types of information operations tactics  used in the military for his aims at the U.S.”

Appearing before  the Senate, Wylie said Bannon oversaw something called “Project Ripon,”  which developed psychological profile algorithms for use in campaigns.  Using the data gleaned from Facebook, the company was able to identify  “mental and emotional vulnerabilities in certain subsets of the  population designed to activate some of the worst characteristics in  people, such as neuroticism, paranoia and racial biases.”

In 2014 — well before Trump announced his candidacy and Bannon was tapped to run  the campaign — Cambridge Analytica was testing slogans such as “Drain  the Swamp,” the “Deep State” and “Build the Wall.”

Trump seemed to know the idea of a border wall would resonate before his campaign even began.

On May 22, 2015, when he visited Sarasota to receive a local award, he  said, “No one can build a wall like Trump. I will build a great wall  that no one will be getting over. Believe me, people aren’t getting over my wall. And Mexico will pay for the wall.”Cambridge Analytica was a paid consultant to the Trump campaign in 2016, and  Wylie told the Senate that Bannon wanted to suppress voters by using ads that would target “anybody with characteristics that would lead them to vote for the Democratic party, in particular African-Americans.”

Wylie testified that data was collected to target voters in 11 states, the  crucial swing state of Florida among them. Facebook was not the only  source for gathering the data, either.

He said that “state voter  rolls and registration” were used and there were “smaller firms who had  more specialized niche data,” a category of which The USA Exchange would fit into.

“Websites will be created,” he continued, “blogs will  be created, whatever it is we think the target profile will be receptive to. We will create content on the internet for them to find and then  they see that and click on it and go down the rabbit hole until they  start to think of things differently.”

Wylie, at one point, told the senators that the ethos of Cambridge Analytica was simple:

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/local/2020/08/20/steve-bannon-andrew-badolato-and-sarasota-connection/5616202002/

ENGLEWOOD -- When Charles Fust and Stacey Maloney took a tour on the “True Player” in the spring of 2003, Andrew Badolato was a close business associate, if not friend.

As he did several times, Badolato had lent Fust his boat. But this trip was particularly special: Fust planned to pop the question.

Everett Setser was the couple’s captain as they sailed from Marathon to become engaged with a ring that has since rubbed salt into an already sore relationship between the boat’s owner and his guest.

The picture Setser snapped of the happy couple with a wahoo dangling between them still has a place in Badolato’s photo albums, evidence of happier times.

A year later, Fust and his wife, Badolato and Setser -- plus the ring -- are all part of a fight over management of the small nasal spray company that Fust and Badolato helped create.

Badolato, the 39-year-old chief executive of Sargon Capital, is leading the charge against Fust, now chairman and chief executive of SinoFresh Healthcare. With the help of Miami attorney David Haber, he has gathered investors for a lawsuit, filed in February.

[pix?]

setser, a DeLand resident and SinoFresh shareholder, is a plaintiff, along with Badolato’s brother and father and some business associates.

And Fust, the 59-year-old chemist who invented the signature spray, is trying to fend off allegations that he used corporate money to buy the ring and that he wasn’t straight with SinoFresh’s board about the lease of a building he and another board member own, among other “self-dealings.”

Among the other plaintiffs are Seattle attorney David Otto and film and television financier Stephen Bannon, both board directors and a duo who were introduced to SinoFresh by Badolato.In the days before the suit, they were removed from the board in a controversial ploy that was later declared null.

the company has since admitted the removal was short sufficient votes and that it hadn’t properly served notice to shareholders.

Otto and Bannon, who have taken their beefs to the Securities and Exchange Commission, are back on the board, but with their seats in jeopardy.

The suit, alleging securities violations, is pending in Tampa’s federal district court, aimed at Fust; Maloney-Fust, a SinoFresh director;another director, Robert DuPont; and Chief Financial Officer Russell Lee. The shareholders, who are seeking class-action status in the lawsuit, are asking for monetary damages, declarations of wrongdoing by the defendants and repayment of some money, among other things.

But the real fight may not ultimately be about the ring, the condo the company rents from Fust’s wife, or the multiple securities violations shareholders are alleging Fust and other top executives perpetrated.

In a larger sense, it may really be about who gets to run things, and how they go about it.

Some shareholders and former insiders say managers had trouble adjusting to the rigid structure that came with SinoFresh’s public status as an over-the-counter stock after a September reverse merger.

“The management of the company (seemed to have) not made the conversion, the mental conversion from private to public,” said Tony Francel, a shareholder who formerly handled investor relations and product marketing, as the strife bubbled to the surface in February.

Francel and others, including Badolato and the ousted board members, say they pointed out problems with how Fust and others were managing the company. Many of the criticisms pertained to how money was spent, but they also involved hiring decisions and general procedures for doing both.

Bannon, true to his Hollywood roots, compared company officials to the Keystone Kops, saying once that they were the “gang that couldn’t shoot straight down in Englewood.”

But Fust and company have another story: They’re trying to do the right thing as a fledgling public company. Changing auditors, changing corporate counsel, dumping board members and severing ties with Badolato are all a part of the effort.

They blame him for their troubles, saying Badolato took advantage in their early -- and very lean -- years.

“We were just a young struggling company,” Fust said.

Fust has been portrayed as resisting the change in his authority when SinoFresh went public and continuing to treat SinoFresh as his own private fiefdom.

That theme was evident in the plaintiffs’ story about how Fust bought the engagement ring, an allegation that Fust vehemently denies. Through their attorneys at Greenberg Traurig, a firm no longer handling the case as of last week, all the defendants have denied all the allegations and asked for the suit to be thrown out.

But the ring allegation is one Fust has fought publicly, producing credit card statements and other documentation that he says proves his innocence.

To Fust, the current attack is nothing short of “a hostile takeover.”

Saving SinoFresh

When Andrew Badolato met Charles Fust, the chemist had a promising product and a sinking company.

Fust had formed an Alabama company around his invention: a spray to flush germs and other particles from nasal passages while fighting chronic sinusitis.

The over-the-counter spray is one of those rare products that today inspires customers to pen unsolicited e-mails.

The product still wins raves from Fust’s legal opponents, and it even has a celebrity endorsement: NASCAR driver Jerry McCart, whom Fust met at the airport in Atlanta. McCart, who was looking for a nonaddictive treatment for his chronic sinus problems, has a testimonial on the SinoFresh Web site and has driven a racecar bearing the name.

By fall 2002, SinoFresh had moved to a Venice industrial park and was in default on notes totalling $500,000 to InvestLinc, a Chicago venture capital firm that was foreclosing.

Enter Sargon and Badolato: “It was a mess,” he said of the books he saw.

Because of the default, InvestLinc actually owned the company, but Fust and his staff were still out raising money that wasn’t being put to good use, Badolato said.

He thought the product had a “lot of sizzle and obviously had sex appeal,” so he decided to get involved.

Fust told shareholders in his private company that he had talked to a number of financial consultants and felt comfortable that Sargon was the one.

In addition to bringing in investors and professionals, Badolato played a key role in taking SinoFresh public.

SinoFresh started trading after a reverse merger with a company called E-Book Networks in September, but the entity involved was not the same one Fust started in Alabama. Badolato had set up a new company and arranged to buy assets of Fust’s SinoFresh Laboratories nearly a year before.

The venture capitalist became the president and Seattle attorney Otto was a director. Officers included secretary Tom Amon, now also a class-action plaintiff, and Doug Forde, who’d introduced Badolato to Fust, as chief financial officer.

Badolato resigned when SinoFresh went public, but remained in the background with a consulting service contract through Sargon.

A year and a half after Badolato and Fust changed the course of SinoFresh, Fust has accused Badolato of scheming to get control of the company and has tried to rid the board of anyone with ties to him.

Bad blood

On the day before SinoFresh went public in September, Badolato, Fust and others on the SinoFresh team presented a united front around a table at the company’s Englewood offices.

They pumped the product and the corporation’s potential, producing a folder full of those glowing e-mails. They explained that the timing of the product’s national launch prevented them from doing a traditional initial public offering of stock.

On the first day of trading, as SinoFresh’s shares rocketed to more than $13, they popped champagne and celebrated. Using glasses bearing the SinoFresh name, Badolato says, they even toasted him.

But over the next three months, things soured.

Fust started having “concerns” about Badolato in the late fall. He won’t say exactly what prompted his questions.

“Things that had happened would have a great bearing on the relationship that he would have with any company,” Fust said.

To Badolato, there also were “rifts” shortly after the company went public, bad blood stemming in part from his sometimes harsh criticism of Fust and his ability to run the public company.

Badolato, whose career has focused largely on consulting and deal-making to launch new companies, insists he doesn’t want to be a director or executive, but he does have ideas about what Fust should be doing with SinoFresh.

“He should, at his stage of life, be collecting, like most inventors and patentholders do, royalty checks in the mail,” Badolato said. “He’s got a stock that could be worth a lot of money if he allows the people that got him there, that are experienced, to help him.”

Badolato admits to going “emotionally overboard” in one episode while discussing a former employee who, the suit says, raised the question of how Fust bought the engagement ring.

Ill feelings toward himself and Sargon have intensified primarily because SinoFresh reached some of its short-term goals and “we’re not needed anymore,” Badolato said.

However, Fust points to the mix of plaintiffs in the suit. With a few exceptions, “all the people that are in there are people that are either Andy Badolato or people that Andy Badolato gave stock to.”

Among those listed are Amon, a former SinoFresh officer; Harvey Hendler, who wrote a strategic plan for the company in its early days; and Michael Hawkins, a Sargon officer.

“He has a team,” Fust said of Badolato’s business partners.

In an April 4 document that lays out Fust’s version of the attempted ouster of Otto and Bannon, he says “that certain elements of the reverse merger had numerous missing pieces” and “unusual structuring by Badolato.” Fust also references “unusual documentation moving back and forth” between Badolato, another unknown individual and Interwest, the company’s then-transfer agent.

A portion of the document was blackened before it was sent to the Herald-Tribune, leaving his full reasoning unclear.

What’s clear is that Fust wanted to force out Badolato and anyone associated with him.

He called two board meetings in December, one of which both Otto and Bannon attended in person and one in which Bannon was on the phone, in part to discuss his concerns about Badolato.

Fust said the board set up a committee of Otto, Bannon and DuPont to look into issues involving Badolato and Sargon, and report back, but nothing concrete surfaced, and Fust feared Otto andBannon were trying to sweep the issue “under the carpet.”

Otto characterizes the Fust-Badolato issue as more of a personality clash. “Fust didn’t want to work with him and Andy wanted to work with the company,” Otto said.

Separate stories

One issue that apparently exacerbated, if it didn’t cause, some of Fust’s concerns involves Crown IV Holdings, a plaintiff in the suit.

Fust says he came up with the name for the Belize corporation and had planned at one point to transfer some of his SinoFresh shares there at Badolato’s urging.

Although a certificate was drawn up for the transaction, Fust said he never went through with it or even activated the company, which is not listed with the Florida Division of Corporations.

Fust said Badolato, however, set up Crown IV Holdings on a trip to Costa Rica as a way to exert some control over SinoFresh.

Badolato shakes his head at Fust’s version, saying he’s never even been to Costa Rica.Crown IV Holdings was an independent company that was issued shares by SinoFresh Healthcare for consulting services, he said. It came on board with 2 million shares when Fust, DuPont, Maloney and others were hired by the newly created company.

Both sides acknowledge that the shares in question could tip control of the company.

Badolato didn’t put his name on the shareholder suit filed in February, even though he was intimately involved in putting it together and gathering investors to join it.

Haber, the Miami attorney who filed the case, said he didn’t want it sidetracked by accusations against Badolato. His name shows up several times in the defendants’ response tied to accusations of wrongdoing thrown back at him and Otto and Bannon.

Earlier this month, Badolato filed his own lawsuit against Fust and others claiming, among other things, that Fust defamed him and that SinoFresh owes Sargon more than $100,000. Fust says the Sargon funds are in dispute and SinoFresh won’t be making any payments “until this thing is resolved.”

Badolato’s suit also claims Fust registered a corporation called Sargon Capital behind his back to interfere with Sargon’s business.

Fust says that he was trying to do Sargon a favor after attorneys pointed out that the Nevada corporation wasn’t registered in Florida.

“Those were during some better times.”

==

https://www.madcowprod.com/2016/09/21/trump-campaigns-bannon-ties-to-sarasota-grifter/

...Stock fraud, for  example,  an increasingly popular pastime in Florida, which provided links between Badolato and names already notorious for being part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy.

The location varies between Sarasota and St. Petersburg, Florida, home to St Petersburg-Clearwater InternationalAirport, where at least two Badolato associates were involved with companies owning drug planes, which took off with some regularity from there on flights down to South America and back.

Because active retirees make St. Petersburg an international shuffleboard hot spot — Aspen for snowbirds from the Upper Midwest — some wag dubbed the drug trafficking organization (DTO)  :{ :(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::{The Shuffleboard Cartel.:(style="box-sizing:border-box;text-decoration-line:none"):}:

As astute readers are undoubtedly aware, St. Petersburg is also the home of theworld’s largest shuffleboard club.TheShuffleboard Hall of Fame is right next door in Clearwater.

If you’re looking to get into drug trafficking, you want a benign host, filled with people who don’t ask too many questions. So you could do a lot worse than St Petersburg, home of All Things Shuffleboard,  and Venice, Florida, which boasts the second-oldest population in the entire United States.

Welcome to Andy’s World-Wide Web

Like nighttime bonfires attract drum circles, Bannon’s hasty change-of-residence to Badolato’s Sarasota beach house under pressure from reporters has attracted attention.

How odd to discover someone close to Donald Trump’s campaign chairman who’s been peddling phony companies with no product, no prospects, and nothing to sell… companies whose websites disappear into the ether with frightening regularity.

If you squint through the flickering flames, you can glimpse a few familiar faces from Florida’s unusually generous bounty of grifters, racketeers and flim-flam men.Some even have close ties to America’s national security state.

Like one of Andy Badolato’s partners in Sarasota, Jonathan Curshen, publicly fingered as a principal player in the stock fraud and drug trafficking ring centered around SkyWay Aircraft of St. Petersburg.

Specifically Curshen invented a Dupont heirwhose largesse helped SkyWay buy a DC-9 airliner busted in Mexico in 2006 while carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine.

Jonathan Curshen made a deal with Badolato to sell 3 million shares of an Andy Badolato company he’d founded and led called Industrial BioTechnology Corporation (IBOT), through Curshen’s Costa Rica brokerage company, Red Sea Management,in exchange for a 25 percent cut of the proceeds.

[logo clipart?]

Curshen made a big mistake, according to federal prosecutors. He bribed an undercover FBI agent he thought represented brokers handling the accounts of wealthy customers. Caught red-handed, Curshen pled guilty to paying bribes to stock brokers to buy  Badolato’s company’s stock.

What makes Jonathan Curshen interesting to a probe of officially-sponsored organized crime is that Curshen’s Red Sea Management,according to filings with the SEC, also supplied the DC-9 airliner (N900SA) busted in Mexico’s Yucatan carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine.  

At the time of the big bust, FAA records showed the DC-9 was registered to a SkyWay Aircraft principal, Frederic Geffon, who regularly commingled funds between SkyWay and other entities he owned, like Royal Sons Motor Yachts, and Royal Sons LLC.

Geffon had been investigated for drug trafficking ten years earlier. The DEA had not filed charges. In aviation circles there was widespread suspicion Geffon escaped doing time by flipping and going to work as an informant for the DEA.

Jonathan Strikes A Pose]

In criminal jargon it’s called working off a beef. 

Reported the Oct 10, 2008 Vancouver Sun: “Jonathan Randall Curshen…controlled a company in Costa Rica called Red Sea Management, which had generously provided, in return for 28,000,000 shares of common stock in SkyWay,…a 1966 McDonald Douglas DC-9 aircraft that shortly thereafter was carrying a cargo of 5.6 tons of cocaine, worth several hundred million dollars. This is a strange case.”

Today Jonathan Curshenis serving 17 yearsin federal prison. Curshen and SkyWay Aircraft were associated with a network that included a surprising number of people who were former members of military intelligence, or the CIA, or  the Genovese  Mafia Family in New York City.

While his his ties to Republican politicians, like his current campaign client Donald Trump, are visible for everyone to see, tomorrow we’ll ask: Does Steve Bannon have national security ties?

Sarasota’s very own “hyena pack”

Evidence strongly suggests that Andy Badolato and associates are what fraud and money laundering investigators calla”hyena pack;” fraudsters acting in concert to shred the investments of clueless shareholders who bought into a clutch of sad-looking penny stock companies that were an excuse for schemes netting then tens of millions of dollars.

This latest ‘blemish’ on the Trump brand comes in the wake of last week’s story in Newsweek which shed light on Trump’s foreign business dealings. The story exposed evidence that a number of Trump’s overseas partners have been looting their home countries with the same sleazy avarice which became infamous in the U.S. after the scams of Wall Street’s predatory elite crippled the American economy in 2008.

News that Trump’s Presidential campaign manager is hanging his hat in the home of a fraudster with similar proclivities is probably not the most hopeful of signs.

Note: Badolato was contacted and asked for comment on this story. Apparently he declined. It happens.

TOMORROW: DRILLING DOWN INTO ANDY’S DOOMED PUBLIC COMPANIES  TAGS:

• Andy Badolato
• Badolato
• Breitbart
• campaign
• campaign manager
• CIA
• cocaine
• DEA
• Donald Trump
• drug trafficking
• grifters
• hyena pack
• Jonathan Curshen
• Red Sea Management
• Sarasota
• Sinofresh
• Steve Bannon
• stock fraud
• voter fraudDaniel Hopsicker

ref

https://www.madcowprod.com/**2007/11/23/**our-story-thus-far/

a  DC9  is busted at an airport in the state of Campeche, Mexico carrying an incredible 5.5 tons of cocaine…

One of its two listed owners, Brent Kovar of SkyWay Aircraft, boasted in a press release that he’d been appointed  to the Business Advisory Council of the National Republican Congressional Committee by Congressional Majority Leader Tom Delay…

The second  plane's registered owner, “Royal Sons LLC,” used to be housed in a hanger at the Venice Fl. Airport owned by terror flight school Huffman Aviation…

The plane was painted with the distinctive blue-and-white with gold trim used by  official U.S. Government planes. Around the image was a legend reading: SkyWay Aircraft: SkyWay Aircraft: Protection of America’s Skies…

The plane bore a Seal of a federal eagle clutching an olive branch. Most who saw it were fooled into believing it belonge to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. The firm’s Chairman, Glenn Kovar, boasted of long-standing ties to the CIA…

The case had immediate and obvious national security implications. No one in authority in the U.S. addressed them, or even acknowledged they existed…

The DC9 had an identical twin, a second airliner painted the same way. The airliners were supposedly used to perform in-flight demonstrations of the technology of SkyWay’s new product…

But that could not have been the purpose for owning the twin airliners.

SkyWay had no products, no prospects, and nothing to demonstrate. The company was a penny stock fraud scam which successfully relieved investors of over $40 million dollars in only three years…

What the company DID have was twin airliners masquerading as official U.S. Government planes…

Glenn and Brent Kovar, the father-and-son pair running SkyWay, had run a similar  scam several years earlier,  called Satellite Access Systems, (SAS) whose last known stock quote was three one-thousands of a penny per share…

The FAA did nothing to clear up confusion about who owned the plane when it was busted. They wrote: “The file will not be available to be sent out until it is updated in approximately 2 weeks…”

A month later, the plane’s registration records have still not been released.

A San Diego defense contractor, The Titan Corporation, had issued a press release as the company was going bankrupt, stating they planned to purchase a half billion dollars worth of the company’s non-existent product…

Titan was was the biggest campaign contributor of disgraced former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The company was involved in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, and has recently been convicted and fined $28 million for fixing a Presidential election in the African state of Benin… 

Titan  employed  a mysterious Lebanese man who provided assistance to Mohamed Atta and other terrorist hijackers in Venice Florida before the 9.11 attack, who was listed as a contractor working for the company in Saudi Arabia last year…

What business did Titan Corp. have with SkyWay Aircraft? No one is saying. Calls to both companies have not been returned…

The Titan official quoted in the press release had been the executive vice president of an Annapolis Maryland firm, Intergraph, which had a deal with Brent Wilke’s ADCS Inc. which is now being investigated by the FBI…

The deal, brokered by Duncan Hunter, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, resulted in massive mark-ups on a product the Pentagon never asked for. The only losers were U.S. taxpayers, and maybe some dead U.S. servicemen in Iraq whose Humvee’s didn’t get armor plating because there wasn’t enough money for it in the Pentagon budget…

many pix some lnx

https://www.madcowprod.com/2016/09/28/stock-fraud-drug-trafficking-alt-right/

stock Fraud, Drug Trafficking, & the ‘Alt-Right’

By Daniel Hopsicker -September 28, 2016

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When Donald Trump’s campaign manager Steve Bannon was recently exposed for using  a vacant house in Miami as his legal residence, he hastily changed his legal address to a beach house in Sarasota, Florida owned by a writer at his Breitbart.com website.

His hurried move— made more urgent by Trump’s adoption of ‘voter fraud’ as one of his signature issues— has unexpectedly given a gift that keeps on giving to investigators probing the financing of the newly-emergent “Alt-Right.”

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America’s “most dangerous political operative”

bannon44Bannon, who Bloomberg recently called The Most Dangerous Political Operative in America,  had repaired to a beach house owned by Andy Badolato, who claims on his website to be an “entrepreneur, senior level executive, venture capitalist and seed stage investor” who has founded companies with a market cap of $26 billion dollars.”

However an investigation reveals that Bannon’s buddy and roommate Badolato has long-time links to a nest of financial fraudsters that raise questions of whether money taken from investors through Badolato’s series of stock scams — which operated on an almost industrial scale—had been pocketed by  financiers of the Breitbart.com-led “alt-right.”

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The group of racketeers, swindlers and flimflam men may even have links to fraudsters in Southern California associated with a man who has been profiled here on many occasions.

Does anyone remember  disgraced Republican Congressman Randy “Duke ” Cunningham?

Fleecing Haitian immigrants for fun and profit

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Andy Badolato was involved in a stock fraud cum Ponzi scheme at a Palm Beach Gardens, Florida company, Industrial Business Ventures Group, (IBVG), where he was Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance.

Two of his partners in the scheme —Jonathan Curshen and Michael Muzio— are currently in federal prison.  Both men were also involved, oddly enough, in the drug trafficking ring in St. Petersburg, Florida responsible for the ill-fated ‘drug move’ resulting in the biggest drug seizure on an airplane in Mexican history,  5.5 tons of cocaine, found on an American-registered DC-9 busted in the Yucatan in April of 2006.

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Jonathan Curshen

Alt-right Sarasota beachcomber Badolato’s fellow Sarasota resident Jonathan Curshen was profiled in a story here last week.

“Curshen is the most intriguing. He is a dual citizen of England and the United States,” reported Off-shore Alert. “He resides in Sarasota, Fla., and Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, he serves as honorary consul for St. Kitts & Nevis. He also serves as honorary consul for “New Utopia,” a sham country that exists only in cyberspace. It publicly offers ‘citizenships,’ ‘national flags,’ ID cards and currency.”

A look at Badolato’s second partner in the scheme, Tampa resident Michael Muzio, exposes a checkered past  and criminal curriculum vitae every bit as colorful as Curshen.

“Andy’s Web” grafic

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Muzio and Badolato’s company was involved in what was called “a classic Ponzi scheme,” made even more despicable because it targeted poor Haitian immigrants.

According to an FBI press release  announcing Muzio’s conviction, the scheme “stripped $14.3 million from more than 600 gullible investors, most of them Haitian-Americans in South Florida and New Jersey.”

“Muzio issued false and misleading press releases,” said the FBI,  claiming International Business Ventures Group had deals to offer pre-paid debit cards and pre-paid calling cards in Haiti, where the company also had exclusive rights to market pre-paid electric meters.

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Muzio once complained  to “colleagues” about how costly it was to run a stock scam,  Palm Beach Business magazine reported.  “He’s about to find out exactly how expensive it can be when you get caught.”

For his part in the fraud Muzio was sentenced to 163 months in prison.

Muzio may have been a little preoccupied

In what authorities like to think is a relatively unusual situation for a corporate officer, Michael Muzio also found himself the target of a Mob hit. Testimony in an extortion trial in Tampa named Muzio as the intended victim of a Mafia hit ordered by a business associate, Joseph Forlizzo of Queens, and Clearwater, Florida.

peewee

The Forlizzo brothers contracted Muzio’s murder, court testimony revealed, with Anthony “Pee Wee” Lanza, a captain in New York’s Genovese Mafia crime family.

“Pee Wee” was involved, according to the NY Daily News, in everything from prostitution, where he was running “a high heel-clicking stream of hookers reporting to the upper East Side headquarters of a mob-controlled prostitution ring,” to extortion, for threatening to beat a man to death if he didn’t pay up a Genovese crime family loan.”

Forlizzo, a chiropractor, had been partners with Muzio in a magnetic resonance imaging company in Clearwater. Deciding the partnership was unsatisfactory, Forlizzo took certain ‘measures,’ which became the center focus during his trial,  which was filled with accusations of Mafia ties, hit men and extortion.

Testimony showed that Forlizzo and the “boys from  New York” decided to kill Muzio and have another man, Philip ‘Philly’ Bova, of Largo, Florida,  pose as Muzio to empty his bank accounts.

51tfiie5zl-_sy346_Court transcripts offered little explanation for why Muzio ‘needed killing,’ or ‘had it coming,’ two often-cited reasons for contract hits.

But when officers of public companies need key man insurance against the prospect of being rubbed out, business almost invariably suffers.

In a cautionary note, Tampa Mob expert Scott Deitche, author of Cigar Store Mafia reports that Pee Wee, after being convicted of extortion, died in prison.

“A troubled existence”

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Andy Badolato’s companies have all floundered like unwanted babies flung off a cliff. But Industrial Business Ventures Group had a particularly troubled business life, facing problems most new concerns never encounter, like attrition, which became an issue when Muzio and three of the company’s officers went to prison at the same time.

Muzio, called “a Tampa businessman” in news accounts, was at the time on probation for a 2006 grand larceny conviction in New York.

“The Saga Ends In Jail” was the headline on an article by one stock analyst:

“The fact that the company has been involved in suspicious schemes should be of no surprise to people who have spent time to review the biography of the company’s management team. All three of them: Brian Taglieri, Abner Alable, and Ronnie Bass, are currently in jail facing their sentences.”

Initially, the trio started its business as an investment club called HomePals, based in North Miami Beach. In the spring of 2008, HomePals managed to strip almost $14.5 million from hundreds of Haitians living in Florida and New Jersey by means of a Ponzi-like scheme.

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Then in July 2008, HomePals bought International Business Ventures Group, which until then was a public shell company. The larceny…involved pumping up IBVR stock price as much as possible and then dumping it on the public.

As his trial was about to start, Ronnie Bass, 36, of Delray Beach, pleaded no contest to 14 charges in connection with the Homepals Investment Club. He faced 20 years in prison.

Multi-tasking “hyena pack” big in stock fraud, drug trafficking

The real question is the one asked in “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid:” Who are these guys?

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At Play in the Fields of the Lord]

In addition to Mob links, we will see hints of U.S. intelligence involvement.  Does Steve Bannon have national security ties?

According to Bloomberg News, Bannon joined the Navy right after college, and then spent four years at sea, including working as a navigator in the north Arabian Sea during the Iranian hostage crisis. He left the Persian Gulf just as the ill-fated U.S. mission to rescue the hostages in Tehran, Desert One, died in the sands of the Iranian desert.

Bannon became an assistant to the chief of Naval operations at the Pentagon, earned a master’s degree in national security studies at Georgetown University at night, then headed to Wall Street, where he went to work at Goldman Sachs. There he worked on a series of leveraged buyouts, including a deal involving Bain Capital and Mitt Romney.

“The camaraderie was amazing,” he told reporter  Jeff Goldberg  “It was like being in the Navy, in the wardroom of a ship.”

The subject of rogue U.S. intel assets joining the Mob in widespread stock fraud warrants careful consideration.  According to L.J. Kolb’s “Overworld,” an eye-opening account of growing up as the son of an American spy:  “There’s a secret world all around us. You just don’t see it unless you know where to look.”

Daniel Hopsicker

https://www.madcowprod.com

Daniel Hopsicker is an investigative journalist and the author of two books on transnational crime, Welcome to Terrorland and Barry & the Boys.

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https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/local/2020/08/20/steve-bannon-andrew-badolato-and-sarasota-connection/5616202002/

It was a phone call between two of the world’s most powerful men, a conversation of such consequence that even the portrait of Andrew Jackson leaned in to listen, or so it seemed inside the Oval Office on that momentous Saturday afternoon.

When Donald Trump’s first presidential discussion with Russian leader Vladimir Putin took place on Jan. 28, 2017 only a select few of his most-trusted men stood before him at the historic Resolute desk, among them being Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist and advisor so influential it was not deemed necessary he wear a tie during high-level meetings impacting global affairs.

MORE:Anderson: Steve Bannon’s curious Sarasota connection

At roughly the same time that day, in striking contrast to the Trump-Putin phone call Bannon was witnessing, a different conversation was occurring in the semi-circular driveway of a home on Casey Key Road, a narrow lane of hidden paradise in south Sarasota County that meanders between opulent tropical mansions and transitory views of the turquoise-tinted Gulf.  It was there that a 53-year-old man in cargo shorts was explaining to a Sarasota County Sheriff’s deputy that he was not involved in the theft of two antique clay pots from his neighbor, never mind the complainant’s statement in a report that the man’s house “has some shady individuals inside and may have something to do with the theft.”

The man being questioned told the deputy he didn’t steal the pots, and besides, he had been in Washington, D.C., for Trump’s inauguration at the time of the alleged theft. The deputy took his statement, drove off, and left the man to walk back inside. When he reached the front door of his weathered yellow home he was greeted by the sight of a mannequin, posed just inside the entrance.

The man’s name was Andrew Badolato.

And Bannon — who once held such power in the White House that he was seated on the National Security Council, unprecedented in American history for a presidential adviser, and was allotted access to this country’s most sensitive intelligence with the highest level of security clearance — has recurrently been associated with him since 2003.

Badolato’s past — according to county and federal court records, state business filings, Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office reports, interviews with former associates and internal documents obtained by the Herald-Tribune — includes numerous lawsuits, substantial monetary judgments and sizeable Internal Revenue Service liens filed against him; business dealings with convicted felons for stock-related fraud; an extortion attempt after he borrowed money from a self-described mobster that led to him wearing a wire for the FBI; an association with a Costa Rican offshore firm that was called a “money laundering hub” by the Justice Department; and sexual assault allegations made by three women over a period of four years that allegedly took place inside his million-dollar home on Casey Key Road.

MORE: Does Stephen Bannon live in Sarasota County? Because he’s registered to vote here

Badolato, a 1982 graduate of Cardinal Mooney High in Sarasota, has never been charged with a crime, nor has he been the subject of any “regulatory body investigation, proceeding or hearing,” according to a letter from his attorney, Wil Florin, who added that “Mr. Badolato, as you know, is a private figure. He has no interest in entering the public discourse on any subject related to him including your upcoming article. He is a single father and a well-liked and respected businessman in the Tampa Bay area.”

Repeated attempts to reach Bannon, who has never been charged with a crime either, for comment about his longstanding relationship with Badolato were unsuccessful.

Their relationship has been such that Bannon declared on a Sarasota County voter registration form he lived at Badolato’s address while running Trump’s 2016 campaign, a logistical challenge considering the headquarters was based 1,198 miles away at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, where Bannon occupied a corner office that he was seen in nearly every day he wasn’t traveling on the campaign trail, according to Michael Wolff’s best-selling book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”

Experts say Bannon’s relationship with Badolato should have raised red flags with the FBI — the agency responsible for the initial vetting of Bannon for his White House security clearance.

Government officials seeking security clearance are required to fill out an exhaustive form known as an SF-86 for FBI background checks. Applicants, according to the form, must list “the places where you have lived, beginning with your present residence and working back 10 years. Residences for the entire period must be accounted for without breaks.” Because the forms are not public record and the White House does not comment on individual security clearances, it is unclear whether Bannon listed Badolato’s address.

According to the form, “The U.S. Criminal Code provides that knowingly falsifying or concealing a material fact is a felony which may result in fines and/or up to five years imprisonment.”

The White House has been recently embroiled in security clearance controversies involving former staff secretary Rob Porter, who held an interim clearance for months despite the FBI’s knowledge of domestic abuse accusations made by two ex-wives, and security clearance issues involving the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Porter resigned, and as a result, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly outlined changes to the security clearance process in a memo to senior White House officials on Feb. 16. Kushner’s security clearance was later downgraded — he no longer has access to top secret information.

MORE: Cambridge Analytica scandal has Sarasota ties

“The American people deserve a White House staff that meets the highest standards and that has been carefully vetted — especially those who work closely with the president or handle sensitive national security information,” Kelly wrote in the memo. “We should — and in the future, must — do better.”

Porter, who saw highly-classified information on a daily basis, was among several senior officials working without permanent security clearance status. Included in that group is Kushner. It is not known whether Bannon — who worked in the White House for a year before being fired on August 18, 2017 — had a permanent clearance or was operating with an interim one.

Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005-2007 and currently a professor at the University of Minnesota, said Bannon’s recurring 13-year relationship with Badolato should have precluded him from becoming a powerful senior White House advisor with unlimited access and undeniable influence.

“I can think of ten other reasons,” Painter said, “but this in and of itself should have disqualified him from being in the White House.”

Security clearance concerns

Relatively unknown outside the alt-right conservative base, Bannon replaced Paul Manafort and joined Trump’s presidential campaign as CEO on Aug. 17, 2016. He is largely credited for helping orchestrate one of the biggest upsets in United States political history.

When Bannon took over, Trump was trailing Hillary Clinton by double digits in some polls. As a reward, Bannon was named as Trump’s chief strategist on Nov. 13, 2016, and was placed on the National Security Council “principals committee” on Jan. 28, 2017, after Trump signed a presidential order he reportedly may not have been fully briefed on.

The National Security Act of 1947 states that “the National Security Council is responsible for the interaction of domestic, foreign and military policies relating to the national security” and to hold a seat requires the highest security clearance. Bannon would have had to possess a “top-secret clearance,” and a “SCI” or “Sensitive Compartmental Information” clearance. The Office of the Inspector General defines a “top-secret clearance” as one that “gives you access to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”

“SCI” is defined as “classified information concerning, or derived from, intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes that must be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director, Central Intelligence Agency.”

To obtain a security clearance, Bannon would have been required to fill out the SF-86 form. According to Bradley Moss, a Washington D.C. attorney who specializes in national security and security clearance law, the FBI would have combed through Bannon’s completed form, spoken with people from his past and then personally interviewed him. From there, the FBI would have submitted its assessment to the White House Security Personnel Office, which is not part of the West Wing and has an independent director. If the Security Personnel Office is concerned about an element of someone’s past, the White House counsel is often contacted.

By law, Bannon would have been required to list Badolato’s address on his application. That’s because on Aug. 19, 2016 — just two days after he became Trump’s campaign CEO — he claimed it as his home on a Sarasota County voter registration form toestablish residency in Florida — fulfilling one of the state’s three requirements for residency. The other two include filing a “declaration of domicile” with the court clerk and applying for a homestead property tax exemption. According to the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s website, Bannon did not apply for either.

An SF-86 form, according to the State Department, requires that applicants reveal all former residences they have lived at in the last 10 years. “Indicate the actual physical location of your residence, not a Post Office box or a permanent residence when you were not physically located there,” the form states. “If you split your time between one or more residences during a time period you must list all residences.”

In addition, applicants must name someone who knew them at that address — preferably someone still in the area — and provide that person’s contact information. “Do not list your spouse, cohabitant or other relatives,” the form states. A box must be checked indicating if the applicant owned, rented, leased or “other.” Listing “other” requires an explanation.

If Bannon did indeed list the Sarasota County address as required, it could have led the FBI to Badolato’s name. The FBI could have then checked into Badolato’s background and investigated Bannon’s association with him. It is unclear if any of this happened because the document is not a public record.

“It’s very possible he completely and properly filled out the form and this association slipped through the cracks (of the FBI),” Moss said. “I would not be surprised in the slightest if that happened.”

Bannon — whose driver’s license was issued in California — also owns houses in the Golden State. If he was intent on establishing Florida residency, he could have afforded to buy or rent a house on his own. According to his White House financial disclosure form, which calls for an estimated range of personal wealth, not a specific amount, Bannon stated he had $100,000 to $250,000 in one bank account and two other accounts estimated at having $500,001 to $1 million each. Bannon estimated he held assets of $11.8 million to $53.8 million, according to the form.

According to Wolff’s “Fire and Fury,” Bannon never lived in Sarasota during the campaign. Wolff described Bannon in the book as being “suddenly transformed inside Trump Tower, an office he entered on August 15 (2016) and for practical purposes did not exit, save for a few hours a night (and not every night) in his temporary midtown Manhattan accommodations, until January 17 (2017), when the transition team moved to Washington.”

Bannon himself offered hints he never lived in Sarasota County as well. In October 2016, Bannon registered to vote in New York — while still registered in Florida — and listed his home address as a one-bedroom apartment across from Bryant Park in Manhattan. Florida law specifies that it is not illegal to be registered to vote in two states, but you can only vote in one.

Wolff told the Herald-Tribune he had no knowledge of Bannon residing in Sarasota during Trump’s 2016 campaign or presidential transition period.

“He couldn’t have lived there,” he said. “I know he was basically in Trump Tower the entire time. He was literally there every day.”

‘A very, very dangerous man’

The SF-86 security clearance form states that withholding, misrepresenting or falsifying information “may affect your eligibility for a sensitive position” and “affect access to classified information.” Furthermore, the form says, “potential consequences include, but are not limited to, removal, debarment from federal service or prosecution.”

According to the State Department’s Adjudication Guidelines for Determining Eligibility for Access to Classified Information “conduct involving questionable judgment, lack of candor, dishonesty or unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations can raise questions about an individual’s reliability, trustworthiness and ability to protect classified information.”

According to the same guidelines, conditions that could raise a security question and may be disqualifying include “association with persons involved in criminal activity.”

Badolato, though never charged with a crime, has been associated with criminal activity in the past. According to a federal court document, for example, he borrowed $12,500 at 500 percent interest in 2008 fromLuis Caputo, a Sarasota resident who claimed ties to the Gambino organized crime family. Federal court records show Badolato was threatened by Caputo when he couldn’t pay back the loan. He eventually helped the FBI bring down Caputo on extortion charges by taping their meetings and exchanging marked bills. Caputo was sentenced to two years in prison in 2013 and died a year later at age 78. Badolato was so afraid of Caputo, records show, that he requested after-hours protection by the Sarasota Police Department.

“I don’t want to be the one to say based on this relationship Bannon should have been disqualified,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy. “But I would say the fact of the relationship ought to have been a consideration and, if it wasn’t, then that was an oversight in the process.”

Whether or not it was an oversight may not have mattered, however. In granting security clearance, the president is the ultimate arbiter, according to the security expert, Moss. If the president wishes to grant a person clearance, no matter their past activities or former associations, he has the authority to override any recommendations of denial from the FBI.

“He could have hired Charlie Manson and no one would have had the legal authority to have questioned that decision,” Moss said, though throughout history presidents have rarely taken this course of action.

Beth Rosenson, who teaches political ethics at the University of Florida, said it is not known how much of Badolato’s past Bannon knew of and pointed out that people who do questionable things don’t always inform acquaintances of their actions. Still, she said, the relationship “calls into question Bannon’s judgment for sure and it calls into question Trump’s judgment for selecting him” as one of his most trusted advisors.

Rosenson said she teaches her students that politicians in the public trust should be held to the highest of standards, not only as it pertains to their own personal conduct but with the people they surround themselves with.

“Bannon has exhibited questionable judgment on a number of fronts so I wouldn’t be surprised by this,” Rosenson said. “It doesn’t look good and it doesn’t smell good.”

Painter, President Bush’s former ethics attorney, said of Bannon’s association with Badolato: “I think it shows a pattern of a complete lack of judgment.”

Of Bannon, Painter added: “He’s a very, very dangerous man.”

Multiple sexual assault allegations

Bannon and Badolato — a self-described venture capitalist — have a relationship that goes back to 2003.

They have been in at least three failed penny-stock ventures together, and Bannon was once removed from a Sarasota County company’s board for his relationship with Badolato.

In 2010, Badolato formed a company listing Bannon as a board member alongside an attorney named L.B. Moon, who was barred from practicing law by the Oklahoma Supreme Court for threatening to kill an adversary, place his body in a shredder and have his daughter raped.

For seven years — even while he was in the White House — Bannon used another one of Badolato’s addresses, this time a Sarasota office — 2033 Main Street, Suite 400 — for one of the film companies he owned. It was the same address Badolato used for nearly a decade for various businesses, many of which failed, according to court documents. At one point in 2011 they even shared the office for two separate companies at the same time, state records show.

In the fall of 2010, the pair appeared together as moderators on two political webinars just six months after Badolato was questioned by the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office concerning sexual assault allegations made by three women.

On Feb. 26, 2010, according to a sheriff’s report, deputies visited Badolato at his Main Street office because of “numerous reports received over a period of time where females alleged that he had forced himself on them and had sex against their will. We explained to him that none of them had filed charges. However they did file reports about the incidents. We told Badolato that raised some concerns from a law enforcement standpoint.”

Badolato, according to the report, told the deputies the girls came onto him and that he would choose his dates more carefully in the future.

One Sheriff’s Office report alleged Badolato flew young “models” he met on “sugar daddy” websites from out of state to his home, where he promised them $1,000 for photo shoots on the beach, along with use of his house and an expensive car, but didn’t follow through on his promises. Two of the women flown in alleged he sexually assaulted them, one from Wisconsin in 2009, the other from Maine in 2010, though no charges were filed.

One said in a report she sent a text to her husband and father in Wisconsin while in Badolato’s house that read: “Emergency. Get me home.”

Those alleged incidents were not the first time Badolato was accused of sexual misconduct. According to a handwritten report given to a Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office deputy in 2006, one of Badolato’s former housekeepers alleged he would not pay her unless she performed oral sex. The woman also said he sexually assaulted her and told her to “consider this as part of your job. Think of yourself as my dirty slut.” Again, charges were not filed.

Emails obtained by the Herald-Tribune show attempts were made to warn Bannon about associating with Badolato. In 2011, Sarasota resident Joey Barquin began sending emails to associates of Bannon’s in the film industry, as well as to Diane Clohesy, Bannon’s ex-wife, trying to steer Bannon away from investing money with Badolato.

Barquin, who sued the Catholic Church in 1993 for alleged abuse as a child in a Vermont state orphanage and accepted an undisclosed settlement, claims Badolato owes him more than $600,000 from a past business dealing. He spent a lot of time, he says, with Badolato in his Sarasota office and traveling with him to places such as Cuba for business.

At 6:12 p.m., on July 22, 2013, Barquin sent an email to a person in the media industry Bannon was associated with stating “Badolato records all of his phone calls with a Sony m-572-v micro tape player and has his office wired with a GSM micro room device with separate Sim card insertion for remote listening.

“He has been recording Bannon and other associates/individuals/conservative groups etc. etc. for years without there (sic) knowledge.”

As recently as spring 2016, Badolato wrote three stories for Breitbart News — the website Bannon formerly ran — concerning the presidential election, and from 2010 to 2016 Badolato received “associate producer” credits on several conservative documentaries that Bannon made, including one called “Clinton Cash,” which raised questions concerning a uranium deal with Russia that the Clinton Foundation allegedly profited from. Rebekah Mercer, daughter of billionaire and conservative mega-donor Robert Mercer and a former financial backer of Bannon, also received a producer credit on the film.

Badolato was also involved in Bannon’s 2011 film about Sarah Palin called “The Undefeated.” The day before the film was released, Badolato received a “second-chance” letter from the IRS because he had not filed tax returns for the years 2005-2009 and had ignored a summons, records show.

Badolato recently removed any references to his associations with Bannon’s film company from his personal website and no longer touts his work for Breitbart.

Badolato, according to his same website, describes himself as a venture capitalist. He says the companies he has founded have secured more than $700 million in capital before going public. Still, many of his businesses have failed. Years later he has retroactively resigned from the board of several and he has filed twice for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and twice for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, with three of the cases dismissed because he failed to file proper information to the court. Badolato’s 2005 bankruptcy was filed on the day before a RICO Act case alleging stock fraud was set to go to trial and he was among the defendants.

On an amendment for Badolato’s 2005 bankruptcy, Bannon was listed 16th among 136 new creditors who received notice of the filing. The amount of Bannon’s claim was not revealed. At No. 19 on the list was a brokerage firm in Costa Rica called Red Sea Management, which was a “money laundering hub,”according to the Justice Department, and run by a former Sarasota resident named Jonathan Curshen, who is currently serving 20 years in prison for stock fraud. Badaloto’s final bankruptcy filing for the case in 2013 would show he owed $15,631,334.62 to creditors, according to his trustee. The IRS alone had claims for over $700,000.

In the original 2005 filing Badolato claimed he owed $714,519 in unpaid taxes in 1998, 2001 and 2002, and a foreclosure filing on his house shows a lien was placed by the IRS for $517,042.66 of unpaid taxes from 1998. Another IRS document shows that he didn’t file returns from 2005-10 at one point.

Badolato has participated in the State Attorney Worthless Check Diversion Program, records show, and once, according to a notice in the Herald-Tribune, even had his storage locker on Bee Ridge Road auctioned off to satisfy a debt.

And yet Bannon has always seemed to trust Badolato’s business sense.

Money laundering hub

Bannon and Badolato first went into business together in 2003 with a small cosmetics company incorporated in Delaware called the Donna Messenger Corp. Their office was at 7820 South Holiday Drive in Sarasota. Soon, they were on to bigger things.

In 2003 Bannon and Badolato became involved in a nasal spray company based in Englewood called Sinofresh. The company’s prospects were promising and national retail chains such as Walmart agreed to carry the product.Ed McMahon even signed on as spokesman. But the company soon became ensnared in nasty internal squabbles and Badolato was at the center. Badolato’s company — Sargon Capital — helped raise money for Sinofresh to go public and Badolato was retained in a consulting role. Badolato brought in Bannon and Seattle attorney David Otto — who was also involved in the Donna Messenger Corp. — to be part of Sinofresh. Bannon and Otto became board members, but were temporarily removed from the board for their relationships with Badolato.

Charles Fust, CEO of Sinofresh, had a memo drawn in Dec. 2003, which was later included in court, claiming Badolato was “engaging in substantial acts of illegal trading of company securities,” according to a document. Another document filed with the SEC stated “certain board members voted by written consent to remove Bannon and Otto. The decision was made after it became apparent they were not investigating certain improprieties that may have occurred as a result of the actions of Sargon Capital and Andrew Badolato.” Fust later said in a deposition he believed Bannon “failed to examine the matter” because he was “protecting Badolato’s interest.”

Badolato, according to a Herald-Tribune story, spearheaded a class-action lawsuit in federal court against Fust and Sinofresh, though he was not named as a plaintiff. Among the allegations were that Bannon and Otto were improperly removed from the board (they were quickly reinstated) and that Fust used company money to buy an engagement ring. The case was dismissed in August, 2005, but Bannon and the other named plaintiffs continued with a malpractice suit against the law firm of Greenberg Traurig, which had served as counsel to Sinofresh.

The plaintiffs argued that Sinofresh executives received bad advice as it pertained to Bannon and Otto’s removal. The case was settled with Sinofresh receiving $200,000 from the law firm and was released from any fees.

The infighting took a substantial toll. By 2006 Sinofresh announced $1.8 million in losses for the previous year, a 20 percent decline, and Walmart removed the product from its shelves due to poor sales. Bannon and Badolato parted ways as well, but didn’t stay idle.

In 2006 Badolato became chairman of a company called Industrial Biotech Corp (IBOT), which was involved in a “pump and dump” scheme, according to court documents. This particular type of fraud involved manipulating the price of stock by faking trading activity and bribing brokers to buy the stock for wealthy clients at inflated prices. Former Sarasota resident Jonathan Curshen was arrested as part of the scheme for attempting to bribe an undercover FBI officer who was posing as a broker for $19,000.

Under oath in a New York courtroom in 2009 Curshen stated that “I conspired with individuals including Andrew Badolato to commit securities fraud and commercial bribery.”

Badolato was not charged with a crime in the IBOT case. Curshen wrote in an email to the Herald-Tribune that “I believe Badolato cooperated with law enforcement to save himself.” He also wrote that he believes Badolato was wearing a wire during meetings between the two, leading to his arrest in the case.

Curshen owned the brokerage firm in Costa Rica called Red Sea Management, and a document obtained by the Herald-Tribune shows Badolato and his Sarasota attorney, Charles Cleland Jr., had an association with what a Justice Department press release called a “money laundering hub.”

The document shows that on July 21, 2008, Cleland sent a fax to Curshen and Red Sea Management that said “please process requested $50,000 wire transfer to my trust account FBO (for benefit of) Mr. Badolato. Your policies as previously described allow wire transfers from Mr. Badolato’s brokerage account to bank accounts in his name.” Cleland provided his Bank of America account number, the wire routing number and listed the bank’s address as 1605 Main Street, Sarasota.

“The document you have from 2008 is describing a transfer of funds to Badolato that was from the proceeds of IBOT securities,” Curshen wrote in an email to the Herald-Tribune. “As Badolato sold IBOT shares he would transfer some of the proceeds to himself.”

Badolato also had a longstanding business relationship dating back to at least 1998 with former Sarasota resident Gerald C. Parker. In 2011, Parker was among several defendants named in a $30.3 million judgment in Nebraska federal court after three retirees lost millions of dollars. Badolato was not involved with Parker during the Nebraska Ponzi scheme but has been partners with Parker when other substantial judgments were handed down against them in court.

On May 5, 1999, according to court records, a company called Carter Footwear filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania against Badolato, Parker and two companies they were involved with — Investment Management of America and Graystone Worldwide. The complaint was filed under the RICO Act and alleged fraud among other charges.

Carter Footwear alleged that Graystone Worldwide — and Badolato — falsely portrayed Graystone as having “millions of dollars in state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and hundreds of millions of dollars in sales commitments.” Carter Footwear claimed it incurred damages in excess of $6 million.

The lawsuit, according to a document, arose out of “Badolato’s involvement in an elaborate scheme to defraud Carter as part of an overall plan for Badolato and his cohorts to get rich through a sale of stock that was worthless.” The day before the case was originally set for trial — Sept. 6, 2005 — Badolato filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The convoluted civil case dragged on for nine years and generated more than 1,100 documents before the judge issued a default judgment against Graystone after the firm and its attorneys failed to show up for or participate in the trial, which was held in December 2007.Badolato and Parker eventually agreed to pay $112,500 apiece as a settlement. A document filed in 2009 said both had failed to abide by the agreement and it is not known if they ever did.

Badolato also has had business dealings with a former Tampa resident named Michael Muzio, who is currently serving 13 ½ years in prison for his role among three co-conspirators in a $14.3 million Ponzi scheme in South Florida that targeted nearly 600 Haitians in 2008-09. The scheme originated with Badolato’s sale of a shell company to Muzio, who served as a middleman in the transaction. Muzio, who was facing 190 years in prison, referred to Badolato as “a friend of mine” in a 2010 court document.

The association between Bannon and Badolato reemerged in 2010 — at least on paper. Badolato formed a new company called E3, and on a confidential prospectus obtained by the Herald-Tribune, Bannon was listed as an advisory board member.

Joining Bannon on the board was Oklahoma attorney Lewis B. Moon — a former football player for the Miami Dolphins whom Badolato claimed was a “lifetime member of the national association of the Boy Scouts.” Moon has been arrested multiple times and was banned from practicing law by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which called him an “embarrassment to the legal profession” after finding “convincing evidence” that he falsely identified himself as an ATF agent, engaged in shooting firearms while intoxicated, attempted to extort money and assaulted a fellow lawyer. He then threatened to kill the lawyer and have five men rape and kill his “pretty” daughter.

Moon threatened to stick a pen through the attorney’s neck and put his body through a shredder.

It was straight out of a movie — but not one Bannon would be interested in. By 2010 Bannon was immersed in the world of conservative filmmaking and when the closing credits rolled on his documentaries one name could often be found:

Andrew Badolato.

The producers

Badolato was listed as marketing director on Bannon’s 2011 homage to Palin called “The Undefeated.” The day before the movie was released — July 15, 2011 — Badolato received a certified letter from the IRS because he hadn’t filed his taxes during the years 2005-2009 and he had ignored an IRS summons two months earlier. Eventually he filed for 2005 and 2006. It is not known if he filed for the remaining years.

On Oct. 26, 2012, a Bannon documentary called “District of Corruption” was released and, according Breitbart News, the film “lays bare the lawless and unconstitutional Obama administration and makes the case for more openness, integrity and honesty in government.”

Badolato was given an “associate producer” credit on the “District of Corruption” film. Eight months prior to its release, Badolato received a summons to appear before the IRS because he hadn’t filed his 2010 tax return, court records show, and by Sept. 17, 2012, he still hadn’t complied, missing two meetings with the IRS. He finally complied on November 30, 2012, records show. The Herald-Tribune was unable to verify whether Badolato is current on his taxes.

One of Bannon’s movie companies called Victory Films produced both “The Undefeated” and “District of Corruption” and on his personal website Badolato claimed to have been the vice president of business development and sales for the company. He recently removed the claim from his site.

Badolato was also given an “associate producer” credit on Bannon’s “Clinton Cash” documentary. Bannon and influential conservative donor Rebekah Mercer were listed as “executive producers” on the documentary. The company that produced the film was called Glittering Steel, which was owned by Mercer and Bannon.

Bannon has had other film companies as well, and one was registered with the state of Florida as being based in Sarasota — its address listed as Badaloto’s Main Street office.

Bannon’s Victory Film Productions eventually morphed into what was called VFP III and from Dec. 30, 2010 to April 10, 2017 he listed the Main Street office in Sarasota as the company’s principal address, renewing the company’s registration with the state for six straight years, records show, doing so even on March, 13, 2017 while he was still inside the White House. On his financial disclosure form, he stated he received no income from the company. He also stated the company was based in Tallahassee, not Sarasota.

At one point between 2010 and 2011, both Bannon and Badolato registered the Main Street office with the state for two different companies they were separately involved with, and Badolato wasn’t the only one who shared the address with Bannon.

From 2015 to 2017, records show, Bannon’s film company was even registered at the Main Street address at the same time as the Sarasota High Alumni Letterwinners Association.

Dual residencies

The most defining time of Trump’s presidential campaign occurred in the middle of August 2016, a few months prior to the election.

By then, Trump was projected to be losing to Clinton by double digits and campaign manager Paul Manafort was coming under scrutiny for his alleged dealings with Ukraine.

It also turned out to be a defining time in the relationship between Bannon and Badolato.

First came Aug. 13, 2016. That’s when a fundraiser for Trump took place at the home of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Influential conservative donor Rebekah Mercer reportedly told Trump he needed to bring Bannon and pollster Kellyanne Conway on board if he harbored any hopes of winning. Four days later — on Aug. 17, 2016 — Bannon was officially hired. Not only did he run Trump’s campaign, he resurrected it, and to historical proportions as Trump later became the 45th president of the United States.

Shortly before he joined Trump’s campaign, Bannon discovered that the Guardian newspaper of London was planning a story claiming he had been using the vacant Miami address of Diane Clohesy, his ex-wife, to claim Florida residency, even though it was apparent he never lived there and the house had been vacant for some time.

On August 19, 2016 — two days after officially joining Trump’s campaign — Bannon changed course and filed a document with the Sarasota County Elections Office, now claiming Badolato’s Casey Key Road home as his new residence.

The story of Bannon’s new Sarasota County residence made waves for a few days and then disappeared. It would surface again, however, and in an embarrassing way for Trump.

On Oct. 14, 2016, Bannon registered to vote in New York, using an apartment on West 40th Street in Manhattan as his address. On the last afternoon of eligibility he requested an absentee ballot and also indicated New York was where he received his mail.

Indeed, Bannon was now registered to vote in two states: New York and Florida.

When Bannon filled out his New York registration form he left one box empty — box number 12.

Asked in box number 12 for his previous address, Bannon left the line blank. He did not list Badolato’s address.

When asked where his previous state was, he left that line blank, too. He did not list Florida.

Everything else on the form was filled out and signed.

When the Herald-Tribune revealed in a column on Jan. 25, 2017, that Bannon had been registered to vote in two states, it caused a stir nationally as Trump had tweeted on the same morning as the column ran that he “will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states ...”

Later that day the Washington Post reported that a source close to Bannon said he sent Kathy Dent, Sarasota County’s supervisor of elections, an email on Nov. 7 — the day before the election — claiming Bannon was now registered in New York and that he wished to be removed from the Sarasota County voting rolls.

Ron Turner, current Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections, said his office had no record of anyone receiving any correspondence from Bannon.

A silent witness

On Jan. 25, 2017, the day the story broke that Bannon was registered in two states, Turner removed his name from the Sarasota County rolls, which meant Bannon and Badolato were no longer officially roommates.

Three days later, on a momentous Saturday afternoon, former Sarasota County resident Stephen Bannon — a man so powerful he wasn’t required to wear a tie inside the White House — stood at the historic Resolute desk and listened to the first known presidential conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Around the same time that afternoon, Badolato stood in the circular driveway of his weathered million-dollar home on Casey Key Road in a pair of cargo shorts and explained to a sheriff’s deputy he did not steal two antique clay pots from his neighbor.

The deputy took Badolato’s statement and left him to walk back inside and when he reached the front door he was greeted by the strangest of sights: A mannequin, posed just inside the entrance.

The mannequin looked nothing like Stephen Bannon, by the way, if that was ever the intent.

==

bannon defense interview

https://www.thethinkingconservative.com/steve-bannon-says-this-was-a-political-hit-job/

==

hmmn

https://entertainmentoverdose.co.uk/news/andrew-badolato-5-fast-facts-you-need-to-know-189864.html

no lnx

andrew Badolato: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

August 20, 20200 42 4 minutes read

Andrew Badolato faces federal indictments for money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud along with President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Steve Bannon, Timothy Shea and Brian Kolfage, all of whom are accused of siphoning a total of around $1 million in funds that were donated to Kolfage’s We Build the Wall crowdfunding venture which took money from Americans to be used to build a border wall between the U.S and Mexico.

While donors were promised that Kolfage would “not take a penny in salary or compensation” and “100% of the funds raised will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose,” according to the indictment, prosecutors say that the four men secretly plotted and skimmed money from the donors to pay Kolfage, who started the campaign, and to put into their own pockets.

The indictment says the men worked together to launder the money through a shell non-profit called Non-Profit-1, each getting hundreds of thousands of dollars that they used for personal gains.

Kolfage is accused of using money from donors to pay for “home renovations, payments toward a boat, a luxury SUV, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, personal tax payments, and credit card debt,” according to court records.

Prosecutors say the other men, “each received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds from We Build the Wall, which they each used to pay for a variety of personal expenses, including, among other things, travel, hotels, consumer goods, and personal credit card debts.”

Here is what you need to know about Andrew Badolato:

1. Badolato Lives in Florida & Is a Venture Capitalist & Entrepreneur who has Filed for Bankruptcy At Least Twice

On Badolato’s private Twitter page, his bio says, “Venture Capital, entrepreneur, classical liberal, single father, raised 3 sons, recent 2x grandfather, can skin a buck and run a trotline,” a reference to the Hank Williams Jr. Song, “A Country Boy Can Survive”.

Badolato’s personal webpage and LinkedIn account list several companies he has started over the years going back to 2001. His company Bye Bye Now ended up claiming bankruptcy in 2001 due to the dot.com crash, according to Badolato’s website. He also reported that in 2006 he wrote that he filed again for bankruptcy, this time personal, which he blames on the retroactive new homestead laws passed by congress.

In 2018 Badolato co-founded Golden Goose Technologies LLC, (GGT) which he describes as “formed in 2018, specializes in the licensing, incubation and commercialization of technologies developed by defense contractors, DARPA labs and other leading research institutions and centers.”

He is also the Director of a company called White Knights and Vultures, “A boutique venture capital, private equity, financial advisory and professional services firm that incubates, develops, finances and assists niche-specific business opportunities,” according to his LinkedIn page.

White Knights and Vultures is named in the indictment as one of 11 company accounts that are ordered to forfeit funds having to do with the federal case.

2. Bannon and Badolato Exchanged Texts in Which They Discussed the Importance of Message That All the Proceeds Would go to Building a Border Wall Was Vital to Keeping Donors Money

As part of the evidence in the indictment, prosecutors say that Bannon and Badolato texted about how it was important to keep up the narrative that the Build the Wall effort was entirely run by volunteers and all of the money from donors would be used for that purpose.

Badolato texted if they did that the effort would become “the most talked-about media narrative ever” since it “removes al self-interest taint” and “gives Brian Kolfage sainthood,” according to the indictment.

Prosecutors say it was Badolato who insisted on sending an email to all of the donors stating that no one was getting paid and that was a “material item” to donors.

Kolfage also went on social media and assured donors no one was getting any money from donors, and according to the indictment some donors wrote to him saying they didn’t have a lot of money and did not trust online fundraising campaigns but they trusted Kolfage. He allegedly wrote them back promising he was not being compensated.

3. Badolato Has Mob Ties & Those Ties — As Well as He & Bannon’s Relationship — Were All In Place When Bannon Was Working to Get Donald Trump Elected to the Presidency

[Former advisor to the US president and US publicist Steve Bannon poses during a photo session in Paris on May 27, 2019.]

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has done extensive research and reporting on Badolato and found that in August 2016 Bannon used Badalto’s home address to register to vote in Florida while he was living in D.C working on the Trump campaign.

In years before that Badolato was known to have had ties with the mob.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in 2018:

But mob ties aren’t the only sordid affairs Badolato is accused of.

4. 3 Women in 4 Years Accused Badolato of Sexual Assault

In 2006, 2009 and 2010 three different women reported to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office that Badolato raped them. He was never prosecuted because according to the sheriff’s office none of the women pursued filing criminal charges after initially making the claims.

Badolato, who says he’s a single dad who raised three sons on his social media pages, was accused by a nanny and two women he met online and flew to his home.

The nanny told police in 2006 that Badolato wouldn’t pay her until she gave him oral sex and said that was part of her job. She hesitantly agreed to do it, crying, she told deputies, and then he took it further and fully raped her.

In another case, Badolato saw a woman on a modeling website and said he wanted to photograph her and flew her into Tampa. Once back at his house, she says he forced himself on her multiple times.

The third woman has a similar story — she agreed to fly to Florida after the two met on a website. She says once back at his house he wasted no time demanding sex. She told investigators “I didn’t expect to have sex with him the first night.”

In the police reports, it says they went to Badolato about the allegations and he said it was all consensual, but that in the future he would, “be more careful picking his dates.”

5. Badolato Calls Himself a Hobbyist Conservative-Oriented “Classical Liberal”

While liberalism isn’t generally a word associated with Breitbart or Bannon, Badolato boasts that he’s been an infrequent contributor on Breitbart News, formerly owned by Bannon, and his articles picked up on the Drudge report, saying on his website, “Some mainstream political media analysts suggested the data articles were responsible for one of the largest national political narrative shifts of the election year.”

At least one of his data-based articles had to do with the Trump campaign.

According to the Mises Institute, “Classical liberalism is the term used to designate the ideology advocating private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade.”

==

SEC

https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-prosecutors-have-steve-bannons-murky-nonprofit-in-their-sights

Near the end of a lengthy indictment detailing fraud allegations against Stephen Bannon, former Donald Trump campaign CEO and chief strategist and his associates, federal prosecutors reveal that they intend to seize the assets of a murky nonprofit organization Bannon launched in 2017 to promote “economic nationalism.”

The group is Citizens of the American Republic, a California-based nonprofit that serves as a platform for Bannon’s films and podcasts that promote Trump’s ideology. Throughout the 24-page indictment, the group appears to be referenced as “Non-Profit-1” in a scheme in which Bannon and his partners were allegedly looting a crowdsourced charity, We Build the Wall, for personal gain. The indictment never outright states that “Non-Profit-1” is Citizens of the American Republic, but it describes it as an “organization founded by [Bannon] with the stated purpose of promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty,” which closely matches the nonprofit’s own stated aims.

The indictment alleges that “Non-Profit-1” received over $1 million through the scheme and funneled part of it to Brian Kolfage, the military veteran who raised money to build a privately funded wall to help Trump block off the southern border.

The document also sheds light on an oblique financial trail linking a loose-knit group of private businesses and nonprofit organizations politically aligned with Trump. In addition to Bannon’s nonprofit and We Build the Wall, federal investigators are moving to seize assets from four other entities, including two affiliated with Kolfage — a defunct right-wing news site called Freedom Daily that operated out of Florida and America First Medical, a medical supplies company Kolfage formed in Wyoming to sell masks in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. rules allowing so-called dark money groups like Bannon’s to hide the identity of their donors helps them maintain a shroud of secrecy, which is only partially pierced by a criminal indictment and the subpoena power of investigators.

“The only reason any of this is coming to light is it turns out that the money that was being collected wasn’t necessarily used for the promised purposes and instead it was used to enrich someone,” said Daniel Weiner, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Election Reform Program. “The secrecy, at least for the people who helped design the system, is a feature not a bug.”

Kolfage told Reuters in 2019 that he had earned seven figures through creating and selling conservative websites like Freedom Daily.

Bannon played a critical role in helping Kolfage set up We Build the Wall Inc. after GoFundMe, the crowdfunding platform he had been using, accumulated millions in donations from supporters, the indictment charges. GoFundMe demanded that Kolfage set up a legitimate nonprofit to accept donations. The effort ultimately raised over $25 million after promising — falsely, the indictment alleges — that the donations would not benefit Kolfage.

That “removes all self-interest taint” and gives “Brian Kolfage saint hood,” stated Andrew Badolato, a longtime Bannon associate who was also indicted,in a text to Bannon that prosecutors quoted. Badolato and his lawyer did not respond to emails requesting comment.

Bannon promoted the wall effort on his podcast “War Room: Pandemic”, when he had Kolfage on to discuss the situation at the border.

“You’ve been the leader of this, assisting President Trump in building this wall in these tough areas,” Bannon said to Kolfage.

[Read More

He Built a Privately Funded Border Wall. It’s Already at Risk of Falling Down if Not Fixed.

Trump supporters funded a private border wall on the banks of the Rio Grande, helping the builder secure $1.7 billion in federal contracts. Now the “Lamborghini” of border walls is in danger of falling into the river if nothing is done, experts say.

Bannon was arrested on Thursday by federal agents in Connecticut while on board a superyacht owned by wealthy Chinese businessman Guo Wengui. Guo also allowed Bannon to use his private jet to fly around promoting Republican congressional candidates in 2018, an arrangement that experts said could run afoul of campaign finance laws banning foreign donations.

Bannon and his lawyers did not return emails from ProPublica requesting comment. He told reporters after posting bond that the indictment was a “fiasco” to “stop people who want to build the wall.” On Friday, Kolfage wrote on his Facebook page that the indictment is a “witch hunt” and the work of a “weaponized judicial system” trying to take down Trump insiders.

Kolfage did not return an email from ProPublica for comment after the indictment. On Thursday, Trump continued to distance himself from We Build the Wall, telling reporters that he thought “it was done for showboating reasons” and that he didn’t know that Bannon was linked to the group. A spokesperson for Trump told Fox News that the president did not know the other people involved with the project.

Citizens of the American Republic raised around $4.5 million in 2018, according to its tax filings, most of which came through six- and seven-figure donations from just a handful of donors, whose names are not disclosed. A single donor gave $2 million. The group’s purpose is to “educate the American people” about issues including “economic nationalism,” “social policy and respect for traditional American values” and “America First foreign policy,” among other issues, according to the filing.

The group’s first filings, for the 2017 tax year, show no donations to the nonprofit. The 2018 tax filings show transactions that occurred prior to the timeline covered in the federal indictment.

As a “social welfare” nonprofit organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, the organization is not required to disclose its donors. The contact number listed on the group’s tax forms belongs to itsaccountant, Robert Watkins, who did not return a message requesting comment.

The organization made just $15,000 in grants in 2018. The filings show $250,000 in loans and payments to Bannon’s film company and $40,000 in payments to Bannon’s nephew, Sean.

Read More

Steve Bannon’s Use of Private Jet Linked to Chinese Businessman Could Violate Campaign Finance Law

The former Trump adviser used a plane apparently owned by businessman Guo Wengui. Americans are barred from receiving services for campaigns donated by foreign nationals.

Bannon is the group’s president and is described as working 80 hours a week for the group with no salary. His sister Mary E. Meredith, who is vice president, earned $20,000 for her 40 hours per week of work. Meredith did not respond to messages requesting comment. Other top officials are Dan Fleuette, a longtime Bannon associate, and lawyerCleta Mitchell. Fleuette did not respond to a LinkedIn message requesting an interview.

Mitchell has served on the boards of several right-leaning nonprofits, including the National Rifle Association and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, led by Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore. She declined an interview request.

The filings show more than $1.1 million flowing out of the nonprofit to various large vendors, although the nature of their work is unclear. Nearly $850,000 went toward travel, and more than $1.4 million to “conferences, conventions and meetings.” The filing says that Citizens of the American Republic funded two Bannon documentaries, about the 2016 campaign and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and paid for promoting them.

In 2018, Citizens of the American Republic paid nearly $144,000 to a company called Platinum Advertising Corporation for “websites/social media.” The address given for Platinum Advertising in the filing, 30 N. Gould St., Suite R, in Sheridan, Wyoming, is the same address as the medical supplies company Kolfage formed, America First Medical.

Wyoming has particularly lax business transparency laws, and Platinum Advertising appears to be a shell corporation. Its secretary is listed in state filings as Gerald Pitts, the founder and president of Wyoming Corporate Services, which specializes in incorporating businesses to shield assets from taxation or disclosure. A 2011 investigation by Reuters found that Pitts was listed as “a director, president or principal for at least 41 companies” registered at a single address in Wyoming.

Pitts did not respond to an email requesting comment.

A second company paid by Citizens of the American Republic, Fortress FM, received more than $191,000 in 2018 for “security, logistics, and training.” The company address listed on the 2018 filing is a post office box in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that is also used by a firm of accountants, Kercher-Jarrett LLC.

T. Gary Kercher and Wayne Jarrett, who are listed on Kercher-Jarrett LLC’s business filings, did not respond to messages requesting comment.

One of the charges Bannon is facing is that of conspiring to commit money laundering. The 2018 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment, prepared by the departments of Treasury, Justice and Homeland Security and U.S. regulatory agencies, noted the risks presented by a lax approach to shell corporations.

“The ease with which companies can be incorporated under state law, and how little information is generally required about the company’s owners or activities, raises concerns about a lack of transparency,” the report said.

Kolfage worked with Fisher Industries, a North Dakota-based construction firm, to help build the two border fences. We Build the Wall funded the construction of one stretch of border fence in New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas, and contributed 5% of funds for Fisher to build a $42 million fence along the banks of the Rio Grande south of Mission, Texas.

A ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigation found that the Rio Grande Valley project suffered from major erosion just months after it was finished. Engineers warned that could result in segments of the fence toppling into the river if not fixed. Fisher Industries’ CEO has dismissed the concerns and said that he will fix any problems.

Despite criticism of the wall-building project from the president, his administration has awarded Tommy Fisher, CEO of Fisher Industries, about $2 billion worth of federal contracts to build segments of the border wall for the government — at least two of them while a federal audit over concerns of “inappropriate influence” by the president is pending.

Fisher’s attorney told ProPublica and the Tribune that his client has not received any other money beyond the construction funding provided and has no other business with We Build the Wall.

Perla Trevizo and Kirsten Berg contributed reporting.