AIRLEAF UPDATES, "Emergency." October 27, 2007

October 27, 2007
Dear Airleaf Victims Friends,

Welcome to our three new members who found us through our Google advertising.

This has been quite a busy Airleaf week for sure. First, allow me thank so many of you who have been sending letters of support and encouragement during this most interesting of times. I did several things this week that prompted the letter from Airleaf’s lawyer.

First, the book “The Touch” was removed from the site because Mr. Art Ayris refused to be part of this scandal. This was a big victory for us because Airleaf continued to seek out new victims and used “The Touch” like a spider’s web to catch a fly. Next, I contacted the three links on the Airleaf site explaining our position and how Airleaf has defrauded so many innocent authors. Two of those links disappeared within hours after they called Airleaf and demanded to be removed. We greatly appreciate the support of those two companies. There is still one link left for Author’s Corner; however I did send an extensive letter to Mr. Ian Moore last evening explaining our position and asking him to support our cause. I’ll keep you posted.

The letter from the Airleaf attorney was quite amusing to me. After an attorney friend read through it, he stated that Airleaf was willing to negotiate a settlement. It was hard for me to see that in their letter in the midst of all of the other verbiage threatening me. Somewhere towards the end, if you look again, you’ll see this phrase that was brought to my attention:
“And notify us of your desire to negotiate a settlement”

Well, here’s my decision. I won’t negotiate any settlement with Airleaf unless we all negotiate a settlement. In return for a settlement, they went on to say that I would have to end my battle against them and crawl away without looking back. Now some of you may wonder why I wouldn’t accept a settlement—and I suppose I would wonder too if one of you were in that position. All of you have only known me a short time, and primarily through email correspondence. What Airleaf and most of you don’t know about me is that I have been a social activist for most of my adult life—over 35 years. I have fought bigger and better enemies than Airleaf and never sold out my values. I am not fighting for just for myself or I would seek a settlement, but I am fighting for a group of innocent people who have become victims of one of the most treacherous scams that I have ever seen. I have made some wonderful friends through this group who are caring trusting people, and your weekly letters of support and offers of friendship only inspire me to fight harder.

Actually, this week, I heard from over 40 of you with notes of thanks and support for the battle ahead. Some of your comments included:

Bring them on! This is a typical bluff from somebody standing on a gangplank wearing a blindfold! Dr. Mac
Again.. thank you for standing up to them.. and thank you for standing up for us..

Selah.. Betty

You are so right about the goings-on between Lau and Jones being irrelevant. Lau was the president of the company and bears ultimate responsibility for everything. Just as in nautical law, the captain of the ship bears ultimate responsibility for any mishap such as a collision or grounding even he wasn't on the bridge when it happened. Hugs, Bob R.

Thank you for your leadership. Great job! What I did to cover myself was used my credit card. It has a fraud insurance clause. I hope the others do have insurance. Remind them that if they paid with their credit cards, they may have the coverage. They might even check their insurance agents, too. Their car insurance or home insurance might have this protection. Rudy

Dear Bonnie,

Not one person can waver, not one person can pull back, not one person can withdraw - not one person can give up...or give in.

This is playing out exactly as con artists play things out.

One is blamed - one no longer in the picture, and people are given information - really misinformation - that since that really bad guy that did this is nowhere to be found it's no use.

Baloney. Pure malarkey. Just as employers feast upon employees being ignorant of labor laws and abuse employees Carl Lau is acting as a victim himself. Innocent. Pure as the driven snow. A lamb led to slaughter.

Don't fall prey! Do not waver or feel bad for Carl Lau. He was NOT a victim.
Ken P.

I am glad that so many of you have offered to help however you can. There are several things that we can do to start pushing ahead.

1. In the legal letter I sent you from Dennis Schell, Carl Lau’s attorney, he claimed that “You have maliciously published on the internet false and misleading factual statements about Airleaf and Mr. Lau and have negligently failed to learn these statements are false. Such disparaging communications are not only false and unfair,” and then some legal jargon about against the law of Indiana.

The words that he claims fall under this “false and misleading factual statements” include:“burned by Airleaf,” being “robbed,” “treated with treachery and disdain,” “defrauded,” “victimized,” and “have horror stories.” Now, I’ve used some of those words on our website and in my correspondence, but not all of them. The other words come from you, members of our group who have told your stories. So in other words, not only am I guilty, but many of you are guilty too! What can you, our authors, do about this outrage? Please send an email to Dennis Schell at dschell@overhauser.com. Please be as long as you can be explaining how everything that is being stated about Airleaf is totally correct. Tell him your own “horror story” so he will understand that we are a group that is dedicated to seeing justice. Let him know that Airleaf can’t bully us, intimidate us, or scare us anymore than they have by stealing our money. I know that lawyers work on billing basis – usually quarter hours—and they charge for reviewing correspondence. If enough of you send letters, this will cost Carl Lau a lot of money. If he pays his lawyer the same way as he pays his authors, I don’t imagine his lawyer will be representing him for very long. Please send me a copy of your correspondence to Mr. Schell at Bonkaye@aol.com so I can track it. I am also hoping that once Mr. Schell learns the truth about Airleaf, he will not want to continue to represent them because he will realize that everything we all say is true.

2. Please think about having Airleaf stop printing your books like I did. Remember, every book that they sell goes into the Airleaf bank account. You won’t see it. I had my attorney send Carl Lau a letter in July telling his to “cease and desist” publishing my book. You can do it yourself—you don’t need an attorney. But be sure to send it out certified mail so you’ll have a signature on it. The address for Airleaf is:

Airleaf Publishing and Bookselling
35 Industrial Drive · Martinsville, Indiana 46151

3. Some of you volunteered to speak to the press. Now is a good time for us to start our media campaign. I have written a generic press release that can be adapted to each of you who is willing to send this out in your local area to start getting Airleaf into the media. If you would like to be part of this and haven’t volunteered to be part of our Airleaf media group, just email me and I will send you the information.

As you all know from my correspondence this week, Airleaf continues to rob money from new people by taking money for books they cannot possibly deliver. Many of you have been waiting for a year or longer. If they can’t publish your books, you know that the new victims have no chance of seeing theirs.

I will be calling the Attorney General’s office on Monday for an update from Terry Tolliver and to pass along some suggestions made by our group members. He’s been on vacation this week. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I get a response.

Please don’t give up—we are winning. We are a wonderful team.

Love, Bonnie

Here is where all Airleaf Victims can voice their opinions, share their stories and help comfort those that are still being victimized.

AIRLEAF UPDATES, October 23, 2007

October 23, 2007
Dear Airleaf Victim Friends,

First, thank you all for the many notes of support over the past 24 hours since I sent you the last fraudulent email. Fraudulent because once again, Carl Lau is doing the double talk that he does so well.

When one of our members contacted his office today, he "clarified" that note from yesterday which stated he was going out of business. According to our member:

Here is something that you can put into your truth or fiction collection, I just called Airleaf to check on when royalties checks are going to be mailed out. I was speaking to a customer service person named Tia and I mentioned reading an email from Carl saying that Airleaf was shutting down. She said this was news to her and went and got Carl. When she asked him about it, I heard him say it is not true. I quoted the bold part of the email and she repeated it to him. Once again I heard him say that he just wrote that out of frustration and that he did not mean it. It appears to me that someone other than Authors are getting screwed as well. You could definitely tell that Carl was trying to squirm out of this one in front of his staff.

Then, today, Bob Denton, another Airleaf flunky, sent out this mass notice that a few of you sent to me today:

Publish Now For $750.00
That’s right, from now to the end of October, publish for just $750.00. This special package will include all of the following:
Full color front and back cover design
Formatting to any size
Copywriting
ISBN Number
Author will receive 1 proof copy
No charges for corrections
Baker & Taylor Books & Ingram Books Distribution
Placement on Amazon.com, BN.com, Borders.com, Walmart.com, Airleaf.com many other bookselling websites.
AUTHOR will receive 50% of net profits for all books sold
AUTHOR will pay for print cost only for any personal orders of his/her own book
Sincerely, Bob Denton Author Consultant
Airleaf Publishing 800-342-6068 bdenton@airleaf.com
So, here's my thoughts.
First, in that letter Carl Lau sent to one of our newest members yesterday, he was just trying to slam Brien Jones and make himself look good. He probably was just saying he's going out of business to win sympathy. He's not getting ANY from us. He's still on the take. He can't produce our books or pay us royalties, but he's soliciting new victims promising them the same promises that he made to us. This is beyond fraudulence--it's contemptible. How does Airleaf have the audacity to keep doing this?

We must continue our battle to stop this once and for all. One thing we must do is be vigilant and do as much research as possible to know our enemy. If any of you have some time, I'd like you to help me with several strategies that I have for this investigation. Please let me know.
Here are some of the things that you can do to help keep the heat on Airleaf until they do close down--and they will after the investigation exposes them. In the meantime, please add your story to our AirleafVictims.com website. I am updating it weekly. If your story isn't on it, please add it because the more fraud we show, the more the word will get out. If you would like to be included and haven't contacted me, let me know and I'll help you. By the way, I have added additional Google advertising. My new ad says:

Airleaf Publishing Alert
We Lost Our Money, Hopes, Dreams
Don't Be Defrauded Like We Were
www.Airleafvictims.com

The other ad says:

Airleaf Victims Unite
Support Group Formed Stop
Predatory Publishing
www.Airleafvictims.com

Both of these ads are sponsored links when you go on Google and go to "Airleaf" and "Airleaf Publishing". As a result of these ads which have now received several hundred hits, we have new members, and we are warning potential victims. That's why it's so important to put as many stories on the website as possible.

We need to find other Airleaf authors. If any of you have met them at Airleaf functions and have names and contact information, please let me know.
We need to keep focused on our goals:

1. To put a quick end to Airleaf so that they can't keep victimizing innocent people. This means constant exposure to the public.

2. To retrieve our hard earned money which will mean going after Carl Lau's personal assets because the company will be bankrupt.

3. To put Carl Lau behind bars for commiting criminal fraud against so many of us.
Before I end, I'd like to send a special thank you to Mr. Art Ayris, a true Christian leader, who produced the movie "The Touch." In case you haven't checked the Airleaf website this week, the movie is no longer there. Mr. Ayris asked Airleaf to take it off the site because in his own words in an email to me responding to this tonight:

I am so new to this thing, I signed to let them do the book on my movie, then two days later heard from you and Dave, then immediately made my decision.

I sent Carl both a letter and spoke to him personally yesterday to let him know that I could not have my name nor my church’s name attached to something involving a lawsuit or attorney general investigation.

Sorry for the two emails in 24 hours, but I wanted to keep you all up to date.
United we stand--and we will win. Hang in there!

Love, Bonnie

AIRLEAF UPDATES, October 22, 2007

October 22, 2007

Dear Airleaf Victims Friends,
I just received a note from Bob Cheney, a defrauded Airleaf author. Carl Lau sent him this note today, October 22, 2008 at 9:22 a.m.

Please read the last lines that I bolded in black:
Dear Mr. Cheney:
Please understand that I have become a victim of Brien Jones also, Brien designed EVERY sales program and while I was working with Hollywood he had complete control here, he stole my database when he left and told people that he would do whatever it took to put me out of business. Not for being righteous but so he could profit from the database. I’m very sorry that you were caught in the middle, however after five years of trying very hard to get a business going, I’m done, I can no longer sustain the business and we will be closing down.
Best to you and your book.

Carl Lau
President, Airleaf LLC

This was very unexpected at this time. It is more important now than ever that we proceed to see if we can press criminal charges so that our money can be retrieved. If any of you have books that haven't been published or delivered or paid for services that didn't happen, you can sure they won't be now. We will have to demand that Carl Lau be held responsible for these losses and try to go for his personal assets. Please let me know your thoughts. Please keep in mind that whatever went on between Brien Jones and Carl Lau is irrelevent to us. This fraudulence was going on long before Brien left Airleaf and continued to intensify after he left. Remember, having Airleaf go out of business is only step one. We must insist on criminal charges and restitution to the victims.

Love, Bonnie