AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE MAY 3, 2008
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends:
This week, I'd like to welcome our three new members. We now have 434 members in our group. I have taken down the Google advertising at this point because we have more than enough victims in our group to move forward with governmental legal proceedings. If people go to Google and look up Airleaf, they will find our site fairly close to the top so they can still find us. I also have additional names to contact if more are needed to make our case with the authorities. Although I am not at liberty to discuss the case at this moment, some official public news should be forthcoming in the next few weeks—so hang in!
At this time, we have to put our faith in the Indiana federal and civil authorities whom I am confident are giving good attention to our case. Although Detective Buskirk was very instrumental in putting our case together, the city of Martinsville can't afford to prosecute our case. The last I heard was that their prosecutor has been called away on active duty overseas, and this is okay. I would much prefer to have the larger agencies prosecute this case than the local Martinsville office which would have limited consequences.
I told you two weeks ago that I would share some of the results of my research with you after I completed it. Nearly half of the people who have been in touch with me in our group are senior citizens. Some of them are well into their 80's and one just turned 90. I mention this because a former Airleaf employee told someone off the record that Airleaf did target older people. I found this horrifying because those "golden years" have now been tarnished by Airleaf for so many of our authors. Many of these people wanted to leave a legacy behind for their families and invested all their spare money in promises that were never kept.
Some of our victims are disabled and a number of them live on meager incomes. They gave whatever money they saved to Airleaf with the promise that they would enter the hall of fame. Instead, they are now members of Airleaf's "Hall of Shame."
It was very interesting to see how many people were solicited by Airleaf with letters that said, "We Want Your Book (Name of Book) in Airports All Over America!" The salesmanship was incredible. For those of us who are trusting and naïve, it's easy to see how we could be fooled into believing that this could happen. Airleaf gave the illusion of hit books being sold in book stores all over America. It was a pyramid scheme where some authors—including me—were asked to bring other unsuspecting authors into the "family." I have mentioned this before and I'll mention it again—when I was on my Airleaf "high" in the early days, I was asked to call other potential authors to woo them in. These were big spenders only—people looking to spend between $5,000 and $8,000. I was the recent acquisition that Airleaf was using for their propaganda, sending letters out that one of their authors was on CNN. Yes, I was a compelling case. What Airleaf didn't mention was that I arranged that interview—NOT THEM. They weren't part of that equation at all. Based on my success, they asked me to speak to three different people to try to convince them to come with the company. Sad to say, I did. No doubt, those authors ended up the same way as the rest of us—ripped off.
By the way, there's an off-shoot predatory publishing company of Airleaf's that I will leave unnamed at this moment which most of you have written to me about. This company is having potential victims called by loyal friends of the company to convince them to publish with this company. That's why I strongly advise you before you do anything, feel free to check with me and I will give you honest feedback. Remember the old saying, "Hit my once, shame on you—hit me twice, shame on me!"
Last week, someone posted on our Airleaf Victim's blog a private personal conversation between two former Airleaf employees. I found this despicable. The purpose of our blog is for you to put in comments about your experience—not for employees to embarrass and humiliate each other. I removed the posting as soon as it was brought to my attention by one of our members.
I'd like to congratulate Terri Levine whose book "Coaching is for Everyone" hit the market this week. Terri is excellent at doing marketing. She sent out an email blast asking people to make her book number 1 on Amazon on the date of release, May 1. In return, she offered free workshops to anyone who bought the book. She generated so much excitement that even I bought the book on May 1! I checked her Amazon rating several times that day, and at one point, it was 200! This is an amazing accomplishment that came from some great marketing. If you have any marketing strategies that have worked for you, please send them to me and share them with the group.
In a few weeks, I'll be formulating our new Author Co-op venture where we can all support each other's book sales. Stay tuned!
This week, we have three books I'd like to share with you from our authors who now have them out in print.
From Floriana HallFRANCIS, NOT THE SAINT is a true story of a family’s triumph over adversity during The Great Depression and World War II. It is an important part of history.
It is a mesmerizing story of a wonderful mother who taught her three children morals and manners and was sometimes thought of as a saint, and a father who was anything but a saint, though his religious background gnawed at his very soul.
It is a story of a man who tried to juggle three families at the same time and found out that it cannot be done--a man who lied and cheated and made his children victims of his lies. None of the families had enough food or the necessities of life.
It is a spiritual story of forgiveness which is a criteria for complete and peaceful existence. But most of all, it is a story to help warn young women to beware of egotistical men who flatter too much, flirt too much, cry too much, and who lust for too many.
From Patti Harlow:
Rock With Rodney & Party with Perky to Preserve Wildlife is a book for ages 8 to 18+, because we all need to know! We all need to know about the many assaults happening to Our Environment; affecting our lives! Before it s too late! Rodney the rock n' roll Rabbit, Perky the powerful partying Panther, Dylan the dancing Dog, Courtney the creative Cougar, Taffy the totally tubular Turtle, Fanny the fun-loving Fox, Hart the hilarious Hippo and Sam Slimey Snake get together for a party at Rodney's. While playing a game from Perky s bag of fun, "Way Out Yonder"; a game of the beauty and misfortunes of Our National Parks and Historical Landmarks spread across the USA, they decide to stop playing with fictional plans, and take action with their newly learned knowledge in helping to save Our fragile America the Beautiful!
From Kathy and Mike Staran:
Conch Waves is our latest book, featuring the same main characters of Karen and Mark Stevens as in our earlier book, Palm Monday. In this book, the main characters decide to buy a home in Key West, FL, as a vacation home. They head to Key West, to take ownership and move into their new home, and upon their arrival there, the excitement begins! They both end up taking an incredibly interesting journey throughout the Keys, with a group of characters who will surprise the reader at every twist and turn of the plot. This book features mystery, intrigue, the dark sides of the character's emotions, all amid beautiful scenery in a tropical setting."
That's the news for today. Hang in—better days are ahead!
Love, Bonnie
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 26, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 26, 2008
Dear 431 Members of the Airleaf Victims Group and Friends,
This was an interesting week for me on a personal level. I took off this week from work to thoroughly go through files that over 150 of you have sent to me. It was truly a depressing experience to see how many people were connived into so many non-existent services through Airleaf. Even though I've heard the stories each time you send them to me, going through all of this for four days truly gave a comprehensive view of the ongoing fraudulence against our authors.
Thanks to many of your meticulous tracking and record keeping, I was able to send the authorities solid information to prove our case of fraudulence. Many of you sent me email correspondences between you and other Airleaf employees which also proved that promotions were sold to you that were never delivered. One of you even sent me an email of a private conversation between two Airleaf employees who were romantically involved which also talked about Airleaf fraud in the conversation. Incidentally, this email was meant to turn people against one of the employees who left last year. Normally, I would be amazed at a company that has employees who would stoop so low to cut and paste private conversations and email them to authors deliberately, but nothing amazes me at Airleaf.
If you didn't send me your information and you think you have proof or evidence of fraudulence, it is not too late. Please email me at Bonkaye@aol.com and I will let you know how to proceed to get it to me.
Last week, I reprinted the story for you from the Martinsville Reporter about the Airleaf update. I also sent you the response I posted to the paper. Can you believe that later that night I was CENSORED?? The Martinsville Reporter took down my posting because one former employee was so incensed by this comment:
The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.Did you see me mention anyone's name here? Of course not. But this former employee was so distraught seeing this comment that she insisted it be removed. Now, I don't quite understand this unless she is guilty of the accusation and paranoid to think that people will assume it is her I'm talking about. So, I had to redo the response to the paper and remove the sexual comment in order for it to stand. Ironically, that former employee in her hysteria posted the following message on my Airleaf Victims blog:
Anonymous said...
Unless you were there, I am not sure where the ad hominem comment about someone having 'great sex' originated. We may have to start a new web site == victims of Bonnie Kaye.
I'm not sure what an "ad hominem" that the anonymous party stated is, but let me rephrase my comment about the former employees "having great sex." I would like to apologize for making assumptions, so I'll correct the statement by just saying "having sex." The "great" description was obviously the assumption on my part.
One of our victims wrote to me about checking with Bob Denton before you pay any money to Carl Lau for ANYTHING. If you are notified that you have books for sale at Airleaf that you can buy back, ask Bob Denton first if this is true. I believe you can actually negotiate to buy your books back more cheaply than Carl is asking for. I base this on one author who was offered her books back for approximately 60 cents each. Once again, I have no clue why some people are being charged 60 cents vs. a dollar vs. two dollars and more. Authors continue to tell me how responsive Bob Denton is towards helping them get back their books and materials. We greatly appreciate this Bob.
NEW BOOK OF THE WEEK:
One of our new author victims, Doris Christian, had her new book "A Daughter's Cry" released this week.
Doris sent us this information about her new book:
A Daughter's Cry was born out of my own experiences. First, my mother's sexual abuse at the hands of her dad, left many victims--not only my mother and several of her sisters, but also for me and my 4 siblings. Due to the bitterness and I'm sure the shame my mother harbored inside, she was a very unhappy person. This resulted in her many years of negativity, harsh criticism and overall strained relationships with everyone. And, it left us, her children, feeling unloved and unwanted.
Then, years later, my own two daughters were sexual molested by their stepfather, my second husband. From this heartache came a powerful story line in A Daughter's Cry. In it, my heroine, Ellie, learns there IS life after such traumatic attacks and our life's purpose can still be attained.
This is my fifth novel and the most compelling. Already, I've heard positive reports from women who were abuse victims. There is no greater reward than to hear
our hard work has delivered the intended results. I feel very blessed, indeed!
I am a single, senior citizen whose passion is writing. I retired from the medical field and now enjoy travel, my two wonderful daughters and numerous friends.
Writing has opened many doors for me and I'm currently teaching a creative writing course for single men and women.
To my fellow authors: I believe the injustice we've been dealt through Airleaf can be somewhat nullified when we support each other. What Airleaf failed to do, we can perhaps do and do it far better. There is strength in numbers and marketing our work successful requires those numbers. Certainly, not everyone will buy each book shared here, yet, it's an opportunity we didn't have before. Like making lemonade out of all those lemons? Here we can share the positive amid the negative which, I believe, is always a good thing. Because of our dedicated leader, Bonnie Kaye, we have this wonderful opportunity to share, care and repair. Share our work, care about each other, and repair the damage Airleaf and Carl Lau has caused each one of us. Thank you in advance for helping get A Daughter's Cry into the hands of those who've been used, abused, or neglected by someone they know and trusted. The release date is April 22nd and available on Amazon.com as well as Tate publishing.com
I'd like to wish Doris the best of luck with her new book. Soon we'll be discussing our Airleaf Author's co-op to help each other sell our books.
That's all the news for today! Please send me any questions or concerns you may have about any issue.
Love, Bonnie
Dear 431 Members of the Airleaf Victims Group and Friends,
This was an interesting week for me on a personal level. I took off this week from work to thoroughly go through files that over 150 of you have sent to me. It was truly a depressing experience to see how many people were connived into so many non-existent services through Airleaf. Even though I've heard the stories each time you send them to me, going through all of this for four days truly gave a comprehensive view of the ongoing fraudulence against our authors.
Thanks to many of your meticulous tracking and record keeping, I was able to send the authorities solid information to prove our case of fraudulence. Many of you sent me email correspondences between you and other Airleaf employees which also proved that promotions were sold to you that were never delivered. One of you even sent me an email of a private conversation between two Airleaf employees who were romantically involved which also talked about Airleaf fraud in the conversation. Incidentally, this email was meant to turn people against one of the employees who left last year. Normally, I would be amazed at a company that has employees who would stoop so low to cut and paste private conversations and email them to authors deliberately, but nothing amazes me at Airleaf.
If you didn't send me your information and you think you have proof or evidence of fraudulence, it is not too late. Please email me at Bonkaye@aol.com and I will let you know how to proceed to get it to me.
Last week, I reprinted the story for you from the Martinsville Reporter about the Airleaf update. I also sent you the response I posted to the paper. Can you believe that later that night I was CENSORED?? The Martinsville Reporter took down my posting because one former employee was so incensed by this comment:
The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.Did you see me mention anyone's name here? Of course not. But this former employee was so distraught seeing this comment that she insisted it be removed. Now, I don't quite understand this unless she is guilty of the accusation and paranoid to think that people will assume it is her I'm talking about. So, I had to redo the response to the paper and remove the sexual comment in order for it to stand. Ironically, that former employee in her hysteria posted the following message on my Airleaf Victims blog:
Anonymous said...
Unless you were there, I am not sure where the ad hominem comment about someone having 'great sex' originated. We may have to start a new web site == victims of Bonnie Kaye.
I'm not sure what an "ad hominem" that the anonymous party stated is, but let me rephrase my comment about the former employees "having great sex." I would like to apologize for making assumptions, so I'll correct the statement by just saying "having sex." The "great" description was obviously the assumption on my part.
One of our victims wrote to me about checking with Bob Denton before you pay any money to Carl Lau for ANYTHING. If you are notified that you have books for sale at Airleaf that you can buy back, ask Bob Denton first if this is true. I believe you can actually negotiate to buy your books back more cheaply than Carl is asking for. I base this on one author who was offered her books back for approximately 60 cents each. Once again, I have no clue why some people are being charged 60 cents vs. a dollar vs. two dollars and more. Authors continue to tell me how responsive Bob Denton is towards helping them get back their books and materials. We greatly appreciate this Bob.
NEW BOOK OF THE WEEK:
One of our new author victims, Doris Christian, had her new book "A Daughter's Cry" released this week.
Doris sent us this information about her new book:
A Daughter's Cry was born out of my own experiences. First, my mother's sexual abuse at the hands of her dad, left many victims--not only my mother and several of her sisters, but also for me and my 4 siblings. Due to the bitterness and I'm sure the shame my mother harbored inside, she was a very unhappy person. This resulted in her many years of negativity, harsh criticism and overall strained relationships with everyone. And, it left us, her children, feeling unloved and unwanted.
Then, years later, my own two daughters were sexual molested by their stepfather, my second husband. From this heartache came a powerful story line in A Daughter's Cry. In it, my heroine, Ellie, learns there IS life after such traumatic attacks and our life's purpose can still be attained.
This is my fifth novel and the most compelling. Already, I've heard positive reports from women who were abuse victims. There is no greater reward than to hear
our hard work has delivered the intended results. I feel very blessed, indeed!
I am a single, senior citizen whose passion is writing. I retired from the medical field and now enjoy travel, my two wonderful daughters and numerous friends.
Writing has opened many doors for me and I'm currently teaching a creative writing course for single men and women.
To my fellow authors: I believe the injustice we've been dealt through Airleaf can be somewhat nullified when we support each other. What Airleaf failed to do, we can perhaps do and do it far better. There is strength in numbers and marketing our work successful requires those numbers. Certainly, not everyone will buy each book shared here, yet, it's an opportunity we didn't have before. Like making lemonade out of all those lemons? Here we can share the positive amid the negative which, I believe, is always a good thing. Because of our dedicated leader, Bonnie Kaye, we have this wonderful opportunity to share, care and repair. Share our work, care about each other, and repair the damage Airleaf and Carl Lau has caused each one of us. Thank you in advance for helping get A Daughter's Cry into the hands of those who've been used, abused, or neglected by someone they know and trusted. The release date is April 22nd and available on Amazon.com as well as Tate publishing.com
I'd like to wish Doris the best of luck with her new book. Soon we'll be discussing our Airleaf Author's co-op to help each other sell our books.
That's all the news for today! Please send me any questions or concerns you may have about any issue.
Love, Bonnie
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Airleaf Victims Update April 19, 2008
AIRLEAF VICTIMS UPDATE APRIL 19, 2008
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
We are now at 431 Airleaf Victims. I'd like to wish a Happy Passover to all of our Jewish members of the group.
This week, I will be off from my regular job reviewing all of your surveys that you sent to me a couple of months ago in order to identify information to help the government agencies investigating our case. I am hoping to find key documentation that will help us prove the fraudulence that we are claiming. I will let you know some of my results next week.
Thank all of you who told me you wrote to 60 Minutes. If you didn't have a chance to do so, please do so this week. Their email address is: 60m@cbsnews.com. I want them to understand the enormity of our case when it comes to fraudulence. Please put in the subject box, "A Victim of Airleaf Publishing Fraud," or something similar. The more stories they receive, the more convincing our campaign will be.
Today, the Martinsville Reporter released another update. Our reporter friend, Ron Hawkins, has interviewed a number of people including some former employees who were there during Airleaf's last moments.
Feds investigating Airleaf, former employee says
By Ronald Hawkins | rhawkins@reportert.com
Saturday April 19, 2008
Martinsville
At least one former employee of the defunct Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling company has been questioned as a part of a federal investigation into the company's practices, according to that former employee.
The potential criminal filings against the Martinsville-based, vanity publishing and marketing business would be in addition to the multiple civil actions filed against owner Carl Lau and the company he operated until late last year.
In an interview, former Airleaf vice president and sales person Dawn Rodgers said she was questioned on Good Friday by U.S. Postmaster General investigators regarding Airleaf. The investigation is being done in conjunction with the FBI, she said.
Martinsville Police Department Capt. Jeff Buskirk, who investigated Airleaf for local law enforcement authorities, said he's turned over his materials to the FBI.
Bonnie Kaye, a Philadelphia-based author who started airleafvictims.com, said she'd contacted the FBI about Airleaf.
FBI special agent Wendy Osborne, however, said, "The FBI doesn't confirm or deny investigations."
An insider's story
Former Airleaf vp Rodgers worked for two periods at Airleaf. In the first, she had been promoted to vice president of marketing before she left and in the second was a marketing sales person. She was one of the last employees to leave before Lau shut down the business.
Author Kaye said she believes Rodgers shares some of the blame with Lau.
"She was taking money under fraudulent pretenses," Kay said. "She continued taking money after production shut down."
Rodgers said she is as much of a victim as the Airleaf customers who didn't receive the books or marketing services they were promised.
"If anyone's a victim," Rodgers said, "it's me."
Rodgers, who is currently unemployed, said Lau still owes her money.
"He owes everybody," she said.
Lau didn't respond to requests for comments on this story. In a previous interview, however, Lau said after co-founder and Airleaf Executive Vice President Brien Jones left, the business started heading downhill. Lau said Jones, who started his own vanity publishing business in Bloomington, tried to persuade former Airleaf customers not to do business with him.
Jones has said that's not the case
Rodgers, who worked with Jones, said the business headed downhill after Jones left in January 2007, but the cause was the loss of Jones' skills. The sole bad guy in the story, she said, is Lau.
"He didn't have the integrity to run a good business ," Rodgers said. "I wish Carl would accept responsibility for what he did. ...
"I don't think Brien was one of the bad guys. He cared about the business. It went crazy after he left. ...I'd like Carl to be held responsible."
Rodgers said she believed in Lau until the end, when things began to rapidly unravel.
About Airleaf
Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling was a vanity publishing firm based in Martinsville that published and marketed books. Established nearly six years ago, it shut its 35 Industrial Drive offices in mid-December. Many of Airleaf's authors were previously unpublished. Airleaf offered packages for authors that included printing and for an additional price promised it would pitch books to movie studios. Other packages included promises of ad placements in major newspapers and magazines along with interviews on national radio shows and more.
"I believed in what I did, otherwise I wouldn't have done it," Rodgers said. "We all did what we had to do. We cared more about the company than Carl."
In an interview Thursday, Jones said since he started his own business he's had 400 clients and there have been no complaints.
Investigation questioned
Jones questioned whether there is an investigation.
"No one has ever contacted me," Jones said. "I would think at some point someone would have. ...I would think I would be one of the first people they contacted."
Rodgers said the investigators "didn't go into much" about what charges there might be against Law.
The founders of Airleaf, which started as Bookman Publishing and Marketing, had good intentions when they started the business, Rodgers said. Most of the marketing promotions such as cruises and appearances at book shows and even pitches to Hollywood studios happened.
"I don't believe either (Lau or Jones) started with the intent to defraud," Rodgers said.
Martinsville resident Bob Denton is helping some authors receive their books. Denton left Airleaf a month before it closed, he said, but still manages the building and managed it before Lau acquired it. The building is for sale.
Denton worked for Lau for 4-1/2 years in sales, product shipping and receiving, he said. Since leaving, Denton started Mountain Valley Publishing, a publishing firm that he operates out of his home and has some of Airleaf's former clients.
Denton said he left Airleaf because he knew if he sold a publishing package, the money wasn't there to produce it. Denton agreed with Rodgers and Lau that the business started to decline after Jones left.
"At first, it was a good business," Denton said. "It got a lot of people's work published. I don't think they intended to defraud anybody.
"They just ran out of money. Why? I don't know. Carl made a lot of bad business decisions." That was the end of the story.
Here is my response. Please feel free to post your own response to this story.
My name is Bonnie Kaye. I am the organizer of the group Airleaf Victims found at www.AirleafVictims.com. I would like to clarify some of the issues in this story.
It's not just a matter of Carl Lau being a bad businessman; it's a matter of his operation knowingly committing fraudulence against our 431 authors. We do hold Lau responsible because he held the purse strings; however, other employees were totally aware that services were not being delivered nor were they ever intended to be delivered. These employees include the ones told by Lau to pretend he was in Europe while he sat behind his desk, never saw an ad in the NY Times or LA Times for Airleaf books, or never waved Bon Voyage to the people who paid for the Carnival Cruise that never was booked. By knowing fraud was going on and not reporting it to authorities, they were participating in it or covering it up.
Dawn Rogers claims to also be a victim by comparing the loss of a paycheck to the loss of people's years of hard work, throwing money away down the drain that they saved for their futures, and the pain of calling dozens of times and being ignored because services were not being delivered. Let's be for real. Ms. Rogers was there until the very last day begging people for their credit cards selling them packages that were never going to happen--and she knew it.
Let's not turn the bad guys into the heroes and the victors into the victims. The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.
Everyone who took part in misleading us should be ashamed of themselves. So far, I haven't heard anyone say a simple, "I'm sorry." That might be a good starting point. If ex-employees are looking for pity, this is not the place to find it. Start taking responsibility for your action, and maybe then maybe we'll feel something besides contempt.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.That's the end of my story! Here's the link for the paper in case you would like to post your own comments:
Link to Martinsville Reporter story:
By the way, Bob Denton has changed his email address and wanted me to share that with you. You can reach him at: bdenton308@comcast.net. If you sent Bob an email recently and didn't get a response, please resend it to that address because it may have gotten lost in transition.
One of our readers wrote to me stating that Carl Lau sent her back a disk but it was blank. She was wondering if any of our other authors had the experience. If so, please let me know. Another author sent me a note that Carl Lau was requesting $2.50 per book. Once again, if you are being asked for money for your books by Carl Lau, please let me know.
This week, I'd like to introduce two new books by our Victim's group. The first book is by John Krismer. John used my new publisher, CCB Publishing, for his book (CCBPublishing.com). Here is the cover and synopsis:
Few realize a New World Order plans to replace our constitution with a Single World Government, nor that our Federal Reserve Bank is privately owned and is not subject to oversight by Congress or the President. Its stockholders include the Rockefellers, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers of New York; the Rothschild’s of London and Berlin; the Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Seiff of Italy; the Kuhn & Loeb Company of Germany; and the Warburgs of Hamburg and Amsterdam, earning almost two billion dollars a day in interest as they buy off our dysfunctional Congress and intentionally level this great nation.
George H. W. Bush, the undisputed “Overlord” of the Shrub Dynasty, in his State of the Union Message in 1991 said: “What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea – a new world order.” Did We the People ever agree to this treasonous act of turning over our nation’s sovereignty to a Single World Government?
About the Author
John R. Krismer, MHA-LFACHE is founder and CEO of Health Systems Institute, consulting with governments, hospitals, clinics, and professional organizations. He has conducted hundreds of educational institutes, and served as a principal investigator, researching the health record database system, which involved four major universities. He has served as CEO of several hospitals and corporations, and as a board member of two health insurance companies. He has been referred to as a visionary ahead of his time.
Another one of our victims, Terry Levine, has a new book that will be available on the first day of May. Terry is a well-known personal coach, and you can view her website at http://www.CoachInstitute.com. Terry sent this note:
I am asking you for one favor please. My new book Coaching is For Everyone is available on Amazon.com on May 1 and is by far my most exciting and best book yet.
My request is that you help me make this book an Amazon.com best seller on May 1. I am not asking you to buy a bunch of stuff - just one copy of a book that you will love and if you just send me (Terri@TerriLevine.com) your receipt from Amazon.com I will send you a FREE ticket to my next event worth $500!
Please ask everyone in your network, in your data base and email lists to do this for me. Together, on the May 1st release date, we can really ring the bell in the coaching world and make my pride and joy a number 1 bestseller on amazon.com.
I appreciate you and your assistance in making my dream come true and sharing my finest work with the world. Here is the link to my book on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Everyone-Learn-Your-Coach/dp/1600373968/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208296251&sr=8-2
My Goal Is YOUR Success!
Terri Levine, The Guru of Coaching SM
President
Comprehensive Coaching U, Inc.
727 Mallard Place, North Wales, PA 19454 Phone:877-401-6165
Create a great home based business coaching clients over the phone!
Visit http://www.CoachInstitute.com today!
Good luck to both of our new authors. I'm happy to publicize any new books that you are creating. Just let me know!
Next week I'll report on more news with our case. Have a good week, and keep up the faith. Justice will be ours!
Love, Bonnie
Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
We are now at 431 Airleaf Victims. I'd like to wish a Happy Passover to all of our Jewish members of the group.
This week, I will be off from my regular job reviewing all of your surveys that you sent to me a couple of months ago in order to identify information to help the government agencies investigating our case. I am hoping to find key documentation that will help us prove the fraudulence that we are claiming. I will let you know some of my results next week.
Thank all of you who told me you wrote to 60 Minutes. If you didn't have a chance to do so, please do so this week. Their email address is: 60m@cbsnews.com. I want them to understand the enormity of our case when it comes to fraudulence. Please put in the subject box, "A Victim of Airleaf Publishing Fraud," or something similar. The more stories they receive, the more convincing our campaign will be.
Today, the Martinsville Reporter released another update. Our reporter friend, Ron Hawkins, has interviewed a number of people including some former employees who were there during Airleaf's last moments.
Feds investigating Airleaf, former employee says
By Ronald Hawkins | rhawkins@reportert.com
Saturday April 19, 2008
Martinsville
At least one former employee of the defunct Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling company has been questioned as a part of a federal investigation into the company's practices, according to that former employee.
The potential criminal filings against the Martinsville-based, vanity publishing and marketing business would be in addition to the multiple civil actions filed against owner Carl Lau and the company he operated until late last year.
In an interview, former Airleaf vice president and sales person Dawn Rodgers said she was questioned on Good Friday by U.S. Postmaster General investigators regarding Airleaf. The investigation is being done in conjunction with the FBI, she said.
Martinsville Police Department Capt. Jeff Buskirk, who investigated Airleaf for local law enforcement authorities, said he's turned over his materials to the FBI.
Bonnie Kaye, a Philadelphia-based author who started airleafvictims.com, said she'd contacted the FBI about Airleaf.
FBI special agent Wendy Osborne, however, said, "The FBI doesn't confirm or deny investigations."
An insider's story
Former Airleaf vp Rodgers worked for two periods at Airleaf. In the first, she had been promoted to vice president of marketing before she left and in the second was a marketing sales person. She was one of the last employees to leave before Lau shut down the business.
Author Kaye said she believes Rodgers shares some of the blame with Lau.
"She was taking money under fraudulent pretenses," Kay said. "She continued taking money after production shut down."
Rodgers said she is as much of a victim as the Airleaf customers who didn't receive the books or marketing services they were promised.
"If anyone's a victim," Rodgers said, "it's me."
Rodgers, who is currently unemployed, said Lau still owes her money.
"He owes everybody," she said.
Lau didn't respond to requests for comments on this story. In a previous interview, however, Lau said after co-founder and Airleaf Executive Vice President Brien Jones left, the business started heading downhill. Lau said Jones, who started his own vanity publishing business in Bloomington, tried to persuade former Airleaf customers not to do business with him.
Jones has said that's not the case
Rodgers, who worked with Jones, said the business headed downhill after Jones left in January 2007, but the cause was the loss of Jones' skills. The sole bad guy in the story, she said, is Lau.
"He didn't have the integrity to run a good business ," Rodgers said. "I wish Carl would accept responsibility for what he did. ...
"I don't think Brien was one of the bad guys. He cared about the business. It went crazy after he left. ...I'd like Carl to be held responsible."
Rodgers said she believed in Lau until the end, when things began to rapidly unravel.
About Airleaf
Airleaf Publishing and Book Selling was a vanity publishing firm based in Martinsville that published and marketed books. Established nearly six years ago, it shut its 35 Industrial Drive offices in mid-December. Many of Airleaf's authors were previously unpublished. Airleaf offered packages for authors that included printing and for an additional price promised it would pitch books to movie studios. Other packages included promises of ad placements in major newspapers and magazines along with interviews on national radio shows and more.
"I believed in what I did, otherwise I wouldn't have done it," Rodgers said. "We all did what we had to do. We cared more about the company than Carl."
In an interview Thursday, Jones said since he started his own business he's had 400 clients and there have been no complaints.
Investigation questioned
Jones questioned whether there is an investigation.
"No one has ever contacted me," Jones said. "I would think at some point someone would have. ...I would think I would be one of the first people they contacted."
Rodgers said the investigators "didn't go into much" about what charges there might be against Law.
The founders of Airleaf, which started as Bookman Publishing and Marketing, had good intentions when they started the business, Rodgers said. Most of the marketing promotions such as cruises and appearances at book shows and even pitches to Hollywood studios happened.
"I don't believe either (Lau or Jones) started with the intent to defraud," Rodgers said.
Martinsville resident Bob Denton is helping some authors receive their books. Denton left Airleaf a month before it closed, he said, but still manages the building and managed it before Lau acquired it. The building is for sale.
Denton worked for Lau for 4-1/2 years in sales, product shipping and receiving, he said. Since leaving, Denton started Mountain Valley Publishing, a publishing firm that he operates out of his home and has some of Airleaf's former clients.
Denton said he left Airleaf because he knew if he sold a publishing package, the money wasn't there to produce it. Denton agreed with Rodgers and Lau that the business started to decline after Jones left.
"At first, it was a good business," Denton said. "It got a lot of people's work published. I don't think they intended to defraud anybody.
"They just ran out of money. Why? I don't know. Carl made a lot of bad business decisions." That was the end of the story.
Here is my response. Please feel free to post your own response to this story.
My name is Bonnie Kaye. I am the organizer of the group Airleaf Victims found at www.AirleafVictims.com. I would like to clarify some of the issues in this story.
It's not just a matter of Carl Lau being a bad businessman; it's a matter of his operation knowingly committing fraudulence against our 431 authors. We do hold Lau responsible because he held the purse strings; however, other employees were totally aware that services were not being delivered nor were they ever intended to be delivered. These employees include the ones told by Lau to pretend he was in Europe while he sat behind his desk, never saw an ad in the NY Times or LA Times for Airleaf books, or never waved Bon Voyage to the people who paid for the Carnival Cruise that never was booked. By knowing fraud was going on and not reporting it to authorities, they were participating in it or covering it up.
Dawn Rogers claims to also be a victim by comparing the loss of a paycheck to the loss of people's years of hard work, throwing money away down the drain that they saved for their futures, and the pain of calling dozens of times and being ignored because services were not being delivered. Let's be for real. Ms. Rogers was there until the very last day begging people for their credit cards selling them packages that were never going to happen--and she knew it.
Let's not turn the bad guys into the heroes and the victors into the victims. The employees of Airleaf profited off of our innocence. Two of them for sure were in Hollywood having great sex in a hotel while they were supposed to be selling our books to Hollywood producers. Those escapades were paid for by our hard earned money.
Everyone who took part in misleading us should be ashamed of themselves. So far, I haven't heard anyone say a simple, "I'm sorry." That might be a good starting point. If ex-employees are looking for pity, this is not the place to find it. Start taking responsibility for your action, and maybe then maybe we'll feel something besides contempt.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.That's the end of my story! Here's the link for the paper in case you would like to post your own comments:
Link to Martinsville Reporter story:
By the way, Bob Denton has changed his email address and wanted me to share that with you. You can reach him at: bdenton308@comcast.net. If you sent Bob an email recently and didn't get a response, please resend it to that address because it may have gotten lost in transition.
One of our readers wrote to me stating that Carl Lau sent her back a disk but it was blank. She was wondering if any of our other authors had the experience. If so, please let me know. Another author sent me a note that Carl Lau was requesting $2.50 per book. Once again, if you are being asked for money for your books by Carl Lau, please let me know.
This week, I'd like to introduce two new books by our Victim's group. The first book is by John Krismer. John used my new publisher, CCB Publishing, for his book (CCBPublishing.com). Here is the cover and synopsis:
Few realize a New World Order plans to replace our constitution with a Single World Government, nor that our Federal Reserve Bank is privately owned and is not subject to oversight by Congress or the President. Its stockholders include the Rockefellers, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers of New York; the Rothschild’s of London and Berlin; the Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Seiff of Italy; the Kuhn & Loeb Company of Germany; and the Warburgs of Hamburg and Amsterdam, earning almost two billion dollars a day in interest as they buy off our dysfunctional Congress and intentionally level this great nation.
George H. W. Bush, the undisputed “Overlord” of the Shrub Dynasty, in his State of the Union Message in 1991 said: “What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea – a new world order.” Did We the People ever agree to this treasonous act of turning over our nation’s sovereignty to a Single World Government?
About the Author
John R. Krismer, MHA-LFACHE is founder and CEO of Health Systems Institute, consulting with governments, hospitals, clinics, and professional organizations. He has conducted hundreds of educational institutes, and served as a principal investigator, researching the health record database system, which involved four major universities. He has served as CEO of several hospitals and corporations, and as a board member of two health insurance companies. He has been referred to as a visionary ahead of his time.
Another one of our victims, Terry Levine, has a new book that will be available on the first day of May. Terry is a well-known personal coach, and you can view her website at http://www.CoachInstitute.com. Terry sent this note:
I am asking you for one favor please. My new book Coaching is For Everyone is available on Amazon.com on May 1 and is by far my most exciting and best book yet.
My request is that you help me make this book an Amazon.com best seller on May 1. I am not asking you to buy a bunch of stuff - just one copy of a book that you will love and if you just send me (Terri@TerriLevine.com) your receipt from Amazon.com I will send you a FREE ticket to my next event worth $500!
Please ask everyone in your network, in your data base and email lists to do this for me. Together, on the May 1st release date, we can really ring the bell in the coaching world and make my pride and joy a number 1 bestseller on amazon.com.
I appreciate you and your assistance in making my dream come true and sharing my finest work with the world. Here is the link to my book on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Everyone-Learn-Your-Coach/dp/1600373968/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208296251&sr=8-2
My Goal Is YOUR Success!
Terri Levine, The Guru of Coaching SM
President
Comprehensive Coaching U, Inc.
727 Mallard Place, North Wales, PA 19454 Phone:877-401-6165
Create a great home based business coaching clients over the phone!
Visit http://www.CoachInstitute.com today!
Good luck to both of our new authors. I'm happy to publicize any new books that you are creating. Just let me know!
Next week I'll report on more news with our case. Have a good week, and keep up the faith. Justice will be ours!
Love, Bonnie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
