294 Members in our Group!!!

December 29, 2007

Dear Airleaf Victims and Supporters,

Welcome to our new members. As of today, we have 294 members in our group, and the numbers will continue to grow as the word about Airleaf’s closing continues to get out.

In as much as this was a holiday week, there is not too much official government news. I did contact the other Senator in Indiana, Evan Bayh, to discuss the problem. I was told there was nothing his office could do except to question the Attorney General, so I said that’s fine—do that. Of course, they are first sending me a form to fill out with the information before they can question him.

Many of you have written to me to tell me that you’ve notified Detective Buskirk about what you feel is owed to you. I neglected to put his email address in the last update as some of you reminded me! If you haven’t taken that step yet, you can write to him at:

jbuskirk@rnetinc.net

Three of you had problems getting the email through. If this is the case, forward it to me at Bonkaye@aol.com and I will try to send it to him.

One of our authors, Bob, sent me a very good point to share with you when seeking restitution. He stated that those of us who published our books with Airleaf should ask for our money back that we spent publishing the book(s) because now we will have to republish with another publisher. I agreed that asking back for this money is an excellent point that I hadn’t thought of. So if you sent your letter to Detective Buskirk, you may want to send him a follow-up stating that you would like the cost of printing your book to be returned to you since you need to have the book reprinted.

One of our great supporters, author Richard Fracasso, has given me some excellent suggestions including refocusing me to look for a class-action attorney which I put on the back burner due to the lack of queries I sent out at the beginning of the campaign. Following Richard’s advice, I did speak to a very reputable one who is interested in our case this week. We will speak in greater detail next week after he returns from vacation. Richard also thought it would be good if I could have a database with where you live in order to start pressuring other government officials where there may be a cluster of authors. So if you would be kind enough to send me an email with your name, city, and state, I would appreciate it. Please send it to Bonkaye@aol.com.

I would like to tell you Richard’s story which is now on our Airleaf Victim’s website. Richard authored the book Strawberries With Love, a beautiful tribute to his late wife, Ann. The book is filled with poems and antidotes about their life together before she died in 1976. In Richard’s own words, “I received a letter of solicitation from Airleaf Publishing regarding my book Strawberries with Love that was published by another publishing company in 2004. This book was a tribute to my late wife, who was the love of my life. In 2006, I paid Airleaf $4,000.00 for their promotion services. I also sent them 270 books to sell from my original publisher, Vantage Press, and was told that I would receive $3.00 - $4.00 for a book. To date, I have never received any money from them.

I am a 76-year old disabled and completely blind man with no children or family. I lost my wife in 1978 so I have virtually no help to fight this. I have a genetic disorder chorideremia that leads to blindness. Please do whatever you can to help me."

Before I called Richard in November (I got his name from a tip from a former Airleaf employee who felt very bad for him for being defrauded), he was not aware that our campaign had been started. When I called and introduced myself and the word “Airleaf Victims” came out of my mouth, he was ready to hang up the phone, thinking it was another “Airleaf” call. When I explained what we are doing, he was so excited to be part of our group. Richard is totally blind and has no family. He is very vulnerable as far as getting information. You can only imagine how distressed he felt after being taken for $4,000.00 to invest in a dream so his dead wife’s memory could stay alive.

Now I call Richard weekly when the update comes out to read it to him so he can feel his is on a winning team instead of just being with a losing publisher. He is such a wonderful man, and I’m so glad to have him as my new friend.

Interesting side bar—some of you, including Richard, were told that you would have your radio interview done through the Airleaf-famous Ian C. Moore in the San Francisco Bay area. And, his show, Culture Shock, was the last standing link that Airleaf had before the website went down two weeks ago. I had appealed to Mr. Moore to take his link off the website as other sponsors had done to show their support back in October, but received no response. So now after investigating his website a little more closely, I realize why—he was an Airleaf published author. He obviously worked hand-in-hand with Carl Lau on these radio promotions with no doubt, something in it for both of them. I must say that after listening to Richard Fracasso’s interview, that I am the one in “culture shock” that this man has a show at all and “interviews people.” You can listen to this interview at the link below, and click in Richard Fracasso. It would have been nice at the start of the interview if he stated Richard’s name correctly. And if you want to have a contest with me, count how many times Moore says, “hum” throughout the interview. I’ll be listening to other Airleaf victims interviews in the next few days and give you an update.

Link to Culture Shock: CultureShockNews

One of our Airleaf Victims, Jack Pransky, took a trip to Airleaf last week. He asked me to share his account of the experience:

I drove to Martinsville and arranged to meet Captain Jeff Buskirk at the door of Airleaf. At the time we had no idea whether the doors would be open or locked, or if anyone would be there. He arrived a few minutes before I did and told me that Carl Lau was there and had just run out to do an errand (I think maybe to pick up another author) and would be back in a few minutes. I am grateful for Captain Buskirk being there with me; it helped tremendously.

When Carl Lau arrived back he had another author with him. No other staff was at the office. Before I could say anything, Lau immediately apologized to me and said he would try to get me everything I needed. Apparently Capt. Buskirk had already told him I wanted all my book production materials. Carl brought me back into the production room and asked me to bear with him because he didn't really know anything about the production end of the business or where anything was. He went through the file cabinets trying to find the files of my two books and couldn't. He called a few staff people who might still be around or working for him part time, but no one was in except for a woman named Dawn (Rogers Duncan) who was driving down from Indianapolis. Captain Buskirk finally found one of my files. I told Carl that I also wanted whatever computer files were used for the production of my books and especially the printer-ready copy that was sent to the printer. He searched in the computers, said he didn't know what he was doing, but eventually found them. Then he tried to copy them onto a disk for me but couldn't. Dawn then arrived and did it for me. So I got from them the main things I wanted most: the computer files, and one of my two hard files. They said would continue to look for my other hard file, which had apparently been archived, because I had put that one in a long time ago when they were still Bookman.

The other issue was money. 1) I had paid them for a book that was never delivered; 2) I had never been paid for book orders that had been made through them for my first book, Somebody Should Have Told Us! (ironic title, no?). Carl told me what his financial situation was. When all is said and done he will owe something like a quarter million, and he doesn't have it. My conclusion is I'm not sure we'll be getting any money back, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
In the midst of all the searching for my stuff I had the opportunity to talk what him about the whole situation and what he thinks happened and his deep regrets, and all that. He sounded sincere, but the facts speak otherwise. At the very least, what should have been done immediately, at the first sign that things were amiss, is he should have sent a letter out to all his authors telling us what was going on and what we could expect, and if he wasn't sure at that point then that's what he should have told us, and then he should have kept us informed at every step along the way.

I did not approach him with anger, even though I certainly have been very angry at many points along the way, especially when I could not get one word either by phone or over e-mail from anyone in that office for months (and I could easily go there again when I think now of potential lost resources that I can't afford and all the hassle I have to go through all over again to get my book in print). Instead, I was just firm in what I wanted, but in a nice way. Regardless of what I felt for him personally, there is no excuse for what happened to all of us, and we deserve all our stuff back and compensation. That's my cut on it anyway.

Oh, one last point. One thing I learned was it's not like we can just take our pdf files of our books (if they're completed) to another printer (which is what I was hoping). We've got to get rid of the "Airleaf" insignia/logo and, more important, we've got to get our ISBN numbers changed (unfortunately!!!!!). This is why we also need our Microsoft Word files from which the pdf-printer-ready files were made. All this, of course, is a real pain in the ass.

Bonnie, thank you for all you have done for us!

Sincerely, Jack Pransky

I spoke at length with Jack about his visit when he returned. He is such a kind, warm, and nice man, like most of our Airleaf Victims. That’s why we are victims. Most of us are honest, caring people who only wanted to leave something behind for our future generations. We kept hoping against hope that the lies Airleaf fed us would become truths because we found it inconceivable that we would be part of a publishing scam.

I have no sympathy for Carl Lau because he still takes no responsibility for his thievery. In fact, he recently wrote this note to one of our other authors:

If you think of it in a funny way they (referencing in an earlier sentence to Bonnie Kaye and Brien Jones) talk that they want me out of business and then they complain that I’m not doing the services. It takes money to fulfill these services and they have shut off the money supply. The only thing they really want is to get me out of the way, and to do that they have lied and lied and told half truths. Yes I owe money but when I found out that they had convinced my investor not to invest I quit sending sales letters out not knowing for sure how I was going to survive without an influx of capital.

So, for the record, let me review these facts for all of you. I sent the following email to Carl Lau on August 7, 2007:

Hi Carl,
I see that you've ignored the warnings sent to you by my attorney as far as paying me for the books I sold. This has caused me great pain because every time I receive a notice from your company about your travels, I realize you are traveling on my money--and the money of countless others whose lives are being destroyed by Airleaf.

I've asked my lawyer to proceed, but in addition, I feel the need to proceed myself in my own pro-active way. If you won't pay me what your company owes me by August 15th, I will make it my business to do everything possible to make sure that others are not taken in by your unlawful and unethical practices. I have been in touch with some of your authors who have tried legal avenues but are having little success. Obviously, you're not fazed by the law when it's a straggler here or there. But maybe you'll take this more seriously if I begin a class action law suit with all of your dissatisfied customers. I have researched every book that you have published and spent the last four months tracking down many of the authors. I am about to ask them to join me in this action. In addition, I will take out a website warning people about Airleaf, and invest my own money in Google advertising to point potential victims to the site telling how you have stolen my money and the money of others to go on cruises and Hollywood trips. In addition, I will mention this experience in every upcoming interview I have until I have a reporter ready to do an expose of your company. I do have some national publicity coming up in September due to my interview in Cosmopolitan magazine's September issue, so this will give me an excellent opportunity to discuss Airleaf.

I wanted to give you one last opportunity to do the right thing by me before I proceed with my public campaign to get my money.
Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.

Even I had a hard time believing that I was being ignored on such a serious matter. So when the deadline date came and went, I took out the domain name for www.AirleafVictims.com, put up the original website, took out a Google ad alerting people, and started sending letters to you, the victims. I wanted to let you know that I didn’t do this without warning or on a whim. I felt desperate—like all of you—and having a background in organizing groups, decided to take advantage of that fact.

Since starting this campaign, I have been legally threatened and maligned by Carl Lau and some other Airleaf former employees. I was even offered a payoff to stop this campaign, but refused unless we were all compensated.

Carl Lau claims that I “cut off” his money supply to fulfill the services, but we all know that the services were not being fulfilled long before our campaign. Some people paid for publishing services over a year before our campaign and never saw a galley. Other people paid for trips, books to Hollywood, Kirkus reviews, and other newspaper and television promotional campaigns. These NEVER took place. Where was all the money authors paid upfront for those services? Oh—incidentally, Airleaf borrowed $216,000.00 for a business loan in February 2007. If they were financially solvent at that time, why was there the need for a business loan?

I wanted to remind you of this because people with sociopathic behavior like Carl Lau try to get others to feel sorry for them as if they were the victims. No matter how nice he may seem in a conversation, the actions speak for themselves. Instead of taking any responsibility for screwing up, he is still blaming me and others.

In the weeks ahead, we will keep fighting on until we see justice. We are definitely a force to be reckoned with, and we must remain vigilant. Next week I will also contact the postal authorities to file a complaint about inter-state fraudulence due to the notices that many of us received via the United States Mail. I’ll keep you updated.

This is my request for this week. Please send a note to the Oprah Winfrey website.

Here is the link: OPRAH LINK

This link will take you to the page for ideas. Please tell them that you are an Airleaf Victim, and they can view our website at www.AirleafVictims.com. Explain how you have been defrauded by this company, and how the government of Indiana refuses to cooperate in bringing justice. Hopefully, if at least 100 – 150 of you send in this request, one of her producers will notice and call us. I sent mine in today. If you do this, please send me at note at Bonkaye@aol.com so I can track them.

Please know that I am spending several hours each week investigating solutions for our printing and marketing problems. By the end of January, I will present the best information I have found for everyone to fit your own personal needs. At this time, many companies are coming to me trying to get your business, so I am cautiously looking at each one. If you have had publishing experiences either positive or negative, please feel free to send me that information.

Have a peaceful, healthy, and happy New Year. You should all be proud to be part of an important victory this year, and next year hopefully justice will be served.

With love and hope,
Bonnie Kaye

Airleaf Publishing is OUT OF BUSINESS

My name is Bonnie Kaye. I am the organizer of a group of authors who, like me, are victims of a publishing scam through Airleaf Publishing, formerly Bookman Publishing, owned by Carl Lau and located in Martinsville, Indiana. We are seeking other victims who have been robbed of their hopes and dreams through investments of money and time.

As of December 19, 2007, Airleaf Publishing is OUT OF BUSINESS. We have over 275 authors in our group who have been defrauded by Airleaf Publishing for over $1,000,000.00. We are taking aggressive action with the Martinsville, Indiana police, the Indiana Attorney General's office, the Indiana Governor's office, and the Indiana Senator's office to bring criminal action against Airleaf. We have made great strides in our efforts, which resulted in the close of Airleaf and which will hopefully find us the justice we are seeking. If you are an author victim, we welcome you to join our group in our efforts to retrieving our stolen money and property, pressing criminal charges against the guilty parties, and stopping the owner of Airleaf, Carl Lau, from ever opening up a business again.

The fraudulence of Airleaf is unforgiveable. We have uncovered some of it through our own author investigations and by candid confessions by former employees who in good conscience could no longer participate in the fraud. Here are just a few examples:

1) Airleaf advertised the movie "Jessie's Girl" on their home page to mislead authors into thinking that Airleaf books are being made into movies. "Jessie's Girl" was never an Airleaf book made into a movie--it was a script written by Lawrence Dixon, the Vice President of Lite Stone Entertainment that was made into a book by Airleaf several months ago. There is no movie--only a movie trailer made by another company. Lite Stone is in the process of doing this movie, but there is no connection with Airleaf. None of the Airleaf Books to Film listed on the Airleaf website have ever been made into a film or even a trailer. It's just a way to have authors invest thousands of dollars in a scam. Lite Stone Entertainment was also used by Airleaf and has disassociated itself with the company as of 12/10/07.

2) Airleaf sold the authors a package called the Germany Book Fair in the fall of 2006, but never went. Carl Lau had his staff tell the authors that during the time he was supposed to be in Germany that he was out of town at the book fair, but he was sitting right at his desk. This money was never returned to the authors.

3) Airleaf sold the authors a package called the Germany Book Fair in the fall of 2006, but never went. Carl Lau had his staff tell the authors that during the time he was supposed to be in Germany that he was out of town at the book fair, but he was sitting right at his desk. This money was never returned to the authors.

4) Airleaf was selling the authors Bowker Club after they knew that Bowker had discontinued the service. $84,000 was collected from that service that never existed. This money was never returned to the authors.

5) Airleaf sold the London Book Fair in April 2007 to authors, but again, didn't go, and this money was never returned to the authors.

6) Airleaf sells the Books-To-Film Program where Carl Lau supposedly pitches books to Hollywood producers, but doesn't. The last trip he took to Hollywood for this program in April 2007 consisted of taking a tour of a studio instead of pitching the books. The authors are supposed to get a report about whom he spoke to and what they said, but he instructed his employees to make up false reports to send to the authors about two weeks after the fact. Or, he himself lied to the authors and made up information to appease them.

7) Airleaf sold ads in Advance Magazine, the New York Times and other large ads for hundreds of dollars but had no intention of actually running the ads. The authors never had their money returned.

8) Airleaf sold Kirkus Reviews to 80 authors for $799 in February '07 but never submitted the books or paid Kirkus to do the reviews. The money was never returned to the authors.

9) Airleaf charges thousands of dollars to authors for promotional services that claim to target 5,000 - 10,000 bookstores, television producers, radio shows, and other forms of media. Those numbers were completely pulled out of the air by employees who knew for a fact that all those packages were frauds from the very beginning.

I am gathering Airleaf authors together to join me in taking criminal action against a company founded on fraud. We now have over 100 Airleaf authors with horror stories from people who have been defrauded from $99.00 to nearly $35,000.00. These authors are joining me to fight back so we don’t have to be victims anymore.

I developed this website for two reasons: (1) to warn unsuspecting, hard working authors not to throw your money away on promises that won’t come true. Airleaf makes some wonderful promises but they fail to keep them(2) to help other Airleaf authors who are looking for justice.
If you are tired of being an Airleaf Victim and want to fight back, please write to me at Bonkaye@aol.com for more information. It will not cost you ONE PENNY! I will be happy to send you a compilation of my weekly updates exposing the treachery of Airleaf Publishing and add you to my weekly update list. I will also help you take action to make sure that you have the best possible chance to getting your money back.

Here is just a sample of our authors who have been defrauded and robbed by Airleaf Publishing, starting with my own story:

"Airleaf Publishing, Self-Publishing Company, Closed Their Doors for Good."

Dear Airleaf Victims and Friends,
Many of you have received the following notice from Detective Jeff Buskirk of the Martinsville, Indiana police department. If you haven't, I am sending it to you so you can take the proper action. Please see my note at the end.

Good day,

This is to inform you I have talked to Carl Lau this date. He has closed down. However, he and his attorney has assured me that if I provide them with a list of items to be returned, they will make them available to return disks, galleys, books etc. Carl told me he has 60,000 books in his facility, of which he owns only about 10,000 of. The rest is yours and others who have published with him. When he receives an authors permission, he is donating books to Goodwill.

Here is what I need from each of you. I need a list of any items you want returned to you in a separate email sent directly to me. This email will be given to the attorney, so please only list what you are needing from the company. You may also indicate how much you feel they owe each of you, so that that can be recorded by the attorney too. Please keep the negative comments to another day, as we are trying to get each of you what we can get as we can get it. I will also need to know if you are willing to pay for shipping as I don't believe there will be funds to ship anything out from Airleaf and probably not from our agency. If you want to drive to Martinsville, please indicate this and I will try to set up a time in January to have a day or two where we can get this accomplished.

This does not stop the criminal investigation. Some of you have also asked about the class action or civil suit. You will have to talk to Bonnie Kaye about that issue as I have no involvement in civil matters at this time.

Finally, this is my last day of working this year, but I will be available thru email. Starting January 1, 2008 I will be working the streets and no longer a detective. Political change. As of today, I have continued to inquire as to how this case will be handled or if I will be allowed to continue this investigation, but the new Chief and administration has chosen to keep me in the dark. Therefore, I will just say I will do everything in my power to make sure this case is not forgotten nor ignored. Hopefully, I will be allowed to continue to work on this case as I change positions.

Thank you all for your assistance in this matter and I will be looking forward to hearing from all 150+ of you in the next couple of days as to what you need from Airleaf and what to do about your books if they have them.

Finally, in a total unofficial matter, I am on the Board of directors of the Boys/Girls Clubs of Morgan County which serves Martinsville and Mooresville communities. We currently have two clubs which are up and operational. If any of you have books which are appropriate for children ages 6-18 and wish to donate them to us, you can do so my sending them to me at the PD address. This is not a demand by any means, it's just a way for us to build up our libraries which we are just now putting together.
Sincerely,

Capt. Jeffrey C Buskirk
% Martinsville Police Dept
PO Box 1415
Martinsville, Indiana 46151
765-342-6614 Office 765-342-6725 FAX

It is with deep regret that Detective Buskirk is leaving his job. I had an extensive conversation with him this afternoon expressing our concerns for when he is reassigned. He has requested that he be allowed to finish up the investigation with Airleaf, but depending on the new mayor who starts after January 1, this will be determined later. We may need to write to the new mayor to express our concerns at that time, but I will keep you posted.

Although this isn't the final victory for us, it is a major victory. Authors will be able to get their valuable work back as well as books. Airleaf is out of business so that Carl Lau can't hurt anyone else like he has done to us. Although Lau is pointing the finger in my direction, I hope you all know that this fraudulence was taking place long before my Airleaf Victims campaign. I was not the cause of his fraudulence--he has to take the responsibility on himself.

We must continue our campaign with renewed energies after the New Year in order to see what money can be returned to authors as well as making sure that criminal charges are pressed against the man who was in charge of collecting our money. I will update you with more information on Saturday.

With love and hope,

Bonnie Kaye
Authors and friends,
We need you to continue blogging and sharing your stories so that justice can continue to all those parties involved in this horrific scandal.