The government’s evidence against Hosseinipour was so weak that they resorted to combing through all of her emails in search of a damaging statement. It’s telling that their most significant discovery was an exchange with Bruce Deery, a non-emperor and collaborator in Chuck King’s disinformation campaign, who received a full refund for a smaller package and was conveniently a non-witness. Their best find was a truthful statement indicating that “sales were up” following the introduction of fantasy sports, which they tried to twist into a lie, despite their key witness, Anzalone, confirming the sales increase during their questioning.
The increase in sales since the introduction of fantasy sports was supported by key witnesses, including Anzalone, Glen Logan, and Catrina Dugger. Additionally, the government’s evidence, specifically document 101B, showed that $360,000 in fantasy sports retail sales occurred within a few months. The increase is also supported by the government’s evidence of Hosseinipour’s commissions, which reflected an increase in that month following the introduction of fantasy sports. This email occurred in September of 2014, two months after the end of the emperor program and the introduction of fantasy sports into the product line. Furthermore, the government had numerous videos featuring distributors and fantasy sports customers expressing their enthusiasm about the product, reinforcing Hosseinipour’s accurate statement. Despite this, the government continuously labeled the statement that “sales are up” as a lie that Hosseinipour supposedly told throughout the trial.
Please just judge for yourself the nature of the email. It speaks for itself.
Included below is the email to non-witness Bruce Deery, for whom Hosseinipour successfully secured a $600 refund. Deery was not an “emperor package purchaser,” and Hosseinipour was not trying to sell him any package. She was assisting him in getting a refund after the 30-day refund period had expired. The government used a truthful statement in this email to describe the increase in sales since the introduction of fantasy sports, arguing that Hosseinipour committed fraud. However, her statements are supported by the government’s data and testimony presented during the trial. Defending a company you believe in against false statements is not a federal crime.
Can you imagine the desperation behind a prosecutor’s actions when they go to such extreme lengths to misrepresent an innocent statement about increased sales found in a private email? This email was sent by someone who was not considering purchasing an Emperor package but was instead seeking assistance from Hosseinipour to obtain a $600 refund after the 30-day refund policy for I2G had expired. Furthermore, Deery was collaborating with Chuck King, who was actively trying to undermine the company; King was even included in the email correspondence. Deery used King’s content similarly to the content prepared for others in his campaign of revenge.
This also contradicts Marissa Ford’s assertion during her closing arguments that Hosseinipour never discussed products and customers. The customer acquisition generated from fantasy sports is precisely what Hosseinipour describes in the email. Ford misled the jury, as she had multiple videos of Hosseinipour and Anzalone discussing the customer volume resulting from the use of the products, which was central to the i2G plan. Hosseinipour’s first meeting was specifically focused on signing up business customers for $19.95, allowing them to access the i2G Touch and promote their businesses. Although Sewell and Ford had video evidence of Hosseinipour promoting the $19.95 customer position in her very first hangout, Sewell misled the jury by claiming that Hosseinipour never informed others about the “customer” position. This is despite the evidence showing 2,650 customer enrollments in their data (101i) and the 12000 customer positions listed in 101d.
In the email, Hosseinipour instructs Bruce Deery to call David Koerner, who was the compliance attorney for i2G. The fact that Hosseinipour included David Koerner on all of the emails in question also speaks volumes as to her desire always to do things in compliance with the law.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Faraday Hosseinipour <faradayh@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: R.Bruce Deery IBO # 832163 and IBO # 833603
To: “rbdeery@gmail.com” <rbdeery@gmail.com>
Cc: Dave manning <fxdave@gmail.com>
Bruce,
They tried to call you twice. Both David Koerner and Rick Maike. Why didn’t you talk to them or call them back? Call back David Koerner and talk to him.
I told you that is the best approach. The defamatory and slanderous videos that you are putting out there are full of untruths and you are hurting yourself more than hurting the company. And that’s not going to be the way to meet your objective.
By the way- there is not going to be a class action lawsuit- so you are spreading more lies. the terms and conditions everybody signed agrees for disagreements they must go to arbitration
Just be a professional and call and talk to Koerner today
Sales are way up. People are over the moon excited. The new products with the fantasy football are creating hundreds of new customers and thousands of people using it. It’s the biggest and easiest thing that has ever come to mlm. You are missing out bigtime. Real cusomer, very streamlined, great odds, and paying on every game played, win, lose or draw. The perfect customer acquisition program that has ever come out in mlm. We have 20,000 people using our social media platform product and the same goes with the boardwalk.
Return Koerner’s call and be a professional. Everything you are doing reflects badly on you now and I feel i really misjudged you because i thought a whole lot more about you..
Faraday
The government repeatedly misrepresented the honest statement that “sales are up” when questioning Anzalone, Keep, Reynolds, and during the closing argument. The government knew that Hosseinipour was referring to the increase in sales since the introduction of fantasy sports, not the overall decline in sales after the conclusion of the Emperor program. It was expected that overall sales would decrease once the popular $5,000 product was no longer available for purchase. A temporary drop in overall sales was anticipated as the one-year-old Emperor Package Program concluded and the focus shifted more toward attracting new customers to the platforms. New MLM companies often introduce new products and modify their compensation plans. The announcement of the end of the Emperor program was well-communicated from the beginning, and Maike announced the subsequent phases.
The second phase of the company began with the launch of fantasy sports, online games, a sportsbook, and travel services. The price for the top package was reduced to $1,500. Distributors could join the program for just $100 and generate business volume by signing up free customers and directing them to use the fantasy sports and online gaming platforms. Government witness Reynolds described how the distributor requirements could be met entirely through customer volume generated from the use of the products in the initial system implementation plan, which he programmed. From the very beginning, the government knew that this was a customer-focused plan! They had many conference calls by Maike, promoting that distributors must do their roles to push customers to the products. This was the subject of many training videos by Hosseinipour that were never shown to the jury.
The government understood that the Emperor program was promoted as a limited-time offer, with only 5,000 packages available. It was clear that once the program ended and no more packages were available, sales would inevitably decline. However, the government asserted that the overall drop in sales indicated that Hosseinipour had lied. This was despite Anzalone’s explanation that Hosseinipour was referring to the increase in sales since the introduction of fantasy sports. The genuine enthusiasm for fantasy sports, shared by many, and the actual sales increase that followed were deliberately misrepresented due to a lack of stronger arguments. It is hard to believe that a prosecutor would act so unethically as to try to criminalize the truthful statement that “sales are up” since the introduction of fantasy sports, especially when it was made in an email to a non-witness who was never involved in the Emperor program. This email was also ruled inadmissible to consider the truth of its contents, but the government announced it as “truth” during closing arguments, with the addition of improper hearsay, opinion, and facts not in evidence.
The government misled the jury by presenting the conclusion of the Emperor program as indicating the company’s downfall, even though customer-directed initiatives were just getting started. Buyers of the Emperor package were still able to direct customers to the casino and earn 25% commissions from the casino transactions, which had always been part of the business plan. Furthermore, there was considerable enthusiasm for the new products, leading to increased sales in the months following their launch. Witness Anzalone supported this enthusiasm for fantasy sports during questioning, along with Logan and Dugger, who confirmed that they earned commissions from their involvement in the industry. Commission data showed that $360,000 in retail sales generated $90,000 in bonus volume (BV) paid to distributors. This occurred within just a few months, demonstrating that the distributors were “over the moon excited.” While Sewell repeatedly mocked Hosseinipour for making this claim, the data backed her assertion. Hosseinipour’s statement was verifiably true;
It is important to note that the demise of I2G was not caused by the discontinuation of the emperor package or the failure to attract customers to the platform. Government evidence showed that there were 1.2 million casino transactions in just ten months. Instead, I2G’s downfall was largely influenced by the relentless pressures stemming from Chuck King’s disinformation campaign, as well as the highly publicized FBI investigation that King promoted extensively online. With time, the i2G plan would have been extremely successful. The company was less than a year old at this time, which is essentially the pre-launch phase of an MLM company. I2g had no opportunity to blossom.
In contrast to Hosseinipour’s statement that “sales are up” to Deery, the government presented false and manipulated data, which manufactured losses and victims by filtering out over $ 28 million in commission gains from I2G distributors. They presented highly manipulated data as factual gains and losses through four key witnesses, which should be seen as suborning perjury and a fraud on the court. There is no denying that the truthful data proves the government misrepresented $38 million in gains as $38 million in losses and included two years of data from an entirely separate company that operated only after i2g was already closed. It wasn’t even I2G data!! The data speaks the truth regardless of Hosseinipour’s attorney’s ineffectiveness in not discovering it at trial.
It is important to note that Hosseinipour was merely a distributor and did not have access to the company data that could demonstrate i2G was not a pyramid scheme. Her belief that the business was legal and not a pyramid scheme is the only factor that should have been considered. She clearly believed it was legitimate and focused on customer acquisition. According to their key witness, who was supposed to testify against her but instead confirmed that she prioritized customer acquisition more than anyone else, Hosseinipour sent Maike numerous emails with specific plans aimed at attracting customers. The government was aware of this, as they possessed the emails and videos that supported her position. Anzalone also stated that they believed in the company, deemed everything to be legal, and that Hosseinipour would not knowingly mislead, deceive, or lie to anyone. However, the government did not allow him to answer a straightforward question about whether Hosseinipour would knowingly participate in a pyramid scheme. Clearly, the answer would have been no. However, the government misrepresented the law and misused Anzalone’s guilty plea with the absence of criminal intent to instruct the jury that criminal intent was not required if they proved a pyramid scheme.
Why did the prosecution have to rely on false evidence and improper hearsay from non-witnesses to undermine Hosseinipour’s integrity? It was because there was no direct evidence to suggest she acted differently than any other distributor. Similar emails can be found with any MLM leader in the country who manages a distributor base. During a bench conference, the government even told the Court that the most significant evidence against Hosseinipour was the fact that her partner had pleaded guilty. Both the Court and the government were aware that they were misusing Anzalone’s plea to suggest Hosseinipour’s guilt.
Every improper hearsay from nonwitnesses could be directly rebutted and disproven by the government’s evidence, but Hosseinipour had no attorney to present it for her. We provided evidence that the Riccardo Ferrari email was a red herring because the government had Riccardo on video the very same days surrounding the email, expressing his love for i2G, Rick Maike, and the innovative technology of the i2G Touch. The government knew they were misrepresenting evidence.
Deery included Chuck King in the email where they attempted to set up Hosseinipour after she had assisted Deery in obtaining a $600 refund for his i2G purchase. Hosseinipour made a verifiably true statement regarding sales increasing since the introduction of fantasy sports. However, Madison Sewell misrepresented the facts and law, as well as used improper opinion and hearsay during closing arguments. What kind of prosecutor does this?
Although the email claiming that “sales are up” was ruled inadmissible for proving the “truth of the matter,” Sewell addressed the jury, stating, “This is Bruce Deery speaking.” This remark implied that Deery and other independent business operators (IBOs) recognized a truth that i2G was operating as a pyramid scheme, and suggested that Hosseinipour should have been aware of this “truth” as well. However, there was no evidence to support Sewell’s claim that “all these other IBOs” had identified the I2G plan as a pyramid scheme. Sewell did not present any witnesses other than Dr. Keep, who also asserted that i2G was a pyramid scheme. This unsubstantiated claim was considered hearsay and represented an improper opinion, lacking evidence in the trial record, which Sewell used to mislead the jury. Additionally, Hosseinipour’s email responses suggest that she views Deery’s statements as false claims intended to secure a refund.
Prosecutors cannot rely on personal opinions or introduce evidence that is not part of the official record. For example, Sewell’s assertion that many other individuals “figured it out” was improper personal opinion and lacked any supporting evidence. Additionally, McClellan’s statement that “no one joined because of the MLM” was an improper opinion and constituted hearsay, as the facts were not in evidence. This contradicts Sewell’s argument about I2G being a pyramid scheme. How can it be a pyramid scheme if no one has an interest in mlm? While these remarks may seem minor compared to the $28 million in gains they concealed from the jury, they still contribute to an unfair trial.
Prosecutors are prohibited from presenting hearsay as fact; however, Sewell did exactly that in his attempt to build a case against Hosseinipour, especially after he was prohibited from introducing his theory of “deliberate ignorance” regarding Hosseinipour’s guilt. Sewell resorted to distorting the truth and offering improper opinions, hearsay, and facts not in evidence. All of this amounts to substantial prosecutorial misconduct.
Sewell misrepresented the defendants met at Bidxcel.
Sewell misrepresented that Hosseinipour never told others about the “customer position.”
Sewell misrepresented that Hosseinipour never told others of a bonus plan change.
I have uploaded the emails from Bruce Deery that were used against Hosseinipour. Since Deery did not testify, this evidence is considered hearsay and was ruled inadmissible as “truth of the matter” a month earlier. Deery could not be cross-examined about his collaboration with Chuck King. Moreover, Chuck King authored the email and was included in all communications regarding Deery’s attempts to obtain a refund and to assist King in undermining the company and its distributors. Additionally, the email should have been barred for Federal Rules of Evidence 401 and 403 because it was unrelated to whether misrepresentation occurred during the sale to an emperor package purchaser. The Emperor program had concluded two months prior to the email, and Hosseinipour secured a refund for Deery of a much smaller product package at $600.