The Bidxcel Hoax originated with Chuck King, who harbored a vendetta against the defendants and embarked on a mission to destroy the company and imprison them. He launched an intense and venomous campaign of disinformation, creating defamatory emails, blogs, videos, and form letters designed to tarnish the defendants’ reputations. Due to instructions from the i2G/G1e compliance attorney, the defendants were unable to respond to these allegations.
Chuck King spread false accusations claiming that the defendants had started a company called Bidxcel and were somehow responsible for its collapse, alleging that they had absconded with everyone’s money. He published these fabrications, disseminating them via email and sharing them with FBI agent McClelland, who accepted his claims as truth. King discovered that Maike and Barnes were also distributors for Bidxcel, introduced by Anzalone, and he seized this opportunity to falsely suggest that these individuals, along with Hosseinipour and Anzalone, colluded at Bidxcel and orchestrated i2G from the outset. Hosseinipour had never met Maike or Barnes and did not even know who they were. They were distributors under Greg Sell in an entirely unrelated business line and had no prior connections or interactions.
The prosecution worked closely with Chuck King and even intervened in court to prevent him from settling a $10 million lawsuit filed against him by I2G. They argued convincingly that the lawsuit could not be mentioned. Consequently, the judge ruled that the lawsuit, despite being directly related to the campaign of disinformation that led to the investigation by McClelland and the indictment by prosecutors, could not be referenced. This decision was influenced by the trust the judge had in Assistant District Attorneys Madison Sewell and Marissa Ford, as he praised their excellent reputation and integrity within his Court. Although Ford was not King’s attorney, she intervened in a Court proceeding to ensure that King did not agree to a settlement with I2G, which she believed would hurt their case. The Court took no action against her.
FBI agent McClelland misled the grand jury by asserting that he believed the defendants were all connected in a previous company and had orchestrated this plan. Despite the prosecution having no evidence that Hosseinipour knew Maike or Barnes—without a single phone call or email exchanged between them—they constructed a narrative suggesting that the three conspired together, falsely portraying Bidxcel as an illegitimate company facing an imminent SEC investigation.
The government aimed to introduce evidence related to Bidxcel as prior bad acts under Rule 404(b) and as evidence relevant to Ges Restau. However, Judge Stiver ruled against using Bidxcel under Rule 404(b) but allowed its introduction as evidence related to Ges Restau. The government continued representing it as Rule 404(b), which the judge allowed. He later exploded at Sewell when he revealed that was what he had done.
Significant time was spent litigating the legitimacy of Bidxcel and creating a false narrative suggesting the defendants had met or known each other. The government persuaded Anzalone to testify that all the defendants met at Bidxcel, despite his claim that they never worked together. As part of his plea agreement, he was required to provide testimony that supported the prosecution’s case. Hosseinipour does not believe Anzalone would intentionally misrepresent the truth; rather, she thinks that his memory failed him after ten years and following two brain surgeries during that time.
The Bidxcel Hoax became a mini-trial, which Judge Stiver had previously prohibited. He expressed his trust in the prosecution as he worked with these “fine assistant district attorneys”, and they always exemplified integrity and upheld the law, a sentiment he often reiterated. Unfortunately, this led to many intervention failures as the prosecution exceeded its bounds. When Sewell proposed giving the jury an admonition stating that the jury could not consider Bidxcel as evidence of prior bad acts, the judge reacted angrily, recognizing that the prosecution had violated his earlier ruling. He refused to allow such an admonition for the jury. Meanwhile, at least six hours were spent insinuating that Bidxcel was under investigation by the FTC or SEC, misrepresenting it as the foundation from where the defendants launched I2G.
Misrepresentations substituted for evidence, including maligning ordinary mlm practices that the jury was unfamiliar with. Standard practices in multi-level marketing (MLM) were mischaracterized as fraudulent. These included purchasing customer spots—something thousands of I2G distributors engaged in—forwarding complaint emails to the compliance attorney, relaying information shared during conference calls, sharing the corporate PowerPoint presentation used by all, stating the company tagline “Get Paid to Play,” and receiving an email about an upcoming change to the bonus plan. The government made baseless claims that Hosseinipour failed to inform people about “customer spots” or the “bonus change,” yet there was no evidence of a single conversation to support these allegations, which formed the basis of their case.