Concerning Mr. Downey's post on the Gold Economy article on the indictment of Mr. Zarid:
I stand corrected regarding the details of the ownership of E-gold and G&SR and appreciate Mr. Downey's taking the time to make that clear. If I had received a response from G&SR prior to publishing the article I would have been happy to have included Mr. Downey's comments. It is also important to understand that just because a US district attourney made allegations in an indictment, does NOT mean the allegations are true. The indictment against Mr. Zarid is the prosecutor's effort to paint the worst possible picture by accusing the defendant of everything they can think he might possibly have done. They often inflate the charges in order to try to get the accused to plea bargain it down - so they don't have to prove their case. The truth may be that the funds used by Mr. Zarid's corporation to purchase G&SR shares may have been completely legitimate. They may not have come from his investment programs at all. And his investment programs may not even have been Ponzi schemes. It is entirely possible that they were completely legal and the feds are trying to portray them as Ponzi schemes when they were not. This would certainly not be unusual. (See the Gold Economy article "The Most Dangerous Man in the Mid-South" to see what the feds did to Franklin Sanders when he opened a gold bank in Tennessee back in the 1980's. http://www.goldbankone.com/article.php?sid=124 ) You will notice that the indictment accuses not just Mr. Zarid, but his wife, and all the employees of his company. Scams are usually perpetrated by individuals not teams of people. But the feds will indict not just the guy they want, but all of his friends and family as well in order to put pressure on them all to plea bargain. This is exactly what they did to Mr. Sanders back in the late 80's. They indicted EVERYONE IN HIS CHURCH. The one's that plea bargained got federal felony's on their records. The one's that stuck it out were finally exonerated when the jury found them not-guilty, but they had to go through Hell first. At any rate, the whole purpose of the invention of the corporation as a legal entity is to create a clear legal distinction between a company and its shareholders. A corporation is not liable for the actions of its shareholders, and the shareholders are not liable for the actions of the corporation, beyond the value of their stock. The idea of using digital gold as money is generally abhorrent to the powers that be for one simple reason: they do not have control over it. It should therefore not be surprising that the feds might be looking for an angle with which to tar e-gold and other DGC's. Anyone involved with the Digital Gold Currency industry should be extremely careful whom they accept money from - especially in large amounts. Make very sure your money is clean, because it isn't just YOUR reputation at risk. All of our reputations are at risk as an industry. On the other hand, we should all be very supportive of our colleagues when they do fall afoul of the US federal government. Remember Parker Bradley? The Secret Service smeared him to the world, when they invaded his business and siezed everything. But it turned out that he was completely innocent and they did not even press charges. It became clear from their interrogation of Mr. Bradley that what the SS really wanted was dirt on e-gold. They hoped to scare Mr. Bradley into testifying against e-gold. The fact that this prosecution of Mr. Zarid apparently began about the same time in late 2000, suggests to me that the raid on Parker and the indictment against Mr. Zarid may be related. The feds want some dirt on e-gold and they will dig wherever they can find it, even if that means making some of it up. But that's why e-gold is a Nevis Corporation. It is, in theory, outside of their reach, and therefore the gold and the accounts should be safe no matter what the feds do. If G&SR and e-gold can safely sail through this storm it will prove that the concept of using offshore corporations to house digital currencies is sound, and safe. I am confident that they will weather this storm. We should give each other the benefit of the doubt when this kind of thing happens. Regardless of whether or not Mr. Zarid is guilty of the things he is accused of, I am personally convinced that the directors of G&SR and the directors of e-gold are ethical people who are trying to do the right thing and provide an excellent service to the world. Kind regards, Ken Griffith --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.e-gold.com/stats.html lets you observe the e-gold system's activity now!
