Les Henderson

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Les Henderson is a Canadian consumer fraud investigating author and creator of consumer-fraud awareness site Crimes Of Persuasion (COP). [1]

Les Henderson wrote two books, "Crimes Of Persuasion" and "Under Investigation". His first book "Crimes Of Persuasion" describes a large variety of 'schemes, scams and frauds'. Les Henderson's second book "Under Investigation" is about the way the Florida AG Charlie Crist's office handled the Wilhelmina Scouting Network (WSN) affair.[2][3][4]

Contents

[edit] Bibliography

  • Les Henderson (2000). Crimes of Persuasion: Schemes, scams, frauds. Coyote Ridge Publishing. ISBN 0-9687133-0-0. 
  • Les Henderson (2006). Under Investigation: The Inside Story of the Florida Attorney General's Investigation of Wilhelmina Scouting Network, the Largest Model and Talent Scam in America. Coyote Ridge Publishing. ISBN 0-9687133-3-5. 

[edit] Crimes-Of-Persuasion.com

Crimes of Persuasion states as its mission: "To inform the public, along with law enforcement personnel, justice officials and victim support groups on the workings and scope of telemarketing and investment fraud so that efforts can effectively be taken to minimize the impact on its victims and ensure that adequate penalties are in place to deter the perpetrators."

COP extensively describes the methods used by criminal perpetrators, like deception and deceptive persuasion. Both Henderson's site and first book are acknowledged to be valuable and reliable sources of information and the site is linked to by a large number of renown other sites (a.o. governmental, municipal, law enforcement, corporate, consumer rights, educational and private). [5]


[edit] Legal harassment and other nuisances

Writing/publishing about scammers and revealing their tricks has at least one disadvantage, namely the chance of getting harassed by them. Les Henderson has been subject to a few legal attacks and other kinds of nuisance.

In 2002 a Forex operation took legal action against Henderson, forcing the closure of his site in November 2002 pending a multi-million dollar lawsuit against him for defamation.[6][7] Crimes of Persuasion was resurrected in March 2003. There are no references to the outcome of the case on COP or anywhere else.

June 2004 Henderson and others were served with a lawsuit by Fashion Rock, LLC (aka Talent Rock), a Florida company then owned by con man Lou Pearlman (who in 2008 was sentenced to 25 years for defrauding investors out of about half a billion dollars). The suit was alleging "violation of the federal and Florida versions of the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, tortious interference with business relationships, defamation, false light invasion of privacy, misappropriation of trade secrets and civil conspiracy". [8] No further specifications of these allegations were given and no evidence was ever presented. Pearlman's lawyers were only stretching procedures and even tricked the Court into wrongly ordering a Default judgement against Henderson, by misleading the Clerk. Finally on February 19, 2007 the clearly frivolous case against Henderson was dismissed, shortly after Pearlman's ponzi had become public. Soon thereafter the complete case was closed.

Also in June 2004 about a dozen identical sites were erected by Fashion Rock CEO Mark Tolner "to attack critics" (a.o. Les Henderson and Ripoff Report)[9] [10][11] and at about the same time the "Bureau of Ethical Internet Commerce" (beiconline) was erected by fraud convict Ayman Ahmed El-Difrawi (Pearlman's leading "consultant" in his talent scouting businesses) apparently for the same purpose.[12][13][14] Since then a flood of anonymous writings appeared on Internet message boards, blogs, press releases and mock sites, containing unsourced offensive allegations about Henderson, similar to the ones on Pearlman and El-Difrawi's sites and worse.

Mr. Henderson in return filed a libel suit against Pearlman, Mark Tolner, Ayman Ahmed El-Difrawi aka Alec Defrawy aka Michael Difrawi aka Dr. Alec Defrawi a.o. and several other corporations and individuals. The suit is in progress. Ayman El-Difrawi is in Default.[15]

November 2004 the web site was hacked and defaced by an unknown entity. Consequently the site's Forum was brought down several times by massive enduring DDOS attacks. The Forum has not been re-installed since then.

In November 2007, St. Petersburg Times personal finance editor Helen Huntly reported that El-Difrawi had founded a business and web site also called Crimes of Persuasion imitating Henderson's, using his real name.[16]

On November 21, 2007, Ayman A. Difrawi (a.k.a. Alec Difrawi) and Internet Solutions Corporation filed a lawsuit against Henderson and others, extremely similar to the Fashion Rock suit. On May 20, 2008 the Judge dismissed defendant Jeremy Scalf and John Does 1-5 without prejudice based on Difrawi's apparent lack of prosecution and failure to serve defendants in a timely fashion. Henderson's and Daniel Bruce Scalf's motions to dismiss the complaint for lack of lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction are currently still pending.[17][18][19]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Crimes-Of-Persuasion.com Whois info Schemes, Scams, Frauds.
  2. ^ "Under Investigation" 2006, ISBN 978-0-9687133-3-4 (paperback) (Amazon entry)
  3. ^ New York Post September 24, 2006 LOUIE WASN'T 'N SYNC / LAWSUIT BACKFIRES "LOU Pearlman picked the wrong guy to sue"
  4. ^ The Gainsville Sun (October 3, 2006) Book: Crist tried to "whitewash" probe"
  5. ^ Alexa results Sites linked to crimes-of-persuasion.com
  6. ^ UnjustIS www.unjustis.co.uk 14 December 2002, Paul Bantock: Abuse of Power.
  7. ^ Frauds and Scams - Bill E. Branscum.
  8. ^ Image:FR2ndAmmended.pdf Fashion Rock, LLC vs Frank Torelli et al. Second amended complaint (marked: received 24 September 2004) . Circuit Court Orange County Florida. Case number 48-2004-CA-004844-O.
  9. ^ Orlando Weekly: Pearlman's jihad
  10. ^ Waybackmachine internethatesites.com
  11. ^ Whois internethatesites.com TC-FR, domain admin 127 W Pine St Orlando, FL 32801 US Phone: +1 407 244 3400 domainadmin [at] fashionrocknow.com Original data available in Whois History, membership required
  12. ^ Washington Post Man Gets Four Years in Fraud Case
  13. ^ Beiconline.com Whois Registrant: A D - 1223 Hawthorne Dr Groveland, Florida 34736 Original data available in Whois History, membership required
  14. ^ Waybackmachine beiconline.com
  15. ^ Ontario Superior Court of Justice Court File No. C-8937-05 - Henderson vs Pearlman, Tolner, El-Difrawi a.o.
  16. ^ Huntley, H (September 6, 2007). Doing a double take when it comes to crimes of persuasion, Money Talk.
  17. ^ citmedialaw.org Difrawi v. Henderson
  18. ^ internetsolutionscorp.com Internet Solutions Corp site
  19. ^ The Truth About Internet Solutions Corp Critics site