I could find only one reference to Ex. 43 in the defense's brief in which it is described as "NASI Check Ledgers." This does not explain if it was compiled by the defense or by the receiver's office. And the only reason the defense is using it is to claim that the receiver's exhibit of net losers (Ex. 41) has problems with accuracy in terms of not including payments to investor's separate entities. This goes to the heart of their argument that the actual number of net winners is greater than the government has determined.Tednewsom wrote:Can someone explain Exhibit 43 to me? Are these lists of presumed "Net Winners," people whose investment actually exceeded their investments?
So it appears that Ex. 43 is a recap of the check amounts that were issued by NASI to the investors. The exhibit does not provide one sum for each of the investors; the Riviera Investments LP has 8 separate entries that you would have to add together to get the total figure.However, Mr. Ehrens also owned and operated Riviera Investments LP (Riviera). Riviera acted as a broker for NASI and also purchased its own machines. The contracts entered into between NASI and Riviera were signed by Mr. Ehrens, and payments between NASI and Riviera were paid to, and on behalf of, Mr. Ehrens and his wife. (See Ex. 42: NASI Contract with Riviera dated July 1, 2008, and Associated Check dated July 23, 2008.) Between 2007 and 2013, NASI paid Mr. Ehrens, via Riviera, $469,360. (See Ex. 43: NASI Check Ledgers.) However, none of those payments are incorporated into the governemnt’s [sic] loss analysis. Mr. Ehrens is therefore a net winner, whereas the government lists him to be a net loser.
By the way, the defense only cites this one example where they claim the government is not accurate. The brief goes to the point of listing the contracts that the managing partner, Mr. Ehren, to imply that only Ehren and his wife received the payments made to Riviera, in addition to the monies they individually received from NASI. Unfortunately I don't see this as being conclusive. First, we know that NASI's accounting was worse than what a blind man with delirium tremens could have accomplished. I have doubts about all of the exhibits and reports coming out of the receiver's office, but only because they had garbage to work with. And those doubts work both ways in terms of what the defense is trying to claim.
Second, the fact that the defense could only cite one example of payments going to business entities that were owned or controlled by purported net losers. I would have thought that if there was any mileage in this claim, the defense would have provided a table of their own showing the exact entities and numbers to back this up. Either the defense was lazy or they already knew that exploring this claim would reveal more than they really wanted revealed.
Third, Ex. 41 shows that there were 3 separate Ehrens that invested in NASI. Besides Gerald & Wilma Ehrens, there was also a Gordon Ehrens, and a Jordan & Sharon Ehrens listed as separate investors, and net losers as well. I am presuming these were all related. The latter two received approximately $768,000 of their money back, and I had to wonder if those payments were paid through Riviera as well if they were limited partners. I had to consider this as a possibility since the Ehrens do not appear anywhere as recipients on Ex. 43, which they should have if they were receiving checks made out to them. The problem again is one of the accounting, or lack thereof, by NASI and what Joel and Ed were telling the receiver's office as they went through the check ledgers. I could see a possible scenario where Ed and Joel haphazardly issued checks to Riviera one month and then the next month to the individuals instead and still recorded it as a Riviera payment elsewhere. And we don't have a statement from Riviera for its own internal accounting to show what happened to the payments that Riviera received.
... But, in the interest of fairness and the benefit of doubt, I haven't been saying the actual name, and I do note that the victim in question is obviously paying dearly for their mistake whether that mistake also included posting on a website or not. So, rather than trying to be vindictive to a victim, I'm just trying to find some verifiable truths in all the fog that we've read on these pages.