Lawyers shouldn’t be beaking off like this on a ******* forum. How many other social media platforms you talking to much on?
Has the ponzi scheme been proven in a court of law? Please provide reference
A couple of points.
First, Mr. Wallace does not appear to be a lawyer. He appears to be the principal of a debt collection agency. Whether the services of a debt collection agency are relevant to the way Masterbucks was run is another topic.
But, more importantly, lawyers have as much right as anyone else to comment on whatever they'd like. Obviously, lawyers have a duty to keep their client's confidential information confidential, etc., but there's not some kind of "everyone is entitled to express an opinion except for lawyers" in the First Amendment.
Which brings us to the third point. Anyone is entitled to express their opinion that a law has or has not been broken by someone. The notion of "presumed innocent until proven guilty" is a procedural rule for the way that trials are conducted. It simply means that the prosecution has the burden, in a court proceeding, to prove guilt to the jury.
"Presumed innocent until proven guilty" is not some rule of life in general. Good golly, if you were mugged on the street by a guy pointing a gun in your face, you are not required to go to a cop and say "Some innocent guy allegedly just mugged me." You are entitled to have your opinion and to express your opinion as to the criminal guilt or innocence of anyone you'd like. If it were otherwise, then nobody would be able to report a crime they witnessed to the police. If you see Bob Smith go into a bank and rob it, you can certainly tell anyone you like "I just saw Bob Smith rob a bank".
If there was some kind of general "everyone has to consider everyone innocent until proven guilty in court" rule, then
NOBODY would ever
BE found guilty in a court. Heck, the prosecutor walks into the court with the
JOB of saying "that guy is guilty" right at the very beginning of the trial. If it is a robbery trial, there is probably going to be a witness saying "that guy robbed me." There is nothing that prevents anyone from opining that someone else may have done something illegal.
The present situation with Epik certainly looks, smells, and acts like a Ponzi. They have been allegedly conducting an escrow and money transmitting business under which they have purported to have been holding the proceeds of customer transactions as "Masterbucks". It is plainly obvious that they are not paying out the balances of these proceeds to their customers, and they have given conflicting reasons why. They have, however, dribbled out some minor balances and paid some squeaky wheels in an attempt to tamp down the noise somewhat, but it is plainly obvious there are customers with substantial balances who simply are not being paid. Their own CEO admits that customer funds and operating funds have been commingled.
Those facts are not in dispute. Those facts are consistent with the operation of a classic Ponzi scheme. If they do not have the money to pay their customer's balances - and surely they would pay them if they could - and that money was commingled with operating funds, then it is certainly a reasonable conclusion that they are simply hoping to be able to pay those balances out of future operating proceedings. Anyone is entitled to reach that conclusion and express that opinion if they would like to do so.
It is also not "defamatory" to express that opinion. Again, the admitted facts of the situation is that Epik is refusing to pay their customers what is easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds which, until now, Epik purported to be holding on behalf of their customers. They have apparently been refusing to do that since August. Against that admitted factual background, someone expressing the opinion that it is a Ponzi scheme is not capable of doing some measurable additional quantum of damage to the reputation that Epik has shredded and cratered by their own admitted actions.
Here's a hot tip for you. That guy in Wisconsin who mowed down all of those people in a Christmas parade and killed six of them, was found guilty yesterday. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but I was pretty certain he had done those things, even before he was pronounced guilty by a court.
So, whether or not Mr. Wallace is a lawyer, he is certainly entitled to express his opinion of the subject, just as you are entitled to express your opinion that locking people out of getting their own money to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars for two months and then giving conflicting reasons for it, is just a fine way of conducting a reputable business.
