Monday: 4/18

The case opened with jury selection, which was completed by 1 pm. 

The prosecution leads off first by presenting its witnesses, which they will examine one by one on "direct".  Mike's defense attorney, Adam Allen, and his staff (Sylvia and Russ) will then "cross" examine each witness. The prosecutors may "redirect" if they feel the need. They exercised this option throughout the first week.

The prosecution opened its case with a 20-minute summation to the jury of the charges it hoped to prove during the trial. The prosecutor simply spoke to the jury without visual or audio aids to help them understand the points being made. It was reportedly very boring.

Mike's defense counsel then gave his summation to the jury, which lasted about 40 minutes, supported by visual aids. It was reportedly a much more lucid and understandable presentation.  He concluded by merely stating that "The defense will show that nothing you just heard from the prosecution is true." 

The prosecution then proceeded to display to the jury photographs and county registry information on each of the 14 investment properties that Oasis owned.  Their witness (Stephen Howland?) was asked to read each of the entries out loud to the jury, making note that Mike was the registered agent for most of the properties.  This too was extremely boring for the jury to listen to.  The prosecution was trying to leave the impression that Mike owned the properties and had bought them illegally with Oasis funds, but that wasn't true–they were owned by Oasis. 

On cross-examination, the "expert" witness was asked if a "registered agent" is necessarily the owner of the listed property and he admitted that they are not.  The registered agent for a corporately-owned property like those owned by Oasis is just the person contacted whenever a legal question about the property comes up.
 

Tuesday: 4/19

The prosecution's second witness, Patti Katter, a lender not in our group, was next up on the witness stand to start the second morning. She gave a rather lifeless, uninspiring, and not very credible account of the loss she experienced after the government’s seizure, but her testimony did nothing to help the prosecution.

Patti was followed by Deborah Oremland, CRD specialist (Central Registration Depository (NASD, Broker-Dealer Registration)).  She went back into Mike's records all the way to his elementary schooling and recounted all the licenses he had earned while working on Wall Street. She attested to his success in passing the rigorous exams necessary for that (largely irrelevant) part of his life, but it had little if any bearing on his work in Oasis and merely served to bore the jury further.

Ms. Oremland was replaced on the witness stand by Jennifer Sunu who offered her opinions as an employee of the NFA (National Futures Association).  The NFA is a voluntary, self-regulatory organization that works with the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) to regulate the futures and commodities markets. One only needs to be a member of it if one is going to operate a business under the jurisdiction of the CFTC.  Oasis did not operate under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, so Mike didn’t have to be a member of the NFA.

Jennifer offered her opinion about what a "commodity pool" is but did not accuse Oasis of operating one (as the CFTC repeatedly alleged in its original 886 civil case).  Lead defense attorney, Adam Allen, objected several times to this line of conversation and approached the bench 3 times to ask that it be stopped, but the judge allowed it. Adam argued that if the government wasn't going to charge Mike with operating a commodity pool, it should not have been brought up before the jury to provide a platform for the prosecution to make a closing argument on that line.  Defense counsel, Russ, cross-examined Jennifer and got her to agree that her interpretation of a commodity pool was open to other interpretations.  Sadly, the fact is that the term, "commodity pool", is actually defined by statute - so it's NOT open to interpretation, but that point wasn't made.

Another lender from the Sarasota area, Matt Kihnke, followed Ms. Sunu to the stand. Matt relayed that he had invested $7M and withdrew $6M without any difficulty before the government intervened.  The prosecution belabored the jury with boring details of his every deposit and withdrawal, but in the end, his testimony was of no value to either side.

The day ended with former Oasis Office Manager, Deb Cheslow, taking the stand. Her credentials were entered into the record and the day closed.
 

Wednesday: 4/20

The entire day was given over to Deb Cheslow who offered virtually nothing of any substance to either side, but repeatedly stressed the fact that Joe Anile was the corporate attorney and that she took direction from him in that capacity.  She apparently enjoyed the opportunity to pontificate, but all who attended said her testimony didn't seem to clear anything up for the jury.
 

Thursday: 4/21

Deb Cheslow returned for her finale - and still added little of benefit.

The prosecution played an hour-long taped phone conversation with Oasis prospects, followed by another alternative version from the defense.  Dueling perspectives neutralized the prosecution's efforts to convince the jury that the lenders had been deceived during such prospecting phone calls.  This gave Adam the opportunity to clarify for the jury that lenders were paid from transaction fees (spread earnings), not from the Company's Profits and Losses-a key point that will have to be reiterated several times before the trial is over.

Joe Anile was expected that day but did not appear. 

Instead, undercover FBI Agent Joseph Stone took the stand. Stone had attended the 2018 Christmas party undercover as part of his investigations into Oasis.  There he met and ingratiated himself to Lois and Cliff Burnell who subsequently invited him to dinner, seeking to potentially sponsor him into their Ambit business.  Stone accepted their invitation and feigned interest in what the Burnells presented, but actually he was covertly videotaping them and trying to obtain evidence against Oasis from their discussion.  This devious engagement was brought to light at the trial and on cross-examination Adam asked him if the FBI trained him to deceive people like that or if he adopted the practice on his own. He responded by denying that he deceived people, but when asked what he'd call what he had done, he said "I lie to them."  Clearly a distinction without a difference that the jury was sure to pick up on.

By this time in the trial, it was becoming clear to all present that Mike's Defense counsel has a firm hand on the case as he was beginning to shine before the jury with his every appearance on cross-examination.
 

Friday: 4/22

Friday opened with Christopher Mitchell, a representative from SPOTEX, the software company used by ATC Brokers to track all the trading activities that pass through its operations. 

Oasis adapted some SPOTEX software to create a reference table used to allow OIG to pay the promised 25% of monthly transaction fees if they exceeded the alternative 1% amount guaranteed.  At the beginning of each month, the reference table had to be reset so that everyone's proper percentage of the potential 25% transaction fee would be proportionally allotted for the next month.  Lenders would come in and go out during any given month so the table’s reflection of their proportional contributions had to be reset every month. 

The government wants to make the jury believe that the reference table was reset to hide losses, but that was not the case, nor was that its purpose.  There is no way to adjust the actual trading record.  The government must convince the jury that the individual OIG sub-account numbers in that table were NOT OIG accounts, but instead, Lender accounts being individually traded by the Company. Nothing could be further from the truth, but if they can't make that stick, then the CFTC would have to concede it never had jurisdiction to bring its case against Oasis in the first place because Oasis ONLY traded its own account as a "qualified participant" and under the governing statutes, that means the CFTC did NOT have jurisdiction over it - any more than it would have over car manufacturers like GM, FORD, TOYOTA and every other who trade FOREX constantly to offset potential losses on new car designs being prepared for delivery. Car production can take years from blueprint to delivery, during which time there will be shifts in the relative purchasing power of the currencies those car companies pay and sell in.  Thus, they, like Oasis, enter FOREX trades as "qualified participants", trading on their own account, not for individual lenders or shareholders, and not under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, which principally governs retail forex operations - which Oasis was never engaged in.

Mr. Mitchell probably never saw SPOTEX software customized as Oasis had done, so he was understandably confused about the monthly adjustments being made, but again, defense counsel endeavored to clarify for the jury what they needed to know. There will be other opportunities to come to further clarify this essential point as both the prosecution and defense present their witnesses.

FBI Agent Richard Volp followed Mr. Mitchell to the stand and began a long litany of purchases made by Mike at his home address. Mr. Volp, together with IRS Agent Shawn Batsch, first interviewed Mike on the day of the raid on his home, April 18, 2019.  He took notes that Batsch later modified and filed into the court 30 days after the interview.  These notes seemed to indicate to some that Mike had "confessed", but the notes were later impeached as fraudulently modified in order to make that impression.  This point was brought up during Volp's cross-examination - another instance of the FBI using lies and deceit to achieve its own desired results.  Videos of the raid on Mike's house were shown.  The day ended before Mr. Volp's cross-examination was completed.