by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
David Springer, Mt Airy MD CEO of Sovereign Funding Group admitted to fabrication and assumption of multiple fake identities
Springer’s admitted fake identities were used in public facing social media such as:
- Google Plus
- Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland
- SEO Moz (Moz) and
- Manta
to make the company seem bigger as he was promoting the business of Sovereign Funding
David Springer Claimed his wife Melissa Springer was not involved in Sovereign Funding Group in any capacity
When asked in his June 28, 2013 deposition “was your wife ever involved in Sovereign Funding in any capacity ?” David Springer testified ” No. None whatsoever” [ pacer.gov Case 1:11-cv-03421-MJG Springer depo p 21 line 14]
In their answer to the Woodbridge Complaint on June 25, 2012, David Springer and Sovereign Funding Group repeatedly prefaced answers to Plaintiffs asserted facts with “prior to the time Sovereign Mortgage and Funding Corp ceased operations, when in fact the company was still alive and that “No.None Whatsoever” Melissa Springer was the named owner of the company on record with the State of Maryland. See SFMG Maryland SoS records 4-3-2013
David Springer was indiscriminate in assuming male or female identities for the fake names he used with the BBB of Greater MD, or on public facing social media
In one notable exchange in his June 28, 2013 deposition David Springer admitted to assuming the identity of a real person, Melissa Springer his wife, using the email address melissa@sovereignfunding.net in a Google forum related to complaints about Traffic Power, a SEO company that in or about 2004-2006 was accused of getting its clients’ websites, including that of Sovereign Funding Group, banned from Google*. Prior to being instructed to take the 5th by his attorney, Springer admitted that he “legally was not allowed to work yet” [ Springer depo p169 lines 13-21 to p 171 line 6, emphasis added].
David Springer’s waffling begs a reasonable and obvious question
David Springer admitted under oath that he was “legally not allowed to work yet” in 2004, How about from the time of the most recent filing and up until mid August 2013 when Melissa Springer was listed as principal owner of Sovereign? Was David Springer truthful about Melissa Springer not being involved in Sovereign Funding in his deposition? Was he legally allowed to work, or wasn’t he?
Taking the 5th in Civil Cases
In civil cases, the Supreme Court has held that “the Fifth Amendment does not forbid adverse inferences against parties to civil actions when they refuse to testify in response to probative evidence offered against them.” Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308, 318 (1976); see also Error In Excluding Evidence Of Civil Defendant’s Invocation Of The Fifth Amendment Privilege. While an adverse inference instruction is not automatic in civil cases, the trial court may permit one [Source : Federal evidence.com]
About Traffic-Power
*From a January 7, 2008 post by Matt Cutts, Google
“Earlier today I was reviewing an email from 2001 (!) where Google removed a very large company’s website from our index for hidden GIF links, machine-generated doorway pages, and cloaking. It’s interesting to look back with the benefit of hindsight now. Later on, re Traffic Power:
I can confirm that Google has removed traffic-power.com and domains promoted by Traffic Power from our index because of search engine optimization techniques that violated our webmaster guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html. If you are a client or former client of Traffic Power and your site is not in Google, please see my previous advice on requesting reinclusion into Google’s index to learn what steps to take if you would like to be reincluded in Google’s index”.
Here is the thread that David Springer was questioned about during his June 28, 2013 deposition where he he purports to be his wife.
- Download Melissa Springer -really David Springer as he admitted 6-28-2013 SEO book on Traffic Power-1
- Download David Springer and Traffic Power thread
On February 10,2013, Greg Maynard of Sovereign Funding (which we assume to be David Springer based on his June 28,2013 testimony) asked for a legal SEO opinion letter in a very public Google webmaster forum
Download We Will Pay For a Legal SEO Opinion Letter – Google Groups
One of the answers to the request seems to suggest that the Sovereign Funding Group webaite was still affected by manipulative links. Here’s the relevant excerpt
…”a letter is just about worthless because any written statement must be backed up during cross examination during depositions and ultimately the trial. So what you really need is a live body willing to spend the next 2, 3 even 5 or 10 years of their life for the preliminary and trial phase of your case as well as any appeals.(and there will be appeals)/ A potential paid witness should perform a moderate level of due diligence and check out their client before hand and they will find nearly 400,000 backlinks according to Majestic https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/site-explorer/summary/www.sovereignfunding.com?IndexDataSource=H including some real tasty (manipulative) backlinks.
Bottom line, your expert is going to need to dodge and weave on the stand with the best of them and I don’t think it can be done”. [ emphasis added]
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