A new blog, "Nightcap Village Scam Alert" posted at nightcapvillagescammers.blogspot.com is purportedly authored by "by
current investors and former contractors of the project".
Acting for the "Association of
Defrauded Investors, the management of this blog, "Nightcap Village Nightmare" at nightcapnightmare.blogspot.com.au, and the blog mountwarningecovillagescam.blogspot.com, advise that these blogs are not associated with "Nightcap Village Scam Alert" nor do we " endorse the blog "Nightcap Village Scam Alert".
The
"anonymous" author is notorious and well known: Mark Darwin, a major
shareholder in the project. He acted as marketing manager making false representations until recently
thrown under the bus by his former partners in "unconventional
business".
Under the futile guise of anonymity, Darwin now attempts to expose his former cohorts.
Darwin is himself under legal scrutiny for his alleged role in the
land-share scam, charged with defrauding investors of over $2 million
during 2014-16.
Athena, classical goddess of justice, is always depicted blindfold as a symbol of impartiality, but in a post-humane world what happens when the blindfold is removed and Athena blinks?
"Sovereign citizens say they are not bound by statute law unless they contractually agree to be so bound. Government acts are optional and can only be used on individuals who agree to them. They argue that statutes are “maritime law”, never meant for dry land as they were laws made for ships that were outside jurisdiction on the high seas. They believe that they can declare themselves independent of the government and the rule of law, the only “true” law is their own interpretation of common law.
"If you’re a sovereign person, you make the laws for yourself.”
"In the infamous 1987 Canadian court case Meads v Meads, Alberta Queens Bench Associate Chief Justice John D Rooke described the techniques used by the ‘Freemen’ in court as “frivolous and vexatious”, coining the term ‘Organised Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments’ (OPCA).
The Attraction
"Sovereign Citizens is a movement that suits a variety of combustible outsiders; from men’s rights activists to groups like Truthology, who hold seminars on how to operate outside of the ATO.
Mark Darwin, who runs Truthology, explains how the “world monetary system impacts your daily life. Everything you thought you knew about money, taxes, fines is one of the greatest illusions ever perpetuated by mankind.”
"The Truthology website offers to free people from wage slavery so they can enjoy their lives by getting around fines of all kinds using the Sovereign Citizen tactics. The site makes it all sound quite palpable. Perhaps we all question why we slog to work every day, frustrated about how our lives are ruled by mortgages, wages and a plethora of rules. We wonder whether we are prisoners of system that is beyond our control, and long for a better and easier way to live in the world.
"But the problem with not paying your electricity bills is that sooner rather than later, the lights will be turned off."
"In Australia, the movement has been embraced by Indigenous communities; a natural fit for people who have never accepted sovereignty. Former fisherman Mark McMurtrie has been a leading Aboriginal Freeman, travelling the country with message of an Original Sovereign Tribal Foundation. “Our tribes are sovereign” he tells cheering indigenous people at rallies,
“The legislation is entirely immaterial to us. We don’t give two shits what the crown thinks. We are not particularly concerned about their legislation other than the fact that they continue to use their blue coated bully boys to railroad us and to commit ethnic cleansing on behalf of this thing called crown corporation.”
Armed with his own treaties, he is telling dispossessed people what they want to hear,
“Not one piece of legislation of the crown has any authority over any person. If a court is going to exercise any of the powers attaching a right of ownership over me, forcing me to accept any right of punishment over me, then I will be addressing the matter from a point of view of slavery. They do not own me, they have no right to tell me anything.”
"In 2002, McMurtie lost a case against the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commission who he sued for $33 million after losing out on a business grant worth $35,000. In other unsuccessful cases, he has demanded to have cases of Indigenous persons heard by a Tribal Council of Elders or under Common Law with a jury.
"Sovereign citizens” are advising Indigenous Australians to operate outside the laws of the land".
"Freemen believed all government acts to be optional and only enforceable on individuals who consented to them. As long as they did not acknowledge statutory law or the judiciary, sovereign citizens claimed they were exempt from prosecution – as well as from taxation, debt and road rules. In courts, they submitted rambling declarations containing private heraldry, wax seals, oddly coloured text and signatures jotted in blood or unusual inks. Written statutes, they argued, were actually tyrannical “admiralty laws”, never meant for dry land.
"In Australia, a burgeoning faction of Freemen is targeting Indigenous audiences. A taste of the subculture can be gleaned online, in groups such as the Tribal Sovereign Parliament of Gondwana Land, the Original Sovereign Tribal Federation (OSTF) and the Original Sovereign Confederation.
"The most quoted and influential Aboriginal Freeman guru is OSTF founder and travelling speaker Mark McMurtrie.McMurtrie's OSTF "is currently partnered with a sovereign citizen outfit called the Truthology Foundation, which holds yearly “freedom summits”. These feature talks by Truthology’s creator Mark Darwin on “how you can operate privately outside the rules of such organisations like the ATO” and workshops by a “Mr X” on “successful techniques for negating and or waiving council fines, traffic infringements and tolls”."
"When part of a culture senses the court system is rigged against it, when a society has managed to make the terms “protection” and “child welfare” sound grim, then the OSTF mentality is partly understandable. Alienation begets anti-politics. Alienated people want explanations for the absurdism they feel around certain institutions; answers to why some professional fraternities give them the chills.
"Fantasies about tyrannical admiralty lawyers provide just that. They’re the opiate of the excluded."
"Mark Darwin - So many lies! People who 'invested' in Bhula Bhula have not received their money back. The Land and Environment Court on behalf of the council stopped you at Bhula Bhula and now you are doing the same thing on different land under the name of Mount Warning Eco Village. You are a scammer."
American celebrity Don Tolman’s son, Tyler Tolman, describes himself as the "money man" behind Mt Warning Ecovillage.
Tyler Tolman invites all who “resonate” with the dream of a healthy, happy alternate lifestyle on 3,500 acres of pristine paradise, to check out this “fantastic community” — Mt Warning Ecovillage. In his video appeal the Bali-based health coach doesn't warn potential investors that since 2014, the "developers" of this prospective“community” have been running an ever-expanding land-share scam.
Tyler Tolman Spruiks Mount Warning Ecovillage Scam
Tyler Tolman knows that the kingpins behind the dystopic "Village Community", (who he does not name),have, since 2014, left a long trail of angry, disenfranchised investors, who have been deceived and defrauded in this scam. Despite warnings, Tyler continues to promote their false narrative.
The notorious “creator” of the Mt Warning Ecovillage Scamis Mark Darwin, with his colorful pseudonym “Dummass Boofhead”. He shows no empathy and never any remorse for the hurt and harm he has caused to those he has defrauded. In bullying emails he boasts that when it comes to playing dirty pool, he and the "Bully-Bully Boyz" are the best of the best: “All legal, of course, Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!”
Since :MARK DARWIN: has declared himself a “sovereign citizen”, he does not recognize the rule of law or the authority of Australia’s courts over his “Straw Man”. So, in Darwin’s sovereignty cult, dishonorable conduct that trustworthy people habitually avoid, such as deception, fraud, larceny, even perjury and subornation of perjury, are just well-refined tools of trade in a large quiver of tricks intended to advance private commercial interests.
With decades of experience in launching failed projects using other people's money, Mark Darwin is a smooth, slick salesman with blue eyes spinning sweet honey lies, and long digits fingering the wallets of too many trusting people. Skilled in arts of intimidation, Boofhead stalks and silences any who might expose or oppose him, as he underscores vicious ad hominem attacks with malicious acts of harassment by sycophant followers at his bidding.
Adrian Brennock with Tyler Tolman
Darwin is founder and marketing manager of the land-share scams at Mt Burrell, northern NSW, Australia.His diminutive partner, Adrian Brennock / Andrew Brennan, also maintains anonymity, flying under the radar as “Mr X” or “AB”, a "former plumber". Marketing assistant KellyMcSween and puppet directors of shell companies Steven McSween and “Richy-Rich”, Richard Moate, were set up to carry the can should the scam hit the fan.
Those who have recently discovered their trust was betrayed join the growing number of defrauded investors clamoring to recover money that disappeared on a one-way trip down the scamsters' greedy gullets.
In a rare appearance on camera, an ecstatic Adrain Brennock shows Tyler Tolman celebrating on property owned by Peter van Lieshout, the intended site of “Mt Warning Eco Village.
Tyler Tolman invites his followers: “If you want to be part of the community - the dream — come along. It’s worth it!”
Get in quick! There is a big discount for all who bite the cherry and buy a share in the utopian Ecovillage knowing there is no development approval by Tweed Shire Council for the advertised idyllic home-sites beside lagoons and waterfalls that are protected as water catchment for a proposed future dam to provide drinking water to the Gold Coast. Tolmanboasts that the projected Mt Warning Eco Village will cover 6,000 acres: “The size of a small country... that’s what’s required for things to work.”
No, Tyler Tolman! A land scam the size of a small country with a dash of celebrity and a dose of perjury can land the dishonorable in jail. What’s required for the dream to work is not big land and lying lips, but integrity and authenticity.
Selling shares in a village without development approval is like building the proverbial house on sand. It will not succeed. Many defrauded investors in Darwin/Brennock's last fraudulent fiasco, the "Bhula Bhula Village Community" have painfully discovered this truth.
Heal thyself, Tyler Tolman: corrupt roots don't produce good fruits.
Justice is a powerful lightening-rod touching the domain of the Divine.
Imagine being attacked by a powerful Goliath that spits, roars and boasts of invincibility while sharpening teeth and reddened claws! I am inspired by the young Hebrew shepherd, who, with only three small stones, a slingshot and reverence for God, felled that scoffing, iron-clad warrior, and with a single shot hit the giant smack between the eyes, then decapitated the fallen brute with its own massive sword.
The trial to determine the truth about Truthology began at Sydney Supreme Court on June 9, 2017, with defamation charges brought against myself, author of the news feature exposing the land-share scam, and the Nimbin GoodTimes as publisher.
Mt Warning Eco Village proposed on environmentally protected land
After their deceptive front, Truthology, was exposed in my article "The Truth About Bhula Bhula", Darwin and Brennock scrubbed their tracks off the internet. However, with Tweed Shire Council initiating litigation to drive the unapproved community off protected land, strong opposition from neighbors and reports of Tweed Shire Council's litigation against Darwin and Brennock in several local newspapers, prudent potential investors doing due diligence could see the fraud more clearly than the first flock of sheeple who were sheared.
Darwin & Co were no longer able to sell fake shares in the failed community, so they moved to a neighboring property, "Nightcap Forest", owned by Peter van Lieshout that has the same environmental protection constraints to development. They popped up new fronts, "Rainmaker Eco Investments" and "Mt Warning Eco Village", and continued selling home sites on land where habitation is not allowed.
Litigants Darwin and Brennock complain that publication of these truths and honest opinions about the falseology of Truthology have damaged their reputations and cause them loss of sales and commissions. At stake is a demand for payment currently soaring over $4 million, a total blow-out of maximum legislated damages of $381,000. With a cool $1 million requested by each of four plaintiffs, this is by far the biggest defamation claim in Australian history.
SLAPPs -- Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation
Darwin and Brennock's defamation claim against the Nimbin GoodTimes and myself is an abuse of legal process known as a “SLAPP”. In SLAPP suits, where legitimate dissent obstructs a litigant’s lust for profit, plaintiffs improperly use the courts to bulldoze private interests over public concerns by intimidation.
In 1984, George W. Pring and Penelope Canan studied "SLAPPs",“Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” at the University of Denver. They found that SLAPPs undermine the right to free speech by setting up an unfair Goliath v David battle between private and public interests, in which an overwhelming threat of litigation is used maliciously to silence critics and prevent free speech on issues of public concern.
Political activists and environmental defenders, civic and social organizations and public interest groups are often “slapped” with malice to prevent them effectively exposing vested economic interests that trample pubic concerns. One Judge described SLAPPs as, “suits without substantial merit, brought by private interests to stop citizens exercising political rights or punish them for having done so.”
2009 political comment on Peter van Lieshout's proposed "Nightcap Village"
The protection of free speech in Australia is embodied in the Commonwealth Constitution, which, for the legitimate functioning of representative government, presumes that all citizens have the ability to freely communicate their views.
Defamation law retains the basic principles of common law, which defines defamation as publication of FALSE imputation by which a person’s reputation or profession is likely to be injured, or which may cause a person to be shunned, ridiculed or despised by others.
Therefore everyone has a legal right to publish TRUTH, and to provide accurate information and discuss honest opinions in the public interest. Even so, the exercise of free speech to expose and oppose fraud demands some courage if the result is likely to be malicious prosecution and intimidation by the more powerful perpetrators. Obviously, fraudsters tend to be angered by the potentially adverse impact on their pockets resulting from publication of truth about their dishonest ventures.
Around the soft edges of defamation law, screen-media is often used as a platform to exercise freedom of speech as a last resort in a quest for justice by those who have suffered abuse. But the same screen media is also used by the wealthy to protect their private privilege against public concern and outrage.
In a review of the book, SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out, Brian Martin says:
“George W. Pring is a law professor and Penelope Canan a sociology professor at the University of Denver. In the early 1980s they realised that there was an epidemic of legal actions whose purpose was to intimidate citizens. These suits had little chance of success and indeed few of them succeeded in court. But they still worked for the filers, since even when they lost their cases, they scared their opponents and achieved their goals.”
The SLAPPs study shows that those filing malicious defamation claims presumed the courts would favour the private economic interests of the prosperous over the public concerns of the impecunious: "The idea is that because a business has money at stake, business should receive priority over civic, communal opposition.”
Research by the Political Litigation Project at the University of Denver reveals how SLAPPs are used as an effective bludgeon to traumatize and silence opponents by causing an intimidating fear of crippling costs, damages and loss of reputation. Fear alone is usually enough to force acquiescence to the litigant’s agenda of injustice. In most cases power and profit defeat truth and justice, without ever going to trial.
When SLAPPs litigants are opposed with a full hearing to examine the veracity of their claims, only 10% successfully win their case. It doesn’t matter. Litigants protecting private greed against public interest drag out costly quarrels in the courts for many years, not motivated by the unlikely prospect of winning and claiming damages, but simply to SLAPP their opponents with punishment until they capitulate.
"SLAPPs -- Expensive Free speech"
Besides using defamation laws to hobble opponents, SLAPPs litigants have also used the Trade Practices Act. In March 1991 Greenpeace tried to protect the breeding and calving grounds of the Southern Right Whale in Victorian waters that were targeted with seismic testing by BHP Petroleum. To stop the activists, BHP slapped Greenpeace with damages amounting to millions, but after successfully intimidating their opponents, BHP withdrew charges.
SLAPPs are common in America, where anti-SLAPP legislation has been enacted in some states, but they’re infrequent in Australia and are mostly “LULUs”, a type of litigation dealing with "locally unwanted land uses” in which defamation charges are brought with malicious intent to silence effective environmental defenders.
The targets of SLAPP litigation are generally not professional activists or radical environmentalists. They are mostly organisers of small groups, or individuals who are seen as trouble makers because they advocate protection of their local community from private greed. A precedent was set in Helensburg in 1986, when Protection Society activists were slapped for opposing a property developer’s environmentally damaging rural rezoning plan. Donohoe and Tapsell were charged with destroying the developers’ commercial interests.
In another case, property developers used a SLAPP against activists who opposed them on environmental protection issues at Hinchinbrook. Over 100 people protested extensive mangrove clearing by the developers, but only one woman aged 67 was slapped, causing her great trauma and expense. As a result the activists stopped their campaign, then the developers withdrew their charges.
With a similar flourish of characteristic malice, I am targeted with costly, traumatizing litigation threatening damages of millions, as Darwin and Brennock flaunt the presumed supremacy of their self-endowed right to private profiteering and expect the courts, of course, to favour profits over people. This abuse of legal process is clearly intended to intimidate and also to discourage similar attempts by others to expose the land-share fraud.
Adding to the intimidation of his SLAPP, Mark Darwin and collaborators have also been maliciously defaming me since February 2016, by widely spreading lies that are sworn as truth in legal affidavits and published online as proven fact. Evidence submitted in Darwin’s SLAPP prominently features photos of strangled goats along with defamatory claims. Darwin also posted his malicious narrative on a website dedicated to defamation of me, with profoundly demeaning, scoffing insults. The irony is that the defamer then charges the defamed with defamation of the defamer! Nimbin GoodTimes SLAPPED
In a gloating but false account of my legal demise, Darwin announced his success by posting online a copy of private correspondence between his legal representative, Stone Group Lawyers and Nimbin GoodTimes.
In this case, Darwin & Co’s SLAPP against the Nimbin GoodTimes was very successful. The newspaper’s editor, Bob Dooley, quickly capitulated, removed the article from their archive and accepted Darwin’s offer to discontinue litigation against the newspaper in exchange for throwing me under the bus by issuing a dishonest retraction denying the veracity of my article, dissing my professional reputation and publishing twelve full-page promotions of Darwin’s fraudulent venture during the next year.
Even before the deal was fully sealed, the triumph was so hilarious to Darwin that he couldn’t resist taunting me by publicly posting privileged details of the proposed deal and inviting fans to have a good laugh and kiss his costly pyrrhic victory.
Michael Bachelard in the Sydney Morning Herald,“Free Speech the Loser in Australia's Defamation Bonanza”:
“Australia's punishing defamation laws have made Sydney the libel capital of the world, and people posting on Facebook and in blogs are the latest target for expensive legal action and threats.
Defending a court action for defamation costs between $100,000 and $1.1 million. Damages can also be substantial. A WA court last year awarded the largest ever Australian payout in a defamation case brought by three people against a blogger of $700,000.
Defamation lawyer Matt Collins, QC, said Australia's laws were now "a Frankenstein's monster" of rules and exclusions, and prevented good journalism from investigative reporters. "There are important, high-profile stories that don't get told because of the chilling effect of defamation law, and the high cost of actions”.
“Richard Ackland of the Gazette of Law and Journalism, described it as ‘a racket’.” In their book, SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out, Pring and Canan describe how environmental defenders and social justice activists can win a SLAPP suit by a process of "SLAPP-back". They explain that litigants typically respond to pubic outrage by:
- Reinterpreting litigation as defense of their reputation, not suppression of free speech. - Devaluation and denigration of the target. - Misuse of the law as a means of attack. - Intimidation and bribery. - Cover-ups and gag clauses.
By flipping these techniques used by SLAPPs plaintiffs to inhibit public outrage, five effective steps can be taken to counter injustice: - Interpret the action correctly as a violation of free speech. - Validate the worth of the target. - Disavow abuse of process in the courts as a means of imposing injustice. - Refuse to be intimidated or bribed. - Publicize the action.
In cases where defendants have countered intimidating litigation this way, it’s the reputation of the plaintiff that suffers most, as with the SLAPP-back by Channel Seven against John Marsden’s defamation SLAPP-suit, that damaged his personal reputation even more than before.
Supreme Court Urgent Injunction Application
The defamation charges brought by Darwin and Brennock against myself and the Nimbin GoodTimes were heard on June 9 at a directions hearing at the Sydney Supreme Court before Justice McCallum. The plaintiffs’ barrister, Ms Barnett, also wanted to submit an additional SLAPP on two blogs that I publish for the “Association of Investors Defrauded by Darwin” (AIDD), because of her clients' complaint that the blogs are causing them loss of commercial opportunity.
On kind advice of Ms Barnett, Justice McCallum made a referral to the Bar Association Pro Bono scheme requesting the assistance of a barrister to advise me, noting that I am self-representing and identify the case as a SLAPP; a malicious prosecution abusing the law as a means of intimidation to protect the commercial interests of the plaintiffs, Darwin and Brennock, against demands for restitution by their defrauded victims.
Leave was granted by Justice McCallumto the plaintiffs permitting them to file an application to have the blogs removed by court order, with another directions hearing listed for Friday June 16 at Sydney Supreme Court.
At the June 16 hearing of Darwin and Brennock's application to the NSW Supreme Court for an urgent injunction to remove this blog, a decision by Justice McCallum was deferred until June 21, pending provision of evidence of development approvals, or not.
SLAPPedwith injustice
In Australia, defamation law is widely seen as hostile to free speech, but the law correctly respected actually does protect truthful free speech. The real problem is not the law, but legal bloodsuckers who do not know the difference between truth and lies and don’t care, because for a fat buck they'll swear by any false narrative to profit the powerful over the poor. If abuse of process to protect profits over people became normalized, the legal justice system would become the problem not the solution; a cause of injustice rather than a relief from injustice.
"Speak Out -- And When You're Sued Just Bite Back”. This is the inspiring title of Brian Martin’s review of the book, “SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out”. Published in The Republican, August 1997, the review concludes: “The frightening reality is that SLAPPs work in scaring most targets, who become less active than before… A SLAPP essentially takes a political or social issue in which the focus is on the behaviour of a company or individual and transforms it into a private legal issue in which the focus is on the behaviour of the person who spoke out. By labelling such a suit as a SLAPP, the political dimension is highlighted.”
Goliath Corp defeated with by truth and a slingshot
The book by Pring and Canan has good advice on cross-claiming against the SLAPPer with the so-called "SLAPP-back" charge of malicious prosecution. SLAPP-back empowers those who are being slapped to overcome fear by standing firm in their right to self-defense by truthful free speech and honest opinion, and the right to expose and oppose scurrilous profiteering in the public interest.
The famous McLibel case illustrates how corporate SLAPP suits can fail when they’re seen to oppressively violate popular interests. Litigation by McDonalds against a persistent public advocacy campaigner backfired when he used all five bite-back counter-measures to generate massive support. As a result, his website, mcspotlight.org, was accessed more than 184 million times during the litigation.
"I refuse to be muzzled!"
The best known SLAPP suit was the "mad-cow case" brought by the US National Cattlemen's Beef Association against television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, her production company and her guest, a Humane Society official, for defaming beef during an April 1996 Oprah show discussing the dangers of mad cow disease. Oprah was accused of violating "veggie-libel laws" that give foods legal rights against defamation.After the broadcast, cattle ranchers blamed Oprah for sending the beef market into a spin, claiming more than $12 million in damages. Oprah won the suit saying, "Free speech is not only alive, it rocks...I refuse to be muzzled!"
Truth 0n Trial
The "Truth 0n Trial" SLAPP against free speech by Darwin and Brennock will determine the truth of “The Truth about Truthology”. The gigantic power of Goliath wielded by Mark Darwin and his mates is their assumed right to profit from sale of home-sites located on land where no habitation is permitted, and then use the power of the courts to intimidate defrauded investors who were disenfranchised without restitution.
In reply to Darwin and Brennock's defamation charges, I am defending my article on grounds of justification; the defense of truth. The content of my article is more than substantially true, inferences and comments reflect honest opinions. The article is based on facts substantiated by the well-documented affidavits of other defrauded investors and independent witnesses, and is supported by archived screen-media exhibits revealing fraud and fiduciary misconduct by Darwin/Brennock in relation to the “Bhula Bhula Village Community” since 2014. Having brutally SLAPPed their targets in an unjust slugfest, Darwin & Co would be unwise to prematurely celebrate a pyrrhic victory over those they have scammed; even stone-slinging shepherd boys and defrauded investors have a right to speak truth, and the ability to bite-back with justice.
Reference - Sharon Beder, 'SLAPPs: Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation', Current Affairs Bulletin, Vol. 72, No. 3, 1995 - George Pring and Penelope Canan, 'SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out' (1996) - Brian Martin, ‘Speak Out -- And When You're Sued Just Bite Back’, The Republican, August 1997 - Sue Curry Jansen and Brian Martin, 'Making Censorship Backfire' (2003) - Sue Curry Jansen and Brian Martin, 'Exposing and Opposing Censorship: Backfire - Dynamics in Freedom-of-speech Struggles' (2004) - Fiona J L Donson, ‘Legal Intimidation: A SLAPP in the Face of Democracy’ (2000) - Seth Goodchild, 'Media Counteractions: Restoring the Balance to Modern Libel Law’ Georgetown Law Journal 315 (1986) - SMH, Michael Bachelard, ‘Free Speech the Loser in Australia's Defamation Bonanza’ May 12, 2017 http://www.smh.com.au/national/investigations/free-speech-the-loser-in-australias-defamation-bonanza-20170511-gw2cnc.html - The McLibel Trial Story McSpotlight (2004); mcspotlight.org/case/trial/story.html
