)[6] 0000003018 00000 n 0000001660 00000 n 0000006933 00000 n The Last Podcast on the Left, a podcast covering topics like serial killers, conspiracy theories, and cults, discussed Holiday Magic on a 2023 episode about David Miscavige. torture involving a mouse that was supposed to eat a recalcitrant witness's heart (Good Lord! A technicality of the law is what got me.[1], Turner passed away in his home in Lake Mary, Florida, on 8 January 2020[13] with a much lower profile than during the peak of his success.[14]. the Glenn Turner modification is a good one. [28] The Mind Dynamics course was described as providing "a means of achieving personal success through the conscious use of the subconscious mind". Pyramid Schemes Versus Ponzi Schemes The labels Ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme are often used interchangeably to describe specific forms of investment fraud where sustainability depends on the influx of new "investors" to the scheme. ", United States Congress. 0000037334 00000 n 0000004799 00000 n Targets for citations in Chain Letter Evolution. Turner, 53, created a $300 million empire in the 1970s by selling distributorships in his Dare to be Great and Koscot International companies. "The Role of Small Business in Franchising, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Minority Small Business. 0000009459 00000 n Yes, Mencken would have loved it. They were convicted last month on charges of conspiracy, fraud and illegal pyramid sales in connection with their Challenge Inc. motivational program. The Dream, a podcast about multi-level marketing, discussed Holiday Magic and William Penn Patrick. Turner packaged this dubious enterprise with a religious fervor that would make Billy Sunday look like the Archbishop of Canterbury. 0000031782 00000 n Our intent was to help people. 0000005760 00000 n that our program was a crime," he said. In a fitting finale, Turner, stopped for good and all, is saved by a showy evangelist from New Orleans. JrsJk**j;{:[Z{&N. The IRS, which had a $15 million claim, has been awarded a judgment of $9.275 million, but appraisals put the value of the Turner property at $1 million to $2 million. "[23] One of the Holiday Magic Inc. cases was also cited by The University of Chicago Law Review[24] and the Columbia Law Review. "It is hard for me to believe . Its not clear who originated the exact wording of fake it till you make it, or how Turner and his followers adopted it. In 2006 he published a book (To Beirut and Back - An American in the Middle East) dealing, in part, with his experiences. [26] Faltinsky described Holiday Magic as "..the largest pyramid scam of all time.."[27], In 1967, William Penn Patrick wrote a booklet, entitled Happiness and Success through Principle, and founded Leadership Dynamics based on those principles. Turner's fame and wealth was to be an inspiration for others to buy franchises so that "they could all be rich and successful like him". Turner and his best friend, Edward G. Rector, were each sentenced to seven years in state prison. "There have been a lot of books written about Mr. Turner," said Barnett Lotstein, the assistant attorney general who prosecuted the case. The Arizona case marked the first felony conviction for Turner, who built a fortune around his Orlando-based pyramid sales 20 years ago. 0000041122 00000 n [3] An estimated 70 companies (as of 1972)[4] were owned by Turner (owned by Glenn W. Turner Enterprises, Inc.):[1] Dare to Be Great, which sold motivational and self-improvement courses, and also functioned as a multi-level marketing company;[5] Turner had also briefly worked for Holiday Magic, another multi-level marketing company that sold home-care products and cosmetics, and through related companies sold self-improvement programs. A technicality of the law is what got me. By the time he died in 2020, it took more than a year for a newspaper reporter to stumble across his Legacy.com obituary and make note of his death. The saying became so pervasive in Amway that it would be the title of a 1980s expos by Phil Kerns. %%EOF they indicted me on aiding and abetting running a pyramid scheme. Referring to Charles Ponzi, who earlier this century put together a huge investment swindle that still bears his name, Lotstein said, "I imagine there are still people that feel that Mr. Ponzi was doing good for the world. However from a technical perspective, there are differences in the way the two types of schemes operate. Glenn W. Turner, who was frequently described himself as a harelipped sharecropper's son (leaving some doubt as to which of them was afflicted), built an ephemeral fortune on a pyramid selling scheme in the late 1960's and early 70's. 6, 19, 24., Library of Congress. Since his victims were usually the little people, the guys who are always getting it in the neck from the system anyway, it was a matter of hitting cripples. Best Match Powered by Whitepages Premium AGE 80+ Glenn Turner Houston, TX (Inner Loop) View Full Report Addresses Yoakum Blvd, Houston, TX ", Nevertheless, Dougherty said, the men deserved prison terms because "some of these victims suffered great emotional and financial harm by your actions.". An interesting man, Glenn Turner, and Rudy Maxa, a Washington Post reporter, has an interesting problemwhat do you do with a con man who doesn't know he's a con man? 0000009459 00000 n 0000007360 00000 n For more information, visit the listing at bit.ly/2mgnmna. The empire collapsed in the early 1970s when authorities accused Turner of violating laws against pyramid sales, in which investors at the top make a fortune and those who get in later lose money. 0000041306 00000 n [15] Larry Stephen Huff, another key individual in the company, served two years in a Federal Prison, for charges related to a Ponzi scam (unrelated to Holiday Magic).[21]. WASHINGTON, May 17 The Securities and Exchange Commission asked a Federal District Court today to halt the sale of Glenn W. Turner's pyramid franchising scheme on the ground that it is. Turner was a former sewing machine salesman and son of a South Carolina sharecropper and an unwed mother, born with a cleft palate and a hair lip, who dropped out in the eighth grade, did a short stint in the U.S. Air Force before successfully finishing a school for those who had dropped out of high school. 0000023769 00000 n endstream endobj 165 0 obj <>stream "They have for years.". "They conspired to get Mr. Turner," said another woman. They would peddle mink oil makeup and his Dare to Be Great motivational tapes, and collect more money by recruiting others and taking a percentage on their sales. [7] (In 1972 he built a "$3.5 million white stone castle with a helicopter landing pad" on Bear Gulley Lake, also near Orlando. Turner was a former sewing machine salesman and son of a South Carolina sharecropper and an unwed mother, born with a cleft palate and a hair lip, who dropped out in the eighth grade, did a short stint in the U.S. Air Force before successfully finishing a school for those who had dropped out of high school. ", United States Congress, Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, 1977, P.53. In the end, Turner was saved by New Orleans evangelist, known as the Chaplain of Bourbon Street, who also pointed the way to fiscal salvation by introducing Turner to his own business managera former minister himself. "[9], The company was investigated by the Federal Trade Commission,[4][10] and in June 1973 the company was found guilty of deceptive trade practices. Mencken, Mr. Maxa says, would have loved Glenn Turner as one of those colorful rogues who enliven the American scene, a sort of cross between Elmer Gantry and Charles Ponzi, whose name is to financial pyramids what Tutankhamen's is to the original. Unsatisfied investors also filed lawsuits. And the Wells Fargo C-suite was looking the other way as employees, desperate to meet unrealistic sales quotas, opened millions of fake bank and credit card accounts. A technicality of the law is what got me., But Barnett Lotstein, an assistant state attorney general who helped prosecute the case, said the sentences satisfied the interest of justice.. "Our intent was to help people believe in themselves.". As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Today, fake it till you make it has come to represent the scrappy, optimistic mind-set of American hustle culture. Koscot was founded in 1967. Originally the organization distributed goods such as home-care products and cosmetics. Illustrated. 0000000016 00000 n More than 88,000 people have invested about $44 million in various organizations operated by Turner, according to Federal Trade Commission figures cited by Attorney General Bob Corbins office in 1980. [5] In re HOLIDAY MAGIC SECURITIES AND ANTITRUST LITIGATION., James J. [3], In 1973, Holiday Magic's proceedings were prohibited by the Market Court of Sweden, and a fine of 2 million Swedish kronor was imposed. the Glenn Turner modification is a good one. [5] Though he claimed Leadership Dynamics was a separate company, "..in no way related to Holiday Magic, Inc.", Gene Church pointed out many inconsistencies in this statement, in his book The Pit: A Group Encounter Defiled. But what he is actually selling, he . 1974., May 20, 1974. Turner would emerge under a banner reading "Dare to Be Great" and vacuum up money through a pyramid marketing scheme based on selling motivational tapes containing the secret of getting rich. 748 as an example of pyramid schemes. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 1973), participants in a pyramid sales scheme were found to be security holders, since they invested their funds in a common scheme dependent for success directly upon the collective sales efforts of the organization. 0000008424 00000 n /b+;*R2VL5 WC^ ;_>[AM "su`/d_w$3qhTGS;#m!bytBefF~s*GB9z\eBUK,nrEYXn u.$leJrk5@ When newly minted salespeople found it impossible to make a go of it, they were told to fake it until you make it, by wearing expensive clothes and waving around $100 bills to lure in others, a disillusioned Oregon recruit testified in court in 1972. 0000010114 00000 n 0000002201 00000 n "Holiday Magic Inc.: An Anatomy of a Scam", United States Securities and Exchange Commission, MLM Law - Lawyer Grimes & Reese PLLC - Attorney Specializing in Multilevel Marketing - HOLIDAY MAGIC, INC., ORDER, ETC., IN REGARD TO ALLEGED VIOLATION OF SEC. Turner ran in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate election in Florida, 1974, but lost. 0000003563 00000 n 0 Anyone can read what you share. In the low-interest-rate environment of the past decade, investors put up money with little diligence, and fake it till you make it turned toxic. [28], CEO and President Roland R. Nocera pleaded guilty to securities fraud, in the case United States v. Nocera, et al. 0000023769 00000 n Employing a pyramid selling scheme and an evangelical, downhome platform style, Turner cajoled thousands of ordinary folks into putting up varying amounts, in return for which they would sell Turner's beauty products. hb```e`` /`"\}!5|Z1O(s@Tu4t5UL- M-\\mm||=C#cbC"R32S 0000008799 00000 n 58.95. There being no provision in either law or morality for fraud without intent, it's hard to figure out what that makes Glenn Turner. According to 2019 surveys done by the Pew Research Center, almost half of us say Americans are not as reliable as in the past. "The first time I ever heard those words from those men was in this courtroom," Rector said. Its backed by no government, is all but impossible to use and serves no legal need. Turner, 57, served nearly two-thirds of a seven-year term in Arizona for fleecing investors in a scheme for distributing motivational tapes. trailer . A lot of books have been written about Mr. Turner and today weve put the final period in the final chapter of the saga of Glenn Turner, Lotstein said. ", "Opinion This all-but-forgotten con man sold America on 'fake it till you make it', Juice Plus AKA National Safety Associates, European Grouping of Marketing Professionals, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Koscot_Interplanetary&oldid=1142208959, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 02:56. ={w5d[#"zM#h:.d\r,&4* 76I\@yH'H}T4idJq$nVsL(sXk TN4%8k;|PqK+I:p*K"&Z{Z;o;}X8z}r%. 0000037334 00000 n 0000005276 00000 n Box 1. He subsequently bought exclusive rights for Middle East distribution of Holiday Magic cosmetics and formed his own company, Beauty Magic, in Beirut, Lebanon. The two men told Dougherty before sentencing that they never intended to break the law. 235 37 Mr. Maxa has missed very little about Turner's operations and the soueces of his appeal. Patrick bought all of the cosmetics supplies for $16,250, and founded Holiday Magic, Inc. After the purchase, Patrick began selling distributorships in his new company. The company had been investigated by the Market Court of Sweden,[3] United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the State of California. 0000023584 00000 n Turner, the son of a sharecropper, told people they could all be rich and successful like him if, that is, they made an investment in his multi-level marketing company. 0000003839 00000 n But this salesman extraordinaire in flashy suits was once all but omnipresent in American life. Abe F. March held several executive positions for Holiday Magic and parent company U.S. Universal; Regional Vice President, Canada (19711972), Vice President, Greece (19721973) and Managing Director for Sta-Power, Germany (1973). As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Pyramid schemes are inherently unstable and eventually must collapse. We need a reset, and to find a way to once again prioritize and reward diligent, honest effort over faux success. Koscot Interplanetary, Inc. was an Orlando, Florida based multi-level marketing cosmetic company selling mink oil-based cosmetics, owned by Glenn Wesley Turner (19342020). 0000002472 00000 n If he never quite tells us what made Glenn Turner runthat is was he a con artist or merely an overeupeptic free enterpriser?no one else knew either, including perhaps Turner. ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) _ A three-story, 16-room castle owned by onetime motivational entrepreneur Glenn Turner is going on the auction block, with the Internal Revenue Service and other creditors splitting the proceeds. GLENN W. TURNER ENTERPRISES, INC., a Florida corporation, et al., Defendants. Within a few years Turner's enterprises had made an estimated $300 million. The distributors could make thousands. There, it appeared as a way for people in recovery to project themselves forward into a more sober future. Glenn Turner's Koscot charges $2,000 for the right to distribute "kosmetics." Holiday Magic (Bus. Jurors found them innocent of 27 counts of securities violations involving Challenge Inc., a motivational company. In 1979, his fortune gone, he attempted a comeback with another motivational company called Challenge, Inc.,[6] which led to more legal difficulties. Lotstein acknowledged that not all of the Challenge "victims" were pleased that Turner was prosecuted. Rector's only asset is his house, and his only income a $200-a-month military pension, the investigation found. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. [28], Ben Gay, a high-level instructor at Leadership Dynamics, was President of Holiday Magic in the United States. Glenn W Turner, who started in Network Marketing in the late 60s and you will be blown away by the income earnings that he shares from that time. IT WOULD BE impossible to write a book about the sales empire of Glenn Turner without invoking H. L. Mencken's familiar remark that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Extensive notes. But the notion that you can fake it until you make it began to spread through multi-level marketing efforts such as Turners, where studies show few earn a profit and deception is rife. Eventually, the truth comes out. But his empire collapsed after state and federal investigators accused him of operating pyramid schemes that bilked thousands of investors. ", Dougherty said he also took into account that Turner "has on a consistent basis and a generous basis contributed large sums of money . (unrelated to Holiday Magic). 0000006933 00000 n In the Arizona case, Turner represented himself -- a stark change from the days in the early '70s when renowned defense attorney F. Lee Bailey represented him in his Koscot dealings. Under this type. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. "I think the court's ruling today put the final period in the final chapter of the book on Glenn Turner.". C-74-1067-LHB., No. He then started two multi-level marketing companies, Koscot Interplanetary, selling cosmetics, and Dare to Be Great, selling motivational and self-improvement courses. Turner, imprisoned in Arizona prison for fraud, has owed the IRS millions of dollars in back taxes for more than a decade, and the agency has succeeded in foreclosure proceedings against the property in Seminole County. Some "schemes" are specifically developed to sidestep Pyramid Scheme legislation by offering a "product" or "service". 0000001791 00000 n This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 23:43. [9] The FTC found that Holiday Magic was in violation of section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and section 2 (a) of the Clayton Antitrust Act. 0000006496 00000 n Attached to the side stands connected a lone, cylindrical tower that contains a stairwell on the inside. xref Turner and his best. . It is apparent from this Court's findings of fact that the defendants are promoting a type of scheme commonly known as a pyramid operation. 0000032500 00000 n By the spring of 1969, Turner was living in a large home on Lake Maitland near Orlando Florida, and "had eight Cadillacs and a Rolls-Royce, three Learjets and a closetful of tailor-made suits and alligator shoes". 0000002742 00000 n In 1975, Turner pleaded guilty to a single charge of violating securities laws and was given probation. 0000006496 00000 n We dont trust the government, media or big business. Government needs to return to enforcing meaningful financial regulation; politicians and entrepreneurs who deceive their supporters need to face consequences. Glenn W. Turner, a farmboy who built and lost a multimillion-dollar financial empire with his pyramid sales schemes, lost his freedom Thursday. But this salesman extraordinaire in flashy suits was once all but omnipresent in American life. Prosecutors said Challenge officials misled investors by telling them they would not have to put up their own money. DARE TO BE GREAT. 84 F.T.C. "All you have to do is believe it."[7]. And as Turner understood, making lots of money will get you almost anything, including an invitation to lecture at the Harvard Business School. Mr. Turner and Mr. Rechtor, who also received seven years, were. Lets fix that. . Koscot Interplanetary. 0000006135 00000 n 0000023584 00000 n [7] Disillusioned recruits testified against Turner or his companies, and one judge cited the phrase ('fake it until you make it') as evidence of malfeasance. In SEC v. Glenn W. Turner Enterprises, Inc., 474 F.2d 476, 482 (9th Cir. It didnt. 271 0 obj But that came later. During the eight-week trial, however, two former top Turner aides testified that Challenge officials knew their operation was illegal. 0000041122 00000 n Mailman and Beekman, who pleaded guilty to one count each of violating pyramid laws, will be sentenced next month. But what made him "really rich" was reportedly Koscot Interplanetary[6] (Koscot stood for "Kosmetics for the Communities of Tomorrow"). The House was supposed to grow with population. The companies collapsed in 1973 under lawsuits filed by investors and investigations by state and federal agencies. Glenn Wesley Turner August 19, 1934 - January 8, 2020 Lake Mary, Florida Set a Reminder for the Anniversary of Glenn's Passing Forward to Family & Friends Share a Memory Print Contact Support Upgrade Death Certificates Share This Obituary Make a Memorial Donation Tributes.com partners with over 100 national charities. 0000002742 00000 n NEWS RELEASE SUMMARYSeptember 1, 2021. uOf2v]IM{7\~CPWb=sVX\IQ2ec )^y&wM9t>5YO! %PDF-1.7 % [11] 1974 hearings before the Congressional Oversight panel of the Federal Trade Commission described Holiday Magic as a "Multi-level marketer of cosmetics", that used an "unfair and deceptive pyramid distribution scheme". .to various charitable organizations. That spirit is everywhere. Private investors also have claims against the property for $200,000 in tax certificates, under which they paid the taxes and earn 18 percent interest until the property is sold and the tax amounts are paid back to them.. Turner and his family havent paid property taxes since 1979, but investors bought tax certificates equal to the back taxes each year. Annotated bibliography on chain letters and pyramid schemes. Glenn W. Turner, 53, was sentenced along with Edward G. Rechtor by Superior Court Judge Bernard J. Dougherty, who said he had received scores of letters on behalf of the two Goldenrod, Fla., men. [4], Patrick, a student of Alexander Everett (founder of Mind Dynamics), used Mind Dynamics techniques as well as the Silva Method in the Holiday Magic organization. He was featured in an 11-page article in Life magazine in 1971,[8] and was reportedly worth $300 million at the time. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [19] Tobias poked fun at the pyramid nature of the organization, in his book The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, telling readers to be wary of "..Holiday Magic - where the big money to be made was not in selling cosmetics, but in selling franchises to sell franchises (to sell franchises).."[20] Howe wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that Holiday Magic was "..one of the largest of all pyramid schemes.."[21], Holiday Magic is used as an example in graduate level criminal justice coursework to analyze the nature of corporate scams.
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