BajaNomad

Tijuana Porno King Arrested/Deported

Anonymous - 10-28-2005 at 08:04 AM

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fi-sex28oct...

"Hijacker of 'Sex.com' Is Arrested
By Richard Marosi and Joseph Menn, Times Staff Writers

SAN DIEGO ? Four years after dodging a $65-million court judgment by fleeing the country, former online-porn mogul Stephen Michael Cohen was arrested by Mexican authorities in Tijuana and handed over Thursday to U.S. agents.

Cohen, a multiple felon and longtime con man, had been on the run since before 2001, when a judge ordered him to pay a San Francisco entrepreneur for hijacking the Internet address Sex.com. In 1995, Cohen forged a letter to Internet authorities to gain control of the address, which he transformed into a highly profitable site for pornography ads.

Cohen, who had been living in a Tijuana mansion, was arrested on an immigration violation by Mexican authorities and turned over to agents of the U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service, according to Deputy Marshal Tania Tyler.

Cohen was being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego.

His apprehension was the latest twist in one of the most bizarre and longest-running feuds of the dot-com explosion.

The dispute pitted Cohen against Gary Kremen, a San Francisco engineer and investor who had the foresight to register the Web address in 1994, when names were given out free to the first person who asked.

While Kremen was busy with other things, including the company that grew into online dating site Match.com, he did nothing with Sex.com. But Cohen, fresh off a federal prison term for fraud and forgery, saw the domain's potential.

So in 1995, Cohen presented a forged letter to domain-name registrar Network Solutions, ostensibly from Kremen's company, that said Kremen had been fired and that Cohen should get control of Sex.com. Network Solutions handed the name over.

When Kremen discovered what had happened, Network Solutions said it couldn't help him and suggested that he sue Cohen directly. But Cohen was raking in what grew to be tens of millions of dollars by selling ads on Sex.com, and he and his lawyers put up a fight ? so ferociously that the federal judge on the case ordered Cohen arrested for contempt of court.

But Cohen was unavailable. During the years of litigation, he had moved his millions overseas and then left the country himself, occasionally calling Kremen to taunt him.

Kremen got Sex.com back in late 2000 and the next year was awarded $65 million ? an amount that has since grown to $82 million, with interest. Kremen has collected some property from Cohen but has yet to break even on his legal fees.

The question now is whether Kremen will be able to collect.

"I'm excited, and I'm happy to prepare for the next stage of justice," Kremen said Thursday. Kremen said he hoped to claim more of Cohen's assets: "Hopefully, I'll get to them before the IRS."

An attorney for Cohen did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Kremen has done well with other investments, which allowed him to pursue the case against Cohen. But he has earned nowhere near the profit from Sex.com that Cohen did."

Anonymous - 10-28-2005 at 08:05 AM

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fi-sex28oct...

Internet sex peddler to be extradited to San Jose

Anonymous - 10-29-2005 at 07:40 AM

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20051028-1643-sexsi...

October 28, 2005

SAN DIEGO ? An ex-Rancho Santa Fe man sought for failing to appear in court after a $65 million judgement was entered against him in a pornographic Web site dispute was ordered today to be extradited to San Jose.

Stephen Michael Cohen, 57, had been living in Tijuana and was reportedly arrested yesterday by Mexican authorities when he tried to apply for a work permit.

He was turned over to U.S. officials, who had an arrest warrant signed by a San Jose judge, and taken to San Diego.

In San Diego, U.S. Magistrate Judge Leo Papas was poised to set a hearing to establish Cohen's identity when the man admitted he was who authorities were looking for.

"I am Stephen Michael Cohen and I'm the person who is on that warrant," Cohen told the judge.

A man named Gary Kremen reportedly battled Cohen for years over the www.sex.com Web site, and has tallied up $4.5 million in legal fees.

After six years of litigation, Kremen persuaded a San Jose federal judge to award him a $65 million judgment against Cohen, who, the court found, hijacked the domain name.

The Web site in question is primarily a bulletin board with ads for other Web sites offering sexual content, and at times has allegedly generated up to $1 million a month.

After the judgement was issued, Cohen failed to appear in court and, in 2001, a judge issued an arrest warrant charging him with contempt of court.

The warrant reportedly orders Cohen to remain imprisoned until he returns $25 million, which the judge said was illegally transferred outside the country.

Cohen unsuccessfully asked Papas to allow him to stay in San Diego for a few days so he could talk to his attorney and work out a settlement in the Web site dispute.

Web site figure ordered to N. Calif.

Anonymous - 10-29-2005 at 10:59 PM

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20051029-9999-1m29c...

$65 million judgment awaiting jailed man
By Onell R. Soto
October 29, 2005

A former Rancho Santa Fe man jailed on contempt charges involving the theft of a pornographic Web site was ordered transferred to Northern California yesterday, where a $65 million judgment against him awaits.

Stephen Michael Cohen, 57, was arrested Thursday in Tijuana and appeared in San Diego federal court yesterday, where he admitted he was the man named in a 2001 arrest warrant signed by a San Jose federal judge.

"I don't have a lot of financial wherewithal," Cohen said, noting the large judgment against him and asking for a court-appointed lawyer.

A defense lawyer made the same argument earlier in the brief hearing.

"I think you'll find some disagreement on that from some quarters," Judge Leo S. Papas had said in response.

Cohen used a forged letter to gain control of sex.com, which he used to create a pornography Web site that took in more than $40 million, the San Jose judge found.

The judge found Cohen in civil contempt after he failed to appear in court, moved money overseas and moved to Mexico.

Gary Kremen, the rightful owner of sex.com, spent $4.5 million in legal fees searching for Cohen and his assets after winning the $65 million judgment.

He was able to seize Cohen's Rancho Santa Fe home and money in some bank accounts, but says Cohen still owes him, with interest, about $82 million.

Cohen remained elusive, if not silent.

Kremen said in an interview this year that he frequently got calls from Cohen from Mexico.

In Tijuana, Cohen lived in a penthouse apartment in the upscale Chapultepec neighborhood near the city's center, but often ate hot dogs at the Tijuana Costco.

"He was very cheap," said Alejandro Osuna, a Tijuana lawyer hired by Kremen to track down Cohen.

In court papers, Kremen says Cohen used some of the money he made from the online pornography business to buy a Tijuana strip club in his daughter Jhuliana's name.

Jhuliana Cohen, 21, is scheduled to be sentenced Monday in San Diego federal court after pleading guilty in August to trying to smuggle marijuana across the San Ysidro border crossing June 22.

Her lawyers say she made a youthful mistake by agreeing to transport the drugs for a man she met in a bar and will pay for it by never being able to visit the United States again.

A longtime resident of both sides of the border, she has long been in the sights of investigators looking for her father. Three years ago, a deputy U.S. marshal hoping to arrest Stephen Cohen attended her graduation from Torrey Pines High School.

Cohen divorced Jhuliana's mother years ago and married a Mexican woman.

But it was his divorce last year from that woman, Rosa Cohen, that was his undoing, said Tim Dillon, another of Kremen's lawyers.

Once the marriage ended, Cohen lost his right to remain in Mexico as her husband, and he had to renew a residency work permit.

He could have paid $100 to have a lawyer go down to the immigration office Thursday, but instead appeared personally, Osuna said.

Mexican and U.S. agents, tipped off by Kremen's lawyers and investigators, were waiting for him.

After the Mexican officials arrested Cohen, he was whisked off to the San Ysidro border crossing, where he was turned over to U.S. authorities.

In court yesterday, a disheveled Cohen, dressed in a white jail-issue jumpsuit, said he was hoping to quickly resolve his situation.

After the judge denied him bail, he asked the judge for a few days in San Diego's federal jail before being sent to San Jose.

"I have an attorney that's trying to negotiate a settlement in this case," he said.

The judge wouldn't grant him the extra time, but said it's possible the marshals wouldn't move very quickly to get him north.

No civil lawyer appeared in court on Cohen's behalf, and a private investigator who said he was working for Cohen's family said he didn't know the name of anybody who could speak on his behalf.

Woman Sentenced To Prison For Attempted Marijuana Smuggling

Anonymous - 11-2-2005 at 08:01 PM

http://www.kfmb.com/stories/story.27618.html

11-02-05

(AP) - A 21-year-old woman was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for attempting to smuggle marijuana across the U.S.-Mexico border in her car for $500.

Jhuliana Cohen, who was living with her mother in Tijuana, Mexico, allegedly used a special lane for frequent border crossers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in an attempt in June to smuggle 202 pounds of marijuana.

Her stepfather, Stephen Michael Cohen, was arrested last week in Tijuana and handed over to U.S. officials, who had a warrant for his arrest.

Stephen Cohen is not implicated in the drug operation, but was arrested based on a contempt of court warrant for failing to appear in a civil lawsuit over the theft of a pornographic Web site.

Gary Kremen, the founder of sex.com and the plaintiff in the civil case, attended Jhuliana Cohen's sentencing in San Diego federal court Tuesday.

Anonymous - 11-5-2005 at 07:36 AM

By J.K. Dineen
Court TV
Updated Nov. 4, 2005, 1:10 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO ? The high-stakes manhunt that ended with the cuffing of Internet porn site thief Stephen Cohen last week in Tijuana may seem like the happy conclusion to a sordid tale of greed, sex, and the excesses of the Internet gold rush.

But for Web entrepreneur Gary Kremen, the founder of Match.com, the Oct. 28 arrest simply represents the start of a new, difficult chapter: the one in which he and his attorneys try to force Cohen to cough up the millions he owes him.

Four years ago, after a lengthy legal battle, a federal judge found that Cohen ? a convicted felon who has served prison stints for forgery and impersonating a lawyer ? had hijacked the domain name Sex.com, which Kremen registered in 1995.

The court found that Cohen stole the URL by forging a letter from Kremen's company, and then turned Sex.com into a lucrative pornography Web site that generated between $40 and $60 million in profits.

In 2001, U.S. District Court Judge James Ware ordered Cohen to pay $65 million to Kremen. Cohen instead fled to his estate in Tijuana. The settlement figure, with interest, now stands at $82 million.

Cohen is slated to appear before Ware on contempt of court charges Monday in San Jose, Calif.

The 57-year-old fugitive was arrested Oct. 28 while applying to renew his Mexican work visa. U.S. marshal Don Vazquez said he had a confidential source that provided details of Cohen's whereabouts.

Vazquez said he had chased Cohen in the past, and that his interest in the case was revived on June 28 when Jhuliana Aramis Cohen, the 21-year-old daughter of Cohen's former wife Rosa, was arrested trying to cross San Diego's San Ysidro border crossing with 202 pounds of marijuana. She was sentenced last week to 10 months in federal prison.

Vazquez notified Mexican immigration officials, who were on the lookout for Cohen when he showed up for a routine visa renewal.

"I was at the border waiting for him," Vazquez said. "He tried to talk his way out of it. He was trying very hard to figure out a way not to be expelled from the Republic of Mexico."

'It's classic Steve'

After a jailhouse interview Tuesday, Kremen's attorney Timothy Dillon said Cohen was "heavily medicated and fairly relaxed," but that the discussion was not promising.

"He told me he was flat broke," Dillon said.

The attorney said Cohen offered to settle with Kremen for $100,000 cash, plus three properties. Dillon called the offer laughable ? and said it has not improved since the initial discussion.

"I understand his offer is now $75,000 and two pieces of property," Dillon said. "I think it's classic Steve. Here he is sitting in jail, and his offer is decreasing."

Kremen's June 28 lawsuit accuses Cohen of using Jhuliana and six other business associates to fraudulently transfer and conceal his assets in violation of the 2001 judgment.

Dillon said Cohen's money is tied up in ventures including a shrimp farm in Mexico, operated by longtime business associate Jack Hanna Brownfield, and The Bolero strip club in Tijuana, which is in his daughter's name.

Brownfield, who has known Cohen since 1973, said he is not hiding any of his assets.

"Anything that is being hidden is being hidden by Steve for Steve," he said. "I don't know anything about pornography. You want to know something about shrimp, come talk to me."

Sex, schemes and vandalism

Cohen's various frauds and clashes with the law go back at least three decades.

In 1975, he was found guilty of grand theft and check fraud. In 1990, he was arrested for operating a sex club in a residential neighborhood. In 1991, he was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for posing as a lawyer in a bankruptcy court in an elaborate scheme to bilk an elderly woman's creditors out of $200,000.

In a 1999 interview with Wired News, Cohen denied stealing sex.com, claiming that he had been using the business name since 1979 as part of The French Connection, an electronic bulletin board he created for "swingers and nudist camps." He said the "com" in sex.com stood for "communications."

"Steve has always operated his businesses on the fringe, the gray area outside the mainstream, because he subscribes to the theory that that is where the money is," Brownfield said. "He has been in the sex business for many, many years and understands it as well as anyone."

Brownfield said he has tried to convince both sides to settle the dispute. He says legally Cohen was wrong to swipe the domain name, but claims that the convicted felon worked hard to build the business.

"I'm not saying he was entitled to it, but he put on the map," Brownfield said.

Meanwhile, Kremen, a recovering speed addict, splits his time between San Francisco, where Sex.com's office is located, and Rancho Santa Fe, where he lives in Cohen's 9,000 square-foot Spanish-style villa that he took possession of as part of the settlement.

Besides living in Cohen's house, Kremen has permission to open Cohen's mail in the presence of U.S. marshals. He said the former fugitive maintains between 50 and 60 active credit cards and estimated that he has $25 million in various offshore accounts.

Kremen said Cohen regularly has made harassing phone calls and even threatened to have him killed. He said Cohen also ransacked the Rancho Santa Fe property before going on the lam.

"He vandalized it extensively," Kremen said. "He ripped out the wiring. He removed the vegetation. He took the toilets. He took everything that was not nailed down ? and some things that were."


Article URL:
http://www.courttv.com/news/2005/1103/cohen_ctv.html

Anonymous - 11-5-2005 at 08:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous...Cohen was "heavily medicated and fairly relaxed,"...

...Meanwhile, Kremen, a recovering speed addict...
Nice class of people to deal with.

Maybe Rush Limbaugh would like to hire some other drug addicts with big mouths.

JZ - 11-5-2005 at 09:01 AM

What a story! Amazing!

Judge to Sex.com thief: Show us the money, or stay in jail

Anonymous - 11-15-2005 at 04:04 PM

http://www.courttv.com/news/2005/1115/sex.com_ctv.html

By J.K. Dineen
Court TV

SAN JOSE, Calif. ? Stephen Michael Cohen, a career con man who made a fortune by stealing a pornographic Web domain in the early days of the Internet gold rush, will not be released from jail until he provides the court with a full accounting of the millions he reaped from the pilfered site Sex.com, a federal judge has ruled.

Cohen, 57, who was arrested Oct. 28 after five years on the lam in Mexico, appeared Monday afternoon in San Jose federal court before Judge James Ware ? the same judge who in 2001 ordered him to pay $65 million to Internet pioneer Gary Kremen, who registered the Sex.com domain in 1995.

After a 2001 trial, the court found that Cohen stole the Sex.com site by forging a letter from Kremen's company and then turned the URL into a lucrative porno site generating between $40 and $60 million in profits.

In addition to the debt, Cohen faces multiple contempt of court charges for repeatedly ignoring court orders. Ware said it was unusual for a judgment debtor to be jailed, but that in this case it was justified.

"Given the seriousness of the case, it's the court's intention to hold him in custody," Ware said.

Addressing the court Monday, Cohen, who has served prison stints for forgery and impersonating an attorney, said heart problems and an unrelated criminal case in Mexico prevented him from returning to the United States.

He said he had been "physically detained" in Mexico and later "went abroad" for heart surgery. He expressed some remorse.

"I had a duty to appear and I clearly did not appear," he said during a brief statement.

Cohen's attorney John Goalwin said his client "never intended to be contemptuous of this court and wants to do everything he can to comply."

Another defense attorney, Roger Agajanian, who has defended Cohen several times over the past 30 years, said he has agreed to take Cohen into his home and "stand for him" when he is released.

"I've known him for a long time, he has a lot of good qualities," Agajanian said.

But Kremen's attorneys, Timothy Dillon and Richard Idell, argued that the Mexican criminal case was fictitious and that Mexican authorities never detained Cohen.

They contend Cohen has multiple offshore bank accounts and investments in numerous businesses, including a Tijuana strip club and a Mexican shrimp farm operated by convicted drug smuggler and long-time Cohen associate John Hanna Brownfield.

Outside the courtroom, Kremen's attorneys said Cohen's statements in court showed he had no intention of coming clean about his assets.

"I can tell you 20 companies he has started and run money through" during the past several years, Dillon said.

"If there was ever a time to cut the crap and be straight, now is it, because we have been working for five years to get information on this guy," Idell said.

Kremen, who currently generates about $1 million a year through Sex.com, also founded and sold the dating Web site, Match.com. After the 2001 trial, he gained control of Cohen's Rancho Santa Fe home, as well as another warehouse in San Diego near the Mexican border.

But tracking down Cohen and his money ? the outstanding settlement, with interest, now stands at $82 million ? has become an obsession and high-stakes game for Kremen.

He says he has spent $5 million on lawyers and private investigators ? and judging by Monday's court appearance, still faces obstacles before he sees any money from Cohen.

"It's the same circus," he said. "It hasn't changed one iota."

Anonymous - 11-15-2005 at 08:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous...

Kremen, who currently generates about $1 million a year through Sex.com, also founded and sold the dating Web site, Match.com...
:lol:

I saw one of their ads and said "HEY!; I recognize that girl..."

Sex.com thief released from prison; his lawyer shot the same day in TJ

BajaNews - 12-10-2006 at 11:12 AM

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/09/stephen_cohen_releas...

By Kieren McCarthy
9th December 2006

In yet another twist in the extraordinary tale of Sex.com, the con-man who stole the world's most valuable domain has been released from jail - in order to locate the millions of dollars he owes the original owner.

Stephen Michael Cohen has been ordered to hand Gary Kremen $65m by a US court but despite years of intense fighting has yet to hand over one cent. On Tuesday morning, after 14 months in jail for civil contempt, Cohen was released by Judge James Ware, because Kremen's lawyers had been unable to chase down his offshore bank accounts.

Cohen claims he is only able to get the details of his various accounts - held in Lithuania, Liechtenstein and the Isle of Man - in person and outside jail, and is due back in court in San Jose on 26 February to tell the judge how that search has gone.

But in a chilling turn of events, one of the few people with access to Cohen's estimated countless millions, Mexican lawyer Gustavo Cortés Carvajal, known locally as El Sapo or "The Toad", was the target of an assassination attempt in Tijuana at 5pm on the day of Cohen's release.

Cortes was in a Mercedes van being driven by fellow lawyer Jose Luis Alamillo, when it was blocked in by two trucks in central Tijuana. Alamillo managed to break free and, chased by the trucks, get to the local police station but had been shot several times in his left flank during the attack. A four-year-old boy in a car at the scene when the shooting broke out was shot in the head and is an unknown state, while Cortes himself escaped unharmed.

There is nothing to link Cohen to Cortes' attempted murder.

Follow the money

The shooting is the latest twist in an extraordinary case that started on 17 October 1995 when Stephen Cohen hacked the computer system used to store all dotcom registrant details and change ownership of Sex.com into his name.

Cohen later covered his tracks by forging a letter, purportedly from Kremen's company, handing over the domain in recognition of non-existent trademark rights Cohen had in the name "sex.com".

That theft was the start of an epic legal battle that finally ended in April 2001 with Kremen was handed back the domain and awarded $65m: $40m covering the money Cohen had made from the prestigious domain in the intervening six years, and $25m as punitive damages.

But rather than pay, Cohen fled across the Mexican border and remained a fugitive from justice for four years until he was finally arrested on 27 October 2005 in Tijuana and transported the short distance across the border. Despite dozens of hours of subsequent interviews in jail, Cohen has failed to provide a single piece of information that has led to the discovery of any of his money.

Following a long series of court appearances, Judge Ware felt his hands were tied by the civil contempt laws and said he had no option but to release Cohen. "Cohen has been incarcerated for more than one year," read Ware's ruling, "during which time Kremen has failed to locate evidence of hidden bank accounts or other assets. Under these circumstances, the only purpose of Cohen's continued incarceration would be punitive - an impermissible purpose for civil contempt sanctions."

Kremen and his lawyers are uncertain if Cohen will turn up at all on 26 February. If he doesn't he will be held in contempt of court and another order for his arrest will be issued. But Cohen has adequately demonstrated he is more than capable of staying out of the law's clutches. But it is very possible that Cohen will make the date because if he turns up and persuades Judge Ware he is unable to find any information on his bank accounts, Ware would have little choice but to free him from his contempt order, leaving Cohen free to do as he wishes.

That possibility is very likely to appeal to Cohen, thanks to the extraordinarily personal battle between himself and Kremen (Kremen currently lives in Cohen's old mansion in the exclusive San Diego neighbourhood of Rancho Santa Fe). If Cohen has the contempt lifted, he will have succeeded in thwarting Kremen and his army of lawyers and investigators.

But at the same time, Kremen remains determined to extract some form of concession out of his nemesis. His lawyers are already working on a range of tactics to have Cohen re-arrested in February if he doesn't supply real details of existing bank accounts. The extraordinary battle of wills and the game of gambles that the two men have been playing for over a decade may well be on its final hand.

Iflyfish - 12-10-2006 at 11:24 AM

The Wild West of the .com World. Amazing!

Iflyfishwhennotdotcomming

vandenberg - 12-10-2006 at 11:39 AM

However, little more involved then the strongbox on a stagecoach.:biggrin::biggrin:

jerry - 12-10-2006 at 12:21 PM

when its all you have its all you have

I'm having a tough time trying to figure out who to root for

Dave - 12-10-2006 at 06:42 PM

Probably Cohen's lawyers. ;D

Sex.com hijacker pleads poverty after fleeing to Mexico

BajaNews - 2-26-2007 at 11:03 PM

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20070226-1728-sex.c...

February 26, 2007

Stephen Michael Cohen was released from prison in December so he could surrender assets to Gary Kremen, the online entrepreneur who registered the domain name in 1994. But Cohen told U.S. District Court Judge James Ware that he's jobless and broke...





[Edited on 7-4-2007 by BajaNomad]

Confused

The Gull - 2-27-2007 at 07:36 AM

The headline of the posting says that his lawyer was shot in TJ. Then the story said he was unharmed.

Alamillo, the other lawyer was chased and shot. So why does this mean Sapo was the target?

Cohen was smart enough to steal $65M but didn't have the brains to hide anywhere but TJ for four years?

Former Sex.com Owner Still Chasing $65M Unpaid Judgment

BajaNews - 12-24-2011 at 01:55 PM

http://newswire.xbiz.com/view.php?id=142487

By Rhett Pardon
Dec 23 2011

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Former Sex.com owner Gary Kremen is still chasing down that $65 million unpaid judgment from Stephen Michael Cohen, the man who in 1998 fraudulently converted the valuable domain.

And he's had some recent luck connecting the dots, finding a money paper trial and convincing a judge to freeze bank accounts that could be used to help satisy some of the unpaid judgment.

Cohen was ordered to pay in 2005 after a court determined Cohen submitted a forged document to Network Solutions that won him control of Sex.com in 1995.

So far, the bill owed to Kremen amounts to $65 million, plus $3 million in interest.

Kremen won back the domain in 2001 but has had a tough time finding where some of that awarded money is, or where it's been fraudulently transferred to.

According to court transcripts, Cohen allegedly transferred $4.5 million between banks shortly before he was arrested in Mexico.

Cohen denies ownership of these accounts and has cried poverty, telling courts through the years that he has been jobless, broke and unable to locate any of the assets accumulated from his time as the Sex.com hijacker.

But two years ago Kremen was able to obtain judgments and injunctions against Cohen's step daughter ($4.9 million), ex-wife ($1 million) and lawyer ($800,000) after connecting some of the dots to the Sex.com funds.

And now he's followed the paper trail yet one more time, naming in a lawsuit Cohen's cousin and an online bank called FNBPay created by the cousin.

Earlier this month, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order to freeze assets of both FNBPay and a sister company, FNBMexico, that were allegedly used to funnel money through various websites. Those companies are owned by the cousin, Michael Joseph Cohen.

By showing that Stephen Michael Cohen has in the past used his family to facilitate fraudulent transfers and avoid paying the Sex.com judgment, Kremen was able to convince the judge that he would be able to succeed on this fraudulent transfer claim also, and thus a temporary restraining order was warranted to freeze assets.

FNBPay, according to Kremen's suit against Cohen's cousin, also was used to pay certain of Stephen Michael Cohen's personal expenses, such as his mortgage.

To date, both defendants — Cohen's cousin, Michael Joseph Cohen, and FNBPay — have yet to file responses to the court relative to the freezing of a U.S. bank account linked to FNBPay, a Wells Fargo bank account that has $100,000 in funds.
Kremen is asking the court to order an injunction to restrain the conveyance of property, compensatory damages in the amount of deposit payments at FNBPay and Stephen Michael Cohen's mortgage payments for his Tijuana home and the principle amount of the unpaid judgment.

Kremen in 2006 sold Sex.com for $14 million to Boston-based Escom LLC in 2006. Escom earlier this year sold the domain for $13 million to Clover Holdings.

Kremen's attorney, Timothy Dillon, was unavailable for XBIZ comment at post time.

jeans - 12-24-2011 at 03:10 PM

My Dad used to say that a judgment was nothing more than a... "huntin' license."

Bajahowodd - 12-24-2011 at 04:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by The Gull
The headline of the posting says that his lawyer was shot in TJ. Then the story said he was unharmed.

Alamillo, the other lawyer was chased and shot. So why does this mean Sapo was the target?

Cohen was smart enough to steal $65M but didn't have the brains to hide anywhere but TJ for four years?


I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that this rich doofus didn't have a passport when he had to flee. That's why he fled to TJ.

BobY - 12-25-2011 at 01:03 AM

All those complications and details, but it still seems to be just the tip of the ice berg! It amazes me how much a third-rate con artist can get away with. I remember when this started. The dot com registrars had no security compared to today, after much scamming and controversy.

There must be a top secret university for sleaze somewhere.

Packoderm - 12-25-2011 at 01:29 AM

This doesn't mean there will be any shortage of online porn does it?

captkw - 12-25-2011 at 05:41 AM

OOOOHHHH MY!!:lol::lol::lol:

gnukid - 12-25-2011 at 06:33 AM

All of these articles are old recycled news? 7 years old? What's your point? The offense is he transferred a domain name and got an unreasonable 65 mil judgement which seems a bit out of line compared to institutional banking criminality.

captkw - 12-25-2011 at 06:39 AM

how in the hell,,,do you,,, would you post,,without a name ?? WHATZ UP??

BajaNomad - 12-25-2011 at 02:08 PM

Stephen Michael Cohen circa 2000...

cohen_01.jpg - 49kB