Bruce Wagner and the surrounding drama.

[Herodes]

I see there's a lot of fuss about Bruce and his sexual orientation and more or less speculation about what acts he has engaged in.

My take on the issue:

* The hard evidence seems to not exist.

If anyone has hard evidence, then report it to the proper authorities and they will deal with it.

As far as I know, he's not charged with anything and never convicted of anything related to these matters.


As far as I see it, he's innocent until proven guilty.

I don't see how anyone can benefit from naming and shaming someone without hard evidence ( I don't count forum posts as hard evidence ).

Hard evidence would be video footage or first hand evidence of him doing anything of the stuff that he's been accused for.

Bruce Wagner has done a lot for bitcoin, more than most of his critics. I'm not a fan of him myself, and he clearly has room for improvement
in his actions, behavior and presence.

But he's put himself in the spotlight, and now he's paying a price that I feel is not right for him to pay at this moment.

It was perhaps stupid of him to have forum posts tied to him with controversial sexual content, someone somewhere sometime will always make
these connections if they exist.

But can we not separate? Bruce has used a lot more energy, time and resources on helping the bitcoin community then most of you have
ever done.

It's a shame how a lot of you are sitting behind your keyboards and attacking this man. What good does it come out of these actions for you?
If you sit on information regarding criminal matters, then deliver it to the authorities and let them deal with it. This rumor mongering and
accusations have no place in this community.

This is turning into an ugly version of Hitech Gossip Girl.

If I was Bruce I would shut my mouth, stay away for a couple of weeks, try to learn from my mistakes, start listening more to others, try
to improve my presence and professionality and stop answering any baseless accusations at all.

He being a homosexual is something he can't do anything about. For him this is just as natural as for most of us being heterosexual.

I do think however he should tone down his personal sexual life and his preferences, and perhaps refrain from having his personal and
professional image as closely linked as it is now.

To sum it up, he does come forward as a bit unprofessional, but there's always room for anybody to learn and improve. He however does
not deserve the shit storm he is receiving at the moment.

Some of the critics are making a total fool of themselves as well. I'm not a big Bruce fan, but I have a strong sense of what's right and what's
not, and what's going on now is not right at all.

[wolftaur]

Where have you been? That's old news.

Turns out Bruce was convicted of fraud. Ran a "business" that claimed they would help people avoid foreclosure. Took money, did nothing. When hauled into court, couldn't actually produce the name of one person his company actually provided the service for according to the court papers.

You're 100% right his orientation is irrelevant. And you're 100% right that the pedophile accusations were bullshit because nobody provided evidence.

Fact that he exploited the desperation of people facing the loss of their homes to steal their money and got hauled to court and lost and had to pay massive amounts of money out is more than enough to indicate why he shouldn't be the voice for Bitcoin. And that, the hard evidence exists and was plastered all over.

[Gerken]

I stopped reading at your first sentence because it's clear you have no idea what you are talking about. No evidence?  Seriously?  Have you not looked at anything?  Everything we have brought forward is Bruce's own posts, publicly available court records, new stories, etc.  Unless you think we went back in time 5 years to fabricate all that.  

Oh, and don't try to downplay all of this as being an attack against him cause he's gay. We knew he was gay before most of the users on this forum did and we loved him all the same.  It's not an issue.  As a matter of fact, the guy from SA who did some of the core work on all this is one of the most well known gays on SA. (Three Olives)  

[Jalum]

I see there's a lot of fuss about Bruce and his sexual orientation and more or less speculation about what acts he has engaged in.

My take on the issue:

* The hard evidence seems to not exist.

If anyone has hard evidence, then report it to the proper authorities and they will deal with it.

As far as I know, he's not charged with anything and never convicted of anything related to these matters.

So even when we post the court documents that show he fled the state of Illinois so he didn't have to pay $350,000 in restitution to the people he defrauded, you don't care?

When he made his post admitting that he was the person named in that court case, and that nothing further could be done because the statute of limitations was 6 years, you still defend him?

[wolftaur]

I stopped reading at your first sentence because it's clear you have no idea what you are talking about. No evidence?  Seriously?  Have you not looked at anything?  Everything we have brought forward is Bruce's own posts, publicly available court records, new stories, etc.  Unless you think we went back in time 5 years to fabricate all that.  

Oh, and don't try to downplay all of this as being an attack against him cause he's gay. We knew he was gay before most of the users on this forum did and we loved him all the same.  It's not an issue.  As a matter of fact, the guy from SA who did some of the core work on all this is one of the most well known gays on SA. (Three Olives)  

Step back a moment and take a breath ...

With much of this being moved into the Off-Topic forum, I think we should give OP the benefit of the doubt: From what he actually posted, beyond the first sentence ...

It's pretty evident at least to me he's talking about the accusation that Bruce is a pedophile. The reason I made my "Hey, where you been?" comment along with the detail is because the mods shoved enough of this stuff off to a sub-board many, many hours ago that it is quite possible OP missed the revelations and hard evidence.

Now, if he claims court records aren't enough or does some speech about how making people lose their homes is OK because he helped bitcoin, then hey, have at him all you want and I ain't gonna have no objection t'all.

[Herodes]

So even when we post the court documents that show he fled the state of Illinois so he didn't have to pay $350,000 in restitution to the people he defrauded, you don't care?

When he made his post admitting that he was the person named in that court case, and that nothing further could be done because the statute of limitations was 6 years, you still defend him?

I have read some of the threads, but as there's so much info I can't possibly take the time to read it all. Of course I care about someone being criminal being associated to Bitcoin. That's not good at all. I just could not see any hard evidence for him being a pedophile and actually misusing any kids sexually. That's very strong accusations, and should be backed up with hard evidence.

If he has done what's been said in this thread about exploiting people losing their homes, that's just very sad and very criminal as well, and then he should not be allowed to be a person promoting bitcoin. We don't need scammers and conmen promoting bitcoin. People can change of course, but that just does not look good at all.

Could anyone be so kind to link me with any of the evidence of this previous con-operation (foreclosure business) ?

[Gerken]

http://buttcoin.org/has-bruce-wagner-pulled-off-the-financial-biggest-scam-on-the-bitcoin-community

We made a megapost here with all the currently known information including a timeline(there may be some recent developments missing but it will be updated soon enough).  Feel free to spread the link around to anyone who wants to know what's actually going on, all we want is the truth to be known.  

And sorry if I came off too harsh, wolftaur was right.  I ran into the no evidence and "lots of fuss about him being gay" and went off the deep end a bit    

Edit:  For what its worth I agree about the pedo accusations, I never supported that position.  He's still a scumbag though. 

[Herodes]

http://buttcoin.org/has-bruce-wagner-pulled-off-the-financial-biggest-scam-on-the-bitcoin-community

We made a megapost here with all the currently known information including a timeline(there may be some recent developments missing but it will be updated soon enough).  Feel free to spread the link around to anyone who wants to know what's actually going on, all we want is the truth to be known.  

And sorry if I came off too harsh, wolftaur was right.  I ran into the no evidence and "lots of fuss about him being gay" and went off the deep end a bit    

Edit:  For what its worth I agree about the pedo accusations, I never supported that position. 

No offence taken. I know buttcoin.org is not bitcoin-lovers, but I have an open mind, and will read the entire post there carefully. Thanks for the link.

[Gerken]

It's all in good fun mostly.  And regardless of what people think about us, we did like Bruce, he's a likeable guy.  So goofy, naive and positive (in retrospect it's the perfect cover for a con man) and we all feel betrayed, I can't imagine how others here must feel.  So if there seems to be some bias, that's why.  There are still plenty of facts there, and they stand on their own. 

[The_Duke]

I see there's a lot of fuss about Bruce and his sexual orientation and more or less speculation about what acts he has engaged in.

A very long post that is based on a false assumption in the first line... oh noes.

The fuss was not about Bruces sexual orientation. We don't give a rats ass that he is gay.
The fuss is about the fact that he wants to hold a bitcoin conference (which is something that affects anyone who has an interest in bitcoin) in a place that has an extremely shady reputation and then STICKS with that plan even though it upsets a lot of people because he has interests in that location that are NOT bitcoin related, while claiming he is choosing that location for NO other reason than "bitcoin related stuff", which everyone can see is a load of bollocks.

Oh and also: There... is NO DRAMA... surrounding Bruce... Wagner!!111

Edit: hmm, I was late with my response. Basically ^^^^ with the above posters!

[Gabi]

Please note how all the drama was stirred up by some trolls and their fake and alts 

[someotherguy]

I for one am grateful that this issue with Bruce Wagner was resolved.  The evidence of his prior crimes is overwhelming (yes I consider a conviction in a court of law overwhelming evidence), and if not for the principles of a free and open discussion (I agree the pedo thing was unfounded) this whole thing surrounding Bruce Wagner and his credibility may have gone on for month's causing massive damage to Bitcoin as a whole.

Instead now anybody can read the cold hard facts about Mr. Wagner (court records in many states, his own comments, etc.) and make a determination for themselves about his credibility.

We the Bitcoin community, should be grateful a handful of moderators put their butts on the line to uphold the principles of free speech.   Thank you.

[Piper67]

I for one am grateful that this issue with Bruce Wagner was resolved.  The evidence of his prior crimes is overwhelming (yes I consider a conviction in a court of law overwhelming evidence), and if not for the principles of a free and open discussion (I agree the pedo thing was unfounded) this whole thing surrounding Bruce Wagner and his credibility may have gone on for month's causing massive damage to Bitcoin as a whole.

Instead now anybody can read the cold hard facts about Mr. Wagner (court records in many states, his own comments, etc.) and make a determination for themselves about his credibility.

We the Bitcoin community, should be grateful a handful of moderators put their butts on the line to uphold the principles of free speech.   Thank you.

Yes, and we as a community should therefore put this entire thing to rest... the sooner, the better.

[defxor]

I for one am grateful that this issue with Bruce Wagner was resolved

Agreed. I started to follow the SA thread when I realized there was actually more than random trolling behind the posts and made a judgement call what efforts to support and what not.

I was contemplating leaving this forum altogether since I couldn't understand why theymos let (and still does) obvious trolling continue, but maybe it was for the best after all. We'll see.

(I couldn't care less about Bruce's personal life and world views, but being a proven scammer automatically disqualifies him from all possible roles as a spokesperson and/or organizer)

[BitcoinBug]

Where there's smoke, there's fire... this is something I see now, looking back at the whole thing. Free market and free speech can be messy, but the "busts" also have cleansing effect in the long run. It was a good lesson!

Yes, and we as a community should therefore put this entire thing to rest... the sooner, the better.

These things die off naturally eventually, when they are settled. No point forcing it.

[Herodes]

I'm the OP in this thread. I am sorry that I based my post on lack of information. I read quite a lot about the Bruce drama yesterday, but somehow his previous scams did not catch my eye, I read mostly on the pedo accusations.

Unless the govt. is involved in a campaign towards bitcoin trying to character assasinate Bruce Wagner (which the probability of is nearly zero imho), this is case closed for Bruce Wagner.

I can see the picture now, a very sleazy person living the high life scamming and conning his ways. Always talking smoothly, and making people trust him. This type of character I've seen from many other con schemes. There's no stopping those with lack of moral and judgement except from the law. Hopefully he will be put behind bars for years.

It made me really sad to learn about the foreclosure scam. Those are people that really have a hard time, and here he is, scamming them with the Bold Funding company. He made a very very pitiful explanation here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40404.0

Claiming that they recieved too many applications and could not help people. Well, it would have been extremely easy to just pay back the money to those he could not help and say: "Sorry, we don't have resources to help you, here's your money back!".

His speech is that typical of a con man, smooth and nice. Most people believe good about other people, and he's misusing this trust.

He must now retreat from bitcoin, as his name is forever connected to fraud and scam. He cannot possibly continue with the Bitcoin Daily Show now. What we need is honest and genuine people that will push bitcoin forward.

I sincerely hope we will come to the bottom in this matter and that those who have done criminal acts will be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law.

Beeing a goofy and unprofessional person can be excused, but not scamming people. That can't be excused in any way.

As I've read on, this really is horrific news. And if Bruce really is behind the MyBitCoin scandal, then this is really really bad. Anyone knows if there's in fact a real investigation taking place into this? Bruce does not seem like the most technical proficient person (but if he can con us in other regards, perhaps he can con us here as well).

I am very sad, and surely Bruce will meet justice one day, sooner or later. This is very very bad. I have not anything else to add in this matter, and I am sorry to have started this thread having not enough information about it all. At the time I was just a bit fed up with all the pedo accusations, as I didn't think it was right to accuse anyone of that without hard evidence.

Thanks to all for answering.

[buttcoin]

A very long post that is based on a false assumption in the first line... oh noes.

If there's something in my post that's factually incorrect I'd like to know about it.

[Herodes]

A very long post that is based on a false assumption in the first line... oh noes.

If there's something in my post that's factually incorrect I'd like to know about it.

I think it was referred to one of my posts, not yours.

[DrZaius]

I thought the pedo stuff was extremely out of line, but I'm not entirely sure the people behind it would have discovered the link to Bold Funding without it. In that regard, I suppose it was a good thing? Most people could see the allegations were sketchy at best. And then Bruce damaged his credibility simply in response to the allegation which was full of misleading (and in at least one case, untrue) statements.

As far as Bold Funding goes, I think there's enough evidence of deceit and fraud on Bruce's part (both at the time, and yesterday's mischaracterization of Bold Funding as a failing business rather than the scam it was proved in court to be) to bother talking about the stuff without any real basis or evidence. Hopefully that goes for any possible future allegations as well.

[The_Duke]

A very long post that is based on a false assumption in the first line... oh noes.

If there's something in my post that's factually incorrect I'd like to know about it.

I think it was referred to one of my posts, not yours.

This