Imagine a gang of child rapists, crooks on the run and coke snorting bankrupts getting together in Panama to start an “investment scheme.” Can’t believe it? It really happened, and it became one of the more spectacular collapses of any scam over the last five years or so. I’m talking about the Noni Tubbies.

While most of the perpetrators are either in jail, on the run or keeping a low profile, one of the more intellectually depraved members of the board is trying to clear his name these days: The great entrepreneurial thinker Tom Lennon.

I first wrote about these Noni Tubbies in 2003, for English language newspaper The Panama News. I had done a lengthy investigation which involved obtaining all their email correspondence, internal documents, financial information and a wealth of information from inside sources, (former) employees and (angry) clients. It was clear beyond any doubt whatsoever that San Cristobal Land Development, as they called themselves, was a fraud. They were selling land they couldn’t sell. They were saying they planted noni and teak as investment but that wasn’t true. They even tried to sell tree houses to handicapped people. They made the most ridiculous claims to clients and prospects just to keep the money flowing in. That money was then spent on parties, hookers, vacations and cocaine. It was such a blatant scam that Panamanian lawyers didn’t want to touch them and that even the Panamanian government – otherwise not exactly known for its disapproval of making a quick buck – later stated that “this should never happen again” when they proposed a change of law about land ownership. The US consulate warned potential investors in Panama against them – though not explicitly – by saying that “Commodity investments and speculations, such as for noni and teak, require extreme caution”. With The Noni Tubbies being the only ones offering noni investments in Panama, this was of course a no-brainer.

Of course it collapsed. ringleader Tom McMurrain was arrested and unceremoniously deported to the US where he is currently serving a prison sentence for one of his many earlier scams. He was also ordered by the judge to undergo psychiatric treatment. Other Noni Tubbies are also in jail, or in hiding, or keeping an extremely low profile.

But not Tom Lennon, a long-time McMurrain associate and one of the dumber members of the noni gang.

Lennon is like the wife of an alcoholic. He stayed with McMurrain no matter what, be it in the role of victim – he lost money in several McMurrain schemes – or that of partner in crime. And these days, with his partner in jail, Lennon has made an attempt of thinking for himself.

That is, he did a Google search and discovered that the search engine shows the articles about him. Lennon today dabbles in “entrepreneurial thinking” and other such concepts that should quickly add to the trail of bankruptcies, debts and other failures he’s left behind. His website (or weblog, it’s not entirely clear what it is) is apparently an attempt at a second career, a new start. We all know the phenomenon; An actor miserably fails (Leslie Nielsen, Bill Shatner etc.) and then, egg still in their face, get up and get a second shot at it. But most of these make sure to not make the same mistakes again. Not Lennon. Lennon boldly marches towards the abyss – again – by repeating what he shouldn’t repeat and defending what he can’t defend.

From the header on his site:

“Entrepreneurial Thinking” was created to provide personal experiencial [sic!] advisory and rich information resources to entrepreneural [sic!] executives in order help open their minds, enhance their vision and extend personal perspective.

Yeah. Drink noni juice. A spell checker wouldn’t hurt either.

Further, we will try to help navigate the evolution of the entrepreneur’s businesses in the areas of equity/debt financing, M&A, strategic planning, new product or business model development, market timing and related sales/marketing efforts.

I remember his sales and marketing efforts. When the noni tubbies had a stand on the Miami Boat Show, he singlehandedly turned the sales and marketing into a drunken circus, wasting $30,000 of clients’ money. Instead of making sales, Lennon and his entourage would visit various clubs where he would hand the guitar player a hundred dollar bill to go on stage himself and play. Usually arriving back to his presidential suite while the sun rose, he would be seen in the company of a New Jersey stripper and a gay hairdresser, while ordering bottles of Jack Daniels to the room. “They all looked powdered up” said Connie Lee, a former sales rep who had left the company after the Miami fiasco. By the time the show was over, San Cristobal had made no sales, but Lennon had left having earned the nickname “Hot Pants.”

Finally, we will also attempt to provide some wisdom in order to help balance the entrepreneurial workload with family.

Here’s Lennon’s wisdom for you: Hook up with a 17 year old prostitute in Panama to balance the workload with family, and when others find out about it threaten them and send the Noni goon squad after them. Is that “entrepreneurial thinking” or what? We assume that Lennon’s family (he once posed as an investor and when I found him out he claimed he was going to call me after mass and visiting the boy scouts with his son to “establish the ground rules”) was thrilled to hear about this balance of his workload. Then again, his wife, Emmy award winning TV producer Karen Lennon, sat on the board of one of McMurrain’s earlier Atlanta scams, so maybe she didn’t care that much.

Anyway, with all of this popping up in Google searches about Tom Lennon, the entrepreneurial thinker feared for his “good name and reputation” and decided to “strike back.” Big mistake – again.

Of course, there’s no way he can debunk any of the claims made in the articles about him. After all, it was all true. An attempt to have this author prosecuted for criminal defamation failed spectacularly. But then there’s always the trick of smearing the messenger if you can’t refute the message, and so Lennon, with the help of some crooked elements of the Panamanian expat community, is now making attempts at swiftboating this reporter.

On his website he has posted what he calls a “rebuttal” of what people may find out about him on the web. After some whining about how ” lies have caused pain to my family and me personally” and taking issue with me being “unsanctioned” – whatever that may signify – he makes a series of stupid claims of the kind that of course was to be expected from this genius of loserdom. After all, it was this coke-snorting goofball who thought it was clever entrepreneurial thinking to make death threats to my sources, hang out with an underaged prostitute and try to impersonate satisfied clients of his swindle – all that while ripping off tens of people with his noni investment.

“Entrepreneurial thinking” with Lennon is something like “Lie Hard with a Vengeance.” He claims he knew nuttin’ of McMurrain’s legal troubles in Atlanta, while his own emails – obtained by this reporter at the time – prove the opposite. And then he makes a number of other claims which are really too plain stupid to repeat here and that not in any way get him off the hook of his noni fuck-ups even if they were true.

The Panama online pimp support group

Ah, but our great entrepreneurial thinker has support! Enters the scene one Don “never a scam I don’t like” Winner, who used to be a big supporter of the Noni Tubbies for his own dark reasons and has since started a website called The Panama Guide, which he fills with content stolen from others. With the noni scheme gone and its leader in jail, Winner has sought other scams he could hype, and found them in wacko land deals in Capira Valley and Marc Boswell a/k/a “Rex Freeman“, a nazi style richt-wing militia character who ran from the US and Costa Rica right into the arms of Don Winner and runs shadowy and unlicensed banking activities here.
As if that isn’t enough, Winner is also promoting the “accountancy” services of one Tom Rowley, who was in charge of bookkeeping of…. the noni tubbies, where he oversaw spending of clients’ money on hookers and other party supplies.

Needless to say, Don Winner doesn’t like me either and has written a number of smear pieces about this journalist on his website, which Lennon, unable to come up with any original entrepreneurial writing himself, is now eagerly linking to from his digital dumpster site. Actually, Don Winner is so obsessed with your reporter that he even went as far as showing up at my house to take pictures of my children and threaten me with his stun gun.

Well, what can I say. It’s good to know that the Tom Lennon legacy of great entrepreneurial noni thinking in Panama is in the safe and greasy hands of a wannabe gangster. Nothing but good things will come of this, I’m sure. If nothing else, it will be another amusing chapter in the series of failures and cons that make up Lennon’s biography.