Miss America 1980

Miss America 1980

Miss America 1980, A Christian organization operated by former Miss America Cheryl Prewitt and her husband declined to comment this morning on an audio recording posted online last week by AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin.

In the recording, Bowdoin used Prewitt’s name, referring to her as “Cheryl Blackwood” and suggesting Prewitt’s perseverance in her five-year quest to become Miss America had inspired him to continue fighting wire-fraud, money-laundering and Ponzi scheme allegations brought by the U.S. Secret Service.Â

Salem Family Ministries of Tulsa, Okla., was established by Prewitt, now known as Cheryl Prewitt Salem, and Harry Salem, her husband.

“We have no comment,” said a woman who answered the phone this morning at the ministry. She added that she did not recognize Bowdoin’s name and did not rule out the possibility that the ministry would have something to say at a later time.

Bowdoin is engaged in a battle with federal prosecutors to reassert his claim to tens of millions of dollars seized by the U.S. Secret Service last year in the Ponzi scheme probe. Prosecutors said religion was used in ASD pitches, and Bowdoin cited God in sales presentations, once exhorting a crowd in Las Vegas to internalize the thought of becoming wealthy.

“We need to have an attitude of gratitude with God,” Bowdoin told an ASD gathering in Las Vegas last year. “And I always say, ‘Thank you, God, for developing me into a money magnet.’ And I see myself as a money magnet in attracting money and, I say, attracting large sums of money.”

After initially contesting the forfeiture case, Bowdoin surrendered his claims in mid-January. He has been attempting to reassert them since late February, initially as a pro se litigant and now through the aid of an attorney.

Prosecutors said last week that Bowdoin, who was convicted of felonies in the 1990s in an Alabama securities case, was attempting to lie his way back into the civil-forfeiture case brought against ASD assets in August 2008.