Opinion
20-139-SDD-EWD
08-31-2020
ROBERT H. WILLIAMS Pro Se Plaintiff v. AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC ACBL OLDCO, LLC ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC. Defendants
ROBERT H. WILLIAMS Pro se Plaintiff
ROBERT H. WILLIAMS Pro se Plaintiff
COMPREHENSIVE, AMENDED, NUMBERED COMPLAINT
Plaintiff, ROBERT H. WILLIAMS, Pro Se, files the following Complaint against Defendants, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., jointly and severally.
Plaintiff seeks (a) compensatory damages, statutory damages (threefold the actual damages sustained), and punitive damages in the sum of at least $36,350,000.00, plus (b) prejudgment interest on the principal sum awarded by the Jury at the rate of six percent per year from April 1, 2016 pursuant to Louisiana and Federal Law, (c) a reasonable attorney's fee (d) post-judgment interest, and (e) court costs - arising out of the Defendants' acts of racketeering activity in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. § 1962(a-c), conspiracy to violate Title 18 U.S.C. § 1962(a-c), and common law conspiracy, commercial bribery, conspiracy of commercial bribery, criminal trespass, conspiracy of criminal trespass, theft. conspiracy of theft, fraud, conspiracy of fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice through circulation and propagation of bogus and fraudulent lease documents to Louisiana State Agencies, and/or Levee Boards, and/or others.
I. INTRODUCTION
1. This is a case about active, coordinated and ongoing corruption, fraud, theft, criminal trespassing, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice by AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC.
2. The Defendants are persons or entities associated in fact (a RICO ENTERPRISE) who engage in interstate commerce by the use of one or more instrumentalities, including, but not limited to, the Internet, computers, telephones, mails and facsimile, In 2016, until today and into the future, Defendants have received and continue to receive income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity and have used or invested such income, directly or indirectly, in the establishment or operation of an enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate commerce, through a pattern of racketeering activity, including! and involving acts of general fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud in violation of title 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and acts of obstruction of justice in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(a), 1962(b), and 1962(c).
3. The Defendants' ongoing and continuous racketeering activities are part of a joint and systematic effort to intimidate, rob, harass, threaten, influence, inerfere with, impede, and ultimately to derail Plaintiffs personal and property and business interests. In furtherance of their conspiracies, the defendants, acting in concert and with others, against Plaintiff in some ways that were solely designed to cheat, defraud, harass and intimidate Plaintiff, and to protect others from criminal referrals.
4. Plaintiff was injured in his business, property and reputation by Defendants' racketeering activity and tortious misconduct. Plaintiff brings this action (a) to recover money damages for injuries caused by the Defendants' racketeering activity, (b) for disgorgement of ail of the ill-gotten gains and fruits of Defendants' unlawful enterprise, (c) to impose reasonable restrictions on Defendants' future activities, including Defendants' use of fraudulent means (d) to enjoin the Defendants from committing wire and mail fraud and other frauds and from obstructing justice, and (e) to order the dissolution or reorganization of AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., so as to prevent or restrain the Defendants from committing fraud, lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), Department of Justice ("DOJ"), any and all other state or federal agencies, and otherwise obstructing justice, and violating Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962 in the future.
II. PARTIES
5. Pro Se Plaintiff is a citizen of Texas. Plaintiff was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
6. Defendants' GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR. and HERMANN MOYSE, III are citizens of Louisiana.
7. Defendants, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC, PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., either have participated in or do business or have illicitly benefited from and/or cooperated in the RICO enterprise, and LLC and/o Corporate Defendants are headquartered in either (1701 E. Market Street, Jeffersonville, IN 47130) Indiana or California (360 North Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210). Plaintiff, upon information and belief, claims that Defendants have shared, in various ways, in the ill gotten gains and illicit profits of the illegal RICO enterprise.
III. JURSIDICTION AND VENUE
8. The United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana has subject matter jurisdiction over this action pursuant to Title 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (Federal Question), §1332 (Diversity) and §1367 (Supplemental Jurisdiction). The parties are citizens of different States and the amount in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000, exclusive of interest, costs and fees.
9. Each of the Defendants' is subject to personal jurisdiction in Louisiana pursuant to Louisiana law as well as the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. The Defendants are subject to both general and specific personal jurisdiction. They either engage in continuous and systematic business in Louisiana or participate and collude and conspire with other defendants who do. They have minimum contacts with Louisiana such that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over them comports with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice and is consistent with the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution.
10. Venue is proper in United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana pursuant to title 18 U.S.C. § 1965(a) and Title 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b). The Defendants reside, are found, have agents, have business interests and/or transact affairs in Louisiana or conspire, collude and participate with other defendert's who do.
11. As used in Title 18 U.S.C § 1505, the term "corruptly" means acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including making a false or misleading statement, or withholding, concealing, altering, or destroying a document or other information. 18 U.S.C. § 1515(b)
COUNT I - RICO
12. Plaintiff restates paragraphs 1 through 11 of this Complaint and incorporates them herein by reference.
13. AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO; LLC, ACDL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., corruptly and/or by threatening letters or communications influenced, obstructed and impeded, or endeavored to influence, obstruct or impede, the due administration of justice in violation of title 18 U.S.C. § 1503(a).
14. AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., knowingly used intimidation, threatened, and attempted to corruptly persuade Plaintiff, and engaged in misleading and fraudulent conduct, et al, toward Plaintiff.
15. AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., knowingly, with the intent to retaliate, took action harmful to Plaintiff, including interference with Plaintiffs lawful livelihood and property and rights in violation of title 18 U.S.C. § 1513(e).
16. AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, ! AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, XC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, A:BL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PI OFESS ONAL SERVICES INC. created, partially notarized, circulated and supplied an incomplete ind fraudulent document and made false statements to various parties, including but not necessarily limited to, insurance companies and Louisiana State Levee Boards. See EXHIBIT 7. Plaintiff discovered that Defendants committed multiple federal crimes, including violations of Title 18 U.S.C, §§ 1001 and 1505. Through a pattern of racketeering activity that, inter alia, involved acts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C, § 1343 and obstruction of justice in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512, and 1513 despite Plaintiffs initiatives and his efforts to reverse and correct Defendants' many frauds and crimes and offenses, Plaintiff was effectively and ultimately repulsed and thwarted at each and every stage, and for years now, as Defendant's have continued to illicitly profit and share same illicit profits, until the current date. Defendant's have no legal lease under which they could legitimately start, nor continue to generate and/or share their illicit gains and profits and continue to illicitly operate their RICO enterprise. Therefore, as a matter of law, Plaintiff first requests this honorable, federal court to declare prior to a jury being seated, that Defendant's alleged Lease, EXHIBIT 7 is bogus, fraudulent, illicit, illegal and void ab initio. This bogus and fraudulent document, published and circulated by Defendants, is obviously, on its face, clearly incomplete and void and fraudulent, as a matter of law, though it has been and continues to be fraudulently used by Defendants as the basis for their enterprise frauds, schemes and crimes. All of Plaintiffs pleas and entreaties to Defendants have been repulsed, landing us in this honorable court for justice and Plaintiffs initial, subsequent, and final relief and justice. Despite Plaintiffs attempted curative initiatives, and his efforts to stop, reverse and correct defendants' many frauds and crimes and offenses, Plaintiff was effectively and ultimately repulsed and thwarted at each and every stage, and for years now, Defendants brazenly have continued to illicitly profit and share same illicit profits, until the current date. Defendants have no valid or legal lease under which they continue to make and share their illicit gains and profits and continue to illicitly operate their RICO enterprise. Therefore, as a matter of law, Plaintiff first requests this Honorable Federal court to declare, prior to a jury being seated, that Defendant's alleged and bogus lease (Exhibit 7) is bogus, fraudulent, illicit, illegal and void, ab initio, since Defendants not only illegally hid and prevented undivided owner and Plaintiff Will ams from any and all good faith negotiations in his undivided ownership property, but refused to ever enter into negotiation and/or remediation after the evil fact of their frauds, thefts, commercial briberies, criminal trespasses, wire and mail frauds, etc, etc. This bogus and fraudulent lease document, published and circulated by Defendants, is obviously, on its face, incomplete, void and fraudulent, as a matter of law, though it has been and continues to be fraudulently used by Defendants as the basis for their enterprise frauds, schemes, and crimes. All of Plaintiffs pleas and entreaties to Defendants have been repulsed, landing us in this honorable court for the first justice for Plaintiff. For clarity, Plaintiff will also divide the Defendants into Individual Defendants (LeBlanc and Moyse) and Corporate Defendants (all of whom bear identical addresses either in Indiana or California, and are all represented and defended by the same New Orleans based law firm). Both Individual Defendants are also fellow Undivided Owners along with Plaintiff of Devil's Swamp, nearly 2, 000 acres north of Baton Rouge, along the Mississippi River, which Corporate Defendants had previously and justly and validly profited from in the multi-millions of dollars, from a just, valid, legitimate, and previous, 15 year river barge and docking lease of the same property. Both Individual Defendants, LeBlanc and Moyse, had previously acted as limited agents of not only Plaintiff Williams, but also all the other numerous Undivided Owners, in their narrow agency of merely negotiating and crafting a proposed lease with certain of the Corporate Defendants, which would be then submitted to each and every Undivided Owner, for their own individual approval or disapproval, but which lease would under Louisiana law dealing with land owned by undivided owners require unanimous approval of each and every Undivided Owner, without exception. Such a lease would stand to ripple through proceeds to all of the Corporate Defendants, in varying amounts and/or ways. Plaintiff Williams had approached both Individual Defendants long distance long before the first 15 year lease expired, and at different times when it became evident that first one, then later both of the Individual Defendants were no longer acting in the required legal, honorable and necessary fiduciary interest of Plaintiff, a fellow Undivided Owner along with other Individual Defendants of Devil's Swamp, and despite Plaintiffs sincere pleas to those 2 limited agents and fellow Undivided Owners to reform their legally deficient ways, and discontinue their shocking fiduciary betrayals and behaviors of Plaintiffs sacred and legally protected financial interests, when each Individual Defendant subsequently refused and failed to abandon their fiduciary betrayals of Plaintiff, Plaintiff Williams officially terminated each of those limited agents from representing Plaintiff in any and all negotiations with either Corporate Defendants or anyone else, regarding a possible future and/or potential second and follow up Devil's Swamp lease. However, behind Plaintiff Williams' back, what both Individual and certain Corporate Defendants did, was to enter into a RICO conspiracy to illegally grab, steal, cheat, rob, and defraud Plaintiff Williams of his Devil's Swamp property and his property rights, which can be undeniably observed from the new, totally bogus, totally illegitimate, totally fraudulent, pretend/fake lease, which Individual Defendants still shockingly and offensively refer to, as if it were a legitimate, valid, good faith lease. Nothing could be further from the truth! Corporate and Individual Defendants illicitly, illegally, and shockingly either RICO conspired and/or RICO illicitly profited from a prima facie, fraudulent, bogus, fake lease in which Plaintiff was never consulted or allowed and no Defendants, neither Corporate, nor Individual, even furnished any notice whatsoever, nor any copy of same to Undivided Owner Robert Williams, nor allowed Undivided Owner Robert Williams to either negotiate, nor accept, nor reject their fraudulent lease. Plaintiff Williams being then unaware of what these RICO conspirators were scheming and planning and executing in their illegal enterprise, then on or around July 5th, 2016, when Plaintiff Williams contacted the internal legal department of a Corporate Defendant to ascertain if Corporate Defendants were intending to pursue any negotiations of a 2nd, valid, legitimate, 15 year lease on Devil's Swamp, Plaintiff Williams was forwarded to in house Corporate Defendant Attorney Sean P. Gallagher, who for the first time informed Plaintiff Williams on the telephone that Corporate Defendants were way beyond merely pursuing another and subsequent lease on Devil's Swamp, since such lease was allegedly "already signed, executed, and in effect." Plaintiff Williams simply verbally responded to Gallagher that Gallagher and his employers knew that such was a legal impossibility, since Undivided Owner Williams had NEVER even been contacted or informed or supplied with any such proposed lease, and no good faith negotiations had taken place, and, of course, never signed off nor agreed to any alleged, proposed lease which had been conspiratorially and RICO hidden from Plaintiff, by both Corporate and Individual Defendants, Plaintiff Williams at the same verbal conversation with Gallagher, demanded that Gallagher immediately email Williams a copy of this heretofore secret, hidden, obviously fraudulent, alleged lease, which Williams then, and subsequently stated, by definition, MUST and NECESSARILY be an invalid, bogus, fake, and fraudulent lease, since it admittedly does not have the required unanimous consent, agreement, and knowledge of each and all of the Undivided Owners, even though it clearly lists Plaintiff Robert Williams as an "Undivided Owner", but same fraudulent document shows Plaintiff Williams' signature page with the then correct address, but unsigned, un-dated, and of course, never rotarized, the ONLY Undivided Owner so illegally treated, at least on that set of narrow legal facts. This is the same true and correct copy furnished by Plaintiff as Exhibit 7. Not a single Defendant, neither Individual nor Corporate is in a credible position to dispute this document, nor the surrounding facts just recited by Plaintiff. Defendants are not innocent victims of a spurious claim in this Honorable Court. Defendants are illicit profiteers, and/or predatory jackals who have mocked and rejected Plaintiffs pleas for Defendants to reverse and reform their illegal RICO behaviors and their illicit, unjust enrichment from all their crimes and patterns of crimes. Their blatant, arrogant, criminal acts include a further set of Wire Frauds and Mail Frauds, to falsely peddle and propagate this total deception and fraudulent, bogus lease to both insurance companies and Louisiana State Levee Boards, as if such alleged and bogus, pretense lease were valid. Even the other Devil's Swamp Undivided Owners are being defrauded by both Individual and Corporate Defendants, by the failure of being informed by Defendants that any such insurance purchased by Corporate Defendants (contractually required to be purchased by Corporate Defendants to indemnify Devil's Swamp Undivided Owners in case of any liability) is worthless and invalid. But neither Individual Defendants are too shy to breach their sacred fiduciary duties and obligations to their fellow Undivided Owners, nor are Corporate Defendants too shy to make a mockery and sham of their good faith obligations to the Devil's Swamp Undivided Owners, of which Plaintiff Williams is merely a tiny minority, but still a listed and recognized Undivided Owner, which Corporate Defendants' own bogus lease copy which Corporate Defendants' supplied via aforementioned email to Williams, after the fact, conclusively proves and establishes. Furthermore, Plaintiff Williams has calmly and patiently taken the good faith initiative and reached out to Corporate Defendants for over three years to seek some first good faith from Corporate Defendants, which further establishes beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Corporate Defendants had incorrigibly continued FOR YEARS to pile up illicit funds and circulate their ongoing, illicit RICO proceeds to their Corporate family, without any shame. Neither these Individual Defendants, nor the Corporate Defendants, who have mocked Plaintiff Williams' multiple good faith attempts for proper and appropriate redress from Corporate Defendants, are good and wholesome and innocent citizens in this multi-year and still ongoing filthy saga. Defendants are shameless Racketeers, who are not too shy for all these unabated years, to criminally trespass, commercially bribe, use wire fraud, and mail fraud, general fraud, and other criminal conspiracies, to unjustly and illicitly profiteer in the multi-millions of dollars each year, from defrauding not only Plaintiff Williams, but all the other Undivided Owners (other than LeBlanc and Moyse), and propagate and foist frauds upon insurance companies and Louisiana State Levee Boards. Neither Corporate Defendants nor Individual Defendants can believably deny their bad faith and regular and ongoing illicit millions of dollars from their series of shockingly bold and unabated frauds and thefts and trespasses and RICO conspiracies. Defendants' incorrigibly bad behavior, and mockery of good faith and decent behavior, for years, has finally landed them in This Honorable Federal Court, which should also, Plaintiff Williams prays, grant Plaintiff Summary Judgment as a matter for the law-finder, leaving only the damages for a jury, as fact finders, to be determined. Plaintiff Williams humbly trusts in and leaves it to the discretion of this Honorable Court to Sua Sponte issue whatever this Honorable Court sees fit to safeguard this process in this Honorable Court.
On, or about, July 5, 2016, Plaintiff Williams contacted an Indiana Corporate (now) Defendant to enquire as to whether the (now) Defendants intended to pursue another and subsequent and new lease to the recently expired 15 - year lease, which had expired on or about March 31
, 2016. After being informed that the previous legal counsel for the (now) Defendant Corporation whom Williams has spoken to in the past was no longer with the barge company, Williams was then connected with another legal counsel for the barge company, one Sean P. Gallagher. After Williams successfully identified himself to Counsel Gallagher as one of the various Undivided Owners of Devils Swamp along the Mississippi River, in Louisiana, north of Baton Rouge, the roughly 2, 000 acres that their barge companies had previously leased for 15 years, Williams enquired whether the barge companies still had any good faith interest in leasing Devils Swamp for perhaps another similar term as before. Gallagher then stated the obviously false premise and undeniably bogus statement to Williams that the barge companies had already procured and executed a successful lease, which was just as big a lie and as absurd and fraudulent then as it is now. Williams retorted to Gallagher the obvious and undeniable fact that neither Gallagher, then, nor any representative of any of the related barge and/or corporate entities, nor either of the 2 Individual Louisiana (now) Defendants have ever made ANY initiative at any time to negotiate in good faith ANY lease contract with Undivided Owner Williams.
Nor has ANY Defendant ever taken any positive response to any of Plaintiff Williams' initiatives and overtures over the years, and Defendants' only response has been to press forward and continue illegally their illicit Racketeering enterprise and collect their illicit proceeds from their plethora of frauds, both general, wire, and mail frauds necessary to perpetuate the racketeering conspiracies, thefts, commercial briberies to Defendants LeBlanc and Moyse, and criminal trespassing on Plaintiff Williams' Undivided Ownership property. Since Indiana Corporate Defendants either admit or cannot deny that Plaintiff Williams has never agreed to nor signed the sham document that Defendants elsewhere imply is an actual lease, Defendants have each and ALL effectively admitted and/or stipulated to this Honorable Court that the Defendants know that they have been operating from the beginning under a complete sham and fraud, in order to rob Plaintiff Williams of his property rights and criminally trespass on Williams' property, in total bad faith, in order to continue to pile up additional tens of millions of illegal and illicit Racketeering dollars each additional year, which was obviously Defendants' evil boon.
No other legitimate reason for Defendants' stonewalling and obstinate Racketeering illegal tactics can even be sensibly postulated after Williams' years of patient but firm initiatives and entreaties that Defendants have from the beginning rejected, so that they might callously and shockingly pile up additional tens of millions each year in illicit Racketeering proceeds to share, while Defendants trashed and hijacked and mocked all of Williams' Constitutional rights, including equal protection under the law. The totally callous and lawless, obvious Racketeering conspiracy of the Defendants to simply and illegally take and rob and use Williams' property, without even any good faith attempt to either negotiate or even contact Undivided Property Owner Williams (so identified even in Defendants' own sham, scam, fraud proposed lease document they almost quietly mumble is a lease, but obviously is NO LEASE at all, and Defendants ALL KNOW that this fraud, scam, sham is NO LEASE AT ALL !). But the Court should remember that not only in its Racketeering inception of this sham, scam, fraud of a purported lease document, but more shocking and serious is the disgustingly lawless actions of Defendants, after Williams finds out that Defendants are trying to utilize mail frauds and wire frauds to disseminate, broaden, and widen and further their initial lease fraud documents, as they were so recklessly bold to purse additional tens of millions of dollars in illicit Racketeering proceeds each year as they propagated their sham, scam, fraudulent lease documents and pawned them off to insurance companies and Louisiana State Levee Boards and to other innocent and unsuspecting Undivided Owners of Devils Swamp, never informing the other Undivided Owners that the alleged indemnity liability insurance coverage allegedly intended by Defendants to protect all Undivided Owners that corporate and LLC Defendants were obligated to purchase for all Undivided Owners was worthless, because it was predicated upon what all Defendants know were false, fraudulent lease documents, Oh, what a tangled web Defendants weaved, when first they practiced to deceive. Whether Defendants scam and perpetrate multiple and growing list of offenses and frauds, not only against Williams, but also against all the other Undivided Owners (except Moyse and LeBlanc, who are IN on the whole filthy deal), and insurance companies, and Louisiana State Levee Boards, no ever growing and burgeoning list is too broad for this Racketeering conspiracy's ever larger web of deceit, fraud, thefts, criminal trespassing, commercial bribery to LeBlanc and Moyse, etc., ad nauseam. Multi-billion dollar corporations, whether Platinum in California, which owned and controlled the Indiana Corporations, or the Indiana Barge related companies all listed by the Indiana Secretary of State as domiciled in the precisely identical address, nor LeBlanc and Moyse, cannot be allowed to simply trash all American law.
As the non-lawyer layman which Plaintiff Williams admittedly is, Plaintiff argues confidently that such unholy Racketeering conspiracies and violations as reflected in even the verbiage and content of Defendants' sham, scam, purportedly, and falsely alleged lease document reveals, and which even to this late date is still illicitly being relied upon fraudulently by the Defendants, no Defendant can be allowed to argue that either control and/or ownership (by Platinum Defendants of Corporate Indiana Defendants), and/or sharing and/or benefiting in the past and/or continuing Racketeering proceeds does not confer legal and financial liability and exposure. All Jeffersonville, Indiana based Corporate Defendants are apparently domiciled out of the same, exact 1701 E. Market St. address, and all are represented and defended by the same precise legal firm and legal counselors, precisely the same as the Platinum California based Defendants who curiously failed to reveal to the Court when and why Platinum allegedly divested equity ownership of the Indiana LLCs and Corporations owned and/or controlled by Platinum since 2010, and during the relevant periods covered by this suit. The Racketeering Act places such corporate owners squarely in the cross-hairs of the 1970 Crime Control Act, but Platinum Defendants wish to evade, dodge, and avoid those plain and undeniable truths of the law and the facts.
All of the ongoing Corporate restructuring and reorganization and mergers and successions of the Indiana Corporate Defendants, as well as their historically identical addresses, reveals the incestuous and intimate nature of the Racketeering sharing of illicit proceeds and benefits and resources in furtherance of their illegal schemes and enterprises, ongoing for years up to the present date. None of the Defendants' schemes, frauds, and other myriad of offenses against Williams (and which deleteriously affected other innocent parties as well) could have been pulled off without the willing Racketeering co-Conspirators LeBlanc and Moyse (see sham, fraud lease document Exhibit 7), who also, unsurprisingly argue to this Honorable Court to dismiss any Racketeering claims against them also. The construction and dissemination of the sham, fraud lease document, and LeBlanc and Moyse's betraying silence to LeBlanc's and Moyse's fellow Undivided Owners, including Williams, is breathtaking in its evil fiduciary betrayal and scope.
This central and core fraudulent, sham lease document did not accidentally and magically appear out of thin air to illicitly benefit no one in particular. Neither did the sham, fraud, theft document magically distribute itself through the mails and the wires. The illicitly obtained yearly tens of millions of dollars that flowed and still flow each year impacted various Defendants' bank balances, one way or another. Human beings with these Defendants planned and constructed and disseminated and circulated documents and/or benefited and/or still benefit from their illegal schemes and enterprise.
A plain and undeniable truth and an overriding core of this case revolves around illicitly operating Defendants' desperate desire to distract this Honorable Court from its proper focus on a horrendous and conscience shocking set of years old and ongoing Racketeering acts committed by Defendants and the strong and powerful Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 that was specifically designed to discourage, prevent, and punish such brazen evil-doers and remove all illicit financial gain from their Racketeering schemes and enterprise.
Defendants desperately wish for this Honorable Court to prematurely focus on and elevate Defendants' disputed and disputable assertions and be wholly consumed with straining out the minutia of disputable factual gnats, while it simultaneously swallows a host of Defendants' illegal Racketeering camels whole.
What Defendants wish this Honorable Court to be distracted from and ignore is an outstanding plethora of yet undisputed and ongoing for years, until this present day, RICO violations and offenses that cannot be honorably winked at and ignored, nor subjugated to some minor, miniscule status. Defendants wish this Honorable Court to do is to elevate and magnify premature factual questions and disputes suited instead for a properly empaneled fact finder.
Plaintiff has voluntarily responded without hesitation to Defendants' dilatory pretense arguments that they need a more definite statement to respond to Plaintiffs Complaint. Following the pattern already established in documents filed in this Honorable Court previously by attorneys for various Defendants, Plaintiff will also divide the Defendants into Individual Defendants (LeBlanc and Moyse) and Corporate Defendants (all of whom bear identical addresses either in Indiana or California, and are all represented and defended by the same New Orleans based law firm). Both Individual Defendants are also fellow Undivided Owners along with Plaintiff of Devil's Swamp, nearly 2, 000 acres north of Baton Rouge, along the Mississippi River, which Corporate Defendants had previously and justly and validly profited from in the multi-millions of dollars, from a just, valid, legitimate, and previous, 15 year river barge and docking lease of the same property. Both Individual Defendants, LeBlanc and Moyse, had previously acted as limited agents of not only Plaintiff Williams, but also all the other numerous Undivided Owners, in their narrow agency of merely negotiating and crafting a proposed lease with certain of the Corporate Defendants, which would be then submitted to each and every Undivided Owner, for their own individual approval or disapproval, but which lease would require unanimous approval of each and every Undivided Owner, without exception. Such a lease would stand to ripple through proceeds to all of the Corporate Defendants, in varying amounts and/or ways. Plaintiff Williams had approached both Individual Defendants long distance long before the 1st 15 year lease expired, and at different times when it became evident that first one, then later both Individual Defendants were no longer acting in the required legal, honorable and necessary fiduciary interest of Plaintiff, a fellow Undivided Owner with Individual Defendants of Devil's Swamp, and despite Plaintiffs sincere pleas to those limited agents and 2 fellow Undivided Owners to reform their legally deficient ways, and discontinue their shocking fiduciary betrayals and behaviors of Plaintiffs sacred and legally protected legal and financial interests, when each Individual Defendant subsequently refused and failed to abandon their fiduciary betrayals of Plaintiff, Plaintiff Williams officially terminated each of those limited agents from representing Plaintiff in any and all negotiations with either Corporate Defendants or anyone else, regarding a possible future and/or potential 2nd Devil's Swamp lease. However, behind Plaintiff Williams' back, what both Individual and certain Corporate Defendants did, was to enter into a RICO conspiracy to illegally grab, steal, cheat, rob, and defraud Plaintiff Williams of his Devil's Swamp property and his property rights, which can be undeniably observed from the new, totally bogus, totally illegitimate, totally fraudulent, pretend/fake lease, which Individual Defendants still shockingly and offensively refer in their first legal filings with this Honorable Court, as if it is a legitimate, valid, good faith lease. Nothing could be further from the truth! Corporate and Individual Defendants illicitly, illegally, and shockingly either RICO conspired and/or RICO illicitly profited from a prima facie, fraudulent, bogus, fake lease and no Defendants, neither Corporate, nor Individual, even furnished any notice whatsoever, nor any copy of same to Undivided Owner Robert Williams, nor allowed Undivided Owner Robert Williams to negotiate, nor accept, nor reject their fraudulent lease. Plaintiff Williams being unaware of what these RICO conspirators were scheming and planning and executing in their illegal enterprise, on or around July 5th, 2016, when Plaintiff Williams contacted the internal legal department of a Corporate Defendant (see exhibits in Original Complaint) to ascertain if Corporate Defendants were intending to pursue any negotiations of a 2nd, valid, legitimate, 15 year lease on Devil's Swamp, Plaintiff Williams was forwarded to in house Corporate Defendant Attorney Sean P. Gallagher, who first informed Plaintiff Williams that Corporate Defendants were way beyond pursuing another and subsequent lease on Devil's Swamp, since such lease was "already signed, executed, and in effect." Plaintiff Williams simply verbally responded to Gallagher that Gallagher and his employers knew that such was a legal impossibility, since Undivided Owner Williams had NEVER even been contacted or informed or supplied with any such proposed lease, no good faith negotiations had taken place, and, of course, never signed off nor agreed to any alleged, proposed lease which had been conspiratorially and RICO hidden from him, by both Corporate and Individual Defendants. Plaintiff Williams at the same verbal conversation with Gallagher, demanded that Gallagher immediately email Williams a copy of this heretofore secret, hidden, alleged lease, which Williams then, and subsequently stated, by definition, MUST and NECESSARILY be a invalid, bogus, fake, and fraudulent lease, since it admittedly does not have the required consent, agreement, and knowledge of each and all of the Undivided Owners, even though it clearly lists Plaintiff Robert Williams as an "Undivided Owner", but same fraudulent document shows Plaintiff Williams' signature page with the then correct address, but unsigned, un-dated, and of course, never notarized, the ONLY Undivided Owner so illegally treated, on that set of legal facts. This is the same true and correct copy furnished by Plaintiff as an Exhibit in Plaintiffs Original Complaint. Not a single Defendant, neither Individual nor Corporate is in a credible position to Dispute this document, nor the surrounding facts just recited by Plaintiff. Defendants are not innocent victims of a spurious claim in this Honorable Court. Defendants are illicit profiteers, and/or predatory jackals who have mocked and rejected Plaintiffs pleas for Defendants to reverse and reform their illegal RICO behaviors and their illicit, unjust enrichment from all their crimes and patterns of crimes. Their blatant, arrogant, criminal acts include a further set of Wire Frauds and Mail Frauds, to falsely peddle and propagate this total deception and fraudulent, bogus lease to both insurance companies and Louisiana State Levee Boards, as if such alleged and bogus, pretense lease were valid. Even the other Devil's Swamp Undivided Owners are being defrauded by both Individual and Corporate Defendants, by the failure of being informed by Defendants that such any such insurance purchased by Corporate Defendants (contractually required to be purchased by Corporate Defendants to indemnify Devil's Swamp Undivided Owners in case of any liability) is worthless and invalid. But neither Individual Defendants are too shy to breach their sacred fiduciary duties and obligations to their fellow Undivided Owners, nor are Corporate Defendants too shy to make a mockery and sham of their good faith obligations to the Devil's Swamp Undivided Owners, of which Plaintiff Williams is merely a tiny minority, but still, listed and recognized Undivided Owner, which Corporate Defendants' own bogus lease copy which Corporate Defendants' supplied via aforementioned email to Williams, after the fact, conclusively proves and establishes. Furthermore, Plaintiff Williams has calmly and patiently taken the good faith initiative and reached out to Corporate Defendants for over 3 years to seek some first good faith from Corporate Defendants, which further establishes beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Corporate Defendants had incorrigibly continued FOR YEARS to pile up and circulate their ongoing, illicit RICO proceeds to their Corporate family, without any shame. Neither these Individual Defendants, nor the Corporate Defendants, who have mocked Plaintiff Williams' multiple good faith attempts for proper and appropriate redress from Corporate Defendants, are good and wholesome and innocent citizens in this multi-year and still ongoing filthy saga. Defendants are shameless Racketeers, who are not too shy for all these unabated years, to criminally trespass, commercially bribe, use wire fraud, and mail fraud, general fraud, and other criminal conspiracies, to unjustly and illicitly profiteer in the multi-millions of dollars each year, from defrauding not only Plaintiff Williams, but all the other Undivided Owners (other than LeBlanc and Moyse), and propagate and foist frauds upon insurance companies and Louisiana State Levee Boards. Neither Corporate Defendants nor Individual Defendants can believably deny their bad faith and regular and ongoing illicit millions of dollars from their series of shockingly bold and unabated frauds and thefts and trespasses and RICO conspiracies. Defendants' incorrigibly bad behavior, and mockery of good faith and decent behavior, for years, has finally landed them in This Honorable Federal Court, which should also, Plaintiff Williams prays, grant Plaintiff Summary Judgment as a matter for the law-finder, leaving only the damages for a jury, as fact finders, to be determined.
Upon information and belief, Pro se Plaintiff Williams believes and alleges that Individual Louisiana Defendants LeBlanc and Moyse, to serve their own initial malicious and malevolent purposes against only Plaintiff, one of their own fellow Undivided Owners and previous Lessors of the 2, 000 acre (approximately) Devils Swamp prime river barge docking property alongside and on the Mississippi River, north of Baton Rouge, in early 2016 and perhaps even before, requested that the previous Indiana based Lessees and all of their necessary and intimately related Indiana Corporate and/or LLC Defendants at the common and precise and identical Jeffersonville, Indiana address, (1701 E. Market Street, Jeffersonville, IN, 47130) as well as their Platinum (Defendant) LLC and/or corporate owner and/or controller Defendants at the precise and identical, LLC and corporate address in CA, (360 N. Crescent Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210) cooperate in LeBlanc and Moyse's attempts to illegally seize, conscript, use, pilfer, and otherwise illicitly utilize Plaintiffs Devils Swamp Undivided property, because LeBlanc and Moyse feared Plaintiff Williams would not agree to sign another lease meant to replace the previous 15 year lease that was expiring soon on or about March 31, 2016. LeBlanc and Moyse's fears were based upon email communications with Plaintiff Williams and verbal phone calls.
LeBlanc and Moyse explained to the necessary and core Indiana Corporate Defendants that LeBlanc and Moyse's conspiracy to steal, rob, pilfer, seize, and maliciously misappropriate and defraud Plaintiff Williams of his Devils Swamp property and his property rights and business rights to same, involved participating in and circulating and maliciously employing with all necessary parties and other victims (including Plaintiff and LeBlanc and Moyse's fellow Undivided Owners, unaware of said Racketeering Conspiracy, unaware insurance companies, and unaware Louisiana Levee Boards) a fraudulent and legally void, but alleged. although false and illegitimate, lease (Exhibit 7) contract. This scheme, as long as all the necessary Indiana Corporate Defendants and California Platinum Defendants, played along with the scheme would overwhelm Defendants believed and gambled, the very poor (ultimately Plaintiff) Williams in East Tex* s, who could not mount Defendants thought, the necessary resources to stand in the way c f the plethora of intended general frauds, wire frauds, mail frauds, thefts, criminal trespassing, commercial briberies, and any and all other misdeeds and assorted illegalities that might or would ultimately be necessary to pull off the multi-year sham lease necessary to callously and corruptly cheat, lie, steal, deceive, and defraud not only Williams, but any other innocent parties and entities naturally brought alongside this tangled and engineered web of deceits that the Defendants would all certainly illicitly profit from, either as fake lessors or fake lessees, or intimate brother/sister LLCs or corporations, or parent/controlling LLCs or corporations, all illicitly profiting from a second replacement 15 year massive and highly profitable barge property lease, to replace the 15 year lease that was soon expiring around March 31, 2016. Since tens of millions of dollars per year of money over another 15 years was so lucrative for all who sucked on this sow's udders had proved so reliable, Defendants gladly took the attendant risk, even if such funds were RICO conspiracy and enterprise obtained, because Defendants bet wrongly about Plaintiff.
One of the several additional proofs and apparent undeniability of Plaintiffs conscience shocking, but well informed aforementioned accounts is the completely fraudulent lease without an Undivided Owner's knowledge, notification, or approval which was knowingly and willfully entered into by certain Defendants with other Defendants receiving fungible funds and/or other tangible benefits from the core of initial RICO conspiracies. The undeniable fact that only Plaintiff took the initiative to reach out to certain RICO Defendants when those Defendants obviously knew full well from circulating their own fraudulent documents through the wires and mails that they were operating illegally and continuously furthering their RICO schemes as they fattened their bank accounts with illicit profits they felt they could not abandon, without adding even more risks of exposure. It was too late for Defendants to turn back, because even turning back wouldn't erase their sordid written and financial trail, nor would it excuse their culpability. For unabated years now, to this very day, Defendants show contempt for not only law and order, and the Criminal Control Act of 1970, but all human decency, despite their wealth and power and three piece suits.
Pro se Plaintiff Williams wishes to apologize to this Honorable Court after reading various defendants each complaining that Pro se Plaintiff failed to first request permission to add three Defendants before Plaintiff both submitted, requested and received Court clerk stamped Summons for those three newly named defendants. Had the admitted legally in artful Pro se Plaintiff been aware such was either required or even suggested by this Honorable Court, Pro se Plaintiff would have gladly complied. Plaintiff wishes to comply in all ways at all times. Pro Se Plaintiff merely believed sincerely that he needed to act upon these corporate re-shufflings of the corporate deck and did what he felt was required to do. Pro se Plaintiff has never meant any offense to this Honorable Court in the slightest way, and should this Court order me to file a belated request with this Honorable Court, or any other order the Court sees fit, Pro se Plaintiff will gladly, humbly, and thankfully comply.
Pro se Plaintiff Williams seeks and is U.S. Constitutionally deserving of due process protection and equal protection under the law, and is also deserving of both protection from, and redress from each and every one of those who have benefited from the illicit and illegal and ONGOING, to this very day, of conscience shockingly successful (even though highly ignoble) RICO conspiracies to deprive Pro se Plaintiff Williams of each and all of his aforementioned and sacred rights, which all jurists would agree are precious, treasured, and inviolable. Each and all of the Indiana Corporate Defendants, intimately co-exist at the same precise, exact, address in Jeffersonville, and appeared and participated in the same Federal Bankruptcy Reorganization in Houston, TX. They have hired and retained the same legal counsel, and are intimately and intrinsically intertwined in the illicit and illegal benefits which all flow to precisely the same revolving cast of characters at precisely the identical address. The purchase and ownership and control by the Platinum (California) Corporate and/or LLC Defendants was loudly and widely circulated in the press, AND on the Platinum website, for years of the ongoing RICO thefts and conspiracies. But nowhere, either in the press or on the Platinum website, does it explain how or why or when or for how much, Platinum allegedly divested itself of the Indiana based (Defendant) Corporations, LLCs that it purchased for nearly one billion dollars! Nor does any practically worthless Platinum affidavit submitted to this Honorable Court address or explain such a financial mystery, while its garbled mumbling and suspicious silence on these huge financial and legal issues would lead many readers to believe (falsely) that Platinum never held ownership nor control over any Indiana Corporate, LLC Defendants! Why avoid the undeniable truth in such affidavits, if they are to be believed and relied upon? Why skirt the issues that the RICO statutes plainly address?
Pro se Plaintiff Williams has been repeatedly informed by crucial and concerned parties as to various defendant's actions and plans, and so Pro se Plaintiff Williams, upon good information and belief, was aware that various defendants had made plans to either pilfer and/or illegitimately transfer Williams' Devils Swamp Undivided Ownership and steal Williams' property rights and potential land income, despite state court findings and court outcomes in multiple states that were dispositively successful in Williams' favor, that would seemingly preclude any defendants from attempting any such illicit and brazen land grab from Williams.
Pro Se Plaintiff Williams has been consistently taking the calm, careful, and ONLY initiative for years in respectful, legal means, to seek redress for serious, multiple and ongoing. to this VERY day, plethora of RICO crimes and offenses against me (and others). If the Court will allow me the indulgence of an imperfect analogy (which all analogies are), the Pro se Plaintiff is forced by Defendants to endure the emotional torture of not only the equivalency of seeing my own community's banks being robbed anew each day, but also having the arrogant and lawless bank robbers set up illicit businesses in those banks that those robbers have acquired NO legal title nor access to, circulating bogus, fraudulent, fake, and knowingly incomplete documents, as if those documents are executory and complete, which they are NOT, for several years, to insurance companies and state agencies (State levee boards), to extend and further their criminal trespassing, property theft, etc., etc. Defendants have brazenly done so to the tune of tens of millions of dollars every year, for already 4 years, and unless this Honorable Court, recognizes that the fraudulent and supporting documents already submitted by Pro se Plaintiff clearly establish the shocking horrors of this prima facia fact, Defendants will continue to get away with ongoing, repetitive, RICO conspiracy frauds, robberies, thefts, criminal trespassing and more with impunity! Pro se, non-lawyer, Plaintiff will agree with Defendants' claims that Plaintiff is legally in artful, being a non-lawyer and also Pro se. But the righteous objective of the ends of justice being paramount for this Honorable Court, can we please take steps to staunch the illegal, illicit, profiteering by the Defendants of their cocky, contempt of law, arrogant in the extreme years of bloodletting unleashed on the Plaintiff? This Honorable court is my E.R., where I seek legal and financial survival after being attacked by a conspiracy of ruthless corporate and individual thugs. Defendants have argued that Pro se Plaintiff;s claims are "inflammatory" ... Plaintiff takes extreme exception to this false and pejorative libel. Plaintiff has told the truth and facts about Defendants' illicit and inflammatory actions! Instead of Defendants LeBlanc and Moyse protecting and safeguarding the sacred welfare of their fellow Undivided Owner and Plaintiff Williams (nor safeguarding and protecting the sacred welfare of their OTHER fellow Undivided Owners), LeBlanc and Moyse started the ball rolling for various Corporate Defendants in a conspiratorial RICO scheme to defraud and cheat and criminally trespass and commit other grievous offenses against Plaintiff Williams, even though it did harm and risked further harm to other and fellow Undivided Owners, who were unaware of LeBlanc and Moyse RICO schemes with Corporate Defendants who also illicitly benefited and profited. There is simply NO valid reason nor excuse, other than the illicit RICO schemes, to explain why, for years, that now Plaintiff Williams after approaching various Defendants for some redress, was totally rebuffed, knowing how naked and bare Defendants' obviously and indisputably fraudulent lease documents show them to be. Fruit of their poisonous tree! All that springs from their illicit actions is poisoned! Why else risk the legal and financial exposure, unless the huge cracks in their knowingly faulty construction dam require more cover up? Why else contemptuously stonewall Williams and dare him to become Plaintiff Williams rather than offer anything of good faith? Defendants know, all to well, that the written source of their ongoing frauds, is a giant fraud and con itself! Why not argue that the distribution of any and all funds to their corporate cronies is perfectly legitimate and antiseptically clean, because they have never participated in any way in illicitly profiting from schemes or actions that circulated any fraudulent documents to the detriment of anyone, including Plaintiff Williams? Because they know that opens them to obvious, provable perjury before this Honorable Court. Why cannot any Defendants show that Plaintiff Williams was ever allowed to negotiate in good faith before Defendants stole his land and property rights? Defendants must desperately avoid a trial and a properly empaneled fact finder, even if Plaintiff is a Pro se, non-lawyer, single old man, and Defendants have teams of top notch legal counsel from highly respected firms that should make mincemeat of of an old, in artful, non-lawyer, who only makes inflammatory claims for which he has no evidence! Legal atrocities that arrogantly are being daily re-committed with legal contempt and impunity that shock the conscience should outweigh defective outwardly pretty affidavits that hide and avoid crucial truths. Such daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, ongoing legal atrocities that shock the conscience should be in the interests of justice to quelch, and should take a front seat to the alleged in artful expressions of a non-lawyer, pro se plaintiff who is being emotionally tortured and humiliated and treated as a non-human unworthy of respect and dignity and citizenship status. Defendants wish to bury Pro Se Plaintiffs pleas for justice and redress with a mountain of procedural and in artful imperfections that should be liberally construed.
17. Plaintiff has been injured in his business, property and reputation by reason of Defendants' multiple violations of Title 18 U.S.C. §1962, as described above. Defendants proximately caused Plaintiffs loss. Their illicit, collusive and illegal RICO actions led directly to Plaintiffs injuries. Defendants have engaged in at least two acts of racketeering activity, wire fraud and mail fraud; one or more of which occurred after the effective date of Part 1, Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the United States Code and the last of which occurred within ten years after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity. Defendants operated or managed an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. Defendants continue to engage in related racketeering activity, the direct purpose of which is to defraud, intimidate and harm Plaintiff and others, and to interfere with interstate commerce. The nature of the Defendants' racketeering activity (including multiple schemes or artifices), its continuity (over many years), its relatedness (same modus operandi as has been used against multiple other targets, same or similar purposes, results and methods of commission), and its breadth, (the sheer number of victims), is such that there is a threat that it will continue indefinitely and be repeated in the future. Defendants' past misconduct, undertaken against Plaintiff and others, by its nature projects into the future with the threat of repetition.
18. As a direct and proximate cause of the Defendants' violations of Title 18 U.S.C. § 1962(a-c), Plaintiff suffered injury and loss, being brazenly deprived by Defendants illicitly of his property and his rights.
19. In accordance with 18 U.S.C § 1964(c), Plaintiff seeks threefold the damages he has sustained, and/or that Defendants have illicitly profited from, the costs of this suit, and reasonable attorney's fees incurred.
COUNT III - COMMON LAW CONSPIRACY
20. Plaintiff restates paragraphs I through 24 of this Complaint and incorporates them herein by reference.
21. The Defendants' actions, detailed above, constitute a conspiracy at common law.
22. As a direct result of the Defendants' willful misconduct, Plaintiff suffered damage and incurred loss, including, but not limited to, injury to his business property, and reputation, court costs, and other damages.
CONCLUSION
23. AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., fraudulently developed the bogus and fraudulent Lease intentionally unsubmitted to Plaintiff, unsigned by Plaintiff, (EXHIBIT 7) and disseminated it as if it were true and complete. Plaintiff investigated this wrongdoing, causing Defendant's to retaliate against him and to take action that was intended to harass, intimidate and illicitly influence Plaintiff. That retaliation and obstruction of justice consisted of a coordinated effort by the Defendants to silence and intimidate Petitioner. Defendants' corrupt acts of racketeering are part of their regular way of doing business for years now. That way of doing business must end here and now.
Plaintiff alleges the foregoing based upon personal knowledge, public statements of others, and records in his possession. Plaintiff believes that substantial additional evidentiary support, which is in the exclusive possession of the Defendants and their agents and other third-parties, will exist for the allegations and claims set forth above after a reasonable opportunity for discovery.
Plaintiff reserves his right to amend this Complaint upon discovery of additional instances of the Defendants' wrongdoing.
In every American contract, and in ALL jurisdictions, without exception, there is the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. The relevant, but totally bogus and illicit, fraudulent "alleged lease contract" that these RICO defendant's are responsible for even mentions and refers to that good faith duty of theirs, but it only adds to their enormous guilt and their inexcusable heinous actions and crimes and offenses against not only the Plaintiff, but all other interested parties, including the other undivided owners of Devil's Swamp, insurance companies, Louisiana State Levee Boards, et cetera. Defendants not only placed themselves above all law and fair dealing and good faith with their known bad faith, bogus, illicit, fraudulent, alleged contract misdeeds, but emphasized and ratified these illicit RICO conspiracies for every day and every week, and every month and every year, of their piling up their illicitly procured and ill gotten gains as they operated their RICO enterprise through criminal trespass, commercial bribery, theft, wire fraud, mail fraud, general fraud, and all their attendant conspiracies of the aforementioned. The defendant's level of arrogance and cold-hearted mockery of the entire legal system is breath taking. We hear politicians often proclaim "No one is above the law!" but Defendant's actions proclaim loudly and with impunity, "We ARE ABOVE the law! We are billionaire sized bullies and MIGHT makes us RIGHT! We RICO conspirators are not bound by anyone's law or morals. The Defendants illegal actions say we take what we want without approval, without agreement, without proper negotiation, without all signatures, without shame, without good faith, without fair dealing, and we dare you to do anything about it! We, Defendant RICO conspirators will illegally benefit and profit from our illegal, illicit, bogus, lawless, fraudulent RICO schemes and keep our soiled and dirty monies." If that corrupt mindset of billionaire and millionaire bullies doesn't cry out for justice, no one in America is safe until these RICO conspirators are placed under the law by a court of competent jurisdiction, namely this honorable court. As can be seen by current (and even more by future) exhibits, Defendant's RICO conspirators outrageously and egregiously refused to be subject to all basic lawful rules, when Plaintiff has for years taken the initiative to notify them of their prima facie lawlessness and RICO conspiracies. For years, Defendant's response was an arrogant and contemptuous refusal to abide by the laws that bind the rest of us mere mortals. Defendants knew what they kept profiting from was illegal, but plainly did not care about the law. This honorable court must teach them the error of their ongoing lawless ways and RICO schemes from which they continue to illegally profit. From July 5, 2016, when Plaintiff contacted Defendants until middle and late 2018, when Plaintiff again took the sole initiative to communicate with Defendants concerning their propagating and disseminating, in a RICO scheme revolving around that fraudulent and bogus lease, all the while Defendants profited from their criminal trespass, theft, frauds, and commercial bribery, racketeering, conspiracies, etc. Their only constant was that Defendants refused to explain or defend their various criminal actions other than to say their outside Louisiana (New Orleans) lawyers (whom they initially refused to identify to Plaintiff) also claimed they were entitled to commit their lawless actions though they refused to quote any statute or any jurisprudence which placed them above the law. Defendants plainly are and were incorrigible in carrying out and continually profiting for all these years, to date, from their illicit racketeering enterprise. Only this honorable federal court can teach them that they are not above the law and that they cannot share in any of their illicit racketeering proceeds proceeds and/or benefits with impunity.
CONCLUSION AND REQUEST FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff respectfully requests the Court to enter Judgment against the Defendants, jointly and severally, as follows:
A. Compensatory damages in the amount of $9,000,000.00, or such greater amount as is determined by the Jury;
B. Threefold damages in the sum of $27,000, 00.00 (or such greater amount as is determined by the Jury in A. above);
C. Punitive damages in the amount of $350,000 or the maximum amount allowed by law;
D. Disgorgement of all income and profit obtained by the enterprise from or as a result of the alleged racketeering activity;
E. Injunctive relief in accordance with Title 18 U.S.C. § 1964;
F. Dissolution and/or reorganization of various organizations to prevent these Defendants from engaging in wrongdoing in the future;
G. Prejudgment interest at the maximum rate allowed by law;
H. Post-judgment interest on the principal sum of the Judgment entered against AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES, INC., PLATINUM EQUITY, LLC, PLATINUM EQUITY ADVISORS, LLC, GORDON S. LEBLANC, JR., HERMANN MOYSE, III, ACBL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, LLC, ACL I CORPORATION, COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE COMPANY, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BARGE LINE, LLC, AMERICAN COMMERCIAL LINES INTERNATIONAL LLC, ACBL OLDCO, LLC, ACBL RIVER OPERATIONS LLC, ACL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES INC., from the date of Judgment until paid;
I. Attorney's Fees, Expert Witness Fees and Costs;
J. Such other relief as is just and proper.