Law Firms Run Interference, Cover-Up and
Damage Control
“I proclaim
that justice is nothing but the interest of the stronger."
Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic I,
338c
When
wealthy and powerful elites want information they stop at nothing to get
it. This includes the use of corporate
espionage and racketeering directed against any entity – even private citizens
– who threaten their interests. It also
includes the strategic use of law firms to do their bidding.
This is the story
of John C. Dodd III, a man who believed in the system and tried to do the right
thing – only to be betrayed and pauperized by two law firms he thought were on
his side. But this story has implications
far beyond Dodd’s own story. It is one
echoed as far back as ancient Greece
in the above quote by the Sophist Thrasymachus, that “justice is nothing but the interest of the stronger.” Today, the “stronger,” (wealthier, more
powerful, more influential) certainly appear to be the corporate elites and
their law firms, whose contacts and influence are such that they extend to all
three branches of government, public relations firms, and mainstream media.[i]
Beckett
Brown International (BBI), later renamed S2i, was a corporate espionage group
comprised of former Secret Service, CIA, NSA-type scoundrels and
ne’er-do-wells.
But in 1995 when Dodd
first invested in BBI to get it up and running in
Anne Arundel County, Maryland,
this group represented itself as a “high-end security company,” giving Dodd the
impression that they provided body-guard, Secret Service-type protection
services.
Dodd had no idea then that BBI
had the capability to hack into the security of MARS, one of the most secretive
and security-conscious corporations in the world.
In fact, BBI
did hack into MARS on behalf of Nestle,
[ii] just
as it hacked into the Bank of Glen Burnie on behalf of Ed Hale, CEO of 1
st
Mariner Bank, during Hale’s hostile takeover attempt of that bank.
In 1999 president
of BBI, Richard Beckett, suddenly resigned.
Beckett then made an attempt to blackmail Dodd that can only be
described as “odd.” He demanded $50,000
and releases of liability in exchange for keeping things mum about BBI’s
wrongdoing, claiming Dodd was in a compromised position as Chairman of the
Board. And yet, strangely, Beckett
refused to produce a shred of evidence to substantiate any wrongdoing, while
other BBI managers denied that BBI had engaged in any wrongful activities
(telling Dodd that Beckett was just trying to “shake you down.”)
As the tumult of
the next few years grew, Dodd’s suspicions grew right along with them. Not only had the officers of BBI failed to
pay Dodd back as agreed for his investment, it would turn out that they were
out-and-out defrauding him. Moreover,
their suspected criminal wrongdoing (the nature and extent of which was not yet
known at that time) opened up a very real possibility that Dodd might be
dragged down with them.
In
2001, when Dodd definitively learned about BBI’s real activities, he drove a
truck to their office in Severna Park,
Maryland, to confiscate what its
operatives had not already removed or destroyed. He carted off hundreds of thousands of
documents.
The principal
operatives of BBI included Richard Beckett, Paul Rakowski, and Timothy Ward,
then living in Talbot County, MD (“spook central”, according to many
knowledgeable sources in Louisiana involved in the racketeering lawsuits
against operatives of BBI/S2i and their clients, Dow Chemical and Sasol North
America, etc.
[iii]).
In fact, among the notables who have retired
to
Talbot County
on
Maryland’s
Eastern
Shore are Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
In
February, 2001 Dodd was referred to the Baltimore
law firm of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes by an attorney involved in the audit of
BBI’s books. After meeting with Semmes
partner and then chairman, Cleveland Miller, Dodd believed he had retained Mr.
Miller to represent him in his lawsuit against BBI. Dodd was set to sue them in his individual
capacity and as BBI’s Chairman of the Board.
Shortly thereafter, Semmes made multiple trips to Talbot County
to examine the documents, taking some back with them from time-to-time. Dodd was kept extremely busy by Semmes, who
was incessantly calling upon him to find and send specific documents that they
requested. He did not have much extra
time or much incentive at that point to really pore through the documents.
Ultimately, Semmes
suggested that they send a truck over and take possession of the documents. Given what Dodd discovered much later among
the documents, it must have slowly dawned on Semmes just how explosive some of
these documents were. The attorney initially
put in charge of the case, Mark Grimes, directed that all but twelve boxes be
loaded onto the truck. Dodd did not see
those documents again until just before the trial got underway in 2005, and was
too busy then to really see and fully grasp the import of what it was he had
shipped to Semmes. Nor did he look into
the twelve boxes for a good long while.
Suddenly, Attorney
Grimes, after being on the case for about two years, was no longer with Semmes
(probably, as Dodd speculates, because the ex-Philly City cop was doing too
good a job). Semmes then proceeded to
ping-pong their client from attorney Mark Grimes to attorneys Ken Knuckey, Matt
Weir, and finally to partner James Johnson, who actually litigated (or at least
pretended to litigate) Dodd’s case in Talbot County Circuit Court before Judge
Raymond Beck. Semmes attorneys had pored
over the Ed Hale/ Bank of Glen Burnie documents a good six months before the
trial and knew full well about the reams of printouts with the private
information of its bank customers (including many notable Talbot County
residents). In spite of knowing this, no
evidence of obvious theft was ever introduced by Semmes at trial. Why? – because Ed Hale, the CEO of 1st
Mariner Bank, was a client of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, that’s why. This was an outrageous conflict of interest, if,
as documents Dodd later discovered tended to show, Hale had engaged the
services of BBI in his attack on the Bank of Glen Burnie.
A
former Semmes attorney whom Dodd approached in hopes of retaining legal
representation was quoted as saying that “Semmes is very good at covering
things up.”
It would certainly appear
that Semmes damage control was on high alert in this instance.
To prepare for
trial, Semmes hired a so-called management expert – an expert witness who cost
Dodd over $250,000 – but who would be thrown out by the judge at trial for
being unqualified.
The other expert
witness hired by Semmes, a forensic accounting expert,
was allowed to testify.
However, the chart he presented to the jury (a chart reportedly prepared
by Semmes) had a glaring math error of $800,000.
The fees for this expert?
He billed $500,000 – Dodd ultimately paid him
$400,000.
Moreover, after filling up the
back of the courtroom with multiple boxes, Semmes never presented a shred of
evidence on corporate espionage or racketeering.
Instead it half-heartedly concentrated only
on the fraud allegations.
Suffice it to
say that Semmes carefully engineered the throwing of the case, while seeing to
it that they systematically drained all of Dodd’s assets in the process.
Dodd of course lost.
After the trial, upon leaving the court,
James Johnson threatened Dodd, saying in a forceful manner that he “would
suffer severe consequences” if he “told anyone anything at all about the
BBI/S2i criminal activities.”
Johnson
himself admitted in a telephone conversation with Dodd some weeks later that Ed
Hale of 1st Mariner Bank, was indeed a Semmes client.
Upon being
threatened in this manner by his own attorney, Dodd was convinced Semmes had
sold him down the river. He then
seriously set to work poring over the documents to see just what was going on
and who BBI had harmed. It turned out
that BBI was indeed into corporate espionage and racketeering in a BIG
way. BBI had infiltrated and stole trade
secrets and proprietary information from organizations far and wide. Targets ranged from Greenpeace and the
doctors’ and lawyers’ offices of private citizens down in Louisiana,
to The Hebrew Home Advocacy Group in Rockville, MD and Children’s Hospital of Boston.
It even included spook mind-games
against a likely contender to be spokesperson for Mary Kay Cosmetics. Eventually Dodd began contacting these and
other victims to alert them of BBI’s nefarious operations and to disclose to
each as much as he could.
In
the Fall of 2006, about a year after the bitter end of the “pantomime trial”
that Semmes put on for the Talbot County Circuit Court, Williams & Connolly
responded to Dodd’s heads-up to their client, MARS. They quickly arrived on the scene – Dodd’s
home in Easton, MD, where he had carted and amassed the
relevant documents and other materials.
Dodd and his assistants repeatedly asked members of the W&C
retrieval team whether they had any conflicts of interest with regard to Semmes
prior to, during, and after their three-week foray into his documents. Williams & Connolly repeatedly denied
that they had any conflicts.
During
their multiple-week sojourn with Dodd, W&C attorneys lent a very
sympathetic ear to him and to the way Semmes had mishandled his case. They found irrefutable evidence of all kinds
of thefts of trade secrets and proprietary information. (Semmes, having had possession of the
documents for almost three years, certainly had time to review them. In fact Dodd had been billed hundred of
thousands of dollars for Semmes to do just that, and yet Semmes repeatedly
denied that there was any convincing evidence of wrongdoing.)
W&C kept
reassuring him that when they sued Nestle over this matter that Dodd would at
least be partially vindicated by their showing that there indeed existed a huge
corporate espionage scandal. Obviously,
proof of corporate espionage and racketeering by BBI would help Dodd immensely
in his planned malpractice case against Semmes.
Then W&C dangled the carrot out even further, floating the idea of
possibly representing Dodd in his malpractice action against Semmes.
But
W&C had a conflict of interest after all – one big enough to drive the
truck through that they used to haul off Dodd’s documents. W&C, it turned out, represented the legal
malpractice insurer for Semmes, Bowen & Semmes. Obviously if Semmes lost a malpractice
lawsuit against them, the legal malpractice insurer would be on the hook for
the damages, which would almost certainly include punitives in the millions of
dollars. Thus, W&C had a vested
interest in covering-up this massive corporate espionage as well, and not just
to ward off unwanted publicity for its client, MARS.
So what did they
do? After creating a sense of complete
empathy and trust, W&C lulled Dodd into allowing them to remove whatever
documents they wished. They did so by
orally promising him that they would deliver a complete, written accounting of
the items that they had in their possession, and would return every scrap to
him once they were done with them.
As
the astute reader might guess, W&C never sued Nestle. Not only that, W&C never produced an
accounting of the documents and hard drives that they had so deviously
procured. And in the end, much of what
they took they kept. What they did ship back to Dodd had been so
ransacked – e.g., pages torn from briefing binders and documents in such
complete disarray that it was impossible to figure the source from whence a
particular document came and to what exactly it pertained. The result of their efforts was that the
documents were practically worthless as evidence to introduce at trial.
Due
to the tremendous experts’ fees and legal bills that Semmes generated of over
$2 million (while all the while stabbing him in the back), plus failing to
recover his BBI investment of over $700,000, Dodd finally was unable to pay his
mortgage when it came due in mid-2009.
Dodd, now practically penniless, had to fight yet again, this time just
to save his home and keep a roof over his head.
[iv]
Around
this time Dodd contacted the FDIC about 1st Mariner Bank and the
Bank of Glen Burnie. In response he
received some routine form letters from their Consumer Response
Center.
More to the point,
Dodd, having been pauperized by Semmes, now had no financial where-with-all to
retain a law firm to go after them – even if he could find one willing to do
so. Most of the attorneys that Dodd
consulted told him, effectively, that they could not go after Semmes because
they would be destroyed if they did.
It may be a hard
truism to accept, but no big law firm (i.e., one with the available and
necessary resources) is willing to accept cases against other major-player law
firms. There seems to be an unwritten
code of conduct among noted barristers not to “rock the boat.” And of course knowing how such firms would
bury their accuser in discovery paperwork and expensive depositions, no firm
with lesser resources has so far been willing to take the case on a contingency
fee basis (which means bearing, in the interim, the huge costs of the paper
storm). Knowing the glacial pace of how
cases proceed through the court system – and the abuse of process routinely
engaged-in so as to buy time and pulverize opponents – financially,
emotionally, spiritually – “the interim” could be years and the costs enormous. These are the tactics of all big,
scorched-earth law firms.
But
go after Semmes he did – pro se.
Semmes
raised a statute of limitations argument in its motion for summary judgment –
even though it had not yet been three years since the last day of the trial
when the jury had rendered its verdict – and incredibly, Semmes motion was
granted!
Presiding at that hearing was
Judge Broughton Earnest.
Judge Earnest
himself was drawn from the good old boy network of
Easton law firm Earnest & Cowdrey.
[v] Dodd filed a timely motion for
reconsideration, and that motion was duly ignored by Judge Earnest.
After Dodd
appealed the case – again, pro se – the Court of Special Appeals remanded the
case to the trial court so that the motion for reconsideration could be ruled
on. That was in January 2011. The Talbot County Circuit Court finally got
around to scheduling the motion for a hearing, which was held on July 12. Presiding at that hearing was Judge Earnest’s
predecessor, Judge Sidney Campen. Dodd had the very distinct impression that
Judge Campen did not want to overturn Judge Earnest’s ruling that granted
summary judgment in Semmes’ favor. Sure
enough, Judge Campen denied Dodd’s motion for reconsideration. His appeal was then re-filed in the Court of
Special Appeals. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the decisions of the circuit court
on October 18, 2012, eight days after oral argument.
On November 19, 2012 Dodd filed a Petition
for Writ of Certiorari with the Maryland Court of Appeals. It was denied by order dated February
25, 2013.
Feisty as ever,
and unwilling to give up the good fight, Dodd took his case to the Supreme
Court of the United States,
the court of last resort. In October
2013 the Supreme Court denied certiorari.
Now, certainly, Dodd’s case is dead in the water, or is it? There is no statute of limitations on fraud
and if new evidence of fraud surfaces, Dodd will be knocking at the courthouse
door once again.
Dodd also tried
suing W&C – pro se. One of many
counts he alleged included conspiracy. Proving a conspiracy between Semmes and
Williams & Connolly meant, of course, trying to find evidence that
attorneys from one large law firm and one mega-firm actually agreed to help
each other bury this espionage and racketeering activity in order to protect
their respective clients’ interests.
Lawyers, of course, know the elements of conspiracy and the rules of
evidence and therefore how best to cover their tracks. Initially, Dodd won a favorable ruling
wherein W&C’s motion to dismiss was denied.
But, as the paper storm started to engulf Dodd, his prospects faded for
finding a law firm to represent became bleak indeed. In the end he was forced to capitulate;
first, W&C convinced the Talbot County Circuit Court that Dodd was not
forthcoming enough on its discovery, and then got the court to sign off on a
gag order concerning all documents that were in Dodd’s and W&C’s mutual
possession. In short, it was another
brutal, judicial stomping by attorneys trained to twist the system to their
best advantage.
Dodd tried
reporting Semmes to the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland, and also reported
W&C to the comparable oversight board in DC. Their response? We must wait and see what the outcome of the
litigation is before we can act – a Catch-22 if ever there was one; it is
highly unlikely, given the respective resources of the parties, that the
outcome of the trial will go against the law firms, who might then use this as
evidence in their favor in any ethics proceeding. So this, too, seemed to be an exercise in
futility.
Reporting the
facts to the newspapers and “trying the case in the court of public opinion”
seemed like a strategy.
After all,
business ethics expert, Prof. Norman Bowie has called the BBI scandal the
biggest case of corporate espionage ever uncovered.
[vi]
The Washington
Post published a story that blandly highlighted a bit of the corporate
espionage angle.
[vii] But Dodd has it on good authority that public
relations don Eric Dezenhall, “the ultimate corporate fixer,”
[viii]
had sent the Post a “50-page letter” in advance of the story being
published.
Predictably, when the story
came out it was considerably “watered down.”
When being confronted about Dezenhall’s letter, the journalist argued in
her defense that the letter was “not 50 pages.”
Dezenhall’s PR firm has been described as the “mafia of corporate
industry”
[ix]
and Dezenhall Resources, Ltd. has been named as one of the defendants in the
Greenpeace lawsuit.
For months Dodd
talked to multiple Baltimore
Sun reporters and faxed them reams of documents. No story has yet been published by the Baltimore Sun, once
venerable home to H.L. Mencken, muckraking, and the truth – no longer it would
seem.
Not long ago, Dodd
made some renewed efforts to shine the light of government oversight onto 1st
Mariner Bank and the Bank of Glen Burnie.
He contacted the Commissioner of Financial Regulation for the State of Maryland, and more
recently, the Federal Reserve Bank for this region. So far the response, according to Dodd, has
been largely perfunctory and he has not yet received anything in writing from
either.
Has Thrasymachus
been vindicated? – is, indeed, justice
nothing but the interest of the stronger?
In times such as
these, one might hope for a Clarence Darrow to champion the cause of the
underdog.
But even Clarence Darrow might
not save the day.
In a major revision of
history, Darrow may have been just as much the money-monger and corrupt
jury-briber as were his opponents.
[x]
But then, corporatist media influence reaches all the way into the publishing
houses as well.
Maybe these recent
revelations about Clarence Darrow are meant to instill yet more fear and douse
any scintilla of hope that may remain in anyone hoping to stand up to the
Goliath elitist interests that rule today by force, not by law.
If the ancient
Greek Sophists are right, it would appear that justice has little to do with
law or lawsuits. One can only hope that
the real essence of Thrasymachus’ term, “stronger,” is found in one’s strength of character. In this respect Mr. Dodd is the stronger by
far, having had the tenacity to endure attorney after attorney and years of
setbacks and disappointments, waiting seemingly in vain for justice to
prevail. And so, as unfortunate as the
outcome of his legal odyssey has been, one might still proclaim that justice is nothing but the interest of the
stronger, viz., that of John C. Dodd III.
As far as this and the dwindling few other cases like it are concerned,
justice might simply be recast as the virtuous functioning of character, of
natural law, in its dogged pursuit of what
is right regardless of the odds and the consequences.
[ii] Javers,
E.,
Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy,
Chap. 6: The Chocolate Wars, pp.137-172 (2010).
[iv] Among other
irregularities, that foreclosure was one of those infamous Maryland foreclosure
cases wherein hardly a document, even notarized documents,
that purported to bear his signature was
actually subscribed by Thomas Dore, Esquire,.
It was none-the-less upheld and unsuccessfully appealed .
[v] Cowdrey
currently represents all four of the BBI/S2i defendants in the Greenpeace
lawsuit.
[vi] Personal
comment to Dodd by Dr. Norman Bowie, former holder of the Elmer L. Andersen
Chair in Corporate Responsibility at the University of Minnesota, where he is
currently Professor Emeritus. In 2009 he received the first lifetime
achievement award in scholarship from the Society for Business Ethics.
Prof. Bowie has also held an appointment to
the London Business School and is a former Harvard fellow.
[vii] Jenna
Johnson,
Corporate Espionage Detailed in
Documents, Washington Post, June 22, 2008.
[viii] Opinion
stated by John Wilke, deceased, Wall Street Journal reporter who was hoping to
break the original story on BBI.
After
passing away, all of his research and his story were shelved by the WSJ.
[ix] Eamon Javers,
(quoting Bill Moyers),
The Pit Bull of
Public Relations, Business Week, April 17, 2006,
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_16/b3980101.htm
