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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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One of America’s most corporate-crime-friendly bankruptcy judges forced to recuse himself

Today (Oct 16) I'm in Minneapolis, keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. Thursday (Oct 19), I'm in Charleston, WV to give the 41st annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities. Friday (Oct 20), I'm at Charleston's Taylor Books from 12h-14h.

"I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one." The now-famous quip from Robert Reich cuts to the bone of corporate personhood. Corporations are people with speech rights. They are heat-shields that absorb liability on behalf of their owners and managers.

But the membrane separating corporations from people is selectively permeable. A corporation is separate from its owners, who are not liable for its deeds – but it can also be "closely held," and so inseparable from those owners that their religious beliefs can excuse their companies from obeying laws they don't like:

https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2014/10/13/hobby-lobby-and-closely-held-corporations/

Corporations – not their owners – are liable for their misdeeds (that's the "limited liability" in "limited liablity corporation"). But owners of a murderous company can hold their victims' families hostage and secure bankruptcies for their companies that wipe out their owners' culpability – without any requirement for the owners to surrender their billions to the people they killed and maimed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Corporations are, in other words, a kind of Schroedinger's Cat for impunity: when it helps the ruling class, corporations are inseparable from their owners; when that would hinder the rich and powerful, corporations are wholly distinct entities. They exist in a state of convenient superposition that collapses only when a plutocrat opens the box and decides what is inside it. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Key to corporate impunity is the rigged bankruptcy system. "Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," so every successful civilization has some system for discharging debt, or it risks collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

When you or I declare bankruptcy, we have to give up virtually everything and endure years (or a lifetime) of punitive retaliation based on our stained credit records, and even then, our student debts continue to haunt us, as do lawless scumbag debt-collectors:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

When a giant corporation declares bankruptcy, by contrast, it emerges shorn of its union pension obligations and liabilities owed to workers and customers it abused or killed, and continues merrily on its way, re-offending at will. Big companies have mastered the Texas Two-Step, whereby a company creates a subsidiary that inherits all its liabilities, but not its assets. The liability-burdened company is declared bankrupt, and the company's sins are shriven at the bang of a judge's gavel:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

Three US judges oversee the majority of large corporate bankruptcies, and they are so reliable in their deference to this scheme that an entire industry of high-priced lawyers exists solely to game the system to ensure that their clients end up before one of these judges. When the Sacklers were seeking to abscond with their billions in opioid blood-money and stiff their victims' families, they set their sights on Judge Robert Drain in the Southern District of New York:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/23/a-bankrupt-process/#sacklers

To get in front of Drain, the Sacklers opened an office in White Plains, NY, then waited 192 days to file bankruptcy papers there (it takes six months to establish jurisdiction). Their papers including invisible metadata that identified the case as destined for Judge Drain's court, in a bid to trick the court's Case Management/Electronic Case Files system to assign the case to him.

The case was even pre-captioned "RDD" ("Robert D Drain"), to nudge clerks into getting their case into a friendly forum.

If the Sacklers hadn't opted for Judge Drain, they might have set their sights on the Houston courthouse presided over by Judge David Jones, the second of of the three most corporate-friendly large bankruptcy judges. Judge Jones is a Texas judge – as in "Texas Two-Step" – and he has a long history of allowing corporate murderers and thieves to escape with their fortunes intact and their victims penniless:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

But David Jones's reign of error is now in limbo. It turns out that he was secretly romantically involved with Elizabeth Freeman, a leading Texas corporate bankruptcy lawyer who argues Texas Two-Step cases in front of her boyfriend, Judge David Jones.

Judge Jones doesn't deny that he and Freeman are romantically involved, but said that he didn't think this fact warranted disclosure – let alone recusal – because they aren't married and "he didn't benefit economically from her legal work." He said that he'd only have to disclose if the two owned communal property, but the deed for their house lists them as co-owners:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24032507-general-warranty-deed

(Jones claims they don't live together – rather, he owns the house and pays the utility bills but lets Freeman live there.)

Even if they didn't own communal property, judges should not hear cases where one of the parties is represented by their long term romantic partner. I mean, that is a weird sentence to have to type, but I stand by it.

The case that led to the revelation and Jones's stepping away from his cases while the Fifth Circuit investigates is a ghastly – but typical – corporate murder trial. Corizon is a prison healthcare provider that killed prisoners with neglect, in the most cruel and awful ways imaginable. Their families sued, so Corizon budded off two new companies: YesCare got all the contracts and other assets, while Tehum Care Services got all the liabilities:

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/prominent-bankruptcy-judge-david-jones-033801325.html

Then, Tehum paid Freeman to tell her boyfriend, Judge Jones, to let it declare bankruptcy, leaving $173m for YesCare and allocating $37m for the victims suing Tehum. Corizon owes more than $1.2b, "including tens of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices and hundreds of malpractice suits filed by prisoners and their families who have alleged negligent care":

https://www.kccllc.net/tehum/document/2390086230522000000000041

Under the deal, if Corizon murdered your family member, you would get $5,000 in compensation. Corizon gets to continue operating, using that $173m to prolong its yearslong murder spree.

The revelation that Jones and Freeman are lovers has derailed this deal. Jones is under investigation and has recused himself from his cases. The US Trustee – who represents creditors in bankruptcy cases – has intervened to block the deal, calling Tehum "a barren estate, one that was stripped of all of its valuable assets as a result of the combination and divisional mergers that occurred prior to the bankruptcy filing."

This is the third high-profile sleazy corporate bankruptcy that had victory snatched from the jaws of defeat this year: there was Johnson and Johnson's attempt to escape from liability from tricking women into powder their vulvas with asbestos (no, really), the Sacklers' attempt to abscond with billions after kicking off the opioid epidemic that's killed 800,000+ Americans and counting, and now this one.

This one might be the most consequential, though – it has the potential to eliminate one third of the major crime-enabling bankruptcy judges serving today.

One down.

Two to go.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/16/texas-two-step/#david-jones

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

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kemetic-dreams · 7 months ago

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Anthony Burns was born enslaved in Stafford County, Virginia on May 31, 1834. His mother was the slave of a certain John Suttle and served as a cook for the Suttle family. She bore 13 children in total, with Anthony being her youngest. Anthony's father was rumored to be a free man who worked as a supervisor in a quarry in Virginia who later died from stone dust inhalation.

Burns's master, John Suttle, died shortly after Anthony’s birth. His widowed wife took over his estate and sold Burns’s older siblings in order to prevent bankruptcy. Eventually, Burns’s mother was also sold, or rented out to some other family. Anthony did not see her for two years, when Mrs. Suttle went to collect the revenue from her being hired out as a laborer. When Anthony was six years old, Mrs. Suttle died. Her property, including Anthony, was inherited by her eldest son, Charles F. Suttle.

In order to repay the family’s existing debts, Charles mortgaged his slaves and continued his mother’s financial practices to prevent further bankruptcy. During this time, Burns began his earliest tasks while enslaved. Burns looked after his niece so that his sister was available for labor, and stayed at the House of Horton where his sister lived and worked. Here, Burns was introduced to education by the children who lived there; they taught Burns the alphabet in exchange for small services.

At the age of 7, Burns was hired out to three single women (referred to as maidens in the historic text) to work for $15 a year, paid to his master. His jobs included running necessary errands and collecting their weekly supply of cornmeal from the nearby mill. It was during this time that Burns was first exposed to religion. At the age of 8, Burns went to work for $25 a year and was again offered a chance to learn. In this job, the children taught Burns how to spell through their own spelling worksheets from school; in return, Anthony performed antics for their entertainment. Burns worked in this capacity for two years and left due to poor treatment.

Burns was next leased by William Brent. Brent was the husband of a rich young woman, and lived off her wealth, including the labor of numerous slaves. His wife was extremely kind to Anthony and he stayed there for two years, earning Suttle a total of $100. Under Brent’s supervision, Anthony learned about a land up North where black people were not enslaved. He began dreaming of his escape and freedom. Anthony refused to remain under Brent’s employment for a third year, although Suttle was satisfied with this position. Suttle humored Burns’s wishes to find his own employment, since he knew it was worth more to have a willing slave than many reluctant slaves.

Anthony entered the hiring ground to find a new master under a lease hire arrangement. Eventually, Suttle entered negotiations with Foote, who wanted Anthony to work in his saw-mill for $75 a year. Anthony was 12–13 years old at this time, and did not want to remain enslaved. In his new capacity, Anthony continued his education with Foote’s daughter, but otherwise dealt with many cruelties. Foote and his wife proved to be Anthony’s severest owners, and beat even their youngest slaves without sympathy. Some 2–3 months into his service, Anthony mangled his hand in the wheel after Foote turned it on without prior warning. Anthony was discharged because of the injury and was returned to live with Suttle as he recovered.

While recovering from the injury to his hand, Anthony had a religious awakening, that superseded other experiences. Simultaneously, Millerism was introduced to his small county in Virginia, and Burns was excited by the religious fervor that spread like wildfire. Suttle refused his request to be baptized, saying that Anthony would turn to sin if he joined the Church.

However, after Anthony returned to his employment under Foote, Suttle gave Anthony permission to get baptized. Suttle took Anthony to the Baptist Church in Falmouth, which accepted everyone in its congregation. During mass (communion), the free whites and enslaved blacks were separated by a partition. Two years later, Anthony was given the chance to preach to a group of church members and appointed as a preacher at this church. Anthony used this new position to preach exclusively to assemblies of enslaved persons, although Virginia nominally required all-black congregations to be supervised by a white minister. According to Anthony, if a law officer discovered the blacks in their meeting, any enslaved persons who did not escape would be put into cages and given 39 lashes the following day. Additionally, Anthony performed marriages and funerals for enslaved persons as a preacher.

As previously mentioned, Anthony returned to Foote’s employment after his hand healed. He finished his year of service and was hired by a new master in Falmouth, Virginia, where his church was located. His new master loaned Burns to a merchant for six months of his year of service. Burns was treated horribly by that man, so he refused to remain with the lessee after his year of service was completed.

For the next year, Anthony moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he worked under a tavern-keeper. He earned $100 for his master by this service. A year later, Anthony went to work in an apothecary in the same city. He met a fortune teller who promised him freedom within the next few months.

A short time later, Suttle hired William Brent (Anthony’s former master) to manage hiring out his slaves for fees each year. Brent moved Anthony to Richmond, Virginia, at the end of his year of service. The young man was excited to work in a city with ships that sailed down the James River and then through the Chesapeake Bay to the North. In Richmond, Brent hired Anthony out to his brother-in-law, whom Anthony did not get along with. By this time, Anthony was skilled at reading and writing, especially compared to other slaves. With his knowledge, he set up a makeshift school to teach slaves of all ages how to read and write; this was kept secret from their masters in Richmond. At the end of his year of service with Brent’s brother-in-law, Burns was employed by a man named Millspaugh.

Millspaugh quickly realized that he did not have enough work for Anthony to earn a profit on him, so he set Anthony out into the city to work small jobs and earn money for him. Although they originally set up a daily meeting, they changed it to meet up once every two weeks since Anthony only made a small sum, if any, each day. In his job search, Anthony was pushed to escape by the sailors and freemen he worked with. The only thing holding him back was a sense of religious duty towards his owner, but he justified his escape with the Epistle to Philemon and eliminated any religious qualms he had with leaving. In one of their biweekly meetings, Anthony gave Millspaugh $25 as his earnings that month, and after being presented with such a large sum, his master required Anthony to visit him daily. Anthony refused and walked out on his master without his consent, thus making his escape much more pressing than it would have been if he had had two weeks to plan and execute it. Anthony devised a plan with a sailor friend he met during his work on a vessel in the harbor, and one morning in early February 1854, Anthony boarded the vessel that would take him to the North.

We went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, compromise Union Whigs & waked up stark mad Abolitionists.

— Amos Adams Lawrence, Conscience Whig, on the Anthony Burns affair, 1854

Anthony Burns left Richmond, Virginia one early February morning in 1854. His friend stowed him away in a small compartment on the ship, and Anthony immediately fell asleep after days of anxious and long nights. Upon waking up, the ship was already miles out of the harbor and on its way to Norfolk, Virginia before heading to Boston, Massachusetts. On the journey, Burns was stuck in the same position and in the same compartment without room for movement for a little over three weeks. In that time, he suffered from dehydration, starvation, and extreme sea sickness. His friend brought him food and water every 3–4 days, and it was just enough for Anthony to survive the trip to Boston.

The vessel reached Boston in late February or early March (the exact date is unknown), and Burns immediately began seeking new employment. At first, Anthony found a job as a cook on a ship, but was dismissed after one week since he could not make his bread rise. Next, Burns found employment under Collin Pitts, a colored man, in a clothing store on Brattle Street. However, Anthony only enjoyed one month of freedom in this capacity before being arrested.

While in Boston, Anthony sent a letter to his enslaved brother in Richmond and revealed his new home in Boston. His brother’s owner discovered the letter and conveyed the news of Burns’ escape to Suttle. Suttle went to a courthouse in Alexandria County, where the judge ruled that Suttle had enough proof that he owned Burns and could issue a warrant for his arrest under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The warrant was issued on May 24, 1854 and stated that Watson Freeman, the United States Marshal of Massachusetts, was required to arrest Anthony Burns and bring him before Judge Edward G. Loring to stand trial. On that same day, Deputy Marshal Asa O. Butman, an infamous slave hunter, was charged with the execution of the warrant.

On May 24, 1854, Butman scouted out Burns in the clothing store before arresting him. His goal was to make a peaceful arrest in order to not incite mob violence and have the mob rescue Burns before he could be returned to the South. After Burns and Pitts closed down their store, they walked separate ways to go home. While walking, Butman stopped Burns at the corner of the Court and Hanover street intersection and arrested him under the guise of a jewel store robbery. Burns, knowing he was innocent of that crime, complied with Butman and peacefully walked with him to the courthouse. At the courthouse, Burns expected to be confronted by the jewelry store owner, but was instead met with U.S. Marshal Freeman. In this moment, Burns knew he had been caught under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

By the first day of the trial, the prosecutors had succeeded in keeping the trial hidden from the public. However, Richard Henry Dana Jr. was passing by the courthouse an hour before the initial examination and heard about the proceedings of the day. Immediately, Dana entered the courthouse to talk to Burns and offer him his professional help. Initially Burns declined, citing it would be of no use, but reluctantly agreed due to Dana’s insistence.

In the initial hearing, the plaintiff (Charles Suttle) put William Brent on the stand to further verify Burns’ identity along with Suttle’s testimony. Brent was also asked to recall his conversation with Burns and Suttle the previous night right after Burns’ arrest, but Dana intervened on behalf of Burns and got the evidence thrown out for the time being. At the end of the hearing, commissioner Loring agreed to push further proceedings back to May 27, but they were again delayed until the 29th due to Burns’ late appointment of counsel. In an interview, Theodore Parker, witness to the trial, cited that Burns's hesitancy to accept counsel came from fear over how well Brent and Suttle knew him.

During the duration of the trial, Burns was kept in a jury-room under constant surveillance of armed guards. In this time, the guards tried to provoke and trick Anthony into slipping up and admitting to his status as a slave, but Burns evaded their tactics. The closest Burns came to self-admission was at the provocation of Suttle, who was outraged the public saw him as a harsh and abusive master to Anthony. Suttle asked Anthony to write a letter proving the contrary, but Leonard Grimes, a Boston clergyman and abolitionist, had Burns destroy the letter after seeing it as evidence to be used against him in the trial.

The final examination began on May 29, 1854. Armed soldiers lined the windows of the courthouse and prevented all officials and citizens from entering the courtroom. Even Dana, Burns’ senior counsel, couldn’t enter the courtroom until late into the examination. Thus, Charles Ellis, Burns’ junior counsel, was forced to begin the examination by arguing that it was unfit to continue while Suttle’s counsel carried firearms, but Loring rejected this sentiment. During the plaintiff’s argument, Loring approved their request to present the conversation between Suttle and Burns as evidence from the night of his arrest. As their final piece of evidence, they admitted the book that contained the Virginia court’s ruling in favor of Suttle.

When Burns’ counsel presented their defense, they focused on proving that Suttle’s timeline was off and they lacked sufficient evidence to show Burns was the slave who had run away. They brought in William Jones, a colored man who testified that he had met Anthony on the first day of March and described his relationship to Anthony through their time together in Boston. In addition, the counsel knew that the commissioner would be hesitant to accept the testimony of a colored man, so they called up 7 other witnesses to validate his story. As one of the witnesses, the counsel called up James Whittemore, a city council member of Boston. Whittemore testified that he had seen Burns in Boston around March 8, and identified him by his scars as proof.

In Loring’s final decision, he admitted that he thought the Fugitive Slave Act was a disgrace, but his job was to uphold the law. Loring stated that Suttle produced sufficient evidence to prove the fugitive slave Suttle described matched Anthony’s appearance, thus he ruled in favor of Suttle.

It has been estimated the government's cost of capturing and conducting Burns through the trial was upwards of $40,000 (equivalent to $1,303,000 in 2022).

Among the citizens interested in Burns’ trial was the Committee of Vigilance, which was founded after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The goal of the group was to prevent the execution of the Act for fugitives in Burns’ position. It was effective due to the diversity of its ranks, ranging from people of every socioeconomic status and race. In Burns’ case, the committee debated between two courses of actions: attacking the courthouse to forcibly rescue Anthony, and creating a crowd when they removed Burns from the courthouse to act as an immovable barrier. Between these two propositions, the committee ruled to go forth with the second and more peaceful plan, and additionally posted men at the courthouse to make sure the officials did not try to move Burns without their knowledge.

Although the committee itself agreed to go ahead with the peaceful plan, a faction of men planned to rescue Burns from the courthouse themselves. On Friday evening, May 26, the entire committee dispersed from their meeting in Faneuil Hall at around 9 p.m., when the men planned to hold their assault. By that time in the evening, they had gathered at least 25 men, all armed with various weapons such as, revolvers and axes. The crowd picked up members from the committee meeting as they made their way to the courthouse, and began their attack by breaking down the doors with axes and wooden construction beams. After breaking into the courthouse, a fight broke out between the guards and rioters, and resulted in the death of one of the guards, James Batchelder.

The riot did not get far after the police arrived as back-up, resulting in the arrest of many abolitionists. However, it is highly unlikely the attack would have been successful in rescuing Anthony since he was held in an extremely secure room in the top floor of the courthouse.

A grand jury indicted three of those involved in the attack at the courthouse. After an acquittal of one man and several hung juries in trials for the others, the federal government dropped the charges.

After the riot, President Franklin Pierce sent the United States Marines to Boston to aid the police in preventing further violence. Following the riot, the entire city of Boston was excited and awaiting the next phase of the trial. Once Loring’s decision was announced in favor of Suttle, the abolitionists began their preparations for Burns’ movement.

Following the trial, Marshal Freeman was tasked with successfully moving Burns from the courthouse without interference from the crowd in Boston. Jerome V. C. Smith, the mayor of Boston, was responsible for maintaining a peaceful crowd. With this news, the citizens of Boston set up interviews and tried to persuade the mayor to join their side of the cause and free Burns. Initially, the crowd succeeded in convincing the mayor to only implement one military company to guard the courthouse the day Burns was moved. Like Loring, Smith was against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, but did not feel as strongly about upholding it. Despite the mayor’s orders, Marshal Freeman felt as if one company would not be enough to maintain order while Burns was moved, and pushed the mayor to call in more troops. Mayor Smith ended up implementing an entire brigade of state militia to help clear the streets on the day of Burns’ transfer.

While the mayor was planning for crowd control, Freeman put together a band of 125 citizens of Boston to help move Burns. The Marshal swore these men in and armed them with various weapons, such as pistols and cutlasses. From the date of Loring’s decision until his departure on June 2, Burns was kept in the same jury room he was in during the trial. Throughout this time, Burns’ friends began making plans to purchase his freedom and no matter how much money they offered, Suttle refused to negotiate as long as Burns was under his service.

At 2 p.m. on June 2, 1854, Burns was escorted from the courthouse by Marshal Freeman and his men, along with an additional 140 U.S. Marines and infantrymen. State militia brigades lined the streets to keep the crowd at bay and to prevent any interference with the procession. Along their route, citizens left symbols to indicate the funeral of Burns’ liberty and freedom. One man suspended a black coffin and others draped their windows to show Burns they stood with him. At one point in their route, the guards made an unexpected turn into a road lined with spectators. The officers ran at them with bayonets and beat their way through the line of bystanders. One man, William Ela, was beaten with muskets down on the pavement, cut in the face, and put into confinement. Eventually, the officers and Burns reached the wharf where the vessel headed to Virginia was scheduled to depart from Boston. At 3:20 p.m., Suttle, Brent, and Burns left Boston for Virginia.

As a result of Burns’ trial, Massachusetts passed the most progressive liberty law the nation had seen up until 1854. The law stated that slave claimants were not allowed to be on state property, fugitive slaves were required to have a trial by jury, and slave claimants had to produce two credible and unbiased witnesses to prove the evidence in their case. Burns’ trial was the last rendition hearing for a fugitive slave in Massachusetts. Additionally, Loring suffered severe consequences at the hands of abolitionists in Boston. Harvard University refused to re-hire Loring in his faculty position in their school, and the Massachusetts legislature voted to remove Loring from his state position as a Probate Judge, but the governor never approved the removal. However, in 1857, a new governor was elected to the position and signed Loring’s removal address. This action prompted severe anger from politicians in Washington, D.C., and President James Buchanan appointed Loring to the Federal Court of Claims when a position opened up.

After leaving Massachusetts, Burns spent four months in a Richmond jail where he was prohibited from being in contact with other slaves. In November, Suttle sold Burns to David McDaniel for $905 and McDaniel brought Burns to his plantation in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. As an owner, McDaniel was firm and strong businessman, who constantly sold and traded his slaves. He had as few as 75 slaves on his plantation and as many as 150 slaves at other times. Burns was employed to be McDaniel’s coachman and stable-keeper, which was a relatively light workload compared to that of other slaves on the plantations. Instead of lodging with the other slaves, Burns received an office and ate meals in his master’s house. Due to this level of respect, Burns vowed never to run away from McDaniel as long as he was his master.

In addition to Burns’s level of care as a slave, Burns attended church twice while serving four months under McDaniel. Burns even held illegal religious meetings for his fellow slaves. Although discovered by McDaniel, the master did not punish Burns as he would have another slave. The overseer on the plantation resented Burns getting such special treatment, and threatened him with a pistol during one of their quarrels. Burns reported only to McDaniel as his supervisor and recognized only his orders. During these months of enslavement, Burns failed to notify his Northern friends of his location in the South.

One afternoon, Burns drove his mistress to a neighbor’s house. In the outing, a neighbor recognized Burns as the slave who had caused commotion with his trial in the North. A young lady overheard the neighbor recalling the story, and repeated it in a letter to her sister in Massachusetts. Her sister, after receiving the letter, told the story to her social circle, including Reverend Stockwell, who told Leonard Grimes. He was a known abolitionist who had spent his life helping fugitive slaves escape from Washington, D.C. Later he built the Church of Fugitive Slaves in Boston. Stockwell wrote to McDaniel to begin negotiations for Burns’s purchase, and McDaniel responded, saying he would sell Burns for $1300. In the two weeks before they left for Baltimore to meet McDaniel and Burns, Grimes collected sufficient funds for Burns’s purchase, while Stockwell covered the expenses for their journey. Grimes departed by himself after Stockwell failed to show up.

McDaniel knew he was going against public sentiment in North Carolina by selling Burns to the Northerners, so he swore Anthony to secrecy. On their train to Norfolk, a confidant of McDaniel spread the rumor that the fugitive slave notorious from Boston was on board the train. Many passengers and even the conductor were outraged. The latter said he would not have let Burns onboard if he had known who he was. McDaniel held firm and kept the crowd at bay in their journey. When they arrived in Norfolk, Burns boarded their ship to Baltimore before McDaniel did. There he encountered another curious, unruly crowd. When McDaniel arrived, the crowd's anger was directed at him. Some men tried to buy Burns for more money than Grimes was paying for his freedom. McDaniel refused but compromised with the crowd by agreeing to sell Burns if the purchasers never arrived.

In Baltimore, Burns and McDaniel met Grimes at Barnum’s Hotel. They arrived two hours after Grimes, and immediately began negotiations. The payment was delayed after McDaniel demanded cash instead of the cheque Grimes produced. Eventually, the cash was exchanged, and Anthony’s freedom was purchased. Upon leaving the hotel, Grimes and Burns met Stockwell at the entrance. He accompanied the men to the train station. Burns spent his first night as a free man in Philadelphia.

Anthony Burns reached Boston in early March, where he was met with a public celebration of his freedom. Eventually, Burns enrolled at Oberlin College with a scholarship. He entered a seminary in Cincinnati to continue religious studies.

After briefly preaching in Indianapolis, in 1860 Burns moved to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada in 1860 to accept a call from Zion Baptist Church. Thousands of African Americans had migrated to Canada as refugees from slavery in the antebellum years, establishing communities in Ontario.

Burns died from tuberculosis on July 17,

#african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #brownskin #africans #afrakans #brown skin #african culture #Anthony Burns

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follow-up-news · 6 months ago

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The Supreme Court on Thursday blew up the massive bankruptcy reorganization of opioid maker Purdue Pharma, finding that the settlement inappropriately included legal protections for the Sackler family, meaning that billions of dollars secured for victims is now threatened. The court on a 5-4 vote on nonideological lines ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims. As part of the deal, the family, which controlled the company, had agreed to pay $6 billion that could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only in return for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the Sacklers could have declared bankruptcy but instead sought to piggyback on the company's own bankruptcy proceedings in an effort to resolve pending legal claims. "They obtained all this without securing the consent of those affected or placing anything approaching their total assets on the table for their creditors," Gorsuch wrote. "Nothing in present law authorizes the Sackler discharge," he added.

#supreme court #purdue pharma #sackler family #bankruptcy

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massiveladycat · 7 months ago

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you're probably reading this blog to hear about part 2 of tanner starling. if you haven't read it yet go to part 1!! TANNER STARLING - THE SON OF HERMES - DESCENDANT OF DIOMEDES - SCORN OF APHRODITE AND ARES Ever since Tanner was young, his mother was hauling him from neighborhood to neighborhood, from city to city, occasionally state to state. He never understood why, and he always had many questions; Where was his father? Why were they moving so much? Eventually, Tanner's mother caved and told Tanner that he was a demigod early on. Yes, that put them in much more danger, but she'd decided it may be better to tell him now why his father was absent. Tanner's mother was a descendant of Diomedes, the Greek hero that so famously split Aphrodite's wrist open and sliced Ares's stomach with his spear. Aphrodite and Ares, furious, had taken matters into their own hands and cursed Diomedes's future kids, grandkids, descendants. The Aphrodite curse made it so every relationship they had romantically would end terribly. The Ares curse? Much more intense. The Ares Curse sent both Deimos and Phobos after them. The two brother gods had quite a bit of free-time, so they'd spend that chasing after Diomedes's descendants. Everytime Tanner's mother got even a hint about the two gods approaching, she packed up and left. That means Tanner's mom often had to haul him to another place, ranging from a hotel several blocks away or across the state. Tanner sometimes resented her for it because he never got to stay in the same district long enough to make friends, but he understands why she does it to protect him. Tanner's mom was in middle class, so she did worry about money a lot and having to move constantly did almost put her in bankruptcy, so she was always shocked when she found money in her bank account whenever she needed it. She didn't know that it was Hermes's doing, trying to take care of his lover and son from afar. neither of the Starlings knew, but Hermes was protecting them in many ways; sometimes, Hermes would come down from Olympus and ward off Phobos and Deimos and tell them to fuck off. Speaking of Hermes . . . Tanner and him aren't on speaking terms. They're very awkward with each other when they try to communicate, and Tanner still resents his father for never answering him. Hermes never responded whenever Tanner tried praying to his dad in his youth, such as, "Help me," or, "Please come back, Mom misses you, I miss you." Hermes never came, and it lowered his affection and respect for Hermes majorly. Every time Tanner had a soccer or basketball or football game (in middle school and elementary school, he was knee-deep in all sorts of athletics), Hermes was there, disguised as a regular mortal and screaming extra loud when Tanner scored, though Tanner never knew who the guy who showed up at his games repeatedly was. Tanner tried to approach him and thank him for cheering so much for him, but the man always suddenly vanished in the crowd when Tanner looked at him. Tanner didn't go to Camp Half-Blood with much of an issue; he already knew he was a demigod and he was elated he'd always have somewhere to stay. However, his mother got into a car crash, and she needed to stay in the hospital as she couldn't be discharged, so Chiron took custody of Tanner and let Tanner stay in Camp Half-Blood as Cabin 11's Co-Counselor. And Tanner's happy there. Would love to hear about your PJO OCs; maybe Tanner and them would get along if they met!!

#percy jackon and the olympians #pjo hoo toa #hoo #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #percy jackson ocs #percy jackson oc #tanner starling #pjo oc #my ocs

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onihcinimkcin · 1 year ago

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As Gernsback's example had shown, it was useful for a pulp or magazine publisher to create multiple publishing companies, and most did so. When trouble arose, one company could be placed into bankruptcy and have its intellectual property bought out by one of the publisher's other companies. The purchaser company would then be legally shielded from responsibility for paying the debts of the bankrupt company (even though the editors stayed the same, as did the office addresses). Those unpaid debts included money owed to the hapless writers, some of whom were already getting a bad deal by being paid "upon publication" instead of "upon acceptance." Payment upon publication forced writers to wait weeks and months for their payments, with no guarantee that their work would ever see print. It was a delaying tactic that allowed publishers to build and manage inventory at no cost while holding onto their money longer—maybe even long enough to see the debt discharged in bankruptcy. A more insidious practice was (to use a modern term) to "repurpose" an author's work: present it as original material by changing the title and the character's names—and stripping away the original copyright notice. The trade magazines of the late 1920s and early 1930s are overflowing with complaints from writers who had been so victimized. One of the chief practitioners of such dirty dodges was Harry Donenfeld, the future publisher of DC Comics, the main rival of Marvel Comics to this day.

—Blake Bell and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, The Secret History of Marvel Comics (Fantagraphics, 2013): pg. 18.

Martin Goodman, founder of Marvel Comics, would do the same:

It took two years, but on January 5, 1942, the FTC slammed both Goodman and Silberkleit for deceptively reprinting stories as new fiction, substituting new titles for the original titles, changing the names of characters and, "without obtaining the sanction or authorization of the authors of stories, [substituting] pseudonyms or so-called 'house names' for the authors' names or pen names." They were also sanctioned for stripping the original copyrights and claiming the work as their own.

Over the next two decades, three more FTC judgments against Goodman would follow. (Ibid., pg. 28-29.)

Gernsback, it's worth noting, is Hugo Gernsback, publisher of Amazing Stories and namesake of the Hugo Awards. Silberkleit is Louis Silberkleit, the L in MLJ Magazines, the precursor of Archie Comics.

#blake bell #michael j vassallo #the secret history of marvel comics #harry donenfeld #martin goodman #hugo gernsback #louis silberkleit

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rjzimmerman · 6 months ago

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Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has agreed to a draft Clean Water Act permit that will require more robust oversight of pollution from the Piney Point phosphate facility.

Today’s agreement, which was spurred by a lawsuit from conservation groups, includes establishing enforceable limits on harmful effluent discharged into Tampa Bay.

After allowing the facility to operate without a permit for 20 years, Florida has also agreed to fund independent monitoring of its impacts on Tampa Bay’s water quality.

The Piney Point phosphogypsum stack is a mountainous heap of toxic waste topped by an impoundment of hundreds of millions of gallons of process wastewater, stormwater and tons of dredged spoil from Port Manatee.

Three years ago, after discovering a leak in the facility’s reservoir liner, regulators ordered the discharge of 215 million gallons of wastewater from the gypstack into Tampa Bay to avert a catastrophic collapse and flooding. The massive, fish-killing discharge of toxic, untreated wastewater followed years of regulatory failures and mismanagement at the facility.

Following the spill, the owners of the site, HRK Holdings LLC, entered bankruptcy. The conservation groups have requested U.S. District Judge William Jung hold HRK responsible for violating the Clean Water Act by discharging pollutants into Tampa Bay without a lawfully issued permit.

During the 2021 wastewater release, Tampa Bay received more nitrogen — nearly 200 tons — than it usually receives from all other sources in an entire year. The red tides that have plagued Florida are fueled by nitrogen.

Following the release Tampa Bay experienced a deadly red tide that killed more than 600 tons of marine life in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

“The Piney Point disaster shook the Tampa Bay community to its core. It wasn’t too long ago that shorelines once teeming with life were littered with all kinds of dead fish for months. If you had previously found it swimming in Tampa Bay, it was likely dead after Piney Point,” said Justin Tramble, executive director of Tampa Bay Waterkeeper. “This brings some closure to the past and shifts the focus to making sure mechanisms are in place to prevent even more tragedy in the future.”

The millions of gallons of wastewater discharged into Tampa Bay continue to spread throughout the estuary and into Sarasota Bay, transporting tons of nitrogen and other pollutants into waterways and communities already struggling to manage excessive pollution that has impaired waterways and killed thousands of acres of seagrasses.

The groups involved in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, Suncoast Waterkeeper, ManaSota-88 and Our Children’s Earth Foundation.

#Tampa Bay #Florida #red tide

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justinspoliticalcorner · 7 months ago

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John Pavlovitz at The Beautiful Mess:

MAGA Christians really need to stop spiritualizing the man and his movement. It's sinful. It's blasphemous. It’s heretical. It's lousy evangelism. It’s laughable. It’s offensive. It's also just plain asinine. The hypocrisy on display is historic: after spending the 8 years straining to find infinitesimal specks in Barack Obama's eye that they could condemn as moral deal breakers—in the 8 years since, Evangelicals have been perfectly fine with Trump's forest of rotted Redwoods.

In fact, in the most dizzying display of theological spin doctoring, they actually declare that it is precisely his ever-growing trail of personal toxic discharge that supposedly proves evidence of God's hand in it all. The “logic” goes that God uses flawed human beings, so Trump's multiple marriages, his porn star affairs, his sexual assaults, his verbal obscenities, his disregard for rule of law, his compulsive lying, his clear racism, his unrelenting attacks on marginalized communities (things these Christians would have figuratively and almost literally crucified Obama for) are now unmistakable signs that God is using this former President. This is nonsense of Biblical proportions. Trying and draw some line between Jesus of Nazareth and Donald of Florida is about as farcical as you can get without actually spontaneously combusting from the cognitive dissonance. [...]

Trump Christians need to stop passing the buck to the Lord and just own the compromises and sick bedfellows they've been willing to make for Supreme Court seats, anti-choice legislation, weapon stockpiling, and a rapidly assembling white Evangelical theocracy. Stop namedropping God. God is love, while Donald Trump is incapable of it.

God wasn't generating fake news or showing up at his campaign rallies or stumping for him at nationwide crusades or using him as an expression of their misogyny. God didn't vote for the guy who said he could grab women by the genitalia. God didn't choose the guy who said protestors should be beaten. God didn't go with the guy endorsed by the KKK. God didn't excuse the bankruptcies and overlook the affairs and laugh off the racist remarks. I'm pretty sure people did that—lots of supposedly Christian folks. And God isn't now justifying Trump’s vile nonsense on social media, or creating Constitutional crises, or ignoring the rule of Law, or celebrating LGBTQ discrimination, or laughing off collusion, treason, and human rights atrocities. Again, Christians. We really should stop pretending God is responsible for this fast-food dumpster fire when it's clear whose hand is in it all.

John Pavlovitz is 100% correct in his column about how Evangelicals are blaspheming God by claiming that God chose Donald Trump.

#John Pavlovitz #The Beautiful Mess #Donald Trump #Religion #Christianity

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ifindtaxpro · 1 year ago

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#Debt Forgiveness #Taxable Income #Cancellation of Debt Income (CODI)#Insolvency Exception #Bankruptcy Discharge #Qualified Principal Residence Indebtedness #Tax Planning #Financial Recovery #Tax Consequences

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buzzblend · 2 years ago

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Widow loses life savings after ‘firetrap’ developer fails to repay €150k loan

A controversial developer who asked to borrow the life savings of an 81-year-old widow has failed to repay the money after half a decade of broken promises.

In 2017, the widow gave €160,000 in cash to developer Paddy Byrne, who built the Millfield Manor estate in Co. Kildare where six houses burnt to the ground in under 30 minutes in 2015.

The cash was for a penthouse apartment in Dublin she planned to move into.

The development was built by Victoria Homes, a company that was established by Mr Byrne’s sister Joan just before Mr Byrne was precluded from acting as a company director in Ireland for five years.

After viewing plans for the €630,000 property, in a development called Greygates in Mount Merrion, the pensioner withdrew the cash from her bank and gave it to Mr Byrne.

Some €10,000 of this was a deposit, with the remaining €150,000 provided on the advice of a third party who was known to Mr Byrne and the widow, who said the cash would secure a good price.

According to a handwritten receipt, signed by Mr Byrne, the money was provided on May 29, 2017.

But in November 2017 the widow, a retired primary school teacher, found a more suitable home and asked for her money back.

Mr Byrne agreed to this, saying he would have no problem selling the penthouse and promptly refunded the €10,000 deposit.

However, he asked that the remaining €150,000 be treated as a 14-month loan and promised to pay a 10% annual interest rate.

This effectively turned the widow into an unwitting creditor of Victoria Homes.

According to a handwritten agreement, signed by Mr Byrne, the loan was to be ‘paid back from the sales proceeds’ of the penthouse at his Greygates development.

More than half a decade later, the loan remains unpaid – even after the widow made a criminal complaint to gardaí and took legal action to secure a judgement.

As it is a civil matter, the Garda investigation faltered. And because various other unpaid creditors had previously secured judgements against Victoria Homes, the widow is now unlikely to get her savings back. During the Celtic Tiger years, Paddy Byrne was renowned for his €2.4m Sikorsky helicopter and sponsorship of the Irish National Hunt festival.

But in 2011 his then-firm, Barrack Homes, went bust and Mr Byrne declared bankruptcy in Britain with debts of €100m.

He was banned from acting as a UK director for 10 years in 2012.

This ban was scheduled to end in 2022 – and ran the full course – but it only applied in the UK and Wales.

According to the UK insolvency register today, Mr Byrne’s discharge from UK bankruptcy is ‘suspended indefinitely’ until the fulfilment of conditions made in a 2012 court order.

Separately, in Ireland, he was also restricted from acting as a director for a period of five years – which ended in January 2018.

Mr Byrne is also known for building the Millfield Manor estate in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, where half a dozen houses were razed to the ground within 30 minutes in 2015.

A report into the blaze found ‘major and life-threatening serious shortfalls and discrepancies and deviations from the minimum requirements of the national mandatory building regulations’ at Mr Byrne’s development.

Today, having exited bankruptcy, Mr Byrne is best known as the figurehead behind Victoria Homes and associated businesses, which was set up by his sister and her husband in December 2012, while he was bankrupt.

Mr Byrne was not a director or owner of Victoria Homes during the period of his bankruptcy. But, in 2017, Mr Byrne’s sister and her husband stepped back from Victoria Homes, transferring their shares to an offshore entity in Belize city called Victoria Holdings.

In November 2022, the main lenders to Victoria Homes – the Lotus Development Group – forced the firm into receivership for the second time.

In 2020, Lotus had forced a previous short-lived receivership before agreeing a deal that saw Victoria Homes begin trading normally once more.

Today, Mr Byrne appears to have left Victoria Homes behind and seems to be focusing on a new firm instead.

Set up in the summer of 2020, Branach Developments is entirely owned by Mr Byrne and is not encumbered by any bank debt or mortgages as Victoria Homes was.

According to the latest filed accounts, for the year ended 2021, Branach Developments held ‘tangible assets’ of €210,000 and ‘stocks’ of €600,000.

The accounts also show that, in 2021, Mr Byrne provided the company with an interest-free loan of €1,024,438.

Just last week Mr Byrne’s new firm was one of the winners at the National Property Awards sponsored by the Business Post and Deloitte, among others.

At the award ceremony, Branach Developments took home the prize for best sustainability initiative of the year.

However, Mr Byrne, who shuns publicity and is rarely photographed, does not appear to have attended the ceremony and the award was accepted by a colleague.

This week the Irish Mail on Sunday sent queries to Mr Byrne via his mobile phone, his email at Victoria Homes and his email at Branach Developments, without response.

Queries to his solicitor and the separate accountancy firms representing Victoria Homes and Branach Developments also went unanswered as did calls to the numbers on the websites of these firms.

Mr Byrne also previously declined to respond to questions from the MoS relating to the establishment of Victoria Homes during the period of his bankruptcy.

At the time, Mr Byrne appeared to be living at Ballinrahin House, close to Rathangan on the border of Offaly and Kildare.

The home is a luxury build on 26 acres of stud-railed paddocks with six stables and a 1.3km tree-lined avenue behind electric gates.

The property was on sale for €2.8m in 2009, but land registry records confirm that, in November 2014, it was sold to Victoria Homes for a knockdown price of €484,000.

Ownership of Ballinrahin House was transferred offshore to Victoria Holdings in Belize on April 10, 2018, just weeks before Mr Byrne was due to repay the €150,000 back to the widow.

#Financial Exploitation #Real Estate Fraud #Elder Abuse #Legal Dispute #Developer Misconduct #Property Development #Bankruptcy #Civil Law

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