Music Download Lawsuit - John Deep v. RIAA, Boies, et al.

C. My Lawyers Fraudulently Concealed the Misconduct

24. Boies further engaged in a concerted pattern of conduct to conceal his larcenous acts from me. In addition to his own wrongful conduct, Boies also induced and conspired with certain other lawyers or accountants of mine to breach their own fiduciary duties to me, specifically:

a. My lawyers from the law firm of defendant Boies Schiller, of which Boies was the founder and chairman;

b. My lawyers from the related law firm of defendant Straus Boies, in which Michael Straus and David Boies III were senior partners; and

c. My accountant Steven Fischer who was the CEO of the related firm of LSAG, which Boies and Davie Boies III controlled.

25. Boies did this by allowing these persons to share in his misappropriations of my assets, also without notice to or approval by me, and by entering into various undisclosed agreements with these persons, including agreements that gave them excessive and undisclosed compensation, and tied their compensation to Boies’s, in ways that were affirmatively concealed from me.

26. Specifically, Boies concealed (and induced or conspired with others to conceal) from me multiple litigations related to Boies’s own conduct in misappropriating my assets, in which Boies, Boies Schiller, Straus Boies, LSAG, or Duker or other of Boies’s agents concealed and destroyed evidence Boies knew to be material as follows:

a. United States v. Duker – In November 2000, once Duker had been released on parole (after pleading guilty for over billing the FDIC in an investigation led by Boies), Boies used the sale of LSAG to pay Duker millions of dollars solely to carry out Boies’s own misappropriation of my assets and his sham transactions and specifically asked Duker to conceal the misappropriation from me and thereby to violate Duker’s parole.

b. In re CD MAP Antitrust Litigation – In 2001 and 2002, Boies concealed from me (i) the settlement of a class action by Boies’s client’s Trans World Entertainment Corp. (“Trans World”) related to my own antitrust claims and (ii) Boies’s conflict of interest in negotiating in that settlement the release of my claims; and further concealed from New York Attorney General Spitzer, who was lead counsel in the antitrust action, my claims that Trans World was paid bribes, using slush funds, improper accounting and money laundering, in willful violation of antitrust law.

c. In re Aimster Copyright Litigation – In 2001 and 2002, Boies promised to represent me in antitrust litigation in return for a contingent interest in the subject matter of the litigation but then concealed from me his conflict of interest resulting from his misappropriation of my assets, sham transactions and simultaneous representation of Trans World.

d. USA v. PRSI – In 2001 and 2002, Boies persuaded a federal judge to overturn the D.E.A.’s shutdown of a drug distribution company PRSI by concealing evidence that PRSI was knowingly failing to control inventories of controlled substances – and misappropriated my assets by structuring sham transactions in order to control PRSI (a.k.a. BackSpin) and by directing Duker to control the transactions and the company.

e. Tyco and Adelphia investigations – In 2002 and 2003, Boies concealed evidence that a document management firm Amici LLC was failing to produce potentially millions of documents that were material to ongoing investigations of Boies’s clients (Tyco and Adelphia) – and, again, misappropriated my assets by structuring sham transactions in order to control Amici (by directing Duker to control the company).

27. Further, as stated herein, Boies concealed (and induced or conspired with others to conceal) the following:

a. Boies converted the contingent interest I gave him in my assets, which had been established for the purpose of compensating him for services he was to provide me as my lawyer, into his own personal assets that he controlled in order to structure his sham transactions – while failing to provide me with the services he promised me as my lawyer;

b. In November 2000, Boies paid or assigned cash flows or “earn outs” amounting to millions of dollars, derived from Boies’s family’s sale of Legal and Scientific Analysis Group, to William Duker, in order to induce and direct Duker to misappropriate my assets and carry out Boies’s sham transactions;

c. Boies then misappropriated my assets in a series of sham transactions carried out by Duker, involving entities called BuddyUSA Inc., AbovePeer Inc., and other shell or fabricated entities called Pi2 Products LLC, Pi2 Inc., Pi3 Inc., BackSpin Inc. and, finally, Amici LLC, and structured the sham transactions in favor of himself, lawyers in Boies Schiller of Straus Boies, his family and his agents, including Duker, as well as Trans World and the Labels and Studios;

d. Boies misused the interest I gave him in my assets by structuring his sham transactions that permitted lawyers in his firm, his family and his agents, Trans World and the Labels and Studios in turn to use millions of dollars in legal fees, paid by clients of Boies Schiller, to purchase and speculate in a legal services company Amici LLC;

e. Boies misappropriated the interest in my assets I gave him, effectuating a transfer, control or conversion of my assets to himself, lawyers in his firm, his family and his agents, Trans World and the Labels and Studios;

f. Boies engaged in self-dealing transactions involving my assets and structured sham transactions of successive stock purchases and sales in which appraisals were not obtained, and allowed members of his family, Trans World and the Labels and Studios to use and profit from my assets.

g. Boies directed the firm of Boies Schiller to conceal from me a class action settlement by the firm’s client, Trans World, in In re CD MAP Antitrust Litigation, in which my claims against Trans World were fraudulently settled or released;

h. Boies awarded unauthorized “special bonuses” to lawyers at Boies-Schiller and Straus & Boies in order to pay inflated lawyers’ fees fraudulently charged to me, when Boies knew no legal services were provided;

i. Boies made fraudulent affirmative misrepresentations to me on behalf of Boies Schiller in order to secure benefits for himself, Trans World and the Labels and Studios, while aiding Duker in the unauthorized practice of law (in violation of Duker’s parole), and making unauthorized awards of compensation to certain lawyers of his firm, friends, family and agents;

j. Despite my Lawyers’ misrepresentations, I continued diligently to investigate my antitrust claims and on January 15, 2004, I wrote to Boies Schiller saying, “I’ve discovered evidence of antitrust injury in the Aimster case.” However, on February 7, 2004, a Boies Schiller partner Robert Silver continued the firm’s misrepresentations to me by advising me further to delay my antitrust claims:

John, thanks for your email and sorry for delayed response. I have been a little busy and actually still am. My quick reaction is that you might consider how to narrow your approach. That is, I am not sure, for example, sharing = profit is not too readily contestable by taking arguably legitimate longer term views of profit without more narrowing facts. This is just a quick impression though.

k. Because Boies and Boies Schiller advised me as my lawyers, I reasonably relied on my Lawyers’ misrepresentations and was thus prevented from filing my claims. But for my lawyers’ fraudulent concealment, I would have filed my claims when I first discovered them during the time period of September-December 2000.

l. Even in spite of my lawyers’ misrepresentations I filed my claims as soon as I had reason to suspect my Lawyers’ concealment on February 11, 2004, and have since prosecuted my claims diligently, while opposing numerous delays by defendants.

28. Boies carried out this pattern of misconduct directly, through his own conduct – including the creation of legal documents and transactions that purported to reflect some level of my knowledge and approval for some of his actions, when in fact I had none – and indirectly, with the assistance of others, including Trans World and the Labels and Studios, who owed duties to me with whom Boies agreed and conspired to breach their fiduciary duties.