Interview, MERS RICO complaint: Doug Welborn, State District Court Clerk vs. MERSCORP Shareholders and Trustees (“the banksters”)
By lambert strether of Corrente.
Yes, I know that Doug Welborn, East Baton Rouge Parish Clerk of Court vs. MERSCORP Shareholders and Trustees (“the banksters”) is a bit unwieldy as a case name, but it’s a lot less wieldy than the actual name — [32 parish clerks in Louisiana, so far] vs. [16 big banks including TBTF poster weasels BAC, JPM, and WFC (but not GS)] — so I think I’ll just go with “Welborn” from here on in.
The triple damages claim under civil (sigh) RICO is a billion dollars or so for Louisiana alone — real money — which makes Welborn interesting. Even more interesting is that RICO, as a “theory of the case,” is simple, clean, and easy to explain, unlike so many of our criminal banksters’ crooked schemes. We caught up with the trial lawyer for Welborn, Ted Lyon, and interviewed him. Did I mention the claim is for a billion?
Skip ahead, if you wish, to the interview, it’s indented, but the backstory is important, too: Hat tip to alert reader Roger Bigod, who piqued my interest in comments with “county clerk’s suit”, leading to this link on Louisiana clerks suing the banks under RICO. So I searched the go-to site on foreclosure fraud and found this post (love the graphic!), which linked to this fine story in the Baton Rouge Advocate. The reporter, Bill Lodge, had some excellent quotes from Richard D. Faulkner, Esq., so I found Faulkner and called him. Faulkner was gracious enough to play phone tag with a pseudonymous blogger whose answering machine was full, and then to hear him out. He put me in touch with Ted Lyon, who’s going to try Welborn. (It seems that these days there are very few lawyers who actually appear in court, but Lyon is one such. I note with pleasure that Lyons took a packet from Koch Industries for the death of a child.) I then arranged, on very short notice, for a professional interviewer (hat tip, Stephen Malagodi) to speak with Lyon, and a professional transcriptionist (hat tip, KL), whose collaboration you see below. With more time, we’d have done more preparation and some editing, but think of any solecisms as signs of authenticity, like scars in fine leather.
Rest here…
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