Baker Donelson, AmFam Sued for $13.1 Billion Over Illegal Surveillance; Is Southern Company Next?

A headline story in Law.com rocked the legal community in 2021. A respected law firm came under fire for conducting illegal surveillance and video recording of a woman and her family. Law.com reported:

The long-lived, knotty personal injury case that … ultimately settled for $11 million has spun off yet more litigation, with a new complaint accusing Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, American Family Insurance and a local private investigation company of illegally surveilling and video-recording the plaintiff and her family.

Fittingly, the new complaint seeks big money: more than $13.1 billion and change in punitive damages. Plus attorney fees.  

The allegations in the Baker lawsuit are minimal compared to the illegal surveillance, alleged criminal acts, and campaign of fear and intimidation orchestrated by Southern Company and their paid stooges against us, the CDLU, the Newsome Family, and the Forbes Family.

In June, Southern Company admitted that they paid for and conducted a surveillance effort against their Chairman Tom Fanning and his then-girlfriend in 2017.

The company foolishly told The Wall Street Journal that they did not know who authorized the surveillance effort or for what purpose.

Like AmFam, Southern Company apparently targeted young children.

Southern Company paid a vendor to target and harass the Newsome Family, including Newsome’s four young children.

Jeff Peoples, Chief Executive Officer at Alabama Power, signed off on an “extra work authorization” in 2018 paying obscure political consultant “Sloppy” Joe Perkins an additional $39,300 on top of the secret multi-million-dollar annual contracts his firms received.

And what was the $39,300 allegedly for? For “transportation organization management” according to the document, but a blatant lie, Southern Company insiders confirmed.

Besides sending a threatening package of travel bags and outfits, Southern Company stooges conducted a surveillance effort against Newsome, his wife, and children.

The Newsomes were followed, spied on, and trailed throughout Birmingham, including to a point where Newsome’s wife saw her car broken into and windows smashed, in a targeted smash-and-run.

A Southern Company goon verbally abused Newsome’s wife at one point.

A stolen credit card obtained from the break in of Newsome’s wife car was used in the purchase of the travel bags and outfits.

Zeke Smith, Alabama Power Executive Vice President for External Affairs, authorized over $318,000 in expenditures during a seven-week period in the summer of 2020 in a campaign of fear and intimidation against the Newsome and the Forbes families, according to anonymously received documents.

K.B. Forbes, CDLU’s Chief Executive Officer, and his wife and two young daughters were targeted.

The campaign included surveillance and harassment efforts of the Forbes Family.

The terror and harassment included multiple phone calls to Forbes’ wife, one demanding to know her location, another asking if she was at home, and a third offering to “drop off a package.”

Foolishly, brain amputee Josh Moon, a disgraced former journalist and failed realtor, showed up at CDLU’s then-headquarters demanding information, and providing a false name and cell phone number one digit off from his real cell number (what an idiot!).

Moon and his colleagues at Alabama Political Reporter were paid $120,000 by Southern Company, that was authorized by Zeke Smith, to viciously attack and harass us, the CDLU, the Newsome family, and the Forbes family.

Moon apparently was surveilling our headquarters and allegedly drove in front of the Forbes household, where a pick-up truck matching his truck’s description was captured on security cameras.

A judge refused to dismiss the case against Baker Donelson in April of 2022 and it was resolved and settled in May of this year.

In the pleadings against Baker Donelson and AmFam, the complaint states:

[The] Baker Donelson Defendants and the AmFam Defendants hired, retained, paid, directed, instructed, and supervised the Martinelli Investigations Defendants in an unlawful investigation and unlawful surveillance of Plaintiff and subsequently ratified the criminal and tortious conduct….

One thing Southern Company unequivocally knows is that their executives (Crosswhite, Peoples, Smith, etc.) hired, retained, paid, directed, instructed, and supervised Matrix, Balch & Bingham, Joe Perkins, Mark White, and others to allegedly investigate, harass, intimidate, and engage in surveillance of Newsome, Forbes, and the CDLU.

Sources claim Newsome’s legal team is putting the final touches on a somewhat similar pleading, preparing to move ahead with a massive lawsuit against Southern Company, Matrix, LLC, and their other stooges, asking for similar damages.