Escalating a highly-anticipated civil RICO lawsuit, a high-level source who was once part of the inner-circle of disgraced ex-Alabama Power CEO Mark A. Crosswhite alleges that the order to destroy innocent victim Burt Newsome came from the top.

Crosswhite allegedly was doing a favor for an elite Mountain Brook friend that falsely blamed Newsome for financial woes after a successful collection effort was made on behalf of a financial institution that Newsome represented.

The allegations confirm what we wrote last December:

The alleged Alabama Power/Southern Company criminal enterprise was not only involved in intimidating, smearing, and destroying perceived enemies of Alabama Power, but also to allegedly help friends of friends or distant acquaintances retaliate or seek revenge that had no corporate purpose whatsoever.

The expenditures against Newsome make no sense and have no fiduciary purpose for the wholly owned subsidiary of a publicly traded company, Southern Company.

The agents of doom were allegedly embattled law firm Balch & Bingham and the obscure political consulting firm Matrix, founded by the Oompa Loompa of Alabama politics, the diminutive Joe Perkins, both of whom have earned millions a year from Alabama Power.

The demand to destroy Newsome included using the color of authority.

Columbiana Police Chief Jeffrey Bowers, the cop-son of former Alabama Power Vice President of Environmental Affairs Willard L. Bowers, allegedly was told in 2013 to “hide in wait” for Newsome who had a scheduled court appearance in Columbiana, the county seat of Shelby County, sources claim.

Bowers, then a police officer, participated in the staged arrest of Newsome in May of 2013. (In 2019, a nervous Bowers foolishly claimed that he had only “held” Newsome for sheriff deputies.)

The mugshot of Newsome was then sent to bankers via email the following Saturday afternoon by a Balch & Bingham partner in an alleged attempt to defame and cripple Newsome’s reputation and law practice.

The same mugshot was used in 2020 by Matrix operatives on a smear website against Newsome and us, the CDLU, that was paid for by Alabama Power falsely claiming and implying that Newsome was arrested for rape.

Less than a month after the website went live, Newsome was hit head-on in a horrific car wreck.

Was that near-death collision attempted murder?

This past January, we published an extensive post with graphics and photos about how inaccurate the accident report was and how a state trooper appeared to have been waiting to report a fatality.

We wrote in January:

The ongoing investigation has not only found that the accident report was severely inaccurate and at times false, there is now solid evidence of connections between the state trooper and a known business associate of Mark White, the most trusted advisor of disgraced ex-CEO of Alabama Power, Mark A. Crosswhite.

We have since learned from investigators that the state trooper allegedly lived across the street from the business associate of Mark White. The street is narrow, practically one lane, and on trash day, the neighbors may have spoken face to face.

Investigators claim the business associate was allegedly affiliated with White and Stover Innovations, LLC, now defunct. Mark White was a principal member of the LLC, listed by his legal first name John.

The company, dissolved in 2014, provided internet and software support to Mark White’s law firm, White, Arnold & Dowd, the same firm involved in that “phony-baloney” investigation at Southern Company.

Southern Company last month told The Wall Street Journal that the utility has “moved on” from scandal after conducting that half-baked internal investigation which concluded with no conclusion.

However, the smear website that they paid for, defaming Newsome and us, the CDLU, is still up and live.

Southern Company spent over $40,000 in a seven-week period creating and publicizing the site. Zeke Smith, Vice President of External Affairs at AlabamaPower, approved the expenditures that had no corporate purpose whatsoever.

WIth Southern Company acknowledging that clandestine surveillance operations were conducted by the company, documents confirming that hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in less than two months on a campaign of fear and intimidation against Newsome and the CDLU, and a reliable source now claiming that orders to “destroy Newsome” came from the top, the alleged act of attempted murder against Newsome can no longer be dismissed.

Southern Company’s insidious, egregious, and immoral misconduct using vendors like Balch, Matrix, and White apparently hasn’t changed.

Instead of distancing themselves, or firing the unholy trinity, Southern Company continues to pay White and the agents of doom millions.

Chris Womack, the CEO of Southern Company, is now boiling in hot water for not leading the company in a new, ethical direction.

Womack, like Jim Kerr, the former Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel at Southern Company, appears to be covering up the alleged misdeeds and criminal misconduct of Crosswhite and others.

While Southern foolishly claims that they have “moved on,” news about the call to “destroy Newsome” comes coincidentally as Newsome is “moving forward.”

Newsome has recently hired a major and seasoned civil RICO law firm that will fund a massive legal effort against the utility.

Southern Company for years looked the other way and allowed their most profitable subsidiary Alabama Power and their “unholy” vendors run free, like outlaws in the Wild West.

Why?

Because Alabama Power’s excessive profits helped pay for the billion-dollar cost overruns and chronic delays at two Southern Company boondoggles: The Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Georgia and the Kemper Plant in Mississippi.

The effort to destroy Newsome utterly backfired.

Mark A. Crosswhite resigned in disgrace last November.

Balch & Bingham has lost as much as $100 million in fees in the aggregate since 2017.

No longer feared or respected, Matrix and its founder, “Sloppy Joe” Perkins appear to have imploded, lost major clients, and become the laughing stock of the chattering class.

The nail in Matrix’s coffin was Florida Power and Light that declared, “We regret ever having associated ourselves with [Matrix.]”

Regrets.

Does Southern Company have any or just too many?

Top executives at Southern Company appear to have lied repeatedly, consistently, and habitually.

What a hot mess!

Claiming that a million-dollar internal probe did not find out who authorized or why a surveillance effort was conducted against ex-Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning and his then-girlfriend in 2017, Southern Company looks like a sack of lying fools at best or a bunch of incompetent imbeciles at worst.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal report appears to solidify and escalate the criminal misconduct allegations against Southern Company, and shows an epic size hole in their compliance, regulatory, and oversight executive team.

No one believes Southern Company has “moved on.”

This is just the beginning.

A pattern of deception, deep lies, secret surveillance, intimidation, unscrupulous behavior, and harassment are all tied to Southern Company.

From the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, how can Southern Company be trusted?

Top executives at Southern Company appear to have lied repeatedly, consistently, and habitually.

Southern Company operatives and consultants appear to have engaged in criminal and unsavory acts against unwitting victims, innocent children, and perceived enemies of Southern Company.

Spreadsheets and work orders provided to law enforcement and regulators list some of the alleged immoral acts.

Three specific alleged acts were criminal felonies:

1. In September of 2020, Burt Newsome was injured in a head-on accident. He was gravely injured and nearly killed. Some even claimed the act was an alleged act of attempted murder by Southern Company. Evidence from the crash allegedly links known vendors of Southern Company to the law enforcement agents at the scene.
2. A few days after Newsome’s near-death crash, a Southern Company stooge attempted stupidly to impersonate our Executive Director, K.B. Forbes, and his then-eight-year-old daughter in two attempts to illegally obtain banking information from his regional bank in Alabama. The criminal suspects had private, confidential information including full bank account numbers.
3. In November of 2020, Burt Newsome, still recovering from his car wreck, discovered that a law office checkbook was stolen from his office. The weekly cleaning crew disconnected the security camera and stole the checkbook, allegedly bribed by Southern Company operatives.

Other alleged acts by Southern Company operatives include:

• The smashing of the car window of Burt Newsome’s wife at a gym in which her purse was stolen. Law enforcement alleged she was targeted. Video surveillance of the incident shows the suspects driving around allegedly specifically looking for Newsome’s vehicle.
• In 2018, the sick operatives tied to Southern Company who sent the Newsome family a threatening package: Five pieces of luggage and numerous clothing outfits. There were ten outfits for mom and the four Newsome children. Was Newsome going to be injured, killed or murdered?  Or were the wife and children going to “disappear” on a permanent vacation?
• In the summer of 2020, Southern Company allegedly and foolishly decided to target, harass, intimidate, and terrorize the Hispanic family of CDLU’s CEO, spending big bucks to do so, and gathering intelligence and detailed personal information about the family. The terror and harassment included phone calls to the Hispanic mother demanding to know her location, asking if she was at home, and offering to “drop off a package.”

Will Southern Company attempt to say once again that they did not know who authorized these acts and why?

All the while, Southern Company continues to pay embattled law firm Balch & Bingham and Joe Perkins, the Oompa Loompa of Alabama politics, millions of dollars.

What a hot mess! A scurrilously hot mess!

Net income at Southern Company rose to $3.5 billion in 2022, a 47 percent increase as compared to 2021.

Last year, the Alabama Public Service Commission rubber-stamped three rate increases at Alabama Power generating an estimated $400 million a year in additional revenue.

The most-profitable subsidiary of Southern Company, Alabama Power, has been helping cover the enormous billion-dollar cost overruns at both the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant and the boondoggle Kemper Plant in Mississippi.

But Alabama Power is not alone.

Another Southern Company subsidiary, Georgia Power obtained a $1.8 billion rate increase on December 20, 2022.

Causing outrage, the rate increases come as Southern Company generated almost $30 billion in revenue in 2022, seeing revenues increase by 26 percent in a year.

Net income at Southern Company rose to $3.5 billion in 2022, a 47 percent increase as compared to 2021.

Pouring in billion-dollar profits even while suffering billion-dollar cost overruns, Southern Company’s criminal RICO enterprise appears to have used a web of subsidiaries, affiliated entities, political insiders, and creative accounting to deceive or manipulate ratepayers, investors, and regulators.

Funneling millions to not-for-profit entities or political action committees, giving blatant bribes campaign contributions directly or indirectly to public service commissioners or key politicians, hiring political smear artists, and contracting powerful government insiders, the RICO enterprise has successfully continued to operate without repercussions by easily targeting or silencing perceived enemies or critics.

Until now.

Ogelthorpe Power, one of three minority operators of the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant, filed a devastating civil lawsuit last June and outlined some of the horrific shenanigans and creative accounting that Southern Company’s subsidiary, Georgia Power, has engaged in, to lie about Vogtle cost overruns.

Ogelthorpe states:

Ignoring all prior cost forecasts for Vogtle Units 3 and 4, including the cost
forecast of $17.1 billion that nearly brought the project to an end and was the reason the co-owners entered into the Co-Owner Term Sheet and Global Amendments, Georgia Power apparently takes the position that the term “VCM 19 Forecast,” which is defined as “the total project cost of which GPC’s share is $8.4 billion,” contains a hidden math formula. According to Georgia Power, one is to divide $8.4 billion by Georgia Power’s Ownership Interest (45.7%) to produce a result of $18.38 billion, and that number – which has never been a cost forecast for the project and has never been discussed by the parties – rather than $17.1 billion, should be viewed as the total project cost at the time of VCM 19. Georgia Power’s theory, while creative, is entirely inconsistent with Georgia Power’s own presentation of the relevant numbers at the time the co-owners entered into the Co-Owner Term Sheet and Global Amendments.

Using creative accounting to turn $17.1 billion into $18.38 billion is truly absurd.

To obscure and pass along $1.2 billion in additional cost overruns using a hidden math formula, Southern Company affirms that the criminal RICO enterprise is deceptive, dishonest, and devious.

But who isn’t surprised?

Southern Company, using embattled law firm Balch & Bingham, dishonestly targeted an innocent father of four.

Southern Company, using the obscure political consulting firm Matrix, LLC, deceptively targeted and terrorized a Hispanic family.

Southern Company deviously paid for a website falsely calling an attorney a rapist.

The deception is coming home to bite Southern Company.

The math is simple and exposes the absurdity of the RICO enterprise.

The cost overruns at Vogtle are in the billions. Southern Company obtained rate increases in the billions, sticking it to the ratepayers. All the while, Southern Company was making billions in revenue, net income, and profits.

Final question: Who is cooking the books?

The expenditures had no corporate purpose whatsoever.

In a seven-week period in the summer of 2020, Southern Company approved expenditures of over $318,000 to target, smear, intimidate, and threaten innocent victims. The victims included us, the CDLU, Burt Newsome, K.B. Forbes and their respective families.

The CDLU, the Forbes Family, and the Newsome Family were not adversaries or competitors of Southern Company or its subsidiaries.

At a burn rate of $45,000 a week, Southern Company may have spent more than $1 million a year in expenses related to dark ops, surveillance, and clandestine misconduct spearheaded by obscure consulting firm Matrix, LLC.

Here are the spreadsheets that are just some of the documents now in the possession of federal law enforcement and federal regulators:

The spreadsheets demonstrate sheer out-of-control spending approved by Zeke Smith, the Executive Vice President of Government Affairs for Alabama Power.

The discredited Alabama Political Reporter (APR) was bought and paid for $120,000 that would be disbursed monthly through August of 2021, according to the spreadsheet.

APR was the highest paid stooge, according to all entries on the financial records.

Besides the smear pieces from that summer of 2020, brain amputee and disgraced CDLU stalker Josh Moon wrote two more APR hit pieces in January and February of 2021 attacking Burt Newsome and K.B. Forbes.

Moon’s hit pieces flopped and were mocked, an embarrassing career moment for a has-been journalist and failed realtor.

Southern Company spent over $20,000 in boosting APR hit pieces on digital platforms including Facebook, that utterly backfired.

Southern Company also spent over $9,000 developing and publicizing two smear websites on Forbes, the CDLU, and Newsome. One site falsely defamed and called Newsome a rapist and untruthfully labeled and defamed Forbes as a defender of a rapist.

The second site never went live.

Antisemite booster Frank Matthews was paid $6,000 to put up signs and hand out flyers about the website. Ironically, the signs were removed by the City of Birmingham within 48 hours of their appearance, in late August of 2020, during a severe rainstorm.

The earliest dated expenditure was June 11, 2020 in which Southern Company approved the purchase of software Import Genius at $399.00 to track an exportation by the Forbes Family.

The expenditure, with no corporate purpose, was a stunning invasion of privacy.

On that same day, June 11, 2020, the Forbes Family received a Bill of Lading (BOL) from the shipping company used by Pottery Barn. The Forbes’ exported a Princess Castle Bed to Mexico for their then-three-year-old daughter.

1st Boost was an apparent $5,000 payment for the initial attack on Forbes, where they terrorized his family and made his then eight-year-old cry in fear.

Southern Company buffoons in a rented van went to the house adjacent to Forbes’ and held a quick “shoot and scoot” fake protest, and left within two-minutes.

The buffoons couldn’t spell Forbes’ last name correctly.

Law enforcement showed up after a terrorized neighbor called 911. For their own safety and suggestions from law enforcement, Forbes’ family fled to Mexico while Forbes’ neighbors moved, placing a deposit on a new home six-days after the fake protest.

The expenditures of terror and intimidation had no corporate purpose whatsoever.

Top Alabama Power employees have been documenting Peoples’ demands to cover themselves in the event things at the company blowup…

DonaldWatkins.com

Yesterday’s breaking news report from DonaldWatkins.com that included audio of Alabama Power’s new but embattled Chairman and CEO Jeff Peoples declaring “what ya’ll are going to get from me is sunshine and transparency” has caused a firestorm at the utility.

Peoples comments of “sunshine and transparency” go counter to the hard evidence law enforcement and others have.

Peoples, as Executive Vice President of Employee and Customer Services at Alabama Power, hid additional payments to Matrix, LLC, the obscure political consulting firm that allegedly engaged in nefarious if not criminal misconduct and other entities tied to Matrix’s founder, Joe Perkins, by issuing vague “extra work authorizations.”

As we pointed out in December, shortly after ex-Alabama Power Chairman and CEO Mark A. Crosswhite resigned in disgrace, Peoples signed off on an “extra work authorization” in 2018 paying Perkins an additional mid-five figures on top of the secret multi-million-dollar annual contracts the firm and its founder, Perkins, received.

Now, today, we publish that work authorization in its entirety:

And what was the $39,300 allegedly for?

For “transportation organization management” according to the document, but a blatant lie insiders confirm.

The reality is the extra work authorization was to target and terrorize the young children of Burt Newsome.

Newsome, an attorney who represents banks and financial institutions, was stunned when his wife and four young children were sent a threatening package tied to the “extra work authorization.”

As we wrote in August of 2018:

But now come the real sick idiots who sent the Newsome family a threatening package: Five pieces of luggage and numerous clothing outfits. 

The message was crystal clear: get ready to pack and leave town.

Were they threatening the family? The father, Burt Newsome? Was he going to be injured, killed or murdered?  Or were the wife and children going to “disappear” on a permanent vacation?

The extra work authorization was authorized on August 3, 2018 and the incident against the Newsome family happened four days later on August 7, 2018 according to the police report.

A stolen credit card obtained from the break in of Newsome’s wife car a few days earlier was used in the purchase of the travel bags and outfits. Use of a stolen credit card is a felony.

As Donald Watkins.com wrote yesterday:

Alabama Power Company employees are very uncomfortable with Jeff Peoples, but they are meeting his leadership demands. After all, Peoples is their new CEO.

However, top Alabama Power employees have been documenting Peoples’ demands to cover themselves in the event things at the company blowup because they know that Jeff Peoples funded all the Joe Perkins/Matrix “dirty tricks” projects, with absolutely no accountability.

Perkins’ Southern Company-related work assignments are the subject of multiple media and law enforcement investigations in multiple states. Perkins handwritten notes have also implicated Southern Company in a massive $27 billion, multi-year accounting fraud scheme.

And the massive, multi-year accounting fraud scheme is evident in these obscure “extra work authorizations” used to pay for insidious, nefarious, if not criminal misconduct, and allegedly including identity theft, robbery, retaliation against an informant, use of a stolen credit card, use of fear, threat of murder, threat of bodily injury or death, invasion of privacy, intrusion of seclusion and much, much more.

And these Southern Company executives cannot foresee a criminal RICO case right before their eyes?

Maybe Joe Perkins is barking at Peoples like he barked at Crosswhite before Crosswhite’s sudden but expected demise.

This bogus “transportation organization management” work order adds to last week’s sensational allegation from DonaldWatkins.com that Peoples allegedly spent up to $30,000 a month in corporate funds on hookers and party pads.

A forensic audit is in order and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must broaden their probe to look at bogus work orders, wire fraud, and alleged misappropriation of corporate funds. Any criminal findings should be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In the meantime, Southern Company must terminate Joe Perkins, Jeff Peoples, Balch & Bingham and all the elements involved in the criminal RICO enterprise.

Newsome’s children deserve it. Investors deserve it. Rate payers deserve it.

The era of dirty deeds, dirty lingerie, and dirty accounting methods must come to an end, no matter how ugly or painful the consequences are.