The hot ? rumor on the street is that the ever growing Bradley law firm may buyout embattled law firm Balch & Bingham.
Bradley swallowed up the majority of Balch’s Houston team this summer, including the Managing Partner of the Houston office, and picked off 17 year-legacy partner W. Brad Neighbors.
Neighbors
In a news article today posted on the Birmingham Business Journal, Bradley welcomed Neighbors to the firm to “enhance our robust banking and financial services offerings to our clients.”
Robust indeed.
Vogtle
The stunning move comes after 31-year Balch legacy partner Jesse S. Vogtle, Randolph H. Lanier, Eric T. Ray, and Paul H. Greenwood, all in the banking and financial services practice, left Balch in 2020.
Decker
In 2021, another Balch legacy partner Jennifer Powell Deckerdumped Balch after 15 years. She was involved in commercial lending and one of the most senior female partners at Balch.
Over the last three years, Balch’s banking practice has imploded.
The irony is that Clark A. Cooper, a Balch partner who was the alleged mastermind of the Newsome Conspiracy Case, was allegedly trying to steal Newsome’s banking and financial services practicein 2013.
Now a decade later Balch appears to be at the verge of collapse in the banking sector, imploding.
When the illustrious Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr., General Counsel of Balch & Bingham, vowed in 2017 that he would “fight to the death” before resolving the Newsome Conspiracy Case, he was affirming what Claiborne Seier (above, left) allegedly vowed to Burt Newsome in 2012: Newsome would be destroyed for pursuing a criminal case against Seier’s brother Alfred Seier, who pulled a gun on Newsome.
Top money-making attorneys and legacy partners have left Balch these past 5 years, apparently destroying specific practice groups.
Yet, Balch stupidly appears to slap itself on the back for “beating” Newsome in an unconstitutional and secretive Star Chamber.
Mark A. Crosswhite, the disgraced ex-CEO of Alabama Power, foolishly bit the forbidden fruit when the Oompa Loompa of Alabama politics, Joe Perkins allegedly told him falsely that we, the CDLU, had received enormous amounts of resources to attack Southern Company and its subsidiaries.
The $2 million grant the CDLU received in 2019 (which had nothing to do with Balch & Bingham, Alabama Power, Matrix or their competitors) caused them to defecate rainbows. ?
The grant was related to our two decades of healthcare and consumer protection advocacy.
But the smear artists, hired whores, and envelope journalists did not care.
The lie worked and Southern Company foolishly spent millions in surveillance efforts, fear and intimidation tactics, and a smear campaign against us, the CDLU, and Newsome.
Some of these acts included criminal misconduct and felonies.
Crosswhite, the “most powerful man in Alabama, ” was ousted in November.
And now another alleged conspirator has died.
Another carcass joins the disgraced pile of stooges, cronies, consultants, and fools who drank the Kool-aid or bit the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Balch-landia.
Also fleeing Balch is attorney Rodrigo Martinez Cabello, one of Balch’s few Hispanic attorneys.
Also joining Chin and Martinez is Philip A. Dunlap, Balch’s Houston Managing Partner.
All three are based in Houston. All three jumped ship to Bradley this summer, an incredible blow as Balch’s Houston Office appears to have crumbled overnight.
Bradley promoted the trio in a news release:
Dunlap
“We are thrilled to be joining Bradley’s team and to be a part of the firm’s tremendous growth in Texas and nationally,” said Mr. Dunlap. “It is an exciting time to be at Bradley, particularly given its significant growth in Texas over the last few years. We look forward to the expanded opportunities that being at Bradley will present for us and our clients.”
With the arrival of Mr. Chin, Mr. Dunlap and Mr. Martinez, Bradley’s Houston office has added more than 15 attorneys in the past 12 months.
W. Brad Neighbors, a 17-year legacy partner at Balch recently left the firm for Bradley as well.
Neighbors
Neighbors was a member of the Financial Services and Transactions section at Balch. His practice focused on representation of financial institutions ranging from community banks to large regional institutions. Neighbors regularly provided counsel on compliance with federal and state banking, and consumer finance statutes and regulations.
The firm has been seen a mass exodus of experienced and money-making partners in the last several years, and Neighbors is just another example.
As we foreshadowed, the death spiral caused by less revenue and more inexperience appears to help Balch & Bingham’s competitors, competitors like Bradley.
Embattled law firm Balch & Bingham finally made one of their most infamous African American attorneys partner.
Irving Jones, Jr., who worked with disgraced Balch-made millionaire and now federal prisoner Joel I. Gilbert, was a star witness in the North Birmingham Bribery Trial in 2018.
Jones ghost-wrote “dumbed-down” letters to be signed by African American community residents in the AstroTurf campaign to block EPA testing in North Birmingham, according to court testimony.
Living with polluted air and soil.
The effort was a success and kids in North Birmingham continue, to this day, to be poisoned by toxic soil and polluted air.
According to court proceedings and news reports at the time, Jones also infiltrated environmental group GASP’s meetings and monitored the environmental group’s social media feeds.
Maxwell and Irving: spy masters
Jones loves to boast that he is a former counterintelligence officer, and we are sure infiltrating GASP was probably one of the most high-risk operations Irving has ever done in his incredible spy life.
We wrote about his court testimony as reported by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist John Archibald, who wrote, “Gilbert also asked Jones to draft a confidentiality agreement relating to [then-State Representative] Oliver Robinson. Four days before Oliver Robinson was to speak to the Alabama Environmental Management Commission, Gilbert got Robinson to sign a confidentiality agreement.”
Jones was working for Christian & Small during the criminal trial. He was rehired by Balch in November of 2018.
Now that he is partner, Irving Jones, Jr. declares to Law.com, “Strive to make yourself irreplaceable. By that, I mean commit yourself to producing your best product every time for your partners and senior associates, and take ownership over the cases to which you are assigned such that you become an integral part of case’s progression.”
So was “Irreplaceable Irving” producing the best ghost letters for Gilbert?
Was “Irreplaceable Irving” an integral part of the North Birmingham Bribery Scheme born at the offices of Balch & Bingham?
How is “Irreplaceable Irving” feeling after he appears to have sold-out the African American community of North Birmingham and is now a full-fledged partner of an alleged racist law firm whose partners are 98 percent white?
“Irreplaceable Irving” standing next to Balch Managing Partner Stan Blanton holding Make Believe Award for Diversity and Inclusion.
The enormity of Southern Company’s alleged wrongdoing is unprecedented.
Now that two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Archibald has pealed back the alleged blatant corruption of the Alabama judicial system by the Southern Company criminal enterprise in regard to the ridiculoussealing of the rebirth of the North Birmingham Bribery Trial, the Office of Investigations at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission can finally tell the commissioners to place the Vogtle Nuclear Plant into receivership, with a third-party administrator.
The Office of Investigations “develops policy, procedures, and quality control standards for investigations of licensees, applicants, their contractors or vendors, including the investigations of all allegations of wrongdoing.”
Southern Company paid contractor and vendor Matrix, LLC, and its founder “Sloppy Joe” Perkins millions, with no need of invoicing, to allegedly investigate, target, spy on, and harass potential enemies and innocent children.
Southern Company, its subsidiaries, and vendors and contractors are out of control and appear to be involved in a large web of wrongdoing and deception.
Both disbarred attorneys at one point represented Southern Company. The bribery and money laundering were tied directly to the original North Birmingham Bribery Trial in 2018.
Now look at the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant. The Plant is operated by Southern Nuclear Operating Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Company.
Vogtle costs “have more than doubled to north of $31 billion after taking seven years longer to complete than projected,” according to a report Monday by the Georgia Recorder.
The cost overruns and delays appear to show “intentional deception and criminal concealment” to investors, ratepayers, and regulators.
Millie Ronnlund
The Compliance Officer and General Counsel at Southern Nuclear is Millie Ronnlund, the former Balch & Bingham partner whose husband, Robert M. Ronnlund, was the attorney accused of engaging in alleged obstruction of justice and the alteration of evidence in the Newsome Conspiracy Case.
“The [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’] Jacksonville District hired Durham, N.C.-based PowerSecure Inc., a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co., via a sole source time-and-materials contract for repair and restoration of Puerto Rico’s power grid following Hurricane Maria in 2017. The Corps’ contract was initially worth $1.3 million. After several modifications, its value reached $523 million, according to a 2019 U.S. Dept. of Defense Inspector General audit.
“U.S. Justice Dept. officials alleged that PowerSecure violated the Truth in Negotiations Act, which requires that government negotiators have access to cost or pricing data when developing a proposal for a sole-source contract, as well as the False Claims Act, which makes contractors liable for defrauding the federal government, by knowingly failing to disclose pricing data related to labor and equipment costs on another post-hurricane restoration project it had taken in Florida and Georgia earlier in 2017.”
In December, Southern Company’s wholly owned subsidiary agreed to pay the federal government $8.4 million to resolve allegations that it improperly withheld pricing data.
Southern Company made 400 times than originally planned.
The concealment of pricing data confirms what we correctly foreshadowed in 2022: criminal concealment has been a consistent element involving Southern Company and their stooges, vendors, and contractors.
Wrongdoing? The enormity of Southern Company’s alleged wrongdoing is unprecedented.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the irrefutable evidence, the documentation, the chronological timeline to put the Vogtle Nuclear Power plant into receivership and end the criminal RICO enterprise known as Southern Company.
Southern Company: Don’t mess with my mommy or salami!
An employment matter? That is a large spoonful of human waste.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Archibald has ripped the legal mockery and lies of a Southern Company stooge blocking access to ex-Drummond executive David Roberson’s $75 million civil lawsuit against embattled law firm Balch& Bingham and Drummond Company.
Southern Company’s criminal racketeering enterprise is in full-throttle, on overdrive.
You want to know what happened when a former coal company executive – one convicted in the bribery of former Alabama Rep. Oliver Robinson – sued his powerful bosses and their powerful lawyers for putting him in that bind?
Of course you do. So do we.
But don’t hold your breath. Even in those polluted neighborhoods that started this thing. Finding basic facts – even the status of the case – is like, well, like finding a body in a Walker County coal mine.
Because a Jefferson County judge says “this is not a public issue.”
Despite the First Amendment. Despite Alabama open records laws. Despite appearances and the stench emanating from Judge Tamara Harris Johnson’s court.
“You just have to take my word,” she said.
Take her word?
Let’s look at the record.
In December of 2020, Alabama Power was in sheer, uncontrolled panic about the rebirth of the North Birmingham Bribery Trial.
Allegedly using the enormous weight of their racketeering enterprise, resources, and agents, Southern Company heavily fought back.
On Wednesday December 13, 2020, Alabama Power and Alabama Power CEO Mark A. Crosswhite objected to discovery and intent for deposition requests by Roberson.
That same day in Drummond’s pleading before the Alabama Supreme Court calling for a stay on discovery and depositions, Alabama Power and Crosswhite are mentioned as an example of the “burden and expense” the rebirth was causing.
Assisted Tackler McKinney
On Sunday, December 17, 2020, unheard from since the summer of 2018, Steven McKinney, the former Balch & Bingham partner who was indicted but acquitted in the North Birmingham Bribery Criminal Trial, came out of obscurity and retirement; and objected to discovery and intent to deposition requests, giving his old comrade Crosswhite an assisted tackle.
Trying to obscure their panic, Mark A. Crosswhite, the former Balch partner and now ex-CEO of Alabama Power, had his team of attorneys at White, Arnold, & Dowd, led by white-collar criminal attorney Mark White, file an avalanche of hard-copy, paper court pleadings at the courthouse in office, over the counter, that same week.
The two Marks offered a 22-page pleading asking for a protective order in part because of us, the CDLU and this website, BanBalch.com.
Alabama Power whined that we outlined correctly that Alabama Power, Mark Crosswhite and “an all-star reunion show”would be subpoenaed in the rebirth of the North Birmingham Conspiracy Case.
Judge Johnson eventually succumbed to the enormous pressure of the racketeering enterprise and blocked the discovery and deposition of Crosswhite, Alabama Power, and anyone tied to Southern Company in January of 2021.
Stooge Luther Strange
In February of 2021, we reported about the written testimony from the case in which Roberson answered to a list of admissions provided by Drummond. Roberson outlines an alleged bribery scheme involving ex-U.S. Senator Luther Strange and Drummond in which Strange, then-Attorney General of Alabama, was allegedly bribed to sign letters opposing the North Birmingham EPA clean-up effort.
Two days after our report that struck a raw nerve, Josh Moon, brain amputee of the discredited Alabama Political Reporter and alleged CDLU stalker, published a report apparently on behalf of Southern Company that viciously attacked us, the CDLU, about the $2 million grant that we had received in 2019, falsely alleging it was tied to attacking Balch & Bingham, the sister-wife of Southern Company.
Spreadsheets showed the $120,000 payoff to the envelope journalists at Alabama Political Reporter.
Southern Company’s criminal racketeering enterprise had authorized the payment of $120,000 to Alabama Political Reporter (APR) in August of 2020 to allegedly defame and smear us through July of 2021.
Shortly thereafter in March of 2021, Judge Tamara Harris Johnson sealed the entire case for what appears to be solely for the benefit of the Southern Company criminal enterprise.
Johnson created another Star Chamber so that Southern Company’s criminal enterprise can lie, cheat, and manipulate the system just like they did in the Newsome Conspiracy Case.
Now over two years later, the Energy and Policy Institute, according to Archibald, filed to intervene and open the case up. The Alabama Media Group filed brief in support of opening the case.
But Judge Johnson wants to keep the alleged corruption, bribes, and set up of the “fall guy” hidden.
Archibald writes:
Johnson has ordered the case sealed, lock, stock and coal-smoking barrel. Court dates are invisible on Alacourt, the state’s online court record system, and elsewhere. Even headings of past and scheduled hearings are stricken, because Johnson says it’s none of your business.
“This is not a public issue,” she told lawyers this week.
Why?
“It is strictly an employment matter,” she said.
An employment matter? That is a large spoonful of human waste.
Setting up an executive as a fall guy and sending him to federal prison is not an employment matter.
The reality is the Southern Company criminal racketeering enterprise appears to have been involved in the North Birmingham Bribery Scheme since day one.
Bowden
The alleged brainchild of the scheme was Matthew Bowden, the late Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Alabama Power, who curiously died two weeks after Roberson, Gilbert and McKinney were indicted.
Bowden wanted to discredit GASP.
North Birmingham appears to have been a side-show, a distraction to the real objective: squashing the tiny environmental group GASP before the Birmingham group could start probing the Miller Steam Plant, one of the biggest greenhouse polluting, coal-burning plants in the nation, according to news reports.
Jim Kerr, then-Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel of Southern Company lied to us in 2018, when he claimed that Southern Company was not involved in the North Birmingham Bribery Scheme.
Kerr tried to ignore the alleged racist act of suppressing the poor African Americans of North Birmingham from having their toxic property tested. Kerr had the audacity to dismiss the racist scheme, telling the CDLU, “I don’t accept your proposition or your hypothesis.”
Five seconds of silence
North Birmingham’s population is 92.5 percent African American.
When confronted about why Balch lobbyist Jeffrey H. Wood was on Capitol Hill at the height of the bribery scheme inquiring about North Birmingham on behalf of Alabama Power, Kerr was silent for five seconds before regurgitating a canned legal answer.
Kerr was caught blind-sided, with his legal pants on the floor. Kerr appeared to have been protecting the criminal enterprise, and looked the other way.
Southern Company Executive Chairman Tom Fanning and current CEO Chris Womack also have looked the other way and let Crosswhite, Alabama Power, Mark White, Balch, embattled political consulting firm Matrix, LLC, and Matrix’s founder, “Sloppy Joe” Perkins run out of control.
Fanning authorized and Womack supported an internal investigation about the secret surveillance in 2017 of Fanning and his then-girlfriend, Kim Tanaka, that concluded with no conclusion. An utter farce!
Millions of investors’ resources at Southern Company were wasted on personal vendettas and efforts to defame an innocent man falsely as a rapist. In addition, the company foolishly terrorized innocent children.
As we have documented, law enforcement, including the former U.S. Attorney who resigned in disgrace in 2020, were compromised and appear to be agents of Southern Company’s RICO enterprise.
Upcoming civil RICO cases, derivative lawsuits, and federal probes may finally expose the truth, and force a deep, forensic investigation into all the criminal shenanigans, including the ex-parte communications between Judge Johnson and the criminal enterprise that has eroded the Alabama judiciary.
Take our word for it!
Ex-U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town and ex-Alabama CEO Mark A. Crosswhite chugging together.
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 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 helpfriends 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 OompaLoompa 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 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, themost trusted advisor of disgraced ex-CEO of Alabama Power, Mark A. Crosswhite.
J. Mark White
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.
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.
Spreadsheets confirm that Southern Company wasted investor resources on a personal vendetta.
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.
Boiling in hot water
Chris Womack, the CEO of Southern Company, is now boiling inhotwater 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.
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.]”
Children were targeted, terrorized, and caused to cry in fear by Southern Company. And for what fudiciary duty to shareholders ? None. Zero. Zilch.
Southern Company had the testicular fortitude to foolishly tell The Wall Street Journal that “it has no idea who ordered the [surveillance] operation or why” of Southern Company’s Executive Chairman Tom Fanning and his then-girlfriend in 2017.
Observers unanimously agree that Southern Company appears to be lying to and intentionally misleading the public.
The million-dollar internal probe’s conclusion is now seen as a farce.
Why?
Because the most trusted advisor and confidant of Mark A. Crosswhite, the ex-CEO of Alabama Power who resigned in disgrace last November, was one of the key “investigators” of this buffoonery.
Mark White
Mark White, a white-collar criminal attorney from White, Arnold, & Dowd, was seen everyday at the courthouse during the North Birmingham Bribery Trial in 2018 and allegedly cut the deal with disgraced ex-U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town to keep Alabama Power “unmentionable” during the corruption trial.
According to the Wall Street Journal, White, Arnold & Dowd was involved in Southern Company’s internal probe that concluded with no conclusion.
White is not admired by some in Birmingham, and a few years back, a U.S. Department of Justice official in Washington, D.C. made some derogatory (but prophetic) comments about the fellow that frankly stunned us at the time.
In 2020, White showed his foolishness. He filed an avalanche of hard-copy, paper court pleadings on behalf of Alabama Power and Crosswhite in ex-Drummond Executive David Roberson’s $75 million civil lawsuit at the courthouse in person, over the counter, as if it were 1950 not 2020. The delay and “hiding the goods” tactic failed since the clerk immediately scanned and uploaded the paper pleadings.
Southern Company may claim they do not know who authorized the surveillance of Fanning and for what purposes, but we do know who authorized and which individuals were involved in the campaign of assault, intimidation, defamation and theft against the CDLU, Burt Newsome, K.B. Forbes, the Newsome family, and the Forbes Family.
Like David Copperfield, Southern Company wants to make these embarrassing million-dollar expenditures simply disappear with a half-baked internal probe, while “hiding the goods.”
Between 2018 and 2020, children were targeted, terrorized, and caused to cry in fear by Southern Company.
And for what fudiciary duty to shareholders ? None. Zero. Zilch.
And that, our dear reader, is why Southern Company appears to have “covered up and swept the criminal misconduct under the rug.”
Womack’s problem now.
Crosswhite’s problem has now become new Southern Company CEO Chris Womack’s problem, even though his spin doctors claim they have “moved on.”
Investigators from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Wall Street plaintiff attorneys for investors, and major civil RICO litigators are currently digging, probing, and preparing, sources affirm.
The anonymous spreadsheets and documents that we received show that Southern Company executives Zeke Smith and Jeff Peoples were involved in authorizing expenditures to scare and terrorize young children.
And no matter how badly Southern Company wants to “move on,” the evidence is rock solid. Even the laughable internal probe, with no conclusion, affirmed that millions were wasted by Southern Company.
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 outwho 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:
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.
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.
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 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. Theterror 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 Companycontinues to pay embattled law firm Balch & Bingham and Joe Perkins, the OompaLoompa of Alabama politics, millions of dollars.
Southern Company prematurely states, “We have moved on.” We, the CDLU, have not.
A report published by The Wall Street Journal today outlining the “mystery” corporate surveillance operations at Southern Company has spurred more scrutiny in that Southern Company claims “it has no idea who ordered the operation or why.”
“Southern Company is using mumbo jumbo words. Southern Company paidfor the surveillance, and they do not denythe expenditures at all,” said Ernesto Pichardo, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the CDLU.
Tanaka
“Last year, according to news reports, Southern Company paid a generous financial settlement to former Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning’s ex-girlfriend, Kim Tanaka, and the spy who infiltrated her life. Southern Company has habitually lied and misused investor funds to target alleged enemies, including us, the CDLU. In November, we anonymously received financial and internal documents showing unequivocally that Southern Company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a two-month period in 2020 to conduct surveillance, threaten minority families, and terrorize innocent individuals, including young children, using a network of criminal goons and paid stooges. The documents have independently been verified,” Pichardo, a respected Civil Rights champion, stated.
“Contracts allegedly giving carte blanche power and resources to Joe Perkins appears to be a betrayal to the fiduciary obligations to investors. Surveillance operations allegedly misusing company funds for personal and illegal purposes need to be thoroughly investigated by regulators and law enforcement. In today’s Wall Street Journal article, Southern Company prematurely states, ‘We have moved on.’ We, the CDLU, have not and we will continue working with federal and state investigators to protect our Civil Rights, our children, and our well-being from out-of-control utility companies who spend millions on surveillance programs yet have no idea who authorized them,” Pichardo added.
Pichardo has been a member of the Board of Directors of the CDLU since 2003.
In 1993, Pichardo won a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision for religious freedom and Civil Rights after his Afro-Caribbean faith came under attack due to blatant intolerance and discrimination by racists and religious bigots.
This spring, we, the CDLU, drove to Vincent, Alabama and met with the courageous leaders that united the African American and white communities to stunningly defeat well-financed Balch & Bingham political stooges in 2019.
In a shocking, lopsided vote, residents cleaned house and tossed out the politicians by margins as high as 69 percent to 31 percent.
The election results were a crushing blow to Balch and a planned rock quarry.
Over a decade ago, Balch & Bingham lawyers (and their public relations stooges) spearheaded the strategic purchase of farmland and the fast-as-lightening re-zoning of said land, and oversaw the lucrative transactions for a client called White Rock Quarries.
Five years ago, we, the CDLU, had met with residents who alleged that only white landowners were approached for land purchases while African Americans were not; worse many of these African Americans were older, senior citizens, descendants of slaves.
Our reporting of the allegations exposed this abhorrent, immoral scheme and shook the town.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice from May of 2012, Wanda Threatt, an African American resident of Vincent, wrote:
The River Loop
“’The River Loop’ is predominately Black-owned property. Many of the inhabitants are slave descendants. Prior to the rezoning of the property by the Vincent Council, White Rock Quarries had surreptitiously bought the property under various names for highly inflated prices for the reported purpose of growing corn for conversion to gasoline. No offer at any price was made to a Black. The quarry bought what has become known as the purposed quarry site right up to the boundaries of Black-owned property…. White Rock bought land bordered by Blacks, but never from Blacks.“
The alleged “whites-only” land grab was central to a scheme to operate a rock quarry in the heart of Vincent’s historic African American area, “The River Loop.” The quarry borders the African American Church the Evangel Temple.
While embattled and alleged racist law firm Balch & Bingham stupidly collects make-believe awards for diversity and inclusion, the reality is the law firm was involved in what appears to be a blatantly racist “land-grab” scheme.
Even historic slave graves are located on the property acquired by Balch’s client.
The good news is that the rock quarry is now shut down. Rusted locks, chains, and a closed gate greet you at the entrance.
The rock quarry itself is overgrown with high grass and shrubs.
White Rock Quarries still owns huge tracks of land in Vincent, and the community leaders are still concerned that the company will possibly attempt to come back in the future and operate a rock quarry.
But for now residents can rest assured that the city itself will fight the quarry tooth and nail.
Closed entrance to the quarry.
Rock Quarry borders African American Church Evangel Temple
Embattled and alleged racist law firm Balch & Bingham was handed a huge, crushing defeat this morning by the U.S. Supreme Court which rejected Balch’s congressional voting redistricting defense for the State of Alabama.
Dorman Walker
Dorman Walker, a Balch partner, represented the State of Alabama and John H. Merrill, the former Alabama Secretary of State, during arguments before the nation’s highest court.
“Under the Court’s precedents, a district is not equally open when minority voters face—unlike their majority peers—bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
Civil-rights groups challenged the map in court, calling it “the latest example of a decadeslong pattern of the white-controlled Alabama Legislature enacting congressional and state legislative districts that discriminate against Black voters to maintain power,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Last year, a federal court in Birmingham, Ala., ruled that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
Citing “Alabama’s extensive history of repugnant racial and voting-related discrimination,” the district court ordered Alabama to redraw its map to create an additional district “in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it,” the Wall Street Journal added.
And what about Balch & Bingham’s history of repugnant racial discrimination?
The late Schuyler A. Baker, Sr. was at one time a top attorney at Balch & Bingham, and also an avowed and staunch segregationist who was part of racist Governor George Wallace’s inner circle in the 1960s.
And why was the federal highway scandal so sensational?
The Wallace-era highway scandal in 1964 involved the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert Shelton, who was contracted as a “publicity man,” according to The New York Times.
Baker’s son, Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr., served as General Counsel at Balch from 1974 until his death in 2020.
Ironically, Schuyler, Jr. vowed to fight the CDLU and the Newsome Conspiracy Case to the death.
Now nearly 60 years later, the vestiges of racism still shine vibrantly.
In 2011, Balch’s Walker defended the state’s redistricting plan that was later tossed out by a federal court because the state improperly used race. And now 12 years later, the Supreme Court of the United States, with a conservative majority, rejected Walker’s latest defense.
Former Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is no puritan, no angel. In 2021, Merrill was rocked by a “tie-her-up-and-bite-me” sexual affair of three years when raunchy texts and audio recordings were released by the media. He did not run for re-election last year and Wes Allen took office in January.
Still refusing to apologize for the North Birmingham Bribery Scandal that targeted poor African American families (the scheme was born at the offices of Balch & Bingham), Balch Managing Partner Stan Blanton appears to be engaging in tokenism while collecting make-believe awards for “diversity and inclusion.”
Only 2 percent of Balch partners are people of color.
And Stan apparently can’t figure out why even the conservative Supreme Court of the United States hasn’t embraced Balch’s defense of a phony, fake, and racist redistricting plan.
Maybe Balch has contracted the wrong “publicity man.”
The correspondence we received recently from the Office of Professional Responsibility at the U.S. Department of Justice was clear: the probe of disgraced ex-U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town is over.
“We are taking no further action,” they wrote, which reveals that an alleged deal was cut in 2020.
The quid pro quo: the abrupt resignation of Town meant he wouldn’t be investigated or prosecuted for criminal misconduct, especially now since he is no longer a U.S. Attorney
No further action, indeed.
Even though Town is off the hook, insiders claim that the criminal probe of Southern Company’s criminal enterprise is escalating, now that former Southern Company Chairman and CEO Tom Fanning has retired.
Besides looking at the Kemper Plant debacle and Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant cost overruns, criminal investigators at the U.S. Department of Justice are apparently looking deeply at the alleged money laundering through third-party vendors tied to Southern Company and its subsidiaries, including embattled political consultant “Sloppy Joe” Perkins.
The criminal investigation complements an ongoing civil investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that is looking at the multiple, no-invoice-needed, multi-million-dollar secret contracts with Perkins and his affiliated entities.
The U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission is looking at any potential misappropriate and alleged illegal communications between former NRC Chair Kristine L. Svinicki, now a member of the Southern Company Board of Directors, and the NRC staff or Commissioners in June and July of 2022.
Sources claim that Svinicki is barred for life from contacting the NRC about Southern Company since she voted for Southern Company’s Vogtle permits as NRC Chair, but may have communicated through NRC back channels last year.
Convicted pedophile and ex-Balch & Bingham attorney Chase T. Espy is now inmate 04104-510 at the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, while ex-Balch partner Joel I. Gilbert, convicted of money laundering and bribery in the North Birmingham Bribery Scandal, is inmate 35504-001 at the Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, Alabama.
Balch has boasted these last five-years of expanding their footprint in the Southeast, and now the embattled firm can add two convicted felons in Atlanta and Montgomery.
Both convicted felons represented Southern Company, one of Balch’s top clients currently in the middle of a sex and accounting scandal.
With only 2 percent of Balch partners being people of color, the alleged racist law firm’s partners are 98 percent white while their esteemed convicts are 100 percent white.
So desperate to hide their racist and segregationist past, and links to Governor George Wallace and a Ku Klux Klan scandal, Balch recently added their Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer on their professionals list of attorneys and lobbyists, even though she is not involved in any practice area of law nor participates in government relations.
No other Balch officers are listed on the professional pages.
Neither the Chief Operating Officer, Director of Human Resources, Director of Finance, Director of Client and Community Engagement, Chief Information Officer, nor the Chief Marketing Officer.
Could it because that they are all white?
Tokenism. Tokenism of partners. Tokenism of attorneys. And now tokenism of management officers on their website.
How embarrassing!
But then again Balch managing partner Stan Blanton is collecting make-believe awards for diversity and inclusion.
Southern Company’s annual shareholders meeting yesterday was a façade hiding the allegations of sexual misconduct and accounting fraud that has shaken up the stopgap appointments of Southern Company Chairman and CEO Chris Womack and Alabama Power Chairman and CEO Jeff Peoples.
Executives at the embattled utility must retire at 65 years of age. The retirement age is mandatory. Womack is 64 while Peoples was 63 when he was appointed in January.
The bombshell insider reports by DonaldWatkins.com has caused the senior management to try to find the leakers.
Top sources are now tightlipped and in lock down mode caused by the alleged paranoid feelings and suspicious minds of top brass.
And what has Donald Watkins reported? Bombshell after bombshell.
As soon as Chris Womack departed the lounge area, a distraught Rita Kennedy broke down in tears and informed [Birmingham Mayor Richard] Arrington and me that Womack had [allegedly] propositioned her for an affair. She recounted the entire conversation while wiping away tears.
Then the allegations of multiple relationships:
Throughout the years, Womack sponsored the employment and/or promotion of several women at Alabama Power, in professional and managerial positions with whom he later [allegedly] had illicit affairs. The names of these women are known to us, but we are withholding the publication of them in this article to spare them unwarranted embarrassment.
And finally, the alleged special sexual relationships that were financed allegedly through Southern Company:
At least two other special personal relationships were financed with power company money. I am withholding the names of these two women because they have done nothing wrong. Each woman reportedly submitted to a relationship with Womack that she thought was required to advance her professional and business career.
One woman is still employed as a manager for Alabama Power Company in Birmingham. Though she is well qualified for her position, she was reportedly offered the job and selected for the position because of her special personal relationship with Womack.
Another woman in a special personal relationship with Womack was placed in the Southern Company’s vendor system to provide infrastructure equipment for the installation of powerlines. She works as a diversity partner with major suppliers of the same equipment. Over the years, her business relationship as a Southern Company “pass-through” vendor has reportedly netted her several millions of dollars.
In another bombshell, Donald Watkins outlines how Womack allegedly lied and boasted of having a “special relationship” with Kim Greene, the new Chairwoman, CEO, and President of Georgia Power. Womack allegedly falsely implied that he had conquered Greene sexually, according to DonaldWatkins.com.
Watkins writes:
Unlike Chris Womack, Kimberly Greene has never acknowledged the close personal relationship that Womack claims he enjoyed with her. Furthermore, we have found no credible evidence to corroborate Womack’s disparaging comments about Greene.
Based upon the information available to us to date, it appears that Womack lied about having an intimate relationship with Kimberly Green in a misguided effort to impress men with similar shortcomings — all at the expense of Greene’s well-respected professional and personal reputation.
What is more, Kimberly Greene is a first-class chief executive officer who has far more objective credentials and successful senior management experience in the utility plant operations side of the power generation business than Chris Womack.
But joining Womack is Peoples in the alleged sexual misconduct.
As Watkins reported in March:
Reportedly, Alabama Power CEO Jeff Peoples had a propensity to spend up to $30,000 per month of the company’s money on party pads and black prostitutes at a time when this utility company was raising rates on its customers. These expenditures were reportedly funneled through … black subcontractors. None of this corporate misconduct was disclosed in the company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Vendors were allegedly used to pay off, money launder, or conceal misconduct.
As we reported in April, Kim Tanaka, retired Southern Company Chairman Tom Fanning ex-girlfriend, was paid a settlement for invasion of her privacy by a surveillance operation between 2017 and 2022.
The payments to Tanaka, and the spy who allegedly infiltrated her life, were paid through a Southern Company third-party vendor.
Now both SEC and internal Southern Company investigators, we have been told, are probing the conduct and payments made to the OompaLoompaof Alabama politics, Joe Perkins and his obscure political consulting firm, Matrix, LLC.
The multi-million, no-invoice-needed contracts allegedly were used to funnel money to other individuals or entities.
Joe Perkins appears to have become a tremendous liability for Southern Company, and his days could be numbered as investigators learn of the alleged unsavory and criminal misconduct he and his stooges have engaged in on behalf of Southern Company and its subsidiaries.
Southern Company is filled now with suspicious minds.
Suspicious of the leaks. Suspicious of one another. Suspicious of support staff. Suspicious of vendors.
And maybe, just maybe, suspicious of Joe Perkins and his alleged shenanigans.
As soon as Chris Womack departed the lounge area, a distraught Rita Kennedy broke down in tears and informed [Birmingham Mayor Richard] Arrington and me that Womack had [allegedly] 
One woman is still employed as a manager for Alabama Power Company in Birmingham. Though she is well qualified for her position, she was reportedly offered the job and selected for the position because of her special personal relationship with Womack.
Reportedly, Alabama Power CEO Jeff Peoples had a propensity to spend up to $30,000 per month of the company’s money on 