~there will be justice~

Luggage packed with giraffe bones could mean trouble for Vulcan CEO Jody Allen and her brother — Microsoft co-founder and Seahawks owner Paul Allen — as lawsuits filed by the siblings’ bodyguards proceed.

The allegation – that Jody Allen tried to sneak home the bones while on safari in Botswana – is the most concrete claim made so far by a group of former Vulcan Inc. bodyguards who’ve sued both Allens and their firm, which was founded by Paul Allen, who remains the company’s chairman. But the giraffe’s bones may turn out to be the smallest skeleton tucked in the Allen family closet.

Silenced by court orders and confidentiality agreements, the former members of the Allens’ personal security detail have made vague claims that the Allens were involved in criminal activity and bribery, and that Jody Allen sexually harassed security officers. They also claim other Vulcan executives turned a blind eye or worse to the behavior.

At least five former members of the Allens’ personal security team have sued the siblings and Vulcan. Court documents indicate that 10 other former members of the team have previously settled with Vulcan after closed hearings before a private mediator.

 

In a series of lawsuits filed in King County Superior Court, the security officers accused Jody Allen of sexually harassing members of the executive protection team. They’ve also claimed she, her brother and others with the firm have committed and covered up crimes, which have yet to be described in detail.

Those alleged crimes may be revealed later this year, when attorneys for two former leaders of the executive protection team – a retired FBI special agent among them – are scheduled to take their cases to a jury. The Allens would be called to testify, as would dozens of current and former Vulcan employees alleged to have witnessed illegal or unethical activities.

Vulcan attorney Harry Schneider described the claims as “meritless” and accused the employees of attempting to wring money out of their former employer.

“These lawsuits were filed 18 months ago because Paul Allen declined to acquiesce when plaintiffs threatened to file their outlandish allegations in court unless they were paid money,” Schneider said by email Thursday.

Though the company has fought to push the lawsuits into secret arbitration, Schneider went on to say Vulcan “expects to prevail in court.”

Now best known as owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers, Paul Allen co-founded Vulcan in 1986 with sister Jody Allen, who serves as the firm’s president as well as its CEO. In the past decade, Vulcan has redeveloped much of Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood; the firm recently won a contract to turn the 30-acre Yesler Terrace housing project on First Hill into a $300 million mixed-use development.

A tiny piece of the Allens’ operation, the Vulcan executive protection team is staffed by elite security contractors – SEAL-school trained combat veterans among them – paid to protect Paul and Jody Allen, as well as Jody Allen’s children. Members of the team, which numbered eight to 14 people from 2010 to 2011, accompany the Allens when they travel and provide security for their properties.

In a sworn statement, former team leader and retired FBI special agent Kathy Leodler said the Allens are now trying to hide criminal activity behind confidentiality agreements.

“Let me be clear, I do not accept the assertion that crimes of corporate executives can be covered up by an agreement to protect trade secrets or Allen ‘privacy,’” Leodler said in a declaration to the court.

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“In spite of … ethical rhetoric and interviews of its executives and founder,” she continued, “it is clear that the core of Vulcan is based on extended patterns of executive corruption, a contamination of my workplace caused by criminal conduct, unethical behavior, obstruction of justice and a willingness of many indifferent executives to implicate others in the wrongful actions.”

Responding to the lawsuits in court, attorneys for Vulcan described the firm as serving Allen’s “family’s business and personal interests” while contending the ex-employees worked “at will” and were not unlawfully forced out.

Lawsuit: Bone smuggling part of ‘a pattern of conduct’

Leodler is among the three ex-employees whose lawsuit is still being pursued in open court. An FBI agent for 23 years, Leodler was serving as acting special-agent-in-charge of the Bureau’s San Diego office when she retired in 2007 and went to work in private security.

In court documents, Leodler claims she started hearing complaints shortly after she was hired to head the division in October 2010. Officers claimed they were being sexually harassed by Jody Allen and were directed to cover up crimes committed by the Allens, attorney Rebecca Roe said in court documents. Roe represents Leodler and several other former Vulcan employees.

“As she became more acquainted with her team members, (Leodler) started hearing reports that they were being asked to perform unethical and illegal acts at the direction of defendants Jody Allen and Paul Allen,” the attorney told the court.

In June 2011, Leodler learned a safari guide was detained by Botswana customs officials after Jody Allen was caught with giraffe bones in her luggage, Roe said in court documents. The incident prompted Leodler to conduct an investigation that left her concerned her team was being asked to bribe foreign officials, falsify customs declarations and smuggle protected items.

“Jody Allen had bones in her luggage she sought to remove from the country illegally,” Roe claimed in court documents. “A Vulcan ‘Africa After Action’ trip review, and (Leodler’s) further inquiries revealed this was part of a pattern of conduct by the owners.”

A spokeswoman for Vulcan declined to discuss the allegations in detail. Attorneys for the Allens have issued a blanket denial of all claims of wrongdoing.

Giraffe bones may be legally exported from Botswana and imported into the United States, though there are some regulations that must be followed.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Claire Cassel said giraffes aren’t protected under the Endangered Species Act or related laws.

Tourists returning to the United States with giraffe bones must declare them on customs forms, but there are no fees or license requirements. Botswana assesses a 5-cent-per-pound tax on animal bones removed from the country.

Most complaints pushed into secret hearings

According to several ex-employee accounts, Vulcan leadership pushed executive protection team members to sign confidentiality and arbitration agreements in the months after the Botswana incident. By then, it was clear some members of the team were considering suing the Allens. For her part, Leodler left Vulcan in August 2011 and filed a lawsuit the following month.

Leodler and four other employees who have sued contend they were fired or forced out around the time all Vulcan was offering large bonus payments in exchange for agreements not to sue the company. Instead, they would be required to go before a private arbitrator, effectively removing any disputes from public view.

Increasingly commonplace in business disputes, binding arbitration is similar to a trial but is conducted outside of court before a paid arbitrator, usually a retired judge. Contracts between businesses, with employees or customers often require that any legal claims be settled through arbitration. Arbitration is sometimes less expensive than a public proceeding, and always conducted in secret.

 

On discovering via the lawsuit that Leodler had the documents, Vulcan attorney Harry Schneider described them as attorney-client communications and suggested Leodler was using them improperly. Leodler has denied the claim and faulted Vulcan for attacking her character.

In a sworn statement, Leodler acknowledged that she took documents when she left, but claimed she did so in part to prevent Vulcan from destroying them or blaming her for crimes committed by others. She went on to claim others still with Vulcan know of “executive criminal activity and the destruction of evidence.”

“As Vulcan is aware … I am a person of duty and commitment, a former FBI agent and career law enforcement professional,” Leodler told the court.

“Days prior to my Aug. 13, 2011, departure from Vulcan, I took several documents in an effort to preserve evidence, as I had witnessed at Vulcan, a corrupt environment from the top down; a reckless disregard for the rule of law; and a hostility toward employees including many former Navy SEALs and other military veterans who identified and exposed wrongful behaviors, be they either unethical or illegal,” Leodler continued. “Because of this executive behavior, and the behavior of the members of the legal department, I would never have asked permission to remove any documents as the response would have been major retaliation.”

Vulcan knocks two lawsuits into secret arbitration

Two other employees who attempted to sue Vulcan and the Allens in state court have been ordered to go through binding arbitration.

A King County Superior Court judge found agreements former executive protection lead Traci Turner and officer Thomas RoseHaley made with Vulcan required them to take their case to an arbitrator.

Turner, a security specialist with 16 years of experience, and RoseHaley will each likely be called to the witness stand if the other lawsuits go to trial.

Before her lawsuit was shifted into private arbitration, Turner claimed to have witnessed acts by the Allens that forced her to resign. RoseHaley made similar allegations before his case was transferred to a private arbitrator in February 2012.

RoseHaley, a graduate of the Navy’s elite SEAL school, went to work for Vulcan in November 2010 after serving in Iraq as a squad medic for a security contractor.

According to court documents, RoseHaley was attending a trauma medicine training in August 2011 when Vulcan asked him to give up his right to pursue claims against the company in open court.

According to documents filed with the court, RoseHaley was offered a payment equal to 150 percent of an otherwise discretionary annual bonus – $18,750 in his case – for signing the agreement. Benoit and Turner were offered similar terms; Turner’s payment for signing away her right to sue would have been $25,156.

Trial set for September

RoseHaley, in his own sworn declaration, said he did not sign the arbitration agreement because the agreement “did not feel right.”

“In August 2011 I was already aware of certain behaviors by Vulcan corporate executives like Paul Allen and Jody Allen, and in my opinion the legal consequences of their actions showed Vulcan to be a company that was internally conflicted over how to please the Allens, and what was reasonable to expect of Vulcan employees in an effort to satisfy the personal needs of Paul and Jody Allen,” RoseHaley said in court documents.

Having refused to sign the agreement, RoseHaley said he was pulled from Paul Allen’s protective detail and given remedial duties. He told the court he “was essentially benched” and resigned shortly thereafter.

Attorneys for Vulcan successfully argued that RoseHaley agreed to the arbitration when he sent an email stating he would sign the agreement.

King County Superior Court Judge Laura Middaugh ordered RoseHaley and Vulcan to undergo arbitration, which is currently slated to begin May 13 before George Finkle, a retired superior court judge. Turner’s claims are also expected to be heard by an arbitrator.

The lawsuits brought by Leodler and Benoit are scheduled to go to trial in September before Judge Michael Hayden. Sandoval’s case is currently scheduled for trial in August.

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Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 orlevipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.

 

 

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We received more threats today from the defendants Ross Levinsohn and Paul Allen to take off the internet (and out of public view) the briefs we filed in response to Mr. Levinsohn and Mr. Allen’s declaration of bankruptcy.

Mr. Levinsohn and Mr. Allen may be bankrupt, but it’s not monetary bankruptcy, it’s the other kind.

We have been living, or trying to, under their bullying and threats for almost 4 years, beginning with their fraud, destruction of the Worddiamonds website they held hostage, and the most unbelievable unrelenting nastiness which they are doing everything to coverup. But while attempting to cover up, they continue this same bullying and nastiness.

at his annual Cannes bash

naturally, to avoid paying taxes, this yacht is registered in the Cayman Islands…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Their exultation was like those who devour the oppressed in secret’ Habakkuk 3:14

press release- SiliconValley VC JuryTrial Starts 2-27-1

The trial that had been scheduled for over 2 years to begin this past Feb. 27, 2012, was shut down the night before it was to begin, after Steve Hall, of Vulcan Capital, and Ross Levinsohn, of Yahoo, announced they too are a creditors of Radar, the company they engineered the shutdown and sale of, to a company called Evri.

Steve Hall sat on the boards of and effectively controlled both Evri and Radar.

The acquisition committee which allowed the fraudulent conveyance to take place and selectively transfer all of Radar’s assets to Evri was comprised of Mr. Levinsohn alone. He decided to ignore the law and just “see what happens”, confident that with money and muscle, by bullying, threats and intimidation, this fraud could prevail, dismissing any concern or regard for the law or any consequences unrelated to his own gain.

Ross Levinsohn and Steve Hall declaring at literally the very last minute before the trial was to begin [see case CIV494701 online at the San Mateo County Superior Court website] that they both are now also creditors of Radar, was done solely for the purpose of stopping the trial.

Although Mr. Levinsohn remarked that Mr. Hall’s conduct was ‘evil’, he went along with it anyway. Both of them now claiming they are creditors of the same company they orchestrated the shutdown and sale of, is another bad faith effort on both their parts to prevent their fraudulent activities from coming to light.

Having failed in their efforts to have the trial dismissed, and having failed at having the mountain of evidence, which is sky high, of their fraudulent activities excluded from being presented in front of a jury, here again is another instance of the lengths Mr. Hall and Mr. Levinsohn are willing to go ‘to get away with murder’ by perversely declaring they and others are actually owed money from the company Mr. Hall bought and shut down, (Mr. Levinsohn being complicit), [See TechCrunch, 'Evri buys Radar'] while at the same time also boasting that Mr. Allen has never said ‘no’ to him.

This manipulation of the law to pervert it’s intent is of a piece with the fraud perpetrated on Worddiamonds. The disdain of the rights of others, the condescending dismissal and relentless disparagment, to objectify as a mere “obstacle” to their fraud, the rights of anyone other than themselves, has been demonstrated to the nth degree. For the movie version of the book that is coming out which documents this entire saga, their depositions alone will provide the actors with what are displays of such sneering smugness, the audience will be falling on the floor with laughter. Mr. Hall and Mr. Levinsohn’s attempts to obscure their actions with bogus legal acrobatics that mock not only our legal system but the law in general continue what is almost a parody of the white collar shell games sprouting up throughout the land.

How many others has Vulcan or Mr. Levinsohn stolen from, harassed, slandered, bullied, threatened, hacked, and much much worse, with such relentless intent to steal, oppress, destroy, and now cover up, using, at every turn, such spurious contortions of the law?

We are asking for the prayers of believers so that all that has been perpetrated against Worddiamonds be exposed and defeated, and for restoration of all.

We are called to stand against evil, not to let it roll over us and others. “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’. This culture of greed and insider-trading with it’s dismissive attitude towards the law, is a cancer on our nation. It has to be confronted, even at the cost of our lives. Although taking a stand against corruption in this case has meant becoming a target of the most reprehensible slander- as if attempting to incite a mob in lynching, or burning at the stake, the one who speaks truth to power.

And yet we live in the United States of America, our freedoms preserved at the cost of mens lives. That imperceptible slide into the hypocrisy of the status quo is becoming, if not checked in time, an avalanche. Corruption brings ruin gentlemen, and ruin is not quantified by riches.

 In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36