Richert. Versus. WGA
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ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE
“Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Halle Salassie
Nov. 29/ 2017
Honorable John Shepard Wiley jr. Sets L A, Superior Court date for Richert V. WGAw firing of Neville Johnson.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES AND DOCUMENTS SHOW HOW SAG RECORDS WERE SEALED--AND LEFT SEALED BY THE CLASS ATTORNEY IN SPITE OF A JUDGE'S CONCERN THAT THEY BE OPENED FOR ACTORS' REVIEW
THIS is the Press Release about the filing I made which included your SAG declaration that was later heard in court by Judge Strobel in the hearing you attended, where she said we could get a new lawyer and I told the story.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES AND DOCUMENTS SHOW HOW SAGAFTRA RECORDS WERE SEALED AND LEFT SEALED BY THE CLASS ATTORNEY INSPITE OF A JUDGE'S CONCERN THAT THEY BE OPENED FOR ACTORS' REVIEW.
William Richert V Writers GUILD of America West, Inc et al"
17 hrs ·
note: HERE IS A PRESS RELEASE THAT IS ALSO A CALL FOR THE RIGHT LAWYER TO REPRESENT THE CLASS ACTION GOING FORWARD. I will be posting what I filed in court, and the Judge's response to the issues in this press release.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA
May 9, 2014
WILLIAM RICHERT DISMISSES LAWYERS NEVILLE JOHNSON AND PAUL KIESEL FROM WRITERS’ CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT
- FROM COURT TRANSCRIPT JUDGE WILEY JR. LA SUPERIOR COURT HEARING MAY 16, 2012:
THE COURT: “I'm directing the court reporter to repeat my remarks. It's not common in CCW that we actually have an issue of courtroom control. It's supposed to be the palace of reason and -- .”
MR. RICHERT: “ -- Well, in this case, it could be the dungeon of a certain kind of insanity, Your Honor, and it's very deeply within the vaults of these three unions…”
TO THE WRITERS, ACTORS AND DIRECTORS IN RELATED CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS AGAINST WGA/SAG/DGA:
LA attorneys Neville Johnson and Paul Kiesel have been dismissed from the class-action lawsuit WILLIAM RICHERT V. THE WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA pending court approval of substitution of attorney in a class action, according to lead plaintiff William Richert.
Mr. Richert has been in LA Superior Court as the class representative for the writers of 105,000 film/video titles in his class along with others throughout the world who are unaware they are represented in the settlement, with litigation starting in September, 2005.
“In firing Neville Johnson and Paul Kiesel” I am following congressional mandate for the duties and obligations of the Lead Plaintiff in a class action,” says Mr. Richert.
“I’m taking action after almost two years of the conspicuously absent settlement enforcement by Messrs. Johnson and Kiesel, along with the blatant contempt the WGA has shown for the settlement for the writers class, and the negligent existence of the foreign levy agreements for SAG and the DGA non-union directors.
Placing the announcement on his Facebook page for the writers, actors and directors governed by the class actions, which allow the WGAw to function as a collection society, Mr. Richert asks the artists and journalists following the story to examine and check out the U.S. Court of Appeals decisions about class actions, and the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, so they can become aware of the many rights they have.
Mr. Richert states that it is extremely difficult to undo a negotiated class action lawsuit involving deep-pocket unions or corporations – look at the asbestos class action for years of disputes – but a settlement can be vigorously enforced to the benefit of the class.
“For enforcement we need a lawyer to interpret the clauses to the court, since judges are not cops or investigators. They can only work with what they are given, basically, and they have to trust the lawyers. Of course, 50% of the time they might be lied to. Very rarely are all the lawyers lying 100% of the time, as appears to have happened in these cases.”
Saying he’s just discovered his “settlement class” may include Guilds across the European Union and Australia, Mr. Richert continues:
“Only last week I looked at the WGAw settlement again and saw that the tiny phrase ‘U.S.’ had been removed from the earlier class definition of screenwriters and authors who are purported to be controlled by my lawsuit. This was brought to my attention by a leader in another country’s writers guild.
“That change means my class definition now includes ‘all writers, including members of the WGAw and most importantly, non-members of the WGAw.
“‘Non members of the WGAw’ would mean most of the planet. I have been told that the WGAw is also collecting royalties for the European Union and the Australian Writers Guild, which I didn’t know, and the WGAw didn’t admit. I hadn’t looked at this phrase in a long time, and never noticed that the ‘U.S.’ was missing.
“I looked at the Amended settlement once again because an official of a Writer’s Guild in another country told me that the WGAw settlement was being used to block royalties in Guilds across the European Union – Germany, France, Italy and especially Spain. An international commission of Writers Guilds is preparing to contest the settlement as a whole.
“I object to this ongoing outrageous conduct by the WGAw Officers and Board of Directors under the settlement’s use of my name and class.
“Carl Gottlieb, Secretary-Treasurer, recently sent me a check for $1,300 in foreign royalties for a movie that the WGAw had no contract for, and for which the original amount was upwards of $12,000 before the WGAw split with the studios.
“Amounts owed to me alone, and I’m a slim earner in the Hollywood system, could be in the hundreds of thousands, with only a fraction accounted for.
“Not only is the RICHERT VS WGAw settlement being used against writers throughout the world, but the SAG settlement negotiated by Messrs. Johnson & Kiesel was the core basis of dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Sunny Wise in the Federal court on behalf of Eric Hughes, Ed Asner, Clancy Brown, Dennis Hayden and others, including me.
“The benefits to the classes as defined and created by these 3 lawsuits are grossly derogatory to the classes, are the opposite of fair and reasonable, and the economic, performance and copyrights that the actors, writers and directors possessed under law before the settlements were enacted have been lost to all.
“The settlement themselves are instruments of fraud.
“The union management and Boards of Directors continue to pay gargantuan fees from the members’ funds to lawyers to protect them and their profiteering secret conniving methods,” Mr. Richert says.
THE LAWYER THREATENS THE CLASSES HE REPRESENTS, THEN QUITS
“Something really, really, really bad,” will happen to his clients if he were not paid more money, Neville Johnson told the court of Judge Wiley Jr., with actors Tom Bower and Dennis Hayden in the Gallery.
“The lawyers were deficient,” Mr. Johnson boldly added, knowing he was referring to himself and Mr. Kiesel. Judge Wiley Jr. agreed.
Deficiency is the opposite of what these class action lawsuits are meant to achieve, Mr. Richert asserts, and under law, class action clients are not supposed to suffer a net loss.
The lawyers for the actors – Dan Schecter, Duncan Crabtree Ireland, Bob Bush – and their respective law firms and consultants like EEG – actually paid themselves legal fees and bonuses totaling way more than the $8 million they claim was paid to the actors, without showing any actual accounting, which remains under court seal due to inaction of Neville Johnson, according to Mr. Richert.
Under the direction of David White for SAG and David Young and Carl Gottlieb for the WGAw, with Neville Johnson and Paul Kiesel negligent for all three “sister” guild lawsuits, and them all guided by Robert Hadl for himself and the studios, with compliance from Joe Roth at the DGA; the rights of artists world wide have been reduced to a fraction of true value, and attempts to correct the injustice have been blocked in the courts and ignored in the press.
“At one point I asked to be removed from the case and demanded that my name be taken off. After a meeting in the hallway with Mr. Johnson, I went back into the courtroom and heard Judge West accept my offer. Then on the way out Mr. Johnson leaned over and loudly asked our opponent, Ms. Emma Leheny for the WGAw, if she could supply a new writer as plaintiff. When she said, “Yes, I think I can,” while the Judge pretended to be looking through schedules, I knew I would not be able to withdraw and leave that case to the lawyers and the union writers at he WGAw. So I went back into court and my role, and have stayed ever since.”
Mr. Richert noted that one Executive Director of a foreign guild, who wishes to remain anonymous because of fear of WGAw retaliation, said that a single accounting of interest-only from a tiny group of writers whose royalties were taken by the WGAw amounts to $200,000 – again, that is interest alone.
The amounts due American non-union writers are unknown, but could add up to $500 million or more, and that does not include what is due European writers.
There is no evidence that any of the classes were “adequately represented” in the lawsuit, the key to legitimacy of a class action according to U.C.L.A. professor William B. Rubenstein.
“Our challenge to the medusa heads of the sister-unions in Hollywood, and their major studio overlord partners, is just beginning now that the time limit has passed for compliance at the WGA. I am in discussions with one of the greatest class action lawyers in the known Universe, as they say in Hollywood.
“Once we get approval from Judge Wiley that hiring a real lawyer to represent the class is court approved, we can contract and announce our new class action lawyer.
“Neville Johnson’s promise that something ‘really really really’ bad” will happen to all of us clients if Judge Wiley did not pay him additional fees to represent the classes, could become a rallying cry for film artists across the world – against clandestine union activities against folks the union has no business representing under any circumstances. Ultimately, these are copyright issues and performance right issues thwarted by settlements the unions misrepresented to their members .
“What Mr. Johnson hasn’t reckoned with are the non union not-for-hire writers like me who don’t care a fig about their holy crony vows.”
WGA COLLECTION SOCIETY NOT A LEGAL ENTERPRISE IN A PUBLIC CORPORATION
According to Mr. Richert: In true Verroneian WGA-double-speak, after 60 years the union managed to victoriously upend the dreaded deadly anti-human anti-writer “Hollywood Blacklist,” of the 1950s, a crime against freedoms of all kinds, including freedom of speech engineered by crusading anti-Red evangalesists supported by the Writer’s Guild of America and the Hollywood Reporter, among other lynchers of freedom of speech and writing.
“Some say that the WGA 2007 marching crusade ‘Pencils Down’ was a rewrite of that era, stopping writers from telling the truth by labeling them traitors.
“However, ‘Pencils Up!!’ is the motto of the writers I grew up with, and emulated.
“Like other Verroneian reversals of truth and fact, in 2005 the WGA co-authored the creation of a brand new incarnation of THE BLACK LIST, reinvented as an index of the best screenplays in Hollywood. Now when anybody says ‘Black List,’ it means the opposite of what it once did, as they re-created my lawsuit for fraud as ‘the highly successful foreign levy program.’”
[check WGA website wga.org. WGA ex-president and Board Member Patric Verrone is now running for public office from Pacific Palisades, where his union once distributed threatening leaflets about a cable television executive. Mr. Verrone is running on “I won the strike” platform, which continues his revisionist campaigns, as the strike was a net loss to writers in LA of up to 75% and the jobs are still moving away from LA.]
Look further on wga.org at the WGAw “Audit” to see the single-page accounting for foreign levies – now almost $180 million -- what is actually a number like $1.4 Billion for an unknown number of writers – unknown, and still unaccounted for.
“Using the same obfuscation-grammar zero-sum response legal-sleaze techniques to deceive, David Young and Daniel Pietrie Jr. both wrote devoted, passionate letters to the entire 2009 WGA membership – which basically means all of the movers in Hollywood, producers writers and directors – denouncing the allegations I made before the settlement without mentioning them, using in the letters a kind of old-style organizer malevolence, all directed at the named plaintiff, William Richert.
“These letters, approved by Counsel and the Board of Directors, were only propaganda for the settlement the writers were meant to sign, relinquishing their copyrights 92 percent to the major studios; like saying: this is good for you, fellows/ladies! That bad man Billy Richert was saying mean things about us Hollywood writers, and he should be scorned.
“Since there are so many innocents involved here, and the futures of independent writers, directors, actors and filmmakers are at stake, this long festering case grants unions and studios vast impact across all media, from the theatrical screens to the home screens connecting across the internet, stretching far into the future from deep into the past” says Mr. Richert.
“I only recently got a check for my movie LAW AND DISORDER, non union, made in the early 1970s.
“In addition to absconding with copyrights and royalties for writers worldwide, the personal slurs against me made publicly to the WGAw members by Patric Verrone, Daniel Petrie Jr. and Carl Gottlieb and David Young will be answered duly in time and with the proper lawful response. A union attacking a nonmember (or members) for performing public-interest whistle-blower functions is an actionable Federal offense.
“Corruption didn’t start in Hollywood, it only seems to wind up here,” says Mr. Richert, “like in the proverb: ‘When Jesus is Near, can the Devil be far behind?’”
INFORMATION AND CONTACT
RICHERT VS WGAW
www.williamrichert@williamrichert.com
FURTHER CONTACTS TBA
From: fcbfilms@hotmail.com
To: wcapplegate@aol.com; antkaufman@gmail.com; alhayes@the-machine.net; hydepark@mindspring.com; nkurtz@jjllplaw.com; angelsamongus12@gmail.com; stefan@stefanavalos.com; tubower@msn.com; reelmovies@aol.com; brandonctolman@mac.com; barrygermansky@yahoo.ca; thecolonel@vbbn.com; belindabauer@me.com; rbonsignore@aol.com; bsterling@rcn.com; nbrown@jjllplaw.com; codereddvd@yahoo.com; erboyle@aol.com; ebarton@wcllp.com; peter.bart@variety.com; ninsky13@hotmail.com; ceallen@compass1.com; jimmyfingers@oceanfree.net; stymeekatt@msn.com; dcs@sernalaw.com; jcoffee@law.columbia.edu; k_r_craft@sky.com; dennishayden@hotmail.com; dave.mcnary@variety.com; designmanager@yahoo.com; morin@pmplaw.com; dje@evanslaw.net; rapunzelinnewyork@gmail.com; dkholm@mac.com; daj@digitaleconomics.com; deadlinehollywood@gmail.com; dimitra.ekmektsis@gmail.com; evanferrante@gmail.com; erin2535@mchsi.com; etude-piletta-zanin@vtx.ch; sfoundas@filmlinc.com; joel@grossmanmediation.com; llbengr@aol.com; mgrenadier@gmail.com; patrick.goldstein@latimes.com; hrm@hrmatlencpa.com; hmatsco@aol.com; prayharper@gmail.com; ialwayswinfilms@gmail.com; johnleo9@aol.com; j.sh@verizon.net; jdunno@gmail.com; njohnson@jjllplaw.com; jwinikow@yahoo.com; kylemorris@rcn.com
Subject: Letter to Judge in Writers' Class Action
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 04:21:52 +0000
DEAR MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN WRITER, DIRECTOR AND ACTOR CLASS ACTIONS OF 2012:
ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF:
I am the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit WILLIAM RICHERT vs. WRITER’S GUILD OF AMERICA et. al. (BC339972) with related cases against the Director’s union and Screen Actor’s union – three largely unknown lawsuits about “foreign levies” which have been adjudicated in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
The cases are “settled” according to the parties signed agreements, but the truth is they are not settled, they are on fire, smoking and roiling with sealed-up falsehoods and deceit and false accountings.
The outcome of these lawsuits now being re-examined in the LA SUPERIOR COURT will affect the credits and pocketbooks of virtually every American writer, actor, director, porn star and documentary maker – union or free lancer -- who may have sold movies or videos overseas in the past 30 years OR who may sell their works in other countries in the future, where they will collect what are called “foreign levies.”
These “foreign levies,” are like royalties mandated by the state, tiny taxes on sales of media meant to benefit the artist. They were enacted by European legislatures to help writers and actors and artists who otherwise might receive nothing from the corporations who made or distributed their films/performances. For some, the money amounts are enormous.
In the decades-old scheme, billions of dollars have been collected and divided – in secret – by the WGA, DGA, SAG and 11 members of the MPAA. The method behind the split between unions and studios, money collected for actors and writers both inside and outside of unions, who worked independently or worked for studios, was first concocted by WGA Secretary-Treasurer Carl Gottlieb in the early 90’s.
Since then, millions have “disappeared,” unaccounted-for -- according to sworn testimony by paid-off whistleblowers, and the hidden studio-union agreements remained unknown to almost any union or non union American artist until our seminal class action lawsuit was filed against the WGAw in 2005. It is now 2012, and there is still no accounting.
Using evidence from the WGA lawsuit, the same LA contingency lawyers quickly filed two more lawsuits against the SAG and DGA unions, dating back to 2007.
But all three of the settlements are in breach, clearly in breach, and the lawyers for all sides keep stonewalling year after year, to wear down any opposition, to protect attorney interests along with the interests of the unions’ Board of Directors and studio bosses alike; everybody working together to hold up the walls against the truth, now crumbling down on them.
The fiduciary obligations of the unions’ Board of Directors are to their membership. I am sure that just about 100% of the dues-paying members of these “sister” unions would not want to be responsible for taking money from non-members if they knew about it, and would hold their officers directly responsible for immediate, transparent accountings and interest on their own money, too.
There is a hearing coming up on August 9, at the LA SUPERIOR COURT -- 600 Commonwealth Avenue, LA, Department 311, Judge Wiley, 9:30AM -- but if it’s like the other hearings, the majority media will ignore it. No wonder: the unions represent all actors and writers and broadcasters on cable and TV, and the networks and studios are owned by the very same major corporations who are tainted and caught by these decades-long thefts.
As the money appears to have vanished from the various unions’ domestic bank accounts, it may be the studio for-profit corporations that will finally have to pay up for the non-profit union corporations, as only they have the billions due.
I am a formerly reclusive writer/director/actor wrought up in this because I believed the quest of the lawsuit was genuine and was told thousands were signing on the suit along with me. I found out I was lead plaintiff from the NY Times, and up to now I’ve been the only writer among the named plaintiffs. Maybe in the future many more will join to demand fair representation and justice in court. You can read more at my blog (partly constructed) at williamrichert.blogspot or at my work in progress website williamrichert.com. email: richertwilliam@mac.com
From:
LEAD PLAINTIFF WILLIAM RICHERT,
WILLIAM RICHERT VS
WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA, et. al.
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – CENTRAL CIVIL WEST
CASE NO: BC339972
DECLARATION OF WILLIAM RICHERT - PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITON TO ATTORNEY’S MOTION FOR ADDITIONAL FEES
Hearing:
Date: August 9, 2012
Time: 9:30 AM
Place: Dept 311
Action filed: Sept. 16, 2005
JULY 27, 2012
TO: ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANT AND PLAINTIFF
HONORABLE JOHN SHEPARD WILEY JR.
DEPT 311
LA SUPERIOR COURT
600 Commonwealth Avenue
Los Angeles, California
via email and Hand Delivery
cc: "All American writers" represented in this lawsuit.
cc: Counsel Neville Johnson & Paul Kiesel for Plaintiff and Tony Segall for WGAw
RE: CLASS REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM RICHERT RESPECTFULLY ASKS COURT TO DENY COUNSEL'S MOTION FOR ADDITIONAL FEES.
REQUESTS LAWYER'S NEWEST FUNDS BE HELD FOR CLASS TO PAY FOR NEW ACCOUNTING/REVIEW AND INDEPENDENT COUNSEL OVERSIGHT IN BREACHED SETTLEMENT.
Dear Judge Wiley,
Your honor, as you know I am the Lead Plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of non-union free American writers against the Writer's Guild of America, Inc., a non-profit corporation.
During the course of this 7-year litigation I have become the certified representative for both union and non-union writers in tiny towns and places all across America.
I also came to represent all 19,500 WGA members who today find themselves bound "forever" to the settlement terms because I was falsely presented to the courts as a member "Emeritus In Arrears," a category invented for me by the union, which I never was.
There is no other writer among the named plaintiffs.
I am duty bound by Congressional mandate to act as "Citizens Attorney General" for each and every one of my class.
Ethically, I must inform the court about matters that have not been presented to the Judge: willful, serious omissions that deserve the court's attention and remedies:
1.) ON JANUARY 10 2012 Defendant WGAw corporation and its Board of Directors misled Judge West in Dept. 311 by saying there was an acceptable audit in settlement, placed on the wga.org website. Our lawyers did not tell the Judge that the auditors themselves say the website document is NOT AN AUDIT, and cannot be used by anybody except the WGA itself, thus deceiving the court and writer class into believing the lawsuit is satisfied. Both the writer’s class counsel and defendant’s counsel put forth this audit knowing it was not an audit and could not be used as an audit.
2.) Significantly, and only just discovered in DGA documents, a new “second set of books” has been disclosed, pinpointing yearly audits of foreign levies for WGA, SAG and DGA along with the MPAA studios dating back to 2006. It appears that throughout all these years of courtroom litigation for an audit, the guilds and attorneys concealed he existence of an annual ongoing $70,558 PKF "Tri Guild Audit", an audit paid for by the studios which might provide startling new evidence of actual amounts involved in the lawsuits, an audit of the money belonging to the writer class that the class deserves to examine since the only audit given after all these yeas is a NOT AUDIT and can't be used as an accounting for the millions "disappeared.”
3.) The annual "review" on the WGAw website is also bogus and consists of only one page, and the small print states, brazenly and unbelievably, that the audit is taken from the same KMPG numbers provided entirely by the same WGA people accused of embezzlement; thus in no way can this one page document be used to verify class accounting demands under the settlement.
4.) In the May 16 hearing Neville Johnson revealed for the first time that the foreign levy amount collected by the WGAw actually 200 million, or almost twice the 104 million the union told the courts and Variety and the class.
5.) In post-settlement documents the WGA has revealed that 9,360 writers received the just acknowledged 200 million, but offers no proof at all that this happened, how the money was divided, not a single cancelled check.
6.) Though they were told repeatedly from the bench by Judge West to provide accounting documents and correspondence to the Lead Plaintiff for the class, Neville Johnson and Paul Kiesel and Don Jasko refused, excluding American writers from their lawsuit almost entirely.
7.) The court should not allow Mr. Johnson again to substitute any non-writer for the position of Lead Plaintiff for “all American writers,” as he and Tony Segall attempted to substitute into the case the daughter of non-writer Pearl Retchin, a class plaintiff who was dead for a year before the court was told.
8.) As Lead Plaintiff in the case I still have not been provided any accounting at all, and have not been paid the minimum $75,000 owed to me (CAFA) against an estimated $233,000 lost as a result of the embezzlements. My attorney Paul Kiesl told me that my checks from the WGA would be used as the basis for an in-depth accounting that would apply to all the class. This accounting could be compared to the DGA and SAG accountings for my films throughout all three unions. I relied on Mr. Kiesl’s expertise, as he gives lectures on class actions to LA Superior Court Judges, is a Co Chair of the California Bar and provides ample expertise on class actions procedures. Mr. Kiesl sat with me for three days, during which time he explained in front of witness how Lead Plaintiffs accountings are templates for the class. Because of his promise of a fair and understandable audit, given in front of witnesses, provided with court-sanctioned expert opinion I signed the settlement agreement for the class.
9.) I have been retaliated against by both the WGAw Executives and Board in false statements to their membership, and by my own lawyers, who filed vexatious tax reports that got me in trouble with the IRS. In his Oct 3 2011 hearing Judge West admonished the WGA to quit any harm to the writer's plaintiff, but my lawyers ignored him and did nothing about it and the WGA harassing behavior continues online.
“THE COURT: YOU KNOW, THERE’S A LOT OF MYSTERY GOING ON HERE. AND WE ALL OUGHT TO BE AWARE THAT I’VE GOT SOME CONCERNS. AND I WANT TO HEAR FROM MR. RICHERT ON THIS ISSUE.” – Judge Carl J. West, May 21, 2008
Your honor, I declare that if the DGA's accounting is "laughable," the WGA brings down the house with its claim that its Board of Directors spent approximately 35 million in "administrative fees” etc., – not to mention attorney and whistle blower fees – an amount exceeding the entire WGAw yearly budget -- to distribute non-union and union foreign levies – not a penny of which belonged to them -- when they were unable to account for any of it until the appearance a “not audit” audit, accompanied by the equally sudden appearance of 200 million after the recent sudden appearance of 104 million -- and all of it a fraction of what actually was collected by unions divided with the studios -- is pure bunk. WGA corruption exposer Eric Hughes’ documents, and Teri Mial’s paid-off employee Whistle blower testimony, show all the accounts to be false.
Therefore, on behalf of the class I represent, I seek a decree that shifts the funds for future attorneys fees to a general fund for the class of writers I represent, so the just-discovered "Tri Guild" accountings can be examined, and new attorneys can be hired to look at the entirety of this settlement action and its aftermath in your courtroom.
Because of these post-settlement revelations, an outside accounting is in the interest of fairness to the millions owed by law to the authors and screenwriters of the 102,00 "titles" the WGA claims to have collected money for, and split with the DGA and studios.
With these revelations since Judge West retired, we discover a large number of artists in plaintiff classes, with the guilds owing money to 102,000 writers and 102,000 directors of those titles and the 500,000 or more actors in the related SAG case; they say they paid it, but as Mr. Hughes puts it, there is “not a shred of evidence.” -- But sworn evidence of plenty of shredding.
“THE COURT: THE UNDERLYING GOAL OF THIS SETTLEMENT AND THE COURT’S DETERMINATION THAT IT WAS A FAIR AND REASONBLE SETTLEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE CLASS OF PEOPLE WHO WERE CERTIFIED FOR SETTLEMENT PURPOSES AND WHO ARE BENEFITTING FROM THIS SETTLEMENT: IS THAT THERE WOULD BE A MORE TRANSPARENT AND OPEN ACCOUNTING OF COLLECTIONS AND DISTRIBUTIONS.” Judge Carl J. West, Dept 311, Jan 10, 2012
As "Citizen Attorney General" for my class of American writers, I plead that your honor will assist this plaintiff by enacting the following motions in the interests of fairness, justice and transparency:
MOTION TO DENY ATTORNEY FEES TO CLASS LAWYERS in the August 9, 2012 hearing until the court is satisfied the writer class plaintiff has funds to hire a lawyer equal to the super-lawyers so the writer-plaintiff can adequately defend the class against further theft, "Both federal and California courts have held that, when the ethical violation in question is a conflict of interest between the attorney and the client, the appropriate fee for the attorney in question is zero." -- letter to Judge Highberger re fraud on LA Superior court.
MOTION TO COMPEL DEFENDANT DGA, ITS CFO AND PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO PROVIDE ALL PKF STUDIO AUDITS IN ITS POSSESSION RELATING TO THE WGAW FOREIGN LEVY LAWSUIT, INCLUDING AUDIT OF WITH MAJOR STUDIOS TO VERIFY AMOUNTS. The class should not be the out and out loser in a class action if the action has merit and is sound. The class is entitled to simple transparency in all audits which relate to money which was collected illegally for thousands of unsuspecting free writers and writers not hired by studios. It is in the most urgent interest of the class to know how much of their money was given to the studios, and to each of the unions, and how much actually received from this settlement.
MOTION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE TO COMPEL WGA TO PROVIDE WRITER CLASS COPIES OF WGAW"TRI STATE" AUDITS SHOWING WHERE THE FOREIGN LEVY MONEY DISAPPEARED. The settlements do not release claims against the WGAw for splitting with studios outside the collective bargaining agreement; the settlements do not settle any future claims from non-union American actors OR union American directors. The Board of Directors are basically withholding evidence.
MOTION TO COMPEL COPIES OF DOCUMENTS, ACCOUNTINGS AND EMAILS BETWEEN CONSULTANT DONALD JASKO AND WGAW et. al. CFO DON GOR BE GIVEN TO THE WRITER CLASS. Donald Jasko asked me specifically for copies of checks I got from the WGA that did not match the DGA; I did not know it was just to keep me quiet, and he had no intention of using them.
MOTION TO COMPEL ACCOUNTING FOR LEAD PLAINTIFF WILLIAM RICHERT AS TEMPLATE FOR THE CLASS, AS PROMISED by counsel Paul Kiesl before signing the settlement, specifically the titles “Law and Disorder,” “The Happy Hooker,” “Success,” “Winter Kills,” and “The Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon,” “The Man In The Iron Mask,” years 1974-2012.
MOTION TO COMPEL WGAw to provide copies of its settlement documents to states attorneys-general and Federal authorities as provided by law, since the affected are from all states.
MOTION TO DEMAND NEVILLE JOHNSON AND WGAW CEASE RETALIATION AGAINST NAMED PLAINTIFF, as the WGAw puts false statements about me on its website and to letters to its members, and Neville Johnson purposefully filed misleading tax information to the IRS causing me tax burdens. No class representative should have to fear retribution or bad-mouthing from the defendant or his own lawyers.
I have been threatened to be dumped roadside, and blacklisted, and other things during this confrontational litigation with my former union, who claim I am a member when they need the association and then deny it in emails to their members when they don't.
BACKGROUND AND AUTHORITY
Neville Johnson told the LA Daily Journal that he was the mastermind of the “3 sister” foreign levy lawsuits in 2005, drawing upon his existing clients as Lead Plaintiffs.
I was such a client at the time, with my jury award the highest he ever got, almost 15 million. Mr. Johnson knew I’d publicly stated that the WGAw was corrupt from having my credit for THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT/WEST WING given to another writer without due process or transparency just the way Mr. Johnson described the way the guild concealed millions in undistributed funds for unnamed non-union writers the guild divided with the studios in a long-running kind of mutual extortion.
The real force behind Neville Johnson's lawsuits was Eric Hughes, screenwriter of "Against All Odds" and "White Knights." It was Eric Hughes, WGA presidential candidate running against corrupt credit arbitration in the WGA, who obtained insider documents from whistle blower Teri Mial, paid six-figures herself to keep quiet in this lawsuit. And it was Eric Hughes who introduced Mial to Mr. Johnson, and who showed Mr. Johnson, along with me and other prominent journalists, just what the corruption looked like on paper.
Mr. Johnson was essentially a copyist of Mr. Hughes' written allegations used by his firm Johnson & Rishwain for their original complaints of fraud and other things against all three Hollywood “labor” guilds.
We ask the court to demand that documents held by Mr. Hughes be given to the class. Mr. Hughes owes it to the writers, actors and directors to provide copies of evidence that rightfully belongs to them, and which can eliminate instantly, with publication of names and amounts, all doubt about who did what, and can provide immediate finality to this class litigation.
However, far more significant to this breached settlement, a game changer, is the discovery from new statements by the DGA that the unions and studios have actually been covertly doing audits all this time. This means that all during years of lengthy courtroom hearings for the DGA, WGA and SAG since the lawsuit was filed in 2005, the lawyers kept quiet. Now we see proof positive how all foreign levies were all audited by the studios and themselves since maybe as early as 2003 in what the CFO of the DGA calls "Tri Guild Foreign Levy Audits."
It would be a public sham to continue hearings in court to get something already got.
It is iconic misdirection among 19+ lawyers for the unions who appeared for these guilds in court during the past 7 years and never mentioned they already had what the class was looking for: an audit; evidence of a billion-dollar secret royalty split between the unions and studios approved by nobody among the free Americans in my class, whose money it actually was/is, and who could use it today.
BIG STORY, BIG PLAYERS
This could only happen in Hollywood, where a whisper can sink a ship of a career. Where unions have meetings with both writers and young video dancers with teamsters in tow. Intimidation is rampant, your honor should know.
Once I discovered Mr. Johnson, and next Mr. Keisl, were ready to sell out the rights of American writers for their personal and corporate profits, that they were essentially profiteering on Superior Court litigation without regard for the greater long term rights of the writers who are their clients, I became in direct conflict with my lawyers while standing in place as lead plaintiff, and I am standing still, for I have not surrendered the original goal of the case: a true accounting and payout and end to unethical behavior.
I attach a "disappeared" check signed by Patric Verrone made out to the poet Bukowski, a fellow class member.
Mr. Johnson tells each judge about how weak and unorganized our related cases for writers, directors and actors are; tells each judge he/she is our only hope, but that's because Neville Johnson is not doing his job, as it is not the Judge's job to act as advocate for the lawyer's underdog in a lawsuit.
The lawyers for both sides in this case purport to represent writers and artists, but none of them really do.
The true facts and true movers have been concealed from Dept. 311, from both you and Judge West before you, and Judge Morrow before that in Federal court.
The court transcript of January 10, before he retired, shows Judge West believed both sides when he was told an "audit" had been placed on the WGAw website. His sudden retirement meant he never saw the one page NOT AN AUDIT that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Kiesel and Mr. Segall told him gave settlement finality to the RICHERT VS. WGAw lawsuit.
At Judge West’s last hearing in Dept. 311, January 10, 2012, which I couldn’t attend because I wasn’t told about it, Judge West did say to Messrs. Johnson and Schecter: "I don't want the two of you in front of me any more. It doesn't do any good,” and “I know enough to be dangerous.”
Judge West said if it had his name on it, "it has to be right."
Before telling Judge West the audit was on the WGAw website, Neville Johnson claimed that the settlement was in material breach; only a large payment to Donald Jasko changed that, along with fees yet to be paid to Neville Johnson. But for these payments, the settlement is still in breach.
I don't claim copyright but my name is on this lawsuit and I've known some great writers who deserve my sticking to our rights, even if I am threatened with expulsion from the writer's lawsuit in favor of lawyers. A case brought on behalf of writers should have a writer in it.
SOLIDARITY OF CORRUPTION
It is absurd to have the accused corporation offer its own accounting without strict oversight, or any oversight. Having the WGAw review its own review is like a joke; a "Not Audit" is not acceptable to settle a lawsuit except for suckers, and putting numbers from a "not audit" up on the wga.org website as an "one-time review" with an “annual review” consisting of 3 lines is offensive and insulting to my class.
I still have not gotten any form of accounting for my own foreign levies owed and interest bearing dating back to 1974. Please show us the stubbs.
Besides being useless to the class, the accounting is AICA, not GAAP; another breach.
ACCOUNTING NOT PERFORMED ACCORDING TO GENERAL ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES AS REQUIRED IN SETTLEMENT
The startling figure 200 million entered into the record by Neville Johnson is double what was reported only months ago by the WGA to Variety. Where’d it come from? We need to know, your honor.
Now suddenly, the WGAw says it paid out 21 million dollars to its members/non members in the single year 2011. This single amount is 20% of what the union claims to have paid out over the past 20 years -- and this year the lowest in DVD sales since the past decade or so -- how does this add up?
In fact, the WGA claims it collected 85 million dollars plus 1,323,149 “interest/income” for members and free writers nationwide since 2007, more than in all the years from 1992-2007, when DVD sales were ballooning.
WGAw Board claims it distributed 21 million to members this year. In the past 20 years they charged 35+ million in “fees” to do all this “administration,” but cannot produce a single canceled check in evidence.
How can the WGAw charge its members roughly one-quarter of what it collected for "administrative" fees when it can't show it administered anything, when it has to hire an outside firm for an audit amazingly limited and confined to numbers only they offer, and nothing more?
How can the lawyers from several firms keep billing the same writers in all cases millions in fees without producing a single accounting of merit? In fact, hiding the audit that really does exist.
In the hearing before you on May 16 in Dept 311, where this case has been for years, the WGA counsel is silent when Neville Johnson suddenly pops up with an extra 100 million.
The Lead Plaintiff is obliged to protest. The court should look at the 2007 WGAw accounting, given under oath, which both duplicates and contradicts the KMPG report.
The KMPG-WGAw accounting, approved by its Board of Directors to settle a case for fraud, doesn't compute, add up, or make sense. It's a big lie.
That means the Boards of Directors and Executives at 3 major guilds handling the money of thousands of people are untrustworthy.
THE BREACHED SETTLEMENT WITHOUT COMPLIANCE GIVES WGAw/MPAA STUDIOS ECONOMIC CONTROLS OVER U.S. WRITERS NATIONWIDE UNLESS THE CLASS SAYS FOUL AND THE COURT ALLOWS THE CLASS TO SPEAK.
The WGAW has concealed facts about writers’ credits and income before.
It was the writer's guild union who blacklisted hundreds of great American screenwriters, their own colleagues, putting them out of work for years, a long list of names also due foreign levies, if living; otherwise, their heirs.
This Hollywood union/studio combo are seeking to control piracy on the internet, when they are pirates themselves with American foreign royalties and copyrights.
The guilds and studios have "organized' the collection of foreign royalties for all American artists, and they have done so in secret, illegally.
American writers and artists should know that there is a huge database with their names and financial information on it, as many as 700,000 citizens, a database they cannot access.
The WGA/MPAA should not be in possession of that database – U.S. citizens’ social security numbers and addresses and tax ID’s – which will soon number in the millions as more and more independent filmmakers sell their work abroad over the internet and other places.
Unions so ostentatiously corrupt should not have access to this information so as to seize it as a “mailing list” ripe for exploitation.
WGAw claims the 2007 strike gives the union jurisdiction over the Internet for any thing that moves, saying if it moves it must be written, and they control it.
The WGAw refers to writers who write without a union or new media contract with them as “scabs.”
“THE COURT: I GUESS I HAVE REAL CONCERNS ABOUT HOW ALL THESE NEGOTIATIONS AND MEDIATIONS WERE TAKING PLACE WITH NO LIVING CLASS REPRESENTATIVE FOR ONE OF THE SUPP. CLASSES. THAT'S A PROBLEM.
I HAVE A QUESTION REGARDING THE ABILITY OF CLASS COUNSEL TO CONTINUE TO REPRESENT THE INTERESTS OF THE CLASS AT THIS JUNCTURE GIVEN THE INFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN PLACED BEFORE THE COURT.” Judge Carl J. West, Dept 311, March 23, 2009
Paul Kiesl, who induced me with his knowledge of facts and law (in front of 2 witnesses) to sign this settlement on behalf of my class, did not attend the May 16 hearing, perhaps because he was out raising 660 million in emergency funding for the LA Superior Court system. That amount may have been lost to the LA tax base during the 2.9 billion WGA strike in 2007, which still hurts, led by the same Board who gave the KMPG accounting.
Your honor clerked with Justice Powell who vigorously promoted the idea of corporations having the same rights as individuals -- and it ought to work both ways.
If corporations have the same rights as individuals, as Chief Justice Powell believed, they have the same obligations for honesty and fair dealing, and ought not use their lopsided power, as in LA, where unions and studios possess vastly superior resources and hidden agreements dating back years. If their rights Trump ours, and they as “corporate individuals” are protected over my class and me as an non-corporate individual in your courtroom, my class action is doomed.
Individuals cannot fight major corporations alone, which is why class actions were created. Of course the court knows that, you handle class actions routinely.
I am not be able to afford a lawyer on my writer's income, esp. now that the WGAw has stopped sending me residuals and levy checks altogether as a result of this litigation.
LAWYER CLIENT CONFLICT WHEN CLIENT REPRESENTS A LARGE CLASS
Some legalists have told me to contact the Bar about Neville Johnson and Paul Kiesl, but it's quicker to just email Mr. Kiesl as he is Co-Chair of the California bar.
Eric Hughes did complain to the bar, which found the fact Mr. Kiesel didn’t associate himself into the case was problematical, as Mr. Kiesl already knows.
CALIFORNIA CODE OF JUDICAL ETHICS: (1) A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment, nor shall a judge convey or permit others to convey the impression that any individual is in a special position to influence the judge.
Also I feel obliged to say, as the only writer court-certified to represent my class that your honor’s remarks to me on first sight when I raised my hand to speak in protest after Neville Johnson said my case was "settled" when I say no -- when you advised me this was “not a town hall” “or a therapy meeting” -- as if I were a hothead or a nutcase -- and later when you said in front of me that these lawyers sitting in front of me were such that “every law school student in the country would like to be like you” -- and especially when you told me that my lawyers were "famous," implying I was not, and maybe for some faulty reason I was not -- these statements from your authority, which are absolute, made me think I should complain to the Commission of Judges for fair dealing with all parties in a lawsuit -- as to whether you showed bias towards a Lead Plaintiff in a class action lawsuit in favor of lawyers --but as in the case of my lawyers, I may as well just state my concerns to you here directly, respectfully, and ask you as a member of the California’s Commission on Judicial Ethics Opinions to consider the pain of my humiliation in court.
You honor must be aware that you are highly regarded as a brilliant legal mind in article after article about Judges on the Internet, and so your initial opinion of me is even more damaging and I plead with the court to remember:
(8)…A JUDGE SHALL MANAGE THE COURTROOM IN A MANNER THAT PROVIDES ALL LITIGANTS THE OPPORTINITY TO HAVE THEIR MATTERS FAIRLY ADJUDICATED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW.
COMENTARY: …A judge should encourage and seek to facilitate settlement, but parties should not feel coerced into surrendering their right to have their controversy resolved by the courts.”
This class action is not about coupons or consumers, it is about creators and copyrights and human rights, each and every artist involved is different, and that is one of their similarities as a class. No assembly line here.
As artists, they have a right to know if their work is shown abroad, indeed shown anywhere, and they have the right to be assured their accountings are transparent and honest.
I figure the combo lawyers have made millions off the defendants in these cases so far.
At the hearing for attorney fees on August 9, if your honor could move a little cash -- which comes from writers anyhow -- to the other side of the table -- it would mean we could pay for a true accounting, a great leap towards justice for as 700,000 Americans.
Like Neville Johnson, I concur that history will be made in your courtroom, only not in Mr. Johnson’s way.
We shall do all in our power to make sure this settlement is not an out and out loss for the freedom of artists in America, a Hollywood snuff job for our civil rights and economic rights as free writers and artists in a free nation.
Sincerely,
William Richert
Lead Plaintiff
WILLIAM RICHERT VS
WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA et al
4 EXHIBITS: