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California
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Environment & Forest Defense
Global Justice & Anti-Capitalism
Government & Elections
Fraud lawsuit against Maxxam and Hurwitz in Court on April 20
Corporate Criminal Charles Hurwitz, who clear cut Northern California redwood forests and helped engineer the collapse of coho salmon populations, could be ordered to pay damages equal to three times the government's losses in the Deal, if plaintiffs prevail.
Fraud lawsuit against Maxxam and Hurwitz
This time in Oakland court: Monday, April 20
It's never too late to seek justice.
We finally got corporate raider extraordinaire Charles Hurwitz out of our forests in California-after two decades of rape and ruin in the redwoods-when Maxxam's subsidiary Pacific Lumber went bankrupt in 2007, and Maxxam did not play the winning card. But Maxxam and Charlie Hurwitz himself profited mightily from their disastrous and often illegal corporate reign in California's north coast, and Hurwitz was never really held accountable. There is a glimmer of hope: a lawsuit coming to trial in Oakland, Calif. will take another whack at that accountability, and Hurwitz himself is a named defendant for this round in court.
Jury selection is scheduled to start at 8:30 am Mon., April 20 in the courtroom of Judge Claudia Wilken, room 2, 4th floor, 1301 Clay St. in downtown Oakland.
We could use note-takers, as we cannot be in court every day of the (expected) 10-day trial. Contact us at 510-548-3113 or reply to this email. You must present i.d. to enter the Federal Courthouse.
background:
Richard Wilson, former head of the state's Dept. of Forestry (CDF), along with Chris Maranto, a CDF forester, filed the suit in 2006, alleging fraud in the Headwaters Forest Deal-negotiated over several years and signed in 1999. Specifically the suit says the logging company defrauded the State of California out of hundreds of millions of dollars by manipulating the deal with false data. Everyone from Bill Clinton to Sen. Dianne Feinstein to Hurwitz was in on the negotiations, jockeying for the right to claim they had "saved" Headwaters Forest, and Maxxam took home close to half a billion dollars plus additional forestland for a scant 7400 acres transferred to the state. Hurwitz got an $11 million personal bonus. The fraud relates to the Sustained Yield Plan that the corporation was required to submit, which, it turns out, was manipulated to show logging and regeneration projections that were impossible and falsified. This resulted in Hurwitz not only getting the $480 million and property, but cleared the way for continued overlogging of the redwoods.
The case, technically a whistle-blower case, involves heavy-hitters. Seven-term Congressman Pete McCloskey, who co-authored the Endangered Species Act and ran for president against Richard Nixon on an anti-war platform is part of the legal team via his law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, with Joseph Cotchett serving as lead counsel. The firm has gone up against the likes of AIG, Lehman Brothers, and B of A, counting scores of anti-trust, whistle-blower, corporate fraud and class action lawsuits in their filings. Defending the former Pacific Lumber, Maxxam and Hurwitz is the law firm of Morrison & Foerster; James Brosnahan serving as lead counsel. Brosnahan is legendary is his own right, recognized as one of the top trial lawyers in the U.S., but sitting at a legal table on the other side of the fence from McCloskey's firm, defending CEOs, breast implant manufacturer facing liability, and was on the team of independent counsel in the Iran Contra cases.
Hurwitz could be ordered to pay damages equal to three times the government's losses in the Deal, if plaintiffs prevail.
How appropriate in this time of ponzi schemes and public funds rip-offs that one of the greediest corporate raiders could get his due. Think justice and just desserts.
You can get more background info from Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters at http://www.headwaterspreserve.org
This time in Oakland court: Monday, April 20
It's never too late to seek justice.
We finally got corporate raider extraordinaire Charles Hurwitz out of our forests in California-after two decades of rape and ruin in the redwoods-when Maxxam's subsidiary Pacific Lumber went bankrupt in 2007, and Maxxam did not play the winning card. But Maxxam and Charlie Hurwitz himself profited mightily from their disastrous and often illegal corporate reign in California's north coast, and Hurwitz was never really held accountable. There is a glimmer of hope: a lawsuit coming to trial in Oakland, Calif. will take another whack at that accountability, and Hurwitz himself is a named defendant for this round in court.
Jury selection is scheduled to start at 8:30 am Mon., April 20 in the courtroom of Judge Claudia Wilken, room 2, 4th floor, 1301 Clay St. in downtown Oakland.
We could use note-takers, as we cannot be in court every day of the (expected) 10-day trial. Contact us at 510-548-3113 or reply to this email. You must present i.d. to enter the Federal Courthouse.
background:
Richard Wilson, former head of the state's Dept. of Forestry (CDF), along with Chris Maranto, a CDF forester, filed the suit in 2006, alleging fraud in the Headwaters Forest Deal-negotiated over several years and signed in 1999. Specifically the suit says the logging company defrauded the State of California out of hundreds of millions of dollars by manipulating the deal with false data. Everyone from Bill Clinton to Sen. Dianne Feinstein to Hurwitz was in on the negotiations, jockeying for the right to claim they had "saved" Headwaters Forest, and Maxxam took home close to half a billion dollars plus additional forestland for a scant 7400 acres transferred to the state. Hurwitz got an $11 million personal bonus. The fraud relates to the Sustained Yield Plan that the corporation was required to submit, which, it turns out, was manipulated to show logging and regeneration projections that were impossible and falsified. This resulted in Hurwitz not only getting the $480 million and property, but cleared the way for continued overlogging of the redwoods.
The case, technically a whistle-blower case, involves heavy-hitters. Seven-term Congressman Pete McCloskey, who co-authored the Endangered Species Act and ran for president against Richard Nixon on an anti-war platform is part of the legal team via his law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, with Joseph Cotchett serving as lead counsel. The firm has gone up against the likes of AIG, Lehman Brothers, and B of A, counting scores of anti-trust, whistle-blower, corporate fraud and class action lawsuits in their filings. Defending the former Pacific Lumber, Maxxam and Hurwitz is the law firm of Morrison & Foerster; James Brosnahan serving as lead counsel. Brosnahan is legendary is his own right, recognized as one of the top trial lawyers in the U.S., but sitting at a legal table on the other side of the fence from McCloskey's firm, defending CEOs, breast implant manufacturer facing liability, and was on the team of independent counsel in the Iran Contra cases.
Hurwitz could be ordered to pay damages equal to three times the government's losses in the Deal, if plaintiffs prevail.
How appropriate in this time of ponzi schemes and public funds rip-offs that one of the greediest corporate raiders could get his due. Think justice and just desserts.
You can get more background info from Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters at http://www.headwaterspreserve.org
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