Steve Flowers
A veteran Alabama political commentator, who called this week for Donald Watkins to be thrown in jail for his online journalism, has a domestic-violence arrest in his background. Steve Flowers, who apparently called for Watkins arrest because he disliked the longtime attorney's hard-hitting investigative reporting on the evolving Southern Company/Alabama Power/Matrix LLC fraud-bribery scandal, was arrested in 2007 for "domestic violence battery" and "criminal mischief." Details on the Flowers criminal case come from a report at DonaldWatkins.com under the headline "Joe Perkins’ Defender Arrested for Domestic Violence." Perkins is the founder and owner of the Montgomery-based Matrix LLC political-consulting firm, which long has been known as a "dirty tricks" operations, with ties to powerful GOP political figures, such as retired U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby. Writes Watkins:
Steve Flowers, a/k/a Jackson Stephen Flowers, was arrested on April 10, 2007, in Okaloosa County, Florida for “Domestic Violence Battery” and “Criminal Mischief.” On June 21, 2007, Flowers entered into a deferred prosecution agreement which required him to (a) participate in a court-approved domestic violence counseling program and (b) make a payment to a rape crisis trust fund. Flowers was also required to pay a domestic violence surcharge.
After Steve Flowers made the required court payments and completed the terms of his deferred prosecution agreement, state prosecutors dismissed his domestic violence case.
Flowers' court docket sheet may be viewed here.
That is reminiscent of another case involving a prominent Alabama political figure, Watkins notes, and it leads to Perkins' own history of alleged domestic misconduct and professional entanglements:
Former Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Fuller (Montgomery, Alabama) used this same judicial approach to resolve a domestic-violence charge against him after he viciously beat his second wife in a downtown Atlanta hotel room on August 11, 2014.
Like Steve Flowers, Mark Fuller was a Joe Perkins friend and fellow domestic violence arrestee. Fuller resigned his federal judgeship after Congress threatened to impeach him.
On May 15, 2022, Joe Perkins, himself, was accused by his daughter, Taylor Lea Perkins, of committing incest against her from the age of 3 or 4 to 12 or 13. Perkins has NOT denied his now-adult daughter’s rape and incest allegations.
Perkins is also a confessed federal lawbreaker. His confession can be viewed here.
In 2021, Jeff Pitts, Perkins' former CEO at Matrix, LLC, accused him in court pleadings of extortion, racketeering, and abuse of the legal process. Under pressure from the Southern Company, Perkins quickly settled the case after Pitts filed subpoenas in court for a host of incriminating business documents in Perkins' possession.
Earlier this week, Perkins was back in the news when media groups in Alabama reported that one of his subcontractors procured and maintained a supply of black prostitutes to service new Alabama Power Company CEO Jeff Peoples, at a cost to the company of up to $30,000 per month.
On June 9, 2022, Joe Perkins was accused by his daughter of arranging hotel room abortions. Again, Perkins has NOT denied his daughter's claim.
Amid the growing media scandal and law enforcement investigations that have engulfed Joe Perkins, Matrix, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Mississippi Power, the Southern Company, and his other corporate clients, Perkins has chosen to attack me. His orchestrated attacks on me have only brought further attention to the lawlessness within the Southern Company's empire of energy-producing businesses.
Perkins has transmogrified from the Southern Company's hired "crisis manager" to the epicenter of the company's shocking meltdown and growing law-enforcement crisis. In the process, Perkins has started posting cryptic comments on his Facebook page like, "Dying is so overrated. It is a great beginning, not a (sic) ending."
Flowers' call for Watkins' incarceration can be traced to Joe Perkins, Watkins writes, and that leads to more baggage in Flowers' background:
Steven Flowers is a washed-up former Alabama state legislator who left public office in 1998. He is also a part-time Internet blogger and a rehabilitated domestic-violence perpetrator. Most importantly, Flowers is a close friend of Joe Perkins -- whenever he gets paid to place Perkins/Matrix-written articles on his blog.
Flowers was tapped earlier this week to lead the Southern Company’s smear campaign against me.
Flowers’ last high-profile media appearance occurred in 2016 and centered on his use of at least $40,000 in campaign funds for “personal expenses.” Flowers' use of leftover campaign funds is ongoing. [Click here to see Flowers' expenditures from a 1998 campaign fund that he has converted to his personal use over the past 25 years].
Once again, Flowers managed to escape a criminal prosecution for his deeds.
Flowers’ attack article on me was placed in the Alabama Political Reporter and circulated as a news release. According to National Public Radio (NPR), Joe Perkins pays the Alabama Political Reporter (APR) $8,000 per month to run attack articles on his enemies. The NPR article explains how the "dirty tricks" business arrangement works between Joe Perkins and APR's Editor-in-Chief, Bill Britt.
For the record, APR has refused to run my rebuttal article, even though I made a formal request on March 15, 2023, for them to do so.
At this point, Steve Flowers, APR, and Bill Britt may be material witnesses in the federal probe of Perkins, Matrix, Alabama Power, and the Southern Company.
Perkins, Watkins writes, has a curious history with Alabama's mainstream press:
For years, Joe Perkins has managed to commandeer much of Alabama’s weak, financially strapped, and compromised press apparatus to distribute his “hit” pieces under the guise of mainstream journalism. This goal is typically accomplished by funneling desperately needed Alabama Power Company cash to the state's starving news-media outlets.
Unfortunately for Joe Perkins, neither Steve Flowers, nor APR, nor Perkins’ other paid media cronies are in a position to dispute the authenticity of handwritten documents Perkins made that document the massive accounting-fraud scheme and racketeering enterprise that operated at Alabama Power, the Southern Company, and its affiliates for more than a decade. Perkins' handwritten notes speak for themselves.
Perkins' notes, together with much more damning evidence of wrongdoing, will soon be on their way to federal prosecutors in Washington and the Southern Company's two largest institutional investors -- The Vanguard Group, Inc., and BlackRock, Inc.
On the subject of incarceration, Watkins says that might not turn out the way Flowers envisions:
Steve Flowers said I should be jailed for writing and publishing my articles about Joe Perkins, Richard Shelby, Matrix, the Alabama Supreme Court, Birmingham federal prosecutors, Alabama Power Company, and the Southern Company. Flowers labeled me as "brazen," "arrogant,""non-repentant,"and a "threat to society."
These are the same words and phrases Flowers' Old South ancestors used to describe runaway black slaves, as well as those who could not be broken.
Flowers also lamented that the nation's forefathers never envisioned someone like me having First Amendment rights. This statement is true. When America was founded, blacks in this country, whether enslaved or freed, had no rights that white men were bound to respect. See, Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857).
In 2022, the all-white Alabama Supreme Court (in a state with a 26% black population) embraced Flowers' slavery-era view in Joe Perkins' defamation case against me. Remember, this is the same state supreme court that upheld a $500,000 defamation judgment against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and four fellow civil-rights activists in 1963 in the landmark case of New York Times v. Sullivan.
Finally, it appears that Joe Perkins and his circle of friends at Alabama Power and the Southern Company are the ones who should be worried about going to jail. As I understand it, former Alabama Power CEO Mark Crosswhite is prepared to sing like an opera star to federal law-enforcement agents.
