Joe Perkins
Joe Perkins, founder of Montgomery-based Matrix LLC, has issued a heated statement against media outlets he claims have defamed him in reporting on the consulting firm's bitter divorce from former CEO Jeff Pitts. The Perkins-Pitts battle involves court filings in two states -- Alabama and Florida -- and Perkins expressed his displeasure with news coverage via a statement released to yellowhammernews.com.
Is Perkins threatening legal action? That's not clear -- at least not to us. K.B. Forbes, publisher of banbalch.com, is mentioned in the statement, and he seems to take it as a threat of possible lawsuits. But Perkins' main court-related words seem directed at Pitts, and that case started last August. As for Forbes, he has a summary of the latest in what he calls the 'Matrix Meltdown." He likens the feud to a mud-wrestling match and describes Perkins' statement as "rambling" and "disconnected." That seems like an apt appraisal:
“Sloppy Joe” Perkins, the founder of Matrix, the obscure political consulting firm that is in the center of an ugly two-state divorce between Perkins and his once-protégé “Jittery Jeff” Pitts, threw a tantrum last week dispatching a rambling, disconnected statement to yellowhammernews.com falsely accusing us, the CDLU, of conspiring with DonaldWatkins.com and one Lisa Swoboda, a cavalier dog rescuer, to defame him.
Maybe “Sloppy Joe” didn’t like the photo of the two mud wrestlers from our last post. The bottom line is we, the CDLU, are reporting the news (and mudslinging) covered by DonaldWatkins.com, the Energy and Policy Institute, The Guardian, the Orlando Sentinel, and the Florida Times-Union.
From the Yellow Hammer News report:
Last year, Perkins filed a lawsuit against Jeff Pitts, who formerly served as CEO of Matrix, and others. Allegations contained in the lawsuit included fraud, embezzlement and intentional interference with business relations.
Then just last week, Perkins released a statement saying, “Pitts and his co-conspirators have engaged in constant attacks on Matrix, our clients, and even on my family.”
Among the ways in which Perkins said Pitts has attacked him were through “paying fake journalists to call our clients asking accusatory questions; sending altered documents to clients and others; and allegedly collaborating with Donald Watkins, Lisa Swoboda and K.B. Forbes to attack and defame me personally and our company.”
The response from the Matrix founder came on the heels of what he asserted were concerted attempts by Pitts, through Florida news outlets, to harm his business interests.
Perkins' main focus seems to be on the Pitts litigation. But Forbes also sees it as a threat, or intimidation, toward those who might cover the story.:
“Sloppy Joe” has lost control of his two-state divorce and is now foolishly threatening to file a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against us, a public advocacy group. Even the knuckleheads at Balch & Bingham were smarter than Perkins and studied the issue before strongly deciding against it.
Matrix clients like Alabama Power and Balch & Bingham, and related allies like Drummond Company, are probably in disbelief that Perkins appears to have become unhinged.
Here is more from the Perkins' statement -- and again, the focus is mostly on the Pitts case:
Since as early as 2010, Jeff Pitts has operated off-the-books rogue operations using Matrix resources that embezzled money from the company and presented clear and provable harm to Matrix clients. While CEO of Matrix, Pitts, along with other employees who were part of his conspiracy, set up corporate entities to which they channeled funds from Matrix clients in Florida. During this time, Pitts and his co-conspirators set up as many as eighteen 501(c)4 organizations through which they laundered in excess of $50 million. All of this was done without my knowledge or the knowledge of any of the leadership of Matrix.Pitts left Matrix in December of 2020 indicating he wanted to start his own business. He left with my blessing.
After Pitts, and several other employees left our Birmingham office, we discovered the central computer backup server was intentionally sabotaged and severely damaged. We were able to recover the data from the server and archived comprehensive computer backups of computers used by Pitts and others with files dating back at least 10 years. We recovered nearly one million files.
We immediately turned this data over to our lawyers who helped us conduct an internal investigation of the material. One result of this investigation was the determination that Pitts had clandestinely undertaken numerous off-the-books operations for Florida Power and Light. On November 4, 2021, our lawyers sent a short compilation of some of our findings to the board of Nextera, the parent company of FP&L, and to the leadership of Nextera and FP&L. Our lawyers explained in the cover letter that “This investigation revealed troubling and potentially unethical or unlawful conduct by multiple officers and employees of Florida Power and Light Company.”
Perkins clearly is not pleased with Pitts or coverage of that case. But does that mean he is planning to target reporters with lawsuits? The Perkins statement leaves us confused about that.
Here is something else that's confusing -- and perhaps ironic. Forbes says the Perkins statement raises a number of questions about operations at Matrix:
Eighteen entities laundering over $50 million!
We, the CDLU, will make sure the Office of Tax-Exempt Entities at the IRS and the U.S. Department of Justice learn about this and encourage them to reach out to Perkins’ lawyers (Andy2K and Cason M. Kirby) to obtain copies of these “nearly one million files.”
Now let us pause and reflect for a moment.
Sloppy Joe says it took him a decade to learn that “Jittery Jeff” was allegedly embezzling from Matrix, a decade to learn that up to 18 entities were allegedly set up to launder money, and a decade to learn that allegedly $50 million was laundered?
Were there no audits or internal controls set up in over a decade?
In short, the Perkins statement raises plenty of questions, but answers are hard to discern.
