Burt and Regina Newsome
Someone is conducting a coordinated terrorism campaign against Birmingham attorney Burt Newsome and his family. Like much that is wrong with Alabama, it appears connected to big businesses -- and the large law firms who cater to them. For us here at Legal Schnauzer, the whole thing smells both foul and familiar.Roughly three weeks ago, one or more thugs targeted Newsome's wife, Regina, for a smash and grab on her vehicle while it was parked at a Vestavia Hills fitness center. Now, someone has sent a threatening package to the Newsome home -- in the form of five sets of luggage and numerous items of clothing.
What is threatening about that? Well, some curious numbers are involved -- and the "gift" of luggage, of course, sends the message that someone is (or should be) going somewhere. We'll let banbalch.com, which broke the story, explain:
You would think the thugs behind the alleged targeted break-in of the vehicle driven by Burt Newsome’s wife were beyond stupid in this day of high-definition video surveillance and phone tracking software.
But now come the real sick, idiots who sent the Newsome family a threatening package: Five pieces of luggage and numerous clothing outfits. There were approximately three dozen outfits for mom and the young Newsome children.The message was crystal clear: get ready to pack and leave town.
The full message is not clear, but banbalch.com makes some educated guesses -- and notes that the scheme should leave useful evidence behind. As for the curious numbers, the Newsomes are a family of six -- a father, a mother, and four children. The five sets of luggage suggest someone is, or might be, missing:
Were they threatening the family? The father, Burt Newsome? Was he going to be injured, killed or murdered? Or were the wife and children going to “disappear” on a permanent vacation?All done through an online retailer, the purchase can be tracked using IP addresses and metadata. Even a hacker’s digital trail can be traced.
Our sources tell us at least two law enforcement agencies are investigating the threat, and the online retailer is probing the matter, too.
How did Burt Newsome run afoul of someone with evil intent -- and more power than brains? We explained, in our post about the smash-and-grab incident:
Regina Galiulina Newsome apparently was targeted while at Lifetime Fitness for a tennis lesson, according to her Facebook page. The incident, on July 30, came nine days after former Balch Bingham partner Joel Gilbert was convicted of bribery in the North Birmingham Superfund scandal. It also came after reports of a possible RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) lawsuit related to Balch's efforts to essentially steal Burt Newsome's lucrative collections practice and ruin his law business.
Was Regina Newsome targeted in an effort to intimidate her husband into forgoing a RICO lawsuit that could expose some prominent political figures -- including former U.S. Senators Jeff Sessions (now Trump attorney general) and Luther Strange, plus Strange's one-time mistress and campaign manager, Jessica Medeiros Garrison?
It has been widely reported that Sessions is closely tied to Balch Bingham, and the firm long has been one of his largest financial backers. Earlier this month, Mother Jones reported that Sessions and his office coordinated their attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Superfund case, working more closely with Balch than was previously known. Does that mean the terror campaign against the Newsome family could go right to the top of the U.S. Department of Justice? If Jeff Sessions feels threatened by a possible RICO lawsuit from Burt Newsome, the answer could be yes.
How does all of this hit close to home here at Legal Schnauzer? Well, we know a thing or two about what it's like to be targeted by Alabama's white-collar business/legal thugs -- who seem to spend much of their time drunk on entitlement and power. Here is background from our smash-and-grab post:
This all hits close to home because I was the victim of an even more outrageous intimidation effort. In fall 2013, I essentially was kidnapped from our Birmingham home -- deputies unlawfully broke into our home (without stating they had a warrant or showing a warrant) and beat me up and arrested me on a civil matter, with not even a whiff of a criminal allegation. It was related to my reporting on this blog about the "close relationship" of GOP politico Rob Riley and lobbyist Liberty Duke, so I essentially spent five months in the Shelby County Jail for blogging -- apparently the only U.S. journalist in history to be so targeted. The bogus arrest caused us to lose our home of 25 years to a wrongful foreclosure.
Ironically, both my arrest and the Regina Newsome smash and grab came as concerns about possible RICO cases against right-wing political figures were circulating in news accounts.
We have no doubt Strange and Garrison were involved in my arrest, plus the theft of our home, and we would not be surprised if Jeff Sessions and his protege, U.S. Judge Bill Pryor, also were involved. We have pending federal-court cases -- The Jail Case and The House Case -- in both matters.
You will notice that the attacks on my wife, Carol, and me resulted in us losing our home and being forced to leave town, now living like refugees in Springfield, Missouri -- where I grew up, but where we certainly do not want to be now. As banbalch.com notes, the luggage scam sends a signal that perhaps the Newsomes would be wise to "leave town." That makes me think some of the people who have attacked Carol and me also are involved in targeting the Newsomes.
Robert Stacy McCain and
Ali (Akbar) Alexander
We timely paid on our home for 23-plus years, and only ran into a crunch after both of us were cheated out of our jobs. Chase Mortgage had granted us a forbearance to work out the payment issues, and we were moving toward resolution, when I was arrested -- beaten and doused with pepper spray inside my own home and stashed in the Shelby County Jail for five months. By the time of my release on March 26, 2014, our house already had been declared in default, and any realistic chance to save our house had been lost.
How did RICO figure into our situation? I'm still not sure how that happened, but various online entities combined to create a narrative (a false one, BTW) that I was pushing for a RICO lawsuit against a group of right-wing bloggers. Here are specifics:
Someone concocted a scheme in fall 2013 that made it look like I was pushing for a RICO lawsuit, on behalf of progressive activist Brett Kimberlin, against the right-wing National Bloggers Club (NBC), led by GOP and Karl Rove-affiliated felon Ali (Akbar) Alexander. It all grew from comments left at the Web site Breitbart Unmasked, by someone calling himself "RogerS." Conventional wisdom in right-wing circles was that I was "RogerS," and this was just days before my arrest. In fact, I was not RogerS, and I had no involvement in the Kimberlin matter.
How is this for irony?
(1) Our research indicates RogerS made his debut at Breitbart Unmasked, suggesting a RICO lawsuit against the NBC and certain of its members, on Oct. 16, 2013;
(2) I was arrested on Oct. 23, 2013, one week later;
(3) In a post dated Oct. 24, 2013 -- the day after my arrest -- a blog called Patterico's Pontifications (written by an NBC member) apparently was the first to suggest publicly that I was RogerS;
(4) Who was first to write about my arrest? That never has been clear, but NBC member Robert Stacy McCain (The Other McCain) likely broke it, either at his blog or at American Spectator. McCain's Wikipedia page notes that he "resides on the Atlantic Seaboard." Does that mean he makes it a regular practice to check arrest records for Shelby County, AL? That would seem odd, so perhaps a GOP insider, connected to the bloggers' club, knew my arrest was coming and gave McCain a tip?
This much is certain: Talk of RICO lawsuits makes bad guys nervous, and it can lead them to take unlawful and irrational acts. It is becoming more and more clear that is what drove -- at least in part -- my arrest and incarceration, plus the loss of our home. I suspect it also is driving the terror campaign against Burt Newsome and his family.
