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Some interesting characters have been denied the right to file lawsuits.
Jonathan Lee Riches (shown here) even has his own Wikipedia page.
The one thing we don’t have in common is that they sued Elvis, fast food restaurants, jewish people, and assorted celebrities with fanciful claims. I’m just suing the criminals who have seized our federal court system….
Jonathan Lee Riches is a highly “creative†prisoner who sued Steve Jobs in what the court called “fanciful nonsense†ranging from the wildly impossible to the flatly impossible. Riches also sued Elvis Presley and Neverland. Riches even has his own Wikipedia entry. Since January 8, 2006, he has filed over 1,000 lawsuits in federal district courts across the country, some of which have received considerable press attention. Among the more famous defendants of his lawsuits are New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, then-President of the United States George W. Bush, entrepreneur Martha Stewart, NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Somali pirates, and pop star Britney Spears. He also sued the late Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service on November 7, 2007, to prevent him from being deported to Pakistan upon his release from prison in March 2012 so that he will not be tortured. (See In re Jonathan Lee Riches.)
Sir Keenan Cofield is an overly litigious fellow. Among the many suits he has brought from his jail cell are suits against both McDonald’s and Burger King for using pork fat in the oil used to fry french fried potatoes, thereby poisoning his body, mind and soul. He has brought at least three libel actions against various newspapers for prematurely printing his obituary. He also brought an action against Coca-Cola alleging that a bottle of Coke he drank was filled with ground glass. He has threatened or sued various restaurants in various cities alleging food poisoning; it was later discovered that Cofield was incarcerated at the time he supposedly was eating in these restaurants. The majority of his suits, however, have been against various prison officials. In the Northern District of Alabama, Cofield has filed thirty-nine cases, in the Middle District thirty-two cases, and in the Southern District eight cases. In the state courts he has filed sixteen cases in the Bessemer division and ten cases in the Birmingham division of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County. (See Cofield v. Alabama Public Serv. Comm, 936 F.2d 512, 517-518 (11th Cir. 1991).)
Anthony Martin-Trigona, is a notoriously vexatious and vindictive litigator who has long abused the American legal system. A brief summary of his career in the courts up through 1983 can be found in In re Martin-Trigona, 573 F. Supp. 1245 (D.Conn.1983), aff’d in part and remanded in part, 737 F.2d 1254 (2d Cir.1984), on remand, 592 F. Supp. 1566 (P. Conn. 1984), aff’d, 763 F.2d 140 (1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1061, 106 S. Ct. 807, 88 L. Ed. 2d 782 (1986). Nine years ago Anthony Martin-Trigona had already filed at least 250 civil suits throughout the United States, with the actual number far exceeding that conservative count. 573 F. Supp. at 1268-69; 737 F.2d at 1259 n. 4. Anthony Martin-Trigona and his mother, the appellant in this case, have filed more than two dozen appeals in the Eleventh Circuit alone since 1983. The Clerk also reports that a search of some, but not all, of the files of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida reveals that in just the past five years the Martin-Trigonas have filed, or attempted to file, at least thirteen lawsuits in that district court alone. We have no way of knowing how many lawsuits they have filed in other district courts, other circuit courts, and state courts around the country since the tabulation in the Connecticut injunction case eight years ago. Anthony Martin-Trigona has sued literally hundreds, if not thousands, of attorneys, judges, their spouses, court officials, and other human beings. Martin-Trigona is said to have pursued legal actions with “persistence, viciousness, and general disregard for decency and logic.” He has used legal pleadings to ventilate his contempt and hatred of persons of Jewish heritage and to level accusations which “have often been personal, have often emphasized racial or religious affiliations, and have often involved the members of … judges’ and counsel’s families.” The purpose, nature and effect of his resort to multiple litigation has been to involve as many persons in as many confounding legal processes as possible.
Casimer Urban, Jr. filed lawsuits against a variety of real and imaginary government defendants including the “United States of America Judiciary Branch,” the “United States of America Executive Branch” and the “World Government of World Citizens.” In his first visit to the court, Mr. Urban sought an emergency stay of the second inauguration of President Reagan. Revealing himself at that time to be a self-proclaimed presidential candidate, Mr. Urban cited his residency in the Milkyway Galaxy as a jurisdictional basis for that action. (See Casimer Urban, Jr. v. United Nations, 768 F.2d 1497, 1500 (D.C. Cir. 1985).)
Here is my research on every filing restriction case that I could find. Important Note: There can be little doubt about Riches, Cofield, and Martin-Trigona, but I must now assume that none of the “facts” claimed by the judges in these other cases are likely untrue. Read Judge Thrash’s decision in my case, and I sound like I’m as guilty as sin.
William M. Windsor
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