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It is very disheartening to have a federal magistrate judge involved in a case where the judge is throwing out gratuitous rulings left and right in order to help a well known federal judge who is a defendant in a breach of contract case —and that is exactly what is happening in my breach of contract case against former federal court of appeals judge Richard Posner.

In 2018 Richard Posner hired me to work for him as executive director of the Posner Center of Justice for Pro Se’s and also as an advisor to him in his personal capacity. But when it came time to pay for my services, Posner reneged on the agreement and I was forced to file a lawsuit against him for breach of contract after giving him several opportunities to pay what he owed me for my work. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The judge assigned to the case is Judge Theresa Springmann and the current magistrate is Magistrate Judge John E. Martin —a disaster.

Almost without exception litigations involve two way discovery where both sides are able to conduct discovery, but Martin has chosen to disregard the norm and is only allowing Posner to conduct discovery to his benefit in his quest to have the case dismissed, but Martin refuses to allow me to conduct discovery as to my claims —and he has chosen to proceed in this discriminatory manner even though several decisions from the Northern District of Indiana courts by at least two federal judges have denounced bifurcated discovery. And when I asked Martin to explain why he was not willing to follow the decisions from this district which have denounced bifurcated discovery, Martin refused to provide an explanation.  The fact that he refused to explain his actions speaks for itself —he is on shaky ground and he knows it. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Martin furthermore refused to follow his own previous ruling on discovery in the decision of Foster v. Maistrendko, No. 2:21-CV-368-TLS-JEM, where Martin determined that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) permits discovery “regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense.” But Martin chooses not to follow his own precedent when it comes time for him to fix a decision for an influential former federal judge —the proof is in the pudding.

One may wonder why it is that a judge would go against the norm and order one sided discovery that benefits only one side of the litigation, especially when other judges in the same district denounced such a process. The reason is very simple, this is what a judge does when he is interested in fixing the case to go a certain way —and that is exactly what Magistrate Judge John E. Martin is doing.

                       ~ MARTIN’S PROTECTIONISM OF POSNER’S BOGUS DEFENSES ~

In a letter dated February 28, 2022, a lawyer for Posner, Robert W. Kaufman, sent a letter to me stating “What you clearly do not know is that, soon after your conversations with Judge Posner in early 2018, he received a confirmed diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease”, and “As to the substance of your claim, we believe that medical evidence will show that the Judge did not have the legal capacity to enter into contracts in 2018.” which is absurd, and Martin knows it is absurd because Martin knows that Posner was quite active in doing interviews, running the Posner Center, writing books, working as a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago law School, and even taking on a new job as an advisor to Legalist in 2019 and also participating in an amicus curiae brief filed in the Federal Circuit on January, 23, 2019. And after I blew that argument to smithereens, Posner’s lawyers have now recently embarked on a pitiful argument that “Plaintiff’s reliance on a 2022 quote from Defendant’s family lawyer, who did not know the parties’ history is misleading.”  The skullduggery is sad to say the least.

Posner’s lawyers have filed so called “affirmative defenses” stating that:

• “Plaintiff’s claims fail, in whole or in part, because Defendant lacked capacity to form a binding contract.”

• “Plaintiff’s claims are barred, in whole or in part, because any alleged contract, if formed, was unconscionable at the time it was made.”

• “Plaintiff’s claims are barred, in whole or in part, by the doctrine of equitable estoppel because, among other reasons, Plaintiff knowingly induced Defendant to enter the alleged contracts, Plaintiff knew that Defendant lacked mental capacity to do so, Plaintiff induced Defendant to rely on Plaintiff’s nondemand for payment during the life of the alleged contracts, and Defendant’s position has prejudicially changed as a result.”

• “Plaintiff’s claims are barred, in whole or in part, by the doctrines of ratification and waiver because Plaintiff intentionally relinquished any right to payment by acting inconsistently with that right, including, without limitation, by allegedly continuing to perform despite Defendant’s alleged nonpayment and by failing to seek payment when it was allegedly due.

• “Plaintiff’s claims are barred, in whole or in part, by a failure of consideration in the parties’ alleged agreements because, among other reasons, Plaintiff failed to perform the acts promised under the alleged contracts.”

• “Plaintiff’s claims are barred, in whole or in part, because he materially breached the parties’ alleged agreements by failing to perform the acts he promised to perform.”

But yet Martin refuses to allow me to conduct discovery against these bogus so called “affirmative defenses”, and the reason is very evident —Martin knows each and every one of these so called “affirmative defenses” are bogus.  Martin's actions are corrupt to the core.

                         ~ MARTIN IS INVOLVED IN CONCEALING EVIDENCE OF
                            POSSIBLE EMBEZZLEMENT OF FUNDS THAT WERE DONATED
                            TO THE POSNER CENTER TO WHICH THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT
                            TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY ~

According to information provided on tax returns filed with the IRS which have been submitted in the case as exhibits to a memorandum of law filed by Posner’s lawyers, “the Center received $20,600 of donations. The information submitted by Posner’s lawyers further stated that “The Center dissolved in July 2019 without assets.” This begs the question, what happened to the $20,600 that was purportedly donated to the Center? Public policy and societal interests dictate that the complete financial records including bank records and records of all persons affiliated with the former Posner Center should be, and must be, disclosed in order that the public will have an explanation as to what happened to the money since it was all gone when the Posner Center closed. Who received the money? Who wrote the checks? Who cashed the checks? What did he/she do with the money? What do the banking records show? What do receipts show in terms of expenditures of the money? What was the money used for? Who had access to the money? Public policy and societal interests dictate that these questions must be answered —and they must be answered in discovery according to the Seventh Circuit decision of Patterson v. Avery Dennison Corp., 281 F.3d 676, 681 (7th Cir. 2002). However, Martin, by way of his infected ruling in favor of one sided discovery in favor of Posner’s espousing of one sided discovery, prevents me from my rights to discovery of this information. Martin knows his actions of preventing me from this entitled discovery goes against Judge Jon DeGuilio’s decision in Albert’s Diamond Jeweler’s, Inc., v. Aaland Diamond Jewelers, LLC, No. 2:23-CV-39 JD, 2023 WL 6284632 (N.D. Ind. Sept. 27, 2023) where Judge DeGuilio wrote that “There is a strong public policy in favor of disclosure of relevant materials” and there is a “societal interest in furthering the truth-seeking function in the particular case before the court”. (citing Patterson v. Avery Dennison Corp., 281 F.3d 676, 681 (7th Cir. 2002).

Inasmuch as the Posner Center was a publicly licensed organization operating under an Illinois license that sought and received donations, there is a very substantial societal interest and consequently the public has a right to know what happened to the money, and because public policy dictates that society is entitled to an explanation of what happened to the money that was donated to the Posner Center by members of society, it is axiomatic that the records of all of the donated money be disclosed —and not concealed. In light of the public policy and societal interest questions involved here, Magistrate Judge John E. Martin’s actions of concealing this information and keeping it under wraps is a major red flag and cause for alarm as his actions potentially are protecting the possible crime of embezzlement of funds —and no judge should be involved in concealing information of possible evidence of embezzlement of funds donated by the public.  It is entirely inappropriate for Magistrate Judge John E. Martin to be involved in concealing this information from me by way of his infected decision to allow one sided discovery which in effect serves to conceal this information of possible embezzlement of funds donated by the public. 

                      ~ MARTIN IS INVOLVED IN CONCEALING EVIDENCE OF TAX FRAUD ~

Posner’s lawyers have lied in court documents and filed IRS tax forms filed by Posner and/or his enablers falsely stating that no employees were paid a salary. In two separate court filings, Posner, by and through his lawyers, led by the lead lawyer, Justin M. Ellis, falsely stated that the Center “never paid any employee a salary” and referred to IRS tax returns falsely purporting that “Those returns state that the Center paid $0 in salaries to employees and staff in either year” of 2018 and 2019. These lies were done to make it look as though nobody was supposed to be paid in order to help them win the case. These were blatant false and fraudulent misrepresentations because Joyce Hutchens, a former employee of the Posner Center, was paid a salary of several thousands of dollars a month as the Posner Center’s research director. Martin knows these were lies because the lies being advanced by Posner’s lawyers are shown in an exhibit to one of their infected memorandums explicitly showing that a “A settlement of $8,020.00 was paid to a former employee of the Center.” The $8,020 stated in the document was for back wages after Ms. Hutchens threatened to sue Posner for unpaid back wages. And yet Martin chooses to conceal the evidence of this tax fraud from me because he knows it would show evidence of the lies being advanced by Posner’s lawyers in order to win the case, which is actually a losing case for them —if decided on the actual merits and not by corruption.

The information that Martin is preventing me from obtaining in discovery is tangible evidence of a crime upon the IRS which would effectively demonstrate evidence within the case that Posner and his lawyers lied in their court filing while defending Posner of his breach of the contract by way of their false and fraudulent arguments filed in the case. It is interesting that Posner, as a judge, did not accept misrepresentations by lawyers, and had no problem in issuing sanctions, when the panel he was on in Tomczyk v. Blue Cross Blue Shield, 951 F.2d 771 (7th Cir. 1991) issued financial sanctions against attorneys for submitting disingenuous arguments stating that ‘We previously have held that misrepresentations of controlling law and disingenuous arguments, "because they postpone resolution of the real issues and cause delay, can be evidence of bad faith..."’ But as a litigant, as a defendant, he has no problem with having lawyers who have brought many lies on his behalf in the case, but then again, Posner is a self proclaimed “maverick” who told the New York Times “I pay very little attention to legal rules, statutes, constitutional provisions,” and “When you have a Supreme Court case or something similar, they’re often extremely easy to get around.” An Exit Interview With Richard Posner, Judicial Provocateur - The New York Times (nytimes.com), and in another interview with Legal Talk Network on March 7, 2018, characterized himself as a "maverick" and publicly proclaimed his disdain for rules and tradition when he stated "Well, I am a maverick, and I don't really like rules, I don't like tradition." https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/chicago-bar/2018/03/the-ill-be-dreaming-about-donkeys-edition-an-interview-with-judge-richard-posner-ret/.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, according to a December 1, 2016 article in the Los Angeles Review of Books titled "Richard Posner Is a Monster", Posner in his younger days called himself “the mighty one,” and he wrote to editors at Cambridge University Press, “Don’t you know who I am?” and according to the article Posner has referred to himself as a “monster”. And last, but not least, the self proclaimed “maverick” who doesn’t like rules, has publicly stated in an interview titled “Let Us Never Blame a Contract Breaker” that 'I don't think fair, the word "fair" has any content at all."' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvIDdJpF5oM.

And yet Martin would prefer to help this self proclaimed “maverick”, who has called himself a "monster", who doesn’t like to play by the rules, to prevail in the case in order that he can benefit from his con job in the end by not having to pay for the work I did for him, which in effect is tantamount to an approval of slave labor which in effect is being endorsed by Magistrate Judge John E. Martin.

Martin’s actions in preventing me from conducting my entitled right to discovery into the false and fraudulent information that Posner and/or his agents/representatives submitted to the IRS was not only a violation of my entitled rights to this information, but also was tantamount to helping along concealment of tax fraud which is a federal offense that falls under the category of “frauds and false statements” under Title 26 of the United States Code, Section 7206. Martin’s conduct of preventing me from obtaining this information in discovery could potentially render him criminally liable for helping cover up these tax fraud crimes. 

~ THE LETTER SENT BY POSNER'S LAWYER TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE JOHN E. MARTIN ASKING FOR THE JUDGE'S "HELP" AND "ASSISTANCE" TO "HELP" BRING THE CASE TO A "SWIFT END" SPEAKS VOLUMES AS TO HOW CORRUPT THE PROCEEDINGS ARE ~

The case is so tainted that one of Posner’s lawyers, Justin M. Ellis, on March 8, 2024, wrote a letter directly to Magistrate Judge John E. Martin explicitly requesting “this Court’s assistance in discovery to help bring this case to a swift end.” And even after Martin had already accommodated Posner and his lawyers’ desire for one sided discovery where he allowed Posner to conduct discovery as to his defenses, but disallowed me from conducting discovery as to my claims against Posner, that wasn’t enough as Posner’s lawyer, Justin M. Ellis, desired even more “help” and “assistance” from Martin, to put the case to a “swift end” because things were getting scorching hot for Posner and his lawyers which is why they felt comfortable in asking Martin to accommodate them by providing his “help” and “assistance” because then Posner and his enablers who submitted false and fraudulent information to the IRS and his lawyers who submitted false and fraudulent arguments in the case utilizing false information submitted to the IRS would then be able to escape responsibility from their wrongful and unlawful actions of tax fraud. The letter speaks volumes as to just how tainted the proceedings are under Magistrate Judge John E. Martin.

                            ~ MARTIN’S THREATS TO ME WILL NOT WORK ~

On April 23, 2024, Magistrate Judge John E. Martin issued an order inappropriately threatening to sanction me for a nonexistent rule violation in response to a letter I sent to the chambers of Chief Judge Holly Brady reporting Martin’s judicial malfeasances in the case. In the interest of full disclosure, I sent a copy of the email to Martin. Martin responded in a huff by issuing an order stating “This matter is before the Court sua sponte. An email was received by the Court from Plaintiff Brian Vukadinovich. The Court refuses to consider ex parte communications…Accordingly the Court hereby STRIKES the letter and CAUTIONS Plaintiff that failure to comply with the Court’s Rules and Orders may result in sanctions.”

Martin was completely out of line as the email was not an ex parte communication. Had I not sent it to him then it would have been ex parte. A first year law school student would know that, but Martin obviously blew a gasket when he saw that I reported his corruption to the chief judge, and he didn’t like it —too bad for him. His ridiculous threat was nothing less than a form of judicial thuggery on his part calculated to inappropriately intimidate me into not further exposing judicial malfeasances that he has been involved in.  Unfortunately for Martin, his threats won't work.

~ THE CASE IS REPLETE WITH EVIDENCE OF MAGISTRATE JUDGE JOHN E. MARTIN'S CORRUPTION REQUIRING HIS DISQUALIFICATION FROM THE CASE ~

Canon 1 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges explicitly states "An independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our society. A judge should maintain and enforce high standards of conduct and should personally observe those standards, so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved. The provisions of this Code should be construed and applied to further that objective."

Canon 2(A) of the Code of Conduct for United States judges explicitly states "A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” The actions by Magistrate Judge John E. Martin in preventing me from conducting my entitled right to discovery of which actions of Magistrate Judge John E. Martin blocks the discovery of information of potential embezzlement of publicly donated funds to the Posner Center hardly maintains and enforces high standards of conduct and hardly does much to preserve the “integrity and independence of the judiciary.” Nor does the act of preventing information of potential embezzlement of publicly donated funds “promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” Nor does protectionism of tax fraud do much to preserve the “integrity and independence of the judiciary” or “promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” Nor does using fiction to make threats against me in order to intimidate me into not further reporting issues of corruption on the part of Magistrate Judge John E. Martin do much to preserve the “integrity and independence of the judiciary” or “promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

Canon 3(C)(1) explicitly states "A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances in which:
(a) the judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceedings".

28 U.S. Code § 144 expressly states: Whenever a party to any proceeding in a district court makes and files a timely and sufficient affidavit that the judge before whom the matter is pending has a personal bias or prejudice either against him or in favor of any adverse party, such judge shall proceed no further therein, but another judge shall be assigned to hear such proceeding.

28 U.S. Code § 455(a) expressly states “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

“Magistrate Judge John E. Martin’s corrupt behavior is bad wine of recent vintage who has proceeded in a very corrupt manner and has tainted the proceedings. His infected and poisonous actions render him disqualified from any further involvement in the case.

On August 7, 2024 I filed a motion for the disqualification and recusal of Magistrate Judge John E. Martin. I sent a copy of the disqualification papers to Chief Judge Holly Brady and informed Chief Judge Brady that because of Magistrate Judge John E. Martin’s corrupt actions in the case, that it is imperative that the record of his corrupt acts be made known to the appropriate officials who monitor judicial malfeasances. I also informed Chief Judge Brady that because we cannot as a society have corrupt judges on the federal judiciary, that it is very important that Magistrate Judge John E. Martin not be considered for reappointment as magistrate judge, and must never be appointed to a district court or appellate position, and that the information about his corrupt actions should be and must be made part of his file in order that the appropriate officials who review judges for higher judicial appointments have the information about his corruption. What Martin has been doing to thwart the administration of justice is appalling and he has no business being in the federal judiciary. A judge who disregards decisions from his very district against one sided discovery who nevertheless approves of one sided discovery in order to help an influential former federal court of appeals judge unfairly prevail in a case, by which one sided discovery also serves to conceal information of tax fraud and possible embezzlement of publicly donated funds, and who utilizes threats based on fiction in order to intimidate a litigant into not reporting the magistrate judge’s malfeasances, is not only unfit to stay on the particular case, but is unfit to serve on the federal judiciary.

According to the Supreme Court, any judge who does not comply with his/her oath to the Constitution of the United States wars against that Constitution and engages in acts in violation of the Supreme Law of the Land. The judge is engaged in an act of acts of treason. S. v. Will, 449 U.S. 200, 216, 101 S.Ct. 471, 66 L.Ed.2d 392, 406 (1980); Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat) 264, 404, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821). This makes Magistrate John E. Martin a treasonous judge according to the Supreme Court’s precedents. What Magistrate Judge John E. Martin had been doing is unconscionable with his judicial malfeasances —and he must go.

What this sorry excuse of a federal magistrate judge, John E. Martin, is doing is showing just how far the machinations of the federal judiciary will go to protect one of its own —and it certainly is a very ugly picture. But it is what it is, and the powers that be at the federal judiciary may rest well assured of one thing for sure, and that is that I will most certainly not be intimidated by Martin’s threats to silence me, and I will most certainly not sit still for the obvious nefariousness that is going on with Martin’s unsavory judicial behaviors in his abuses of his position as a magistrate federal judge in order to help a brethren judge escape liability for his wrongful actions —the powers to be at the federal judiciary can take that to the bank.