Diamond Dust

any incorporated in Delaware. Like me he was a senior executive at a subsidiary of a national conglomerate and a shareholder in the conglomerate, but unlike

e conglomerate was operating and how it was forcing him to oper

him run the sub the way it should be run or buy him out so he could leave, or else he'd sue them. After that his

"hushmail." The Chancery Court has ruled twice in the matter, and the Delaware Supreme Court once, and they're agreed that GM's board acted properly in paying Perot to get out because his grousing was interfering w

onal, Inc., and threatened to take the company over; in May Viacom bought back its stock from him, for $79.50 per share when it was trading at $62, and he promised not to buy any more Viacom stock for eleven years. Then Vi

t the legal claim he's offering to release in exchange for the payment - Icahn had the right to try to take Viacom over, and he could release that right in exchange for Viacom's payment. I had a right to sue Hutton for f

1986, but the truth is I wasn't clever enough or experienced enough to have dealt with Hutton the way I did without the expert advice I was receiving, especially that from Dave Garrett, an expert in trust banking, and Rod Ward,

epresent you." At that point I was so busy fighting alligators I'd forgotten about draining the swamp, and that possibility had never even crossed my mind, but I suddenly saw that I might, indeed, end up suing Hutton, and all t

Iranscam, and I noticed on the ABC news one night (I don't pay much attention to news, but 'Jeopardy!' comes on that channel at the end of the national news) that the IBC statements they were showing were monthly stateme

rted my firing, telling him what I knew about IDP and asking if he thought it was part of Iranscam or was I just being paranoid; I got a phone call a few days later saying his sources indicated I was onto the real thing. Then I wrote to the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance for Iran and the Nicaraguan O

tment against both Hutton and Malarkey, and I should let the government handle the litigation, because it would be all over the country and take a lot of money. But all U. S. Attorney Bill Carpenter did was send an FBI special agent to talk to me, and he kept nodding off to sleep while

homas Reed Hunt Jr., and the associate who did the scut work was Brett D. Fallon. I'd had vanishingly little practical experience of civil litigation, and I learned a great deal from seeing th

pay their costs and attorneys' fees, he was a perfect gentleman, and I admired his style. I answered that the most they could do was drive me into bankruptcy, and then I'd load my dogs and my clothes in the car, leave the bank to foreclo

e Joseph J. Longobardi dismissed my complaint for lack of standing, saying I wasn't directly inju

money laundries for the proceeds of criminal activity. It defines "pattern of racketeering activity" to be at least two felony violations of certain state or federal statutes committed by the same person within 10 years, and at least on

court and "shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee." The so-called "predicate acts" that form the pattern

n Trust perform the trustees' duties to earn the fees, and that violated the RICO statute. I said that they hired me and the other employees by making us think Hutton Trust was a legitimate company when it wasn't, and that was fraud on us in furtherance of their RI

had been bought by Shearson Lehman in 1988, and in fact I'd filed a suit in Chancery Court complaining, among other things, that Shearson didn't pay us shareholders enough for our Hutton stock in their merger because of Hutton's legal liabilitie

rporate directors' fiduciary duties to the shareholders, where all the corporation has to prove is it had a business reason for doing what it did, and it wins. She has never seemed to grasp the idea that in a RICO suit it doesn't matter why you did it: If you did it, you're guilty. But it probably didn't matter what sh

r evidence. In this case the court didn't ask for oral argument; we sent in our briefs, and in September 1989 the court issued a published opinion reversing the dismissal and sayin

ars later, in September 1991, we finally went to trial; not only had Hutton kept sniping at me and squa

t to share in commissions I'd have to have a "Series 7" license. By then my relationship with Abbes was rather brittle - because he'd asked me to quit, and I'd not only refused but also told several Hutton & Co. "heavy hitter" AEs who owed me

have to be employed by a member of the Stock Exchange, which Hutton & Co. was, but Hutton Group wasn't, and of course Hutton Trust wasn't. The form had a part the applicant was supposed to fill in, with name, address, employer's name and address, and recent employment history in

k and then make a photocopy and sign that as the original; he also told me to fill in the part he was supposed to do, and when I said the employer was supposed to do that pa

rinted Hutton Trust's name and address in the block for my employer, someone at Hutton in New York had whited that out and written in Hutton & Co.'s name and address. I still had the original blue-ink version, so I figured I had Hutton by the short hairs: They'd

resign because he didn't want to have the directors vote on it; that's how he'd gotten rid of Butler, and then Abbes changed the old board minutes to make it look like Butler hadn't held the offices it required a board vote to terminate.) When I was fired, I filed for unemployment b

the bylaws requiring a supermajority vote and the ruling of the unemployment office, which Hutton didn't appeal when it had the chance, Hutton's position had to be rejected as a matter of law, but Longobardi has always treated it as an open question whethe

inued into the second day, then Hutton put on four witnesses: one of Hutton's inside lawyers who was still working for Shearson, Abbes, Hi

pay checks. While I'd been testifying, I'd several times tried to introduce a subject, like Lockwood's tantrum when he fired Butler, and Foster had objected, and Longobardi had ruled it out; then her witnesses got on the stand and testified to it for me.

key was dead by then, and I'd figured there was no way to prove who was responsible for his lying to the press - saying there was no truth to my charges when his own reports documented everything I was saying - so I hadn't even included any defamation claims in my complaint, but the appellate court had ruled that "loss of earnings, benefits,

larkey tell the reporters that! That admission meant Hutton was liable for the deliberate injury to my reputation, because one of the federal civil procedure rules says that if you prove something at

xpect from having brokerage people trying to run a bank. I'd never seen the 1986 report, and I hadn't asked for it during discovery because it was written after I'd been fired, so I knew Longobardi would rule I couldn't have it, and I'd hate like the devil to g

986 report, I asked for it, and Longobardi said they had to let me see it; Foster objected and kept dithering about it being too late for me to make a re

d see me as a sympathetic plaintiff; you'd have to ask Hutton why they didn't want a jury. Besides, a jury comes back with a verdict, and you're pretty much stuck with it, but when you have the judge decide the case, he has to issue an opinion setting forth his reasons

uments because, he said, he wanted us all "to deal with this while it's hot and fresh in our minds." The last brief

d I'll be able to get on with my life. In the hope that this year will see the end of this case, which has cluttered up my present and future for more than six years, I've written the story now, for two reason