New York, New York (March 10, 2020) Americans United for Equal Justice and VictimsFight.Com Founder, Randy S. Raghavendra, filed a judicial misconduct, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power complaint against Manhattan federal judge Paul A. Crotty for covering up and obstructing prosecution of a recently discovered $650,000 arbitration fraud, attorney-bribing, and criminal extortion scheme in Columbia University’s 17-years old continuing racial discrimination case that was allegedly aided and abetted by the SDNY judge himself.
The judicial misconduct complaint was filed with Chief Judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and a copy was sent to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts after Manhattan district court Judge Crotty attempted to usurp the jurisdiction of even the Long Island district court Judge Joan M. Azrack to obstruct the prosecution and cover-up the recently discovered elaborate $650,000 arbitration fraud, attorney-bribery, and race discrimination scheme. SDNY Judge Crotty himself has been named as a defendant in a second action before EDNY Judge Azrack. The judicial misconduct complaint was filed after Raghavendra was repeatedly denied his right to appeal any of Judge Crotty’s unprecedented orders, including unthinkable $5,000/day fines, for direct intimidation and extracting involuntary releases from the civil rights plaintiff who had sacrificed his entire executive career and personal life for equal opportunity for all during the past fifteen years.
The AUEJ Founder’s complaint states that his client-betraying attorney Stober — whose neighbor in Garden City, Long Island, is also a senior Manhattan federal judge and believed to be a close colleague of Judge Crotty — had used his extrajudicial-connections to Judge Crotty to commit massive fraud against his client to obstruct the completion of an expressly agreed arbitration and for fraudulently converting a $650,000 arbitration award for back-pay damages by noted labor arbitrator, Martin F. Scheinman, into hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribe or quid pro quo payments directly to him and the colluding Proskauer Rose attorneys hired by Columbia.
Raghavendra has alleged that the $650,000 arbitration fraud, attorney-bribery and extortion scheme was masterminded by his own one-of-six-cases/40-hours attorney Louis D. Stober in collusion with the Columbia attorneys by exploiting his extrajudicial connections to some federal court judges who lacked jurisdiction over an incomplete arbitration contract and the $650,000 fraud and bribery scheme.
Raghavendra’s court papers filed in his twenty second appeal (case no.19-3594) before the Second Circuit Court of appeals and in his eastern district of New York action (case no. 19-cv-53) allege that Judge Crotty had first usurped the expressly agreed jurisdiction of arbitrator Scheinman to fraudulently convert a first day of “incomplete arbitration” based $650,000 arbitration award for back-pay damages against Columbia into attorney bribe payments in the guise of totally bogus attorney fees for Stober and colluding Proskauer Rose attorneys. It is alleged that Judge Crotty allowed Raghavendra’s own one-of-six-cases attorney Stober to mastermind an elaborate fraud and attorney-bribery scheme against own client and to hijack all of his own client’s other pending actions by fraudulently obstructing completion of the expressly agreed second day of arbitration that could have allowed the formation of the first anti-discrimination minority employees association at the prestigious Columbia University. A recently published report showed complaints of illegal discrimination and sexual harassment had increased by nine percent from 2018 to 2019 at that 268-years old Ivy League university.
Even before completion of the expressly agreed arbitration under jurisdiction of arbitrator Scheinman, “jurisdiction-lacking” Judge Crotty issued several non-appealable orders to allow Columbia pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in the guise of bogus attorney fees to Stober for betraying his own client, Raghavendra, and having defrauded him into signing the bogus “incomplete arbitration” contract.
Even though the arbitrator had authorized settlement of just one and only the back-pay damages action in federal court, Judge Crotty allowed the fake arbitration contract to be used as a pretext to obstruct completion of even an already scheduled jury trial ordered by New York State Court Justice Joan Kenney in the main employment discrimination action in which Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger was required to testify. Also, in exchange for the alleged attorney bribe payments, Judge Crotty allowed Columbia to avoid the impending $200 million dollars (Coca Cola & TEXACO style) class action, and continue to illegally retaliate against Raghavendra with impunity during the period of Columbia’s worst racial crisis from 2004 to 2009 that included anti-racism hunger-strikes, hanging nooses, swastikas, “Plantation Mentality” and “Blacks were Invented for Cheap Slave Labor” related articles.
Raghavendra — a highly accomplished executive with two masters degrees and over 25 years of professional accomplishments — founded the nonprofit, Americans United For Equal Justice and launched its VictimsFight.Com, StopCorruptionUSA.Org, and ColumbiaVictims.Com websites after having first experienced unthinkable racial discrimination and retaliation as a Senior Management Analyst at Columbia and later subjected to the unthinkable $650,000 arbitration-fraud, attorney-bribery, and criminal-extortion scheme. The court papers allege that instead of testifying in an already scheduled jury trial in race discrimination case in New York State court, Defendant Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger hired the Proskauer Rose firm to collude with and bribe Raghavendra’s own one-of-six-cases/40-hours attorney Stober to mastermind the $650,000 arbitration fraud and attorney-bribes-conversion scheme.
Columbia’s former Senior Management Analyst said that Defendant Columbia President Bollinger had illegally fired him for his mere attempts to lawfully establish an equal opportunity promoting “minority employees association” at the 268-years old Ivy League. He further explained that, previously, in 2003, Bollinger had also used the same Proskauer Rose firm to successfully intimidate even the former Head of Equal Opportunity at Columbia, Zenobia White-Farrell, a Black woman, and compel the withdrawals of her class action on behalf of hundreds of Black employees at Columbia.
Referring to the diminished status of the Civil Rights laws in America recently and also the numerous scandals at Columbia, the 59-years old, dark-skinned, Indian-American who had sacrificed his entire executive career and life for seeking equal opportunity for all said:
“It is unfortunate that instead of promoting true equal opportunity, the prestigious Columbia would choose to pay a $650,000 bribe to some of the most dishonest attorneys to avoid a $200 Million Dollars Class Action, an already scheduled jury trial, and obstruct even an anti-discrimination minority employees association.
Also, if a jurisdiction-lacking and fraud condoning Federal Judge is fining a colored man $5,000/day to openly allow the bribing of his one-of-six-cases/client-betraying attorney for defrauding his own client — a victim of years of illegal discrimination by a 268-years old Ivy League with a known history of institutionalized racism — that could be the death of the Civil Rights laws that Dr. Martin Luther King had sacrificed his whole life for.”
In 2011, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had ruled that another client of Proskauer Rose, Nextel Communications, had attempted to pay a $7 million dollars “bribe” (in the guise of bogus attorney fees) to another Plaintiffs’ law firm on Long Island for betraying and deceiving their own clients (class of hundreds of racially discriminated employees) into totally unacceptable and absurd settlement agreements. One of the former partners of that same law firm (Steven Morelli) was disbarred and sentenced to prison for stealing from his own clients. In The Independent, Katherine Griffiths described Proskauer Rose as being “masterful” in keeping out discrimination suits from “Niggers and Spicks” at yet another one of their clients, Marubeni America
Raghavendra explained that the Columbia hired attorneys exploited Stober’s extrajudicial connections to jurisdiction-lacking Judge Crotty to the maximum as he is a federal judge who was ready and willing to allow Stober to commit massive fraud against his own client in exchange for any bribes in the guise of hundreds of thousands of dollars of bogus attorney fees. He said the Columbia attorney in collusion with his own on-of-six-cases attorney Stober fraudulently induced him into signing an incomplete arbitration contract after arbitrator Scheinman had already left after the first day of the incomplete private arbitration or mediation. On the first day, arbitrator Scheinman had basically awarded $650,000 in back-pay damages in exchange for Raghavendra ending his organization of a $200 million dollars impending class action against Columbia.
Judge Crotty’s direct aiding and abetting of Columbia’s elaborate fraud, bribery and extortion scheme for converting the $650,000 back-pay arbitration award to “attorney bribe” payments became actionable only last year, in 2019. The former New York City corporation counsel turned judge repeatedly refusing to recuse himself but imposed unthinkable $5,000/fines on the civil rights plaintiff himself for extracting involuntary releases and legitimizing at least a $215,000 quid pro quo payment to his extrajudicial-financial-interest attorney Stober, while allowing Columbia to breach both the expressly agreed anti-bribing clause and the arbitration clause of the 2009 contract with impunity.
The New York Judge’s abuse of power and corrupt intent to aid and abet the $650,000 arbitration fraud and attorney-bribery scheme was re-confirmed when he disregarded even the confessions of Columbia’s own two former attorneys, Edward Brill and Susan Friedfel, who had repeatedly conceded that Judge Crotty did not have lawful jurisdiction to extract any involuntary releases and that only arbitrator Scheinman has jurisdiction over the 2009 incomplete arbitration contract, pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act,
Raghavendra pointed that, almost immediately after signing of the 2009 incomplete arbitration contract, his one-of-six-cases attorney Stober tried to extort $150,000 from him by blackmailing him and making threats that he would use his extrajudicial connections in the Manhattan federal court to obstruct the completion of the expressly agreed arbitration and the payment of the $650,000 arbitration award. However, during the past ten years, because Raghavendra did not succumb to Stober’s extortion demands, Judge Crotty openly allowed Stober to commit repeated perjury and massive fraud with impunity against his own client and hijack all of his other pending actions by getting them dismissed without any due process or fact-finding whatsoever and for fraudulently converting the $650,000 arbitration award for back-pay damages into attorney bribe payments.
Jurisdiction-lacking judge Crotty overruled even his own Federal Magistrate Judge Henry B. Pitman to convert the $650,000 arbitration award into hundreds of thousands of dollars of bogus attorney fees to client-betraying attorney Stober and colluding Proskauer Rose attorneys for masterminding the elaborate fraud and bribery scheme. In 2017, he disregarded even Raghavendra’s EEOC-authorized illegal retaliation in re-hiring claims and obstructed the lawful organization of the first minority employees association at Columbia.
Raghavendra’s judicial misconduct complaint states that Judge Crotty’s continuing obstruction of justice was made possible because Proskauer Rose attorney Gregg Mashberg repeatedly lied before the Second Circuit to character-assassinate him as a so-called frivolous litigant and to obstruct any appellate briefing or oral arguments in over twenty one different appeals regarding the prosecution of $650,000 arbitration fraud and attorney-bribery scheme involving Judge Crotty. Previously, the SDNY Judge had also ordered payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Mashberg to continue his illegal intimidation, subornation of perjury, and blackmailing for extracting involuntary releases from Raghavendra under the guise of fake “voluntary releases” so that the $650,000 arbitration fraud and attorney-bribery scheme could be totally covered up.
In addition to curtailing the civil rights plaintiff’s basic constitutional rights to litigate any claims in Manhattan district court, Judge Crotty had repeatedly made it clear that he never wanted his one-of-six-cases attorney Stober to represent his own client, Raghavendra, at all but only to be an (illegal) “intervener” to hijack all of his own client’s multi-action civil rights litigation in exchange for the quid pro quo bribe Columbia would pay him for betraying and litigating against his own client. After striking and denying each and every one of Raghavendra’s over thirty motions, Judge Crotty imposed the totally absurd $5,000/day fines on him and even threatened him with incarceration to obstruct the prosecution of the $650,000 fraud and attorney-bribery scheme.
From 2009, Raghavendra had dedicated his whole life to lawfully change Columbia’s illegal policy of firing minority employees for protected activities such as lawful organization of an anti-discrimination minority employees association similar to those at many other prestigious universities. Raghavendra pointed that, despite his two masters degrees in engineering and business administration and over 25 years of accomplishments, Columbia President Bollinger has repeatedly refused to re-hire him to any of the hundreds of vacant positions he had applied for, but, had only allowed for the $650,000 fraud and attorney-bribery scheme. He added that if only Bollinger ended his racial discriminatory practices, there may be no need for using any of his fake affirmative action policies as a smoke screen.
After the recent discovery of the elaborate fraud, bribery and extortion scheme, Raghavendra also filed criminal complaints with the U.S. Attorney/F.B.I. He also filed complaints with members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for their intervention and potential impeachment of Judge Crotty for abuse of power, obstructing justice, and civil rights conspiracy.
The VictimsFight.Com founder has demanded that Columbia should immediately complete the expressly agreed arbitration, re-hire him, and end its illegal discrimination policies, while he prosecutes his fraud and bribery charges against the Stober and Proskauer Rose attorneys. The near-bankrupt father of three minor children has also launched a major fund raising campaign through his StopCorruptionUSA.Org, ColumbiaVictims.Com, and other social justice websites to cover his legal costs and for seeking true justice in this precedent setting extraordinary attorney bribing and judicial corruption scandal of national importance.