How did the hunting club work against Joe Blackburn? He states in his complaint:
Fernambucq and Wright then failed to disclose to (Blackburn) that they and Calhoun were all part of the RICO conspiracy. . . . This persisted despite plaintiff's urging them to seek Calhoun's recusal since his wife was a federal judge in the Alabama Northern District (which encompassed the Blackburn domestic relations court forum).
How did the hunting club operate behind the scenes to fix divorce cases in Jefferson County, Alabama? From Edenfield's ruling:
So, Blackburn maintains, corrupt judges threw cases and inflated attorney-fee awards to fellow enterprise members, and those who benefited provided substantial assistance and provided cover for such conduct. . . . In other words, judges were "paid" by having Hunting Club lawyers absorb the judges' Hunting Club membership costs--the judges were allowed to hunt gratis as "honorary members." And the benefiting attorneys would then stream some of their ill-gotten (attorney fee awards inflated by the judge) gains back to the judge in the form of campaign contributions to ensure his re-election.
How did this work against Joe Blackburn and other non-favored litigants in divorce court? Writes Edenfield:
The public therefore suffered and continues to suffer from this scheme, Blackburn concludes. To get justice before the "RICO judges," then, one must now hire a "Hunting Club lawyer," and opponents will be subjected to tainted rulings and inflated attorney-fee awards. On top of that, all of the defendants additionally conspired to keep this entire scheme secret.
This all hit home for Joe Blackburn in a bottom-line sort of way--an injury that a tax-law professor was sure to notice. He was awarded joint custody of the couple's minor children and various items of marital property, but he was ordered to pay gross alimony of $285,000 and his wife's attorney fees in the amount of $22,500. Joe Blackburn alleged that he lost $750,000 due to Judge Calhoun's "refusal to consider and divide spouse's accrued deferred federal compensation benefits."
How badly have Joe Blackburn and other non-favored parties been damaged by corruption in Alabama divorce courts? Is the hunting club, reportedly located in Lowndes County, still acting as an organized-crime ring? Is U.S. Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn fully aware of unsavory activities in rural Alabama--and choosing to remain quiet about them? If so, does she have any business ruling on Alabama's immigration law--or any other matter that might come before the federal bench?
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