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©2007 Milwaukee press

Chase Bank set to ignore subpoena as racketeering case nears settlement

By Geoff Davidian
Editor, Milwaukee Press

Milwaukee, Wis. (Jan. 7, 2007) – JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, its former board chairman and a Milwaukee Chase Bank manager say they agree to pay some $5,444 to settle a six-month old battle with a depositor who balked at hundreds of dollars in phony fees charged to his account. But the settlement may not come in time to spare the $1.3 trillion financial services giant from seeing a trove of sensitive corporate information on similar complaints around the country made public Monday morning in answer to a subpoena in the case. MORE

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Bank on the edge: Open a Chase Bank account and watch your money disappear faster than freedoms in a Trilateral Commission vision of the future

JPMorgan Chase Bank agrees to pay customer $5,444 to settle fraudulent overdraft fees case

Six months after refusing to admit wrongdoing,
bank admits it takes money it has no claim to
 

Do you want to sue JPMorgan Chase bank over bogus fees?

We can help you with research and investigative skills

From across the country, the Chase Bank story is the same:

'Chase took my money,' 'upped the fee,' 'cheated me,' 'can't do anything'

Chase Bank Manager Jeff Childs fears for his and other employees' safety after bank was caught charging unauthorized, bogus fees for five successive months in Milwaukee Plagued by refund demands, bank threatens trespass charge against customer whose money was skimmed Read the document

Why is this man laughing? JPMorgan Chase Bank's Jeff Childs

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Chase Bank asks court for protection from telling the truth about consumer violations

How to train your banker
JPMorgan Chase Bank asks small claims court to protect employees from testifying about stealing money from depositors; spends thousands on lawyers over policy of charging $150 overdraft fees when money is on deposit 

By GEOFF DAVIDIAN
Editor, MilwaukeePress.net
©2006 MilwaukeePress.net

 MILWAUKEE, Wis. (August 27, 2006) – Poor JPMorgan Chase Bank! The out-of-state banking big shot bought BankOne, and now they have to pay for it. So they've been charging local customers "Insufficient Funds" fees, even when there is money in the account to cover outstanding checks and debit-card purchases. I woke up one day recently to find a whopping $150 hole in my bottom line, thanks to a service fee for "Insufficient Funds" on about $300 worth of purchases when there was more than $1,000 in my checking account.

Now, the bank has hired a lawyer to protect the architects of this consumer fraud from having to be "embarrassed" by talking about their actions. MORE

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9/11: Conspiracy theory or false terror?

ROSEMONT, Ill. (June 4, 2006) -- Hundreds of lawyers, physicists, engineers, professors, politicians, journalists and citizens from across the country and Europe convened to demand a renewed look at the unanswered questions about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Sponsored by 911Truth.org, the three-day event was ignored by local media although the New York Times sent a reporter from its metropolitan Desk. The biggest questions on the minds of those who attended were what caused a third tower, known as building 7, to collapse although it was not hit, and why was there a pool of molten iron at the scene when fuel from an airplane allegedly cannot burn hot enough to melt iron. Many in attendance said they now thought the United States Government was behind the terror attack and are circulating petitions to demand full disclosure of all evidence. Literature passed out at the event included the following:1)  9/11Was An Inside Job, 2) 9/11 Evidence Destruction, 3) A Summer of Fear or Truth and 4) The Psychology Behind Mass Subservience to Tyranny.
 

'As the crow flies' could be a wet trip for Wisconsinites heading to school in Michigan, and vice versa

Amid the public relations din, a patriotic voice

Feingold: acting like a patriot as senate tackles the Patriot Act

By GEOFF DAVIDIAN
Editor, MlwaukeePress.Net

There’s a good reason for Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold’s courageous stand against secrecy in the Senate’s consideration of renewal of portions of the PATRIOT Act:  the government has disregarded limits on federal police action in the War on Terror and arrogantly refuses to discuss it in congressional hearings or before the United States Supreme Court. More

The hidden cost of the War on Terror

Supreme Court asked to decide whether attorney general illegally changed IRS regulations to allow federal police powers Congress meant to curb

By GEOFF DAVIDIAN
Editor, ShorewoodVillage.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 14, 2005) -- Millions of Americans put down a good chunk of their earnings each year as the tax man takes his cut to provide services like protecting us from terrorists.
      But the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked in Payne v. USA to decide whether former Attorney General John Ashcroft illegally rewrote treasury regulations in a surreptitious end-run around congressional limits on federal police powers – powers that were meant to protect citizens from the damage caused not by terrorists, but by the IRS.  More

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Reviews of books

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
(2004, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 250 pp., $24.95)  

'And we wonder why terrorists attack us?' asks author John Perkins

By GEOFF DAVIDIAN
MilwaukeePress.Net
In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins gives us good insight into everything wrong with capitalism, and in doing so shows us an example of the kind of person who makes it all wrong.

Perkins portrays a world where a few are kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that millions of souls lead lives of economic misery and exploitation, through a system in which religious groups, corporations and U.S. policy converge wherever poor nations have resources we want.  More

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Organize, then agitate

Greens nominate David Cobb

MILWAUKEE, WI. (June 26, 2004) -- The Green Party today nominated attorney David Cobb for president.

In a press conference following his second-ballot victory at the Midwest Airlines Center, Cobb said he would do everything possible to debate candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties, even get arrested in the effort. Cobb and running mate Pat LaMarche, a broadcast journalist and former Green party candidate for governor of Maine, say they will visit every state and support every local Green candidate who requests it. More on the convention and candidates

David Cobb

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Journal Communications: Downtown and Uppity

New North Shore Herald is a marketer's dream and resident's nightmare

They are not selling the paper to you -- they are selling you to the advertisers

Thanks so much (Not) to Journal Communications, or whoever the corporate parent entity they own is that repackaged Shorewood news into a North Shore Herald. Not only has the horizontally and vertically monopolistic organization forced Shorewood advertisers to now spend more to reach people in Brown Deer and Fox Point who will never patronize them, but readers have to scratch around for news they care about through the otherwise irrelevant items about the inner workings of other municipalities.

While it is the trend nationally for newspapers to merge, consolidate staffs and raise advertising costs after falsifying circulation figures, the joining of suburban Herald's into one mega-neighborhood advertising circular only tightens Journal Communication's grip on the information it thinks it can trust us with without us acting up and rebelling.

There is a way to strike back, however. The Herald is offering four free weeks to try to get you hooked on their revamped marketing product.

We suggest you call (262) 317-4254 and take advantage of the free offer, but clearly insist that the trial end with the fourth issue.

After that, you can read the three Shorewood stories or so for free at Walgreen's, Pic N Save or the gas station in less than five minutes.

Our hearts go out to Bridget Fryman and the other writers who aspire to journalism but are chained to the inverted pyramid of corporate domination. RIP.

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Shorewood officials named in money-transfer scheme

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Clare L. Fiorenza
says law requires Village to retain all e-mail messages; village attorney says all email is intact -- Motion

SHOREWOOD, Wis. (Jan, 2, 2004) -- Rodney Dow, the former Village president, apparently opposes openness in government.

In two essays in the Shorewood Herald he refers to correct action by  conscientious trustees as "leaks" by "moles." See ShorewoodVillage.com
 

Attorney Raymond Pollen and Milwaukee firm Crivello, Carlson & Mentkowski are sued for withholding public records in search for clues to library fund transfer December 12, 2003 -- MilwaukeePress.Net asks judge to enjoin Shorewood officials from destroying records of illegal $535,000 transfer to Village library and to command village attorney and village manager to produce what documents remain -- Taxpayers will foot the bill for official intransigence, foot dragging.                       Read the verified motion

Texas lawsuit turns attention to Hearst's media monopoly -- The Houston Chronicle allegedly got auditors drunk and falsified circulation figures in a scheme meant to cheat advertisers. Exclusive Putnam Pit investigation

State case dismissed as lawyers prepare Federal anti-trust complaint accusing Hearst Corp. of refusing to deal, price-fixing and fraud Latest state complaint is prelude to federal action

*****

Pearls before hogs

Bikers blow off Harley-Davidson's  entertainment choice at 100th birthday party

Elton John

Kid Rock

Tim McGraw

Thousands walk out on Sir Elton John
in grotesque end to Harley's 100th birthday

MILWAUKEE, WI. (AUGUST 31, 2003) -- Thousands of Harley-Davidson riders attending what the company called the biggest party ever walked out of the free event when the "big surprise" performer turned out to be not The Rolling Stones, not The Allman Brothers, not U-2, not Canned Heat, not Bruce Springsteen,  but Elton John. The fizzled star attraction might have been more welcome to a less road-weary audience, many of whom had flown from Asia and Europe for the event before waiting hours in the 40-acre park jammed with nearly 150,000 bikers who had been sucking down Milwaukee's favorite beverage for eight hours or so. Much of that wait time had been an agonizing and shameless tribute by Harley-Davidson to itself, with corporate officials praising their entity. Chief praiser was Dan Aykroyd, who pitched the company's wares like a Fuller Brush Man on No-Doz. Corporate PR types had teased the crowd by not announcing who the entertainment would be, and built the suspense by unveiling the opening acts one by one -- The Doobie Brothers, Tim McGraw and Kid Rock. Yet even the entertainment could not divert Harley from getting in everyone's face. As the Doobie Brothers played their encore number, more than a dozen Harley employees rode the company's products across the stage. The cheap marketing efforts did not dampen the audience's sense of humor, though. When the first notes of Elton John's performance -- an electronic keyboard sounding like a harpsichord -- rang through the venue, one partier blurted, "It's Mozart."

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Parking, noise and ethics laws take the back seat for Harley's 100th birthday

Government joins bikers in Harley corporate adoration

MILWAUKEE, WI. (August 28, 2003) -- Like bees at a picnic, Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders from all parts of the world buzzed into town this week for what the corporate Public Relations image-builders tout as the biggest party in the history of the world, perhaps losing sight of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of World Wars I and II and the bash Richard Burton threw for Elizabeth Taylor's birthday .

For the past two weeks, local media have been throwing out stories like projectile vomit in anticipation of the arrival of a quarter million motorcycles in celebration of the company's 100th birthday. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had reporters and photographers riding with herds of bikers streaming into the state from all corners of the continent, while television stations interviewed riders and their "bitches" like long-lost relatives, forgetting such minor incidents like the recent trials of 13 Outlaws

Motorcycle Club members after indictments for  distributing cocaine, counterfeiting, armed robberies, trafficking in stolen motorcycles and operating the Outlaws as a racketeering enterprise.

Al Fredrickson, on a busman's holiday, has his own take on the festivities. See his Power Point slide show.

 On the political front, never mind ethics and the prohibition against public officials taking anything of value from constituents. Mayor John Norquist, penis in holster after his anal-sex scandal with an employee, says Harley just gave him a motorcycle to use so he could ride during the extravaganza, according to Shepherd Express, the politician-loving alternative news weekly that thinks any officeholder is a celebrity.

But meanwhile, like a rival gang, bands of Harley-riding out-of-state cops rode through Downtown on Wednesday, flying their own colors and switching on their sirens although their only apparent emergency was testosterone poisoning.  A police motorcycle drill team from Indianapolis was splashed across the  Journal-Sentinel's front page Thursday, and you just have to ask whether tax-payers really should have paid several hundred thousand dollars to buy the equipment if it can be spared for a week by the cops who are supposed to be watching that city's traffic. Let's keep an eye on next year's police budget.

**********

 

Canned Heat was good enough to play for Harley executives in Indianapolis on Monday, but you won't be seeing them at Harley-Davidson's 100 Birthday celebration. On the other hand, the Madison Blues Festival served up this band of veterans to the rank-and-file on August 24, 2003, and the crowd's enthusiasm reportedly prompted Luther's Blues  to bring them back to Madison Oct. 2.

*****

Wisconsin court has jurisdiction over Tennessee officials, lawyers who hacked Shorewood Web Site critical of them, Judge Dominic Amato says -- Hearing transcript

Shipley

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (Jan. 13, 2003) -- A Wisconsin judge today denied a Motion to Dismiss a lawsuit naming Cookeville, Tennessee officials for hacking a locally run Web site (www.putnampit.com). The defendants who must go on trial in Milwaukee are Cookeville, Tenn.

City Manager Jimmy Dale Shipley, City Attorney T. Michael O'Mara, Cookeville's Computer Manager Steve Corder and the city's insurance lawyer, John C. Duffy, of the Knoxville firm Watson & Hollow, which defends city officials through the Tennessee Municipal League's Risk Management scheme.

The city was in the national spotlight since a Cookeville Police Officer blew a family dog's head off with a shotgun during an erroneous traffic stop on Interstate 40 the evening  of Jan. 1, 2003. The incident, which was captured on video, was not reported truthfully by the police officer, according to the Nashville Tennessean.

In denying the Defendants' motion, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Dominic Amato said many telephone calls are bounced off satellites, but pointed out that you don't have to go to outer space to sue someone who cheats you by phone from another state. Likewise, he reasoned, if Tennessee officials reach out through the Internet to destroy Wisconsin property, those officials can be sued in Wisconsin regardless of where the host server is located. Pleadings --  Read the hearing transcript

Defendants destroyed the log files that would have shown to which Web Sites Cookeville government officials uploaded files: "The files you requested had been deleted when you made your earlier request and no longer exist," Co-conspirator O'Mara said.  Click here

O'Mara

*****
Chvala faces 20 felonies

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (OCTOBER 17, 2002) -- Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann this afternoon filed a 20-count criminal complaint against Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala. The charges include extortion, misconduct in public office, illegal campaign contributions, conspiracy to make illegal campaign contributions, and filing false reports with the State Elections Board.

  *****

How politics and business subverted Milwaukee's alternative  journalism ILWAUKEE, Wis. -- Now that the corporate giants of addiction and prostitution are bankrolling the 'progressive,' 'alternative' newspapers in this country, it’s time for the independent, nonaligned, non-corporate publications with a moral compass to find a new adjective to define themselves.  Column *****   For example, what's more Progressive: taking campaign money from the tobacco industry, or taking campaign money from opponents of the tobacco industry? While Milwaukee's purportedly progressive  weekly, Shepherd Express,  links former Wisconsin Attorney General Jim Doyle to money from the lawyers who sued big tobacco leading to a massive settlement, Shepherd publisher Louis Fortis, a former Democrat legislator, took campaign money from supporters of the tobacco industry opposing the settlement, and so did his pal Chuckie Chvala, the Wisconsin Senate majority leader, a University of California Medical School report shows.  Louis Fortis

Kremers says privacy rights trump his own court's order

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (Aug. 28, 2002) -- Kathy A. Stover received at least a temporary reprieve from a Milwaukee judge Tuesday in a contemptuous battle with a musician over the contents of her computer.  Story

Related Story: Medical staff at House of Correction faces inquiry Story

Schoemperlen beating in 1981 was a wake-up call for Milwaukee's old-school cops -- Story

OPINION

Deputy Sheriff’s Association demeans the department and all deputies by demanding praise for random accidents

MILWAUKEE (Aug. 1, 2002) -- Anyone who wonders why unions in this country don’t get no respect no more needs to look only to the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs' Association, which on Monday criticized Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke for failing to publicly praise a deputy injured while responding to a car crash. -- Column

'Officer shot'

MILWAUKEE (July 31, 2002) -- On July 31, 1967, John Oraa Tucker loaded up his .12 gauge shotgun and stood at the window of his home at 134 W. Center St. By the time he put it down, Patrolman Bryan Mosche, 24, and widowed 77-year-old invalid Ann Mosley were dead. Det. Capt. Ken Hagopian was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where surgeons removed 126 pieces of lead from his face; Det. Kenneth Henning was at St. Mary’s Hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest; Patrolman Thomas Borzych was taken to County General Hospital with a gunshot wound in the upper left side; Det.  Leroy Jones was treated at County for a gunshot wound to the right arm and released; Patrolman David Kunde was treated at County emergency for a gunshot would to the left arm, and released; and Detective Harry J. Daniels was released after treatment at County emergency for a cut above his eye from the windshield that shattered.  
    And then there was Patrolman John J. Carter.  --  Story

Marilyn Figueroa

 v. 

John O. Norquist depositions -- Documents

How much should drugs cost in jail?

Milwaukee County ready to flush local pharmacy in effort to cut $500,000 from annual jail medical costs -- Story

Selig a racketeer?

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, others  named in federal racketeering case over allegedly defrauding Canadian investors in scheme to eliminate Expos franchise -- Complaint

Journal Sentinel mum on gag order

Former employees who sued the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel say they are forbidden by a gag order from discussing anything about the class-action lawsuit that ended by settlement July 1 - three years, two dozen briefs, 20 motion hearings and dozens of motions, affidavits and depositions after it was filed.  Story

Court record
Summary judgment

Milwaukee, the city with the worst case of water-borne illness in U.S. history, loses control at its purification plants. Story

TheraPissed

Fox Point therapist Don Platner fights restitution to client he admits sexually abusing for a decade. Story

What  else we do

MilwaukeePress.Net
Magazine & Newspaper Investigations
Photography ¤ Web Design & Publishing
Appellate Research & Brief Production

Geoff Davidian, Publisher
Tel.: 1 (414) 964-8871  Fax: 1 (414) 964-2123
E-Mail: Geoff@putnampit.com