The Chicago Board of
Trade’s Role in Corrupting Courts
Breaking News
December 20, 2009
By Stew Webb
A
Kansas attorney named Craig E. Collins became a victim of the GE criminal
conspirators when he represented his brother in the N. District of Illinois
against ADM in a commodity trading dispute over Chicago Board of Trade contracts
and the margin requirements.
Craig
E. Collins found novel defenses to the margin demand that is not unlike how
AIG’s derivative contracts with Goldman Sachs as the real party in interest would be
treated under the law if they were ever challenged in court.
“One is that Shell Rock Enterprises, an
introducing broker, has paid ADM about $ 75,000 under its contractual guarantee
of Collins's trades. This means, Collins insists, that ADM is not the real
party in interest… The other defense is that the soybean contracts were
"illegal" because on July 27, 2004, a margin call was outstanding on
another of Collins's trades. He insists that ADM should have used
the money tendered as
margin on the soybean spread to satisfy the margin call on the existing
trade; had ADM done this,
it could not have executed the soybean-spread trades, because the
initial margin would have
been insufficient. “
ADM Investor Services, Inc. v. Collins,
Case No. 06-4412 at pg. 3 (7th Cir. 2008 ).
The court realized that Collin’s arguments would prevent the corrupt financial
machinery of the Chicago Board of Trade from rigging the futures markets
against investors and in favor of the global financial powers. The opinion written by Hon. Judge Frank Hoover
Easterbrook, the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit mocked the legal arguments of Craig E. Collins and Collins was
referred to the Illinois State attorney discipline authority Jerome Larkin, the
Administrator The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission for
suspension and disbarment in Illinois which included the Illinois federal court
and the 7th Circuit and which Collins was required to report to the
Kansas Office of Attorney Discipline which would normally result in the same
loss of the ability to practice in Kansas.
The discipline action would have also made Collins ineligible to
practice before the US Supreme Court.
Craig
E. Collins believes Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook is engaged in criminally
covering up massive financial fraud on the Chicago Board of Trade (“CBOT”) and believes the Illinois
state attorney discipline proceedings against him were an unlawful extortion of
his right to practice law through the conduct of corrupt Illinois state
officials under color of law. A proof of this belief held by Craig E. Collins
is his subsequent application to the bar of the US Supreme Court and his
admission to practice law before the nation’s highest court.
When
the Missouri farmer Dustin Sherwood was in danger of losing $9 million dollars,
in a fraudulent bankruptcy and land taking without foreclosure orchestrated by
the Russian Ukrainian Israeli mob king pin and former US Trustee Joel Pelofsky now of counsel
with Spencer Thane Britt & Browne LLP, Collins twice met with Dustin
Sherwood and Sidney J. Perceful, a Commissioner, of
the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service of the United States
Government in Collins’ Topeka office desperately seeking an attorney to represent Sherwood in the W.D.
of Missouri federal court bankruptcy case being heard by Judge Jerry W. Venters who Sidney J. Perceful
had linked to the N. Dstrict of Illinois bankruptcy
court judge corruption ring that had resulted in the N. D. of Illinois Chief
Bankruptcy Court Judge Eugene R. Wedoff to step down
and for N.D. of Illinois Judge. Mark R. Filip
to resign from the bench.
Dustin
Sherwood had been set up for the slaughter by Joel Pelofsky
of Spencer Thane Britt & Browne LLP in a Missouri state court case against
Sherwood’s substantial real estate holdings that left Sherwood having to seek bankruptcy
protection. The land was on the Northwest side of Smithville Lake that
Republican National Committee campaign donor Jim Hasler
wanted to acquire for a planned resort community development near Trimble,
Missouri without having to compensate the Sherwoods
under imminent domain. The national
Agriculture publication The Milkweed did two stories on the Sherwood case: The
Dustin Sherwood Case: Bankruptcy Abuse of Process
http://www.themilkweed.com/MW%20Aug-Sep%2008%20Sherwood%20Story.pdf
and History of the
Dustin Sherwood Case
http://www.themilkweed.com/Sherwood_Update_08_Dec.pdf
Craig
E. Collins even drove out to the Sherwood farm on a Saturday evening and
visited with Sherwood’s wife and father. However Collins would not enter an
appearance to meet Judge Venters
requirement that Sherwood obtain an attorney and post a $300,000 bond to
prevent the sale of the family farm.
After
the US trustee had Dustin Sherwood arrested and held without bail to prevent
Sherwood from being able to obtain an attorney and post the bond to prevent the
sale of the family farm, Craig E. Collins entered his appearance to represent
Sherwood and the sale was not stopped. Craig E. Collins was paid over
$26,000.00 by Sherwood’s father. The interference with Dustin Sherwood’s rights
to refinance the loan was committed by agents of John Deere Company and made
the John Deere Company liable for more than $ 50 Million dollars under Missouri
State Law. Craig E. Collins said repeatedly that the US Trustee in the case, a
protégé of RUIM crime boss Joel Pelofsky should go to
prison.
Dustin
Serwoood obtained a criminal defense attorney to
challenge his imprisonment before conviction in a private facility run for the
US Mar4shall Service on the grounds of Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas but Craig E.
Collins would not cooperate with Sherwood’s defense attorney or share
information from the bankruptcy case that was being controlled by Joel Pelofsky of Spencer Thane Britt & Browne LLP.
Craig
E. Collins also revealed on separate occasions to David Martin Price ( the
witness to Chief Judge Wedoff’s participation in the
judicial corruption ring that led to Sidnyey J. Perceful’s discovery of a $39 Million Dollar Cayman Island
bribery fund in the McCook Metals bankruptcy controlled by General Electric,
Alcoa and Citibank) and to Janice Lynn King that Collins cannot talk to Sidney
J. Perceful, a Commissioner, of the Federal Mediation
& Conciliation Service to help
Sherwood because he would be disbarred
by the Illinois State attorney Office of Jerome Larkin, the Administrator The
Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
The
Sherwood criminal case was resolved when Dustin Sherwood was forced to plea
bargain to be released from an eight year possible sentence to see his family
over Christmas and to prevent the US Attorney for the Western District of
Missouri from going through with their threat to put Dustin Sherwood’s wife in
prison too so that neither could raise their infant daughter.
This
Christmas, David Martin Price remains in jail with an indefinite sentence
issued by the Kansas Supreme Court when that court had been deprived of
jurisdiction by Price’s appeal of a Civil Rights removal to federal court.
Craig
E . Collins (785) 233-4545, 420 SW 33rd St, Topeka, KS
66611. craig@collinslawoffice.net
Seventh
Circuit’s February 7, 2008
opinion in ADM Investor Services, Inc. v. Collins
http://www.medicalsupplychain.com/pdf/Lipari%20Third%20Motion%20For%20Leave%20to%20Amend%2004217.pdf
243. US Attorney John F. Wood committed Color
of Official Right via threats of economic harm described
in U.S. v. Kelley, 461 F.3d 817 at 826 (6th Cir., 2006) and through the Coercive Nature of Official
Office
described in U.S. v. Antico,
275 F.3d 245 at 256 (3rd Cir., 2001) to obstruct justice against the
petitioner’s
witness Dustin Sherwood by
utilizing the lawful electronic eavesdropping of a prisoner and witness in a
federal criminal proceeding
and federal bankruptcy proceedings (In re Dustin Sherwood) on or about
the
evening of October 6, 2008.
244. US Attorney John F. Wood by used
information from the wiretapped personal call between Dustin
Sherwood and his family revealing a weakness
and inability to stand further incarceration to coerce Dustin
Sherwood to plea to two years imprisonment
and guilt of a crime he did not commit and was not committed
and to forfeit
Sherwood’s lawful rights to property obtained fraudulently by Jim Hasler through the
defendant law firms Polsinelli Shughart PC and Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP.
245. To threaten and extort the petitioner’s
witness, the US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri,
John Wood caused his Assistant US Attorney to
state that the government would go after Dustin Sherwood’s wife Jennifer
Sherwood and deprive his young children of their mother if he did not confess
to
the crime that did not
take place.
246. The US Attorney for the Western District
of Missouri, John F. Wood caused this threat to be
committed on or about the
morning October 7, 2008 through Dustin Sherwood’s criminal defense attorney
Stephen G. Mirakian of Wyrsch Hobbs Mirakian PC.
247. When John F. Wood’s failure to be
prepared for trial and the absence of any evidence of a crime
forced US Attorney John F.
Wood to plead away all but one of the manufactured charges against Dustin
Sherwood on or about December 17, 2008,
Western District Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Pansing
Brown
stated US Attorney John F.
Wood’s office would prosecute the petitioner’s witness Sidney Perciful and the
family farm public interest
organization attorney Bill Christiansen for several articles appearing in the
Wisconsin Dairy farmer’s newspaper The Milkweed.
248. The “federal crime” of causing accurate
news stories to be printed referred to by Assistant U.S.
Attorney Jane Pansing
Brown were based on the false probable cause that the following two articles
were
printed:
The Dustin Sherwood Case: Bankruptcy Abuse of
Process:
How
can a Missouri grain farmer with $10 million in assets (vs. $3 million debts)
end up broke
and in prison as a
“menace to society”? That’s what’s happened to Dustin Sherwood. Financial
advisor Sidney Perceful details this incredible, shocking story. The Milkweed August
2008 Issue
No. 349 at pg. 10 iv
http://www.themilkweed.com/MW%20Aug-Sep%2008%20Sherwood%20Story.pdf
and
History of the Dustin Sherwood Case by John
Bunting The Milkweed December 2008 Issue No.
353 at pg. 10
http://www.themilkweed.com/Sherwood_Update_08_Dec.pdf
***
955. On information and belief the
petitioner’s witness Dustin Sherwood and his wife ‘s
legal
representation in defense of their
$9 million dollar estate was compromised by The Illinois Attorney
Registration and Disciplinary Commission’s
extortion over the Sherwood’s bankruptcy attorney Craig
Collins.
956. On information and belief the defendants
Polsinelli Shughart PC, Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP and
Lathrop & Gage LLP were able to
communicate directions to the Sherwood’s bankruptcy attorney Craig
Collins and have him act and fail to act for
the purposes of compromising Craig Collins’ representation of
Dustin Sherwood and
his wife.
957. On information and belief this power of
the defendants Polsinelli Shughart
PC, Husch Blackwell
Sanders LLP and Lathrop & Gage LLP is so
well known among members of the Kansas City and Missouri
Bar associations that Dustin Sherwood and his
wife documented the refusal of representation by over 40
Missouri licensed attorneys and could not
obtain the services of a Missouri licensed attorney during the
bankruptcy.
958. Dustin Sherwood provided the firms Polsinelli Shughart PC, Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP and
Lathrop & Gage LLP that the circumstances
of their corrupt extortion over members of the Missouri bar
was so egregious that it
would lead to the need to file for injunctive relief against the Missouri Board
of Bar
Governors.
126
959. In response,
the firms Polsinelli Shughart
PC, Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP and Lathrop &
Gage
LLP had Dustin Sherwood jailed for reciting
to an agent of the former Shughart Thompson & Kilroy, Inc.
trustee what he believed to
be his property rights under the law of the State of Missouri, preventing
Sherwood from meeting the conditions set by
the bankruptcy judge to stop the sell of his farm.
960. Dustin Sherwood’s Kansas licensed
attorney Craig Collins on information and belief was not
permitted by the power of Polsinelli Shughart PC, Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP and Lathrop & Gage LLP
to enter an appearance
in the bankruptcy case until after Sherwood had been jailed.
961. Through Jerome Larkin, the defendants
including Polsinelli Shughart
PC, Husch Blackwell Sanders
LLP and Lathrop & Gage LLP are using The
Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission
to threaten Craig
Collins with disbarment if he works with the Sherwood witnesses Sidney J. Perciful or
Bill Christianson or cooperates with Dustin
Sherwood’s criminal defense attorney.
962. On information and belief Craig Collins
has been compromised by the Kansas Attorney Discipline
Administrator Stanton Hazlett
and extorted from providing representation in the interests of the petitioner’s
witnesses Donna Huffman and
David Price who Collins claimed to represent in Kansas state courts and
with Kansas state officials respectively.
963. The petitioner has been injured in his
Missouri state court causes through the misrepresentations of the
Kansas licensed attorneys Gene E Schroer, Rex A. Sharp of Gunderson Sharp & Rhein PC and Isaac L.
Diel, Sharp McQueen, P.A
who misrepresented to the petitioner or his witnesses their false intent to
perform legal tasks when in
reality they were acting as agents of the Kansas Attorney Discipline
Administrator Stanton Hazlett
to intentionally interfere in the petitioner’s Missouri state court litigation.
964. The petitioner was injured by Kansas
Attorney Discipline Administrator Stanton Hazlett’s
Kansas
licensed attorney agents
Randall D. Grisell Sally Harris, and Michael Schmitt
concerning Randall D.
Grisell’s
fraud on the Kansas Supreme Court in presenting a facially false report signed
by Randall D.
Grisell, Sally Harris, and
Michael Schmitt to that court on the plaintiff’s counsel to procure the
disbarment
through fraud.”
***
144 -145:
“The injunctive relief defendants as
governors of the Missouri Bar are responsible for the fitness
standards of Missouri
Attorneys including the licensed Missouri attorneys identified in this petition
as
having been willing to
represent the petitioner and the Kansas licensed attorney Craig Collins who has
already been threatened with
disbarment for representing the Missouri farmer Dustin Sherwood who is the
petitioner’s witness when no
Missouri attorney had the courage to assist Dustin and Jennifer Sherwood in
the face of the cartel
defendants’ law firms. “
ADM INVESTOR
SERVICES, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee, v.
MARK W. COLLINS,
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 06-4412
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
SEVENTH CIRCUIT
2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 2690
September 25, 2007, Argued
February 7, 2008, Decided
PRIOR HISTORY:
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District
of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 05 C 1823. John F. Grady,
Judge.
DISPOSITION: AFFIRMED.
CORE TERMS: margin, customer's,
margin call, clearing, soybean, spread, futures contracts,
commission merchant,
counterparty, investor, dealer, futures market, short position, deposit,
selling, margin
requirements, illegal contracts, derivatives, offsetting, defaulting, trading,
posted,
buying, seller, stood,
buyer, delivery, traded, broker
COUNSEL: For ADM INVESTOR SERVICES,
INCORPORATED, Plaintiff-Appellee: Thomas M.
Knepper,
KNEPPER & GLADNEY, Chicago, IL.
For MARK W. COLLINS, Defendant-Appellant:
Craig E. Collins, Topeka, KS.
JUDGES: Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and
BAUER and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
OPINION BY: EASTERBROOK
OPINION
EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge. Mark Collins
traded futures contracts on the Chicago Board of
Trade through ADM Investor Services, a
futures commission merchant (the equivalent of a
stockbroker for derivatives).
Over the course of 18 months, Collins made almost $ 1 million. His
last trade, on July 27,
2004, was in soybean contracts. Collins purchased 40 contracts for delivery
in August 2004 while
selling 40 contracts for delivery in November. Matched pairs of long and short
contracts take a position in
the difference between the prices, which the futures business calls the
spread. On July 27 the
August contract was selling for $ 6.69 per bushel and the November
contract for $ 5.89, a spread
of 80 [cent]. Collins stood to make money if the spread increased and
to lose if it
decreased.
Three days later the
spread was down to 30 [cent]. The November price had declined to $ 5.69,
so the short position
for that month had increased in value, but the August price stood at $ 5.995,
and Collins had lost $
99,000 more on his long position than he gained on his short position. ADM
made a margin call.
Collins posted only $ 15,000, so ADM liquidated his position by offsetting
purchases. It sent Collins a
bill for $ 85,521.83, which he did not pay. ADM filed this suit under the
3
diversity jurisdiction to
collect, and the district court entered judgment in its favor. 2006 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 3282 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 26, 2006), 2006
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68049 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 26, 2006).
Collins has two defenses. One is that Shell
Rock Enterprises, an introducing broker, has paid
ADM about $ 75,000
under its contractual guarantee of Collins's trades. This means, Collins
insists, that ADM is not the
real party in interest. The brief reads as if counsel (Collins's brother)
had never heard of the
collateral-source doctrine. That a third party reimburses part of a loss does
not disable the injured person from recovering under tort or contract law. ADM
did not assign its rights to Shell Rock (there is no subrogation agreement), so
ADM is the proper plaintiff. How ADM and Shell Rock settle accounts between
themselves is none of Collins's business.
The other defense is that the soybean
contracts were "illegal" because on July 27, 2004, a
margin call was outstanding
on another of Collins's trades. He insists that ADM should have used
the money tendered as
margin on the soybean spread to satisfy the margin call on the existing
trade; had ADM done this,
it could not have executed the soybean-spread trades, because the
initial margin would have
been insufficient. Rule 431.012(11) of the Chicago Board of Trade
provides:
Members shall not accept orders for new trades from a customer, unless
the
minimum initial margin on
the new trades is deposited and unless the margin on old
commitments in an account equals
or exceeds the initial requirements on hedging and
spreading trades and/or the
maintenance requirements specified in Regulations
431.03 and 431.05 on
all other trades.
The Commodity Exchange Act requires futures
commission merchants to abide by a board of
trade's rules; it follows,
Collins insists, that his trades of July 27 were illegal and that he need not
cover his losses. He
invokes the principle that courts do not enforce "illegal
contracts"--for
example, cartel agreements
or wagering debts in states where gambling is prohibited. ADM replies that on
July 27 Collins still had time to meet the margin call on his older trades, so
"the
maintenance requirements
specified in Regulations 431.03 and 431.05 on all other trades" did not
prevent ADM from allowing its customer to make additional trades. We need not
decide whether this is right, because Collins's argument founders on more
fundamental grounds.
A soybean spread is not "illegal"
in the sense of the rule against enforcing "illegal contracts."
There is nothing unlawful about buying or
selling futures contracts for soybeans. They are freely
traded on public exchanges.
A contract does not become "illegal" just because a trader fails to
put down a deposit (that's what margin is in a futures market), any more than a
buyer's failure to post earnest money makes a contract to sell Blackacre "illegal." Failure to post security as
required enables the other side to honor his own
obligations.
Another way to see this is to ask why margin
is required in futures transactions. In securities
markets, the full purchase
price must be paid to the seller before a transaction is complete; margin is a
loan from the dealer to the customer, secured by the assets acquired in the
transaction. The Federal Reserve regulates these loans, along with many other
aspects of financial intermediation, as part of its control of the aggregate
money supply. Regulation of this kind could be seen as an effort to protect the
general public from the effects of investors' and brokers' activities. Margin
in the futures business, by contrast, does not represent an extension of
credit, and there are no third- party effects.
A futures contract is executory;
no asset changes hands when the contract is formed. See
generally CFTC v. Zelener, 373 F.3d 861 (7th Cir. 2004). The buyer (the
holder of the long
4
position) transacts with the
seller (the creator of the short position) through a clearing corporation.
When a long and a short agree to a contract,
each makes his promise to the clearing corporation,
which then becomes the
counterparty of each original party. The risk that the clearing corporation
assumes is that an obligor
won't perform when the time comes to deliver the soybeans (or to pay
for them). Reducing this
risk of nonperformance, usually called the "counterparty risk" in
derivatives
markets, is the role of
margin. See Lester G. Telser, Margins and Futures
Contracts, 1 J. Futures
Markets 225 (1981); Haiwei
Chen, Price Limits and Margin Requirements in Futures Markets, 37
Financial Rev. 105
(2002).
Exchanges and clearing corporations set
margin high enough that short-term price movement
is likely to leave a
net equity balance available to the dealer. If price movements reduce its
security
unduly, the dealer may have
time to demand an additional deposit--and to liquidate the position,
before the balance goes
negative, as a form of self-protection if the investor does not meet the
margin call. Occasionally,
though, prices move so fast that a position's value is negative before a
margin call can be issued;
what happened in July 2004 to the August--November soybean spread
shows the risk. The
futures commission merchant then is on the hook, for it is a condition of
participation in these markets
that each dealer guarantee customers' trades. When Collins did not
post the margin, ADM had to buy offsetting
positions in tcorporation to close Collins's trades
without absorbing a loss
It should now be apparent that margin
requirements in futures markets are not designed to
protect investors such as
Collins from adverse price movements. Margin protects counterparties
from investors who may be
unwilling or unable to keep their promises. Counterparties are
protected directly by clearing
corporations (that's why trading can be anonymous and contracts
homogeneous); clearing corporations
are protected not only by the balance in their portfolios
(every long position
exactly offsets a short) but also by the futures commission merchants, which
generally are substantial
businesses; the futures commission merchants are protected, to a
degree, by the margin
deposits posted by customers such as Collins. So the person injured by a
shortfall of margin was ADM,
not Collins, and ADM's failure to take all available steps to protect
itself from defaulting
customers is hardly a reason why customers should be allowed to renege. No
surprise, then, that both
circuits that have addressed the issue have held that a customer's failure
to post required margin
for a futures contract does not excuse him from paying. See Merrill Lynch,
Pierce, Fenner
& Smith, Inc. v. Brooks, 548 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1977); Thomson McKinnon
Securities, Inc. v.
Clark,
901 F.2d 1568 (11th Cir. 1990). We agree with these decisions. As Justice
Holmes once put it,
there is a vital "policy of preventing people from getting other people's
property
for nothing when they
purport to be buying it ." Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons
Co., 212 U.S. 227, 271
(1909) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
Still another way to see this point is to
observe that balky customers are not in the zone of
interests protected by
margin-posting requirements. Margin protects dealers and counterparties
from defaulting
customers, who are in no position to complain when the protection of their
trading
partners turns out to be
incomplete.
Collins is particularly poorly positioned.
Almost $ 450,000 of his $ 1 million net profit on
transactions through ADM came
from trades executed while a margin call was pending on another
open position. If, as
Collins maintains, any contract entered into while a margin call is pending is
void, then Collins is the
loser: the cost to him of avoiding an $ 85,000 debt will be the need to make
restitution of the rest, for a
net judgment of $ 365,000 in ADM's favor. Collins should give thanks
that he has lost this
appeal.
AFFIRMED
Below
from Lipari v. GE Appeals Brief: at pages 14-15:
http://www.medicalsupplychain.com/pdf/08-3115%20Opening%20Brief.pdf
13. As Chief Judge
of the Western District of Missouri, the Hon. Judge Feranado
J. Gaitan, Jr. was
also informed of his likely direct role in the extrinsic fraud of the
defendants to deny the
plaintiff-appellant counsel and the continuing effects of the
extrinsic fraud on other cases
before his court:
“The reciprocal disbarment is a W. D. of
Missouri mystery. The similarly
situated Dustin Sherwood a
victim of Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP,
Shughart Thomson & Kilroy PC, and Lathrop & Gage LC along
with Shughart
Thomson & Kilroy PC’s concerted RICO extortion
under
color of official right
and fraud was never permitted to inspect the
disciplinary records (exb. 5) and interviewed former Chief Judge
Hon. Dean Whipple with the affiant Sydney J. Perceful, the witness to the
$39,000,000.00 bribery fund described in the
WD of MO case United States
ex rel
Michael W. Lynch v Seyfarth Shaw et al. Case no. 06-
0316-CV-W-
SOW. Hon. Judge Dean Whipple stated he was
not aware of any WD of MO
reciprocal disbarment of Bret
D. Landrith and commented that it is unusual
he does not recall it
since there are so few.”
Pltf’s Rply
Suggestion Doc. 64 filed 08/04/2008 fn 1 at pg. 5