Lawyers for Samuel P. "Pat" Black III say the federal law designed to target organized crime is the appropriate tool for the 83-year-old Erie entrepreneur to sue his one-time heir apparent — Sumi James-Black, 50, whom he adopted as his daughter in 2019, when he was 77 and she was 44.

James-Black's lawyers have another view of Black's use of the statute, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, known as RICO.

The lawyers are calling the RICO strategy an overly complicated and legally insufficient "monstrosity." The lawyers want the RICO claims — listed in a 69-page RICO statement — tossed out of federal court in Erie.

The RICO claims make up the core of a case that has publicly exposed an unusual family dispute in which the plaintiff, Black, was once one of Erie's wealthiest residents.

A dismissal of the RICO claims would limit Black's efforts to recoup the $200 million he claims his adopted daughter and two other defendants swindled from him in a fraud scheme from 2017-22.
"Looking at the whole of the RICO statement, it is not a road map to a valid recovery under the statute," James-Black's lawyers, led by John Mizner, said in one of the latest filings docketed in the sprawling case. "It is a flood of verbiage wiping out any sensible landmarks. It is not an illumination of a route to a proper jury award, but a dense fog cast over an already impossible cluttered landscape."

James-Black responds to adoptive dad's RICO claims

Mizner was responding to the claims Black's lawyers made in the RICO statement, filed in April, about a year after Black filed his original 327-page federal lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter ordered Black's lawyers to file the RICO statement to clarify their claims and to help her decide whether she should grant James-Black's dismissal request, the first version of which was filed in September.

The filing of James-Black's response, docketed on May 9, signals that the case is nearing the point at which Baxter could rule.

Black's lawyers have until May 29 to file a rebuttal to James-Black's response. That document is expected to echo what the Black's lawyers argued in their RICO statement — that the claims against James-Black and the other defendants fall under the RICO statute and its prohibitions against illegal enterprises.

James-Black, according to the RICO statement, "betrayed and manipulated" Black's trust "by directing and participating in the enterprise, devising and implementing fraudulent schemes."

Other defendants also want RICO claims tossed

Congress passed the RICO statute in 1971. It is aimed at the mob and other groups that operate criminal enterprises, typically over a period of 10 years.

Under RICO, each person that is part of a criminal enterprise is responsible for the actions of all others in the enterprise — an element that helps give the law such a wide sweep.

In the Black case, he is claiming the defendants committed only civil violations of the RICO statute. No one faces criminal charges in the case.

The other defendants in Black's lawsuit are the Erie law firm of Knox, McLaughlin, Gornall & Sennett, which handled Black's legal affairs during the five-year period named in the suit; and Nicole Buzzard, a certified public accountant.

Buzzard was vice president of management and accounting at Black's Erie Management Group, the entity that runs Black's businesses. They include his biggest financial asset — the Hero BX biodiesel plant on East Lake Road, valued at $70 million, according to court records.

The Knox firm and Buzzard also want Baxter to dismiss the RICO claims. The claims fail to support the existence of a distinct enterprise, lawyers for the Knox firm said in a filing docketed on May 7.

The Knox firm, according to the filing, has been "unfortunately and inexplicably drawn into this dramatic dispute between father and daughter."

James-Black says 'lure of treble damages' clouds case

The potential legal windfall would be enormous for Black if he prevails in the civil action. The civil provisions of the RICO statute allows for treble damages — if Black wins, he could get an award of $600 million, tripling his initial claim of $200 million.

A dismissal of the RICO claims would move the case to Erie County Common Pleas Court to litigate its non-federal claims, which include allegations of unjust enrichment. The potential damages in Common Pleas Court would be far less than the treble damages available in federal court.

In his response to the RICO statement, Mizner, James-Black's lead lawyer, said in the May 9 filing that "the lure of treble damages can sometimes cloud judgment."

Mizner asked Baxter to dismiss the case "and unburden the Federal Court from this monstrosity of a RICO claim which should never been asserted in the first place."

Original article by: Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com or 814-870-1813.