An Editorial Opinion By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 7, 2018 I have been flooded with emails, private messages on Facebook, and phone calls since I published my first investigative article on April 29, 2018 about Attorney Angie Ingram and the Birmingham, Alabama-based dog rescue group that “saved” Cavalier King Charles Spaniels at an auction in Wheaton, Missouri on November 22, 2014. For more than three years, this “rescue” operation has placed a dark cloud over the dedicated and ethical rescue efforts of other organizations and individuals in the animal rescue community across America. In Birmingham, Angie Ingram’s Wheaton, Missouri “rescue” operation has turned into a full-blown scandal. Requests for transparency and accountability have been met with (a) unacceptable forms of protectionism, (b) bullying by the “rescuers”, and (c) Ingram’s successful use of Alabama’s court system as a weapon for punishing well-meaning “whistleblowers.” Decision-makers in Angie Ingram’s group have evolved into administrative tyrants who wielded power with a dictatorial grip. The Greater Birmingham Humane Society officials and news reporters have been willing accomplices to the conduct that has created this scandal. Federal and state law enforcement officials have turned a blind eye to it. In light of this disturbing reality, the burning question among my readers is this: Who are the “whistleblowers” or former GBHS employees able to go to with their information of shady dealing and financial improprieties? Surveying the Law Enforcement Landscape Sadly, there is nobody in Alabama’s law enforcement community at the moment who cares enough about this Cavalier rescue scandal to help us solve the ethics and accountability problems that have bubbled up to the surface. Jay E. Town, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama (which includes Birmingham), and Lloyd Peeples, his trusted First Assistant U.S. Attorney, hold the power to stop these abuses but will not do so because this scandal involves some of the most influential names in Alabama’s animal advocacy community. Town has federal jurisdiction over offenses involving wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, bid rigging while engaging in interstate commerce, and conspiracy to commit these offenses. Town takes his orders from U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama). Town campaigned for Shelby’s re-election in 2016 and was rewarded after the election with a political appointment to the U.S. Attorney’s job. Prior to his appointment, Town was an assistant district attorney in Huntsville, Alabama. Lloyd Peeples is Town’s handpicked consigliere in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He is responsible for using the U.S. Attorney's Office to mete out political favoritism or punishment at the behest of Town (and Shelby). Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has the power to address this problem, but he is too busy running for a full term in office in the June 5, 2018 Republican Primary election. Marshall was appointed to the Attorney General's position by former Alabama governor Robert Bentley in February 2017 while Bentley was under a state criminal investigation. Bentley viewed Marshall as weak and inexperienced in prosecuting white-collar crimes. In April 2017, Bentley pleaded guilty to misdemeanor ethics charges in a "sweetheart" no-jail-time plea deal and resigned office. Marshall is also the “darling” of the corporate community, which is bankrolling his campaign. Marshall’s campaign to date has focused on a platform of protecting stone cold Civil War era monuments of Confederate soldiers, horses, and dogs. He has shown little interest in improving the lives and welfare of today’s Alabama citizens and their dogs. All Hope is Not Lost If we want to change the status quo, we must do it ourselves. We are the agents of positive change we have been waiting for. We have the power to install a new Alabama Attorney General who can help us usher in the ethics protocols and transparency we need for animal rescue organizations based in Alabama. As a longtime independent voter, I do not endorse political candidates or serve as their advocate (on a paid or unpaid basis). However, I am making a rare public exception to this self-imposed rule because the cause of justice requires it and I have heard your plea for help. Alice Martin is running against Steve Marshall in the Republican Primary. The candidate who is elected as the Republican Party’s nominee for AG will likely be sworn-in as Alabama’s next Attorney General in January. As I explained in my March 14, 2017 “Open Letter to Alice Martin" and in my March 19, 2017 article titled, “Why I Respect Alice Martin,” Alice Martin is the only prosecutor running for Attorney General who is capable, committed, and qualified to lead us in this ethics reform fight. Ms. Martin is a big-time dog lover – she owns and cares for eleven dogs. She is one of the two best prosecutors I have known in my 45-year legal career. She is a tenacious advocate for ethics in government and in non-profit organizations. She is fair-minded and objective in her approach to law enforcement. She is “unbought” and “unbossed.” In short, Alice Martin is the “real deal.” In contrast, Ms. Martin’s opponents are generally regarded as political hacks who “tote” the water of the state’s most powerful political bosses. These candidates (both Democrats and Republicans) represent more of the same protectionism and “good ole boy/girl” privileges that created the Birmingham Cavalier “rescue” scandal. Ushering in Positive Change We have the power to usher in positive change in the animal rescue community. It’s called “people power.” The Birmingham-area Cavalier “rescuers” raised $268,000.00 in solicited GoFundMe donations in 10 days. We now know what they did with this donor money and the Cavaliers that were “rescued” at the Missouri auction. We should ban together and work very hard to get Alice Martin elected as Alabama’s next Attorney General. Because Angie Ingram and her Cavalier “rescue” group were able to raise $268,000.00 in 10 days, we should be able to accomplish the same result for Alice Martin’s campaign. Ingram's group was “saving” Cavaliers; we are promoting ethical standards in the animal rescue community. A donation to Ms. Martin’s campaign is a vital tool in the fight for ethics protocols in the animal advocacy movement. Next, we must mobilize voters for the June 5, 2018 Primary Elections in Alabama and encourage them to vote for Alice Martin for Attorney General. Please contact Ms. Martin’s campaign directly and volunteer to work on getting out our message across Alabama and the nation. Finally, we must work with Alice Martin after she is elected as Attorney General to draft and pass the best ethics protocols and “whistleblower” protection legislation for the animal rescue community. This is a collaborative effort and will require input from all concerned parties. In closing, the problem has been clearly defined in my investigative articles. One of the many solutions for solving this problem rests with our strong participation in next month’s election for Alabama Attorney General. We have waited more than three years for positive change. Let’s make it happen next month. PHOTO: Alice Martin, a highly qualified, proven prosecutor and leader in the ethics reform movement.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 1, 2018 On April 13, 2015, dog “rescuers” Angie Ingram, her daughter Kara Ingram, and fellow “rescuers” Brittney Wilk, Lisa Thompson, Christina Carnes, Amanda “Mandy” Markham Johnson, and Jasmine Lawson filed an Amended Complaint in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama against Cathy Moon a/k/a Cathy S. Hoffman (Ohio), Karen Pearsall Orange (Florida), Heather Halldin (Pennsylvania), Liz Moe a/k/a Elizabeth M. Dickens (Ohio), Nancy Ann Friedman (Michigan), Lisa Swoboda (California), and Peggy Kenney a/k/a Peggy Leverso (Massachusetts). The Amended Complaint alleged that these out-of-state defendants made defamatory comments about the plaintiffs' dog “rescue” activities on a Facebook page called, “Beware Cavalier Rescue of Alabama.” The Amended Complaint admitted that Ingram and her volunteer group were a dog “rescue” organization. It also admitted that the “rescue” group attempted to have local authorities pursue animal cruelty charges against Terri Taylor Easterbrooks, the owner of Rock Cliff Farms, in the summer of 2014. At the time, Easterbrooks was a well-known breeder of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels in Lineville, Alabama. No criminal charges were lodged against Easterbrooks. The Amended Complaint also admitted that Ingram and her “rescue” group raised funds for a November 22, 2014 auction in Missouri where they planned to purchase Easterbrooks’ Cavaliers and other dogs. The fundraising website was set up on "GoFundMe" under the name of Brittney Wilk, a state coordinator for Cavalier Rescue USA. The plaintiffs also made a stunning public admission in the Amended Complaint that their group “coordinated with other rescue organizations that also raised funds and to insure that no one bid against known rescue groups and bidders.” Coordination among bidders often undermines the bidding process and can constitute illegal "bid rigging" under some circumstances. Bid rotation is a form of "bid rigging" that occurs when bidders take turns being the designated successful bidder. This is a form of market allocation where the participants in the bidding process allocate or apportion dog purchases among themselves so that each bidder will get a "fair share" of the dogs at the auctions without having to truly compete with the other bidders for these purchases. According to the group’s GoFundMe site, the dogs purchased at the Missouri auction would be transferred to Cavalier Rescue USA, a non-profit rescue operation, to be placed in its foster care network and legitimate Cavalier adoption program. Follow the Money and the Cavaliers The Amended Complaint says approximately $268,000.00 was raised by Angie Ingram's group in just ten days’ time to purchase dogs at the Missouri auction. In a February 6, 2017 formal response to Defendant Karen Pearsall Orange’s written interrogatories in the defamation case, Angie Ingram and her group made the following candid admissions: 1. The Plaintiffs did not know the exact balance of the GoFundMe account immediately prior to the auction or immediately after the conclusion of the auction; 2. “Angie Ingram paid for all of the dogs purchased at the auction with her personal funds and was reimbursed by Brittney Wilk with the funds received through the GoFundMe campaign. Some of the funds received through the GoFundMe campaign were transferred to Angie Ingram after the auction to reimburse her;” 3. Angie Ingram was reimbursed a total of $149,919.00 between November 22, 2014 and December 16, 2014; Lisa Thompson was reimbursed a total of $8,604.98 between November 24, 2014 and January 20, 2015; Amanda Johnson was reimbursed $84.00 on December 1, 2014; Jasmine Lawson was reimbursed $205.00 on March 21, 2015; and Cavalier Rescue USA was reimbursed a total of $13,209.00 between November 30, 2014 and December 21, 2014; 4. Angie Ingram and her “rescue” group purchased 54 dogs, including 46 Cavaliers, for a total purchase price of $231,447.00. Ingram was reimbursed from the GoFundMe account for this amount; 5. Twelve of the Cavaliers purchased by Ingram were transferred to Cavalier Rescue USA and taken to various states, including Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma by the state coordinators of Cavalier Rescue USA; 6. The remaining thirty-four Cavaliers purchased by Ingram were transported to Birmingham; 7. Plaintiff Christina Carnes took custody of Shiloh, now Parker, and adopted her. Shiloh was purchased, together with Royal Victor, for a whopping $24,200.00 using GoFundMe donor money. Carnes only paid an adoption fee of $300 to Cavalier Rescue USA for the right to own Shiloh, whose individual purchase price averaged $12,100.00; 8. Plaintiff Jasmine Lawson took custody of Jude, now Haven, and formally adopted her. Jude was purchased for $4,500.00 using donor money. Lawson paid an adoption fee of $300 to Cavalier Rescue USA for the right to own Jude; 9. Plaintiff Mandy Johnson took custody of Pomelo Gideon and he remains in her custody today. Gideon was purchased for $4,300.00 using donor money. Johnson is now Gideon’s lawful owner; 10. Plaintiff Brittney Wilk took custody of Happy Go Lucky for foster care and adopted this Cavalier after paying a $300 adoption fee to Cavalier Rescue USA. Happy Go Lucky was purchased for $3,750.00 at the auction using donor money; and 11. Plaintiff Angie Ingram took custody of Royal Victor from Cavalier Rescue USA on December 16, 2014 when she adopted Victor. She owns him today. Ingram paid a $300 adoption fee for a Cavalier dog that had a purchase price averaging $12,100.00. When asked whether they personally contributed money to the GoFundMe website, Brittney Wilk said, “No”; Lisa Thompson said, “Yes, approximately $100 on 11/10/2014”; Christina Carnes said, “Yes, approximately $50 on 11/10/2014 and paid my own travel expenses to the auction"; Mandy Johnson said, “Yes, approximately $40 on 11/22/2014”; Kara Ingram said, “No”; Jasmine Lawson said, “No”; and Angie Ingram said, “Yes, approximately $100 on 11/10/2014 and paid for my own travel expenses to the auction.” Angie Ingram and her “rescuers” claim they have not sold any of the Cavaliers they adopted. The Defendants Raised Important Public Interest Questions and Were Sued for Raising Them The defendants in Angie Ingram’s defamation lawsuit have raised questions about the placement of these high-priced Cavaliers with “friends and family” of the Alabama group of “rescuers” who attended the Missouri auction, and whether this group devised a prearranged procurement method to get these expensive Cavaliers for themselves using donor money and Cavalier Rescue USA’s adoption system. By raising these important public interest questions, the defendants have cast themselves as “whistleblowers.” These questions seem to be fair game in light of the following developments: (a) Christina Carnes and Angie Ingram now own two Cavaliers that were purchased for $24,200.00 using GoFundMe donor money, (b) Jasmine Lawson owns Jude, who was purchased for $4,500.00 using donor money, (c) Mandy Johnson owns Gideon, who was purchased for $4,300.00 using donor money; and (d) Brittney Wilk owns Happy Go Lucky, who was purchased for $3,750.00 using donor money. These individuals are former Cavalier Rescue USA volunteers and “insiders.” What is more, they only contributed a total of $290.00 in cash to the GoFundMe campaign and $1,200.00 in adoption fees. Yet, these “insiders” walked away from the Missouri auction and the Cavalier Rescue USA and Angie Ingram adoption process with ownership of five Cavaliers that were purchased for a total of $36,750.00 using donor money in a highly questionable bidding system in which Angie Ingram’s “rescue” group “coordinated with other rescue organizations ….. to insure that no one bid against known rescue groups and bidders.” Finally, Cavalier Rescue USA desperately tried to prevent Mandy Johnson’s from acquiring ownership of Gideon. This Cavalier dog was promised to an adoption family in Kansas prior to the auction. Mandy took Gideon into temporary foster care for Cavalier Rescue USA after the auction. On December 15, 2014, Angie Ingram notified Cavalier Rescue USA that she was rescinding her November 23, 2014 official assignment of Gideon to Cavalier Rescue USA. Mandy Johnson then adopted Gideon directly from Angie Ingram on December 30, 2014. Stay tuned for more shocking developments in this unfolding Cavalier King Charles Spaniel story. PHOTO: Birmingham, Alabama attorney and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel "rescuer" Angie H. Ingram.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 6, 2018 “Yall need to sue the daylights out of this woman,” wrote Allison Black Cornelius to Birmingham, Alabama attorney/dog rescuer Angie Ingram on February 8, 2015. At the time, Ms. Cornelius was the newly installed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Birmingham Humane Society (“GBHS”). She had been GBHS’s Interim Executive Manager from September 2014 through January 2015. “This woman” was a demeaning reference to Heather Halldin, a Pennsylvania resident and member of the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club, USA. Halldin was part of a group of women who “blew the whistle” on Angie Ingram and her Birmingham group of dog “rescuers” in the aftermath of a November 22, 2014 “rescue” operation that was conducted at Southwest Auctions in Wheaton, Missouri. Heather Halldin had emailed GBHS officials one hour earlier to report allegations of financial improprieties in connection with pre-auction fundraising activities conducted by Brittney Wilk and Lisa Thompson, who were the Alabama coordinators for Cavalier Rescue USA when the Missouri “rescue” operation occurred. Halldin also questioned Angie Ingram’s role in the “rescue”, as she was a Cavalier Rescue USA volunteer and the dogs at the auction were purchased in her name. Halldin stated that the mission of Wilk, Thompson, and Ingram, as agents of Cavalier Rescue USA, was to “collect and hand over all of the dogs they obtained at the auction – no matter by what means – to Cavalier Rescue USA.” Halldin alleged that, “Brittney Wilk and her friend members of the Cavalier Club of Birmingham have kept those dogs for themselves.” Halldin requested an “accounting” for the “people who poured out their hearts, and wallets, to support [Wilk, Thompson, and Ingram]” and an explanation of “what is being done to correct the situation.” She ended her email by asking the GBHS these questions: “Are you willing to be associated with these people? Because their behavior tarnished every institution with whom they associate. These people used YOUR truck to take these dogs from the auction to Birmingham – posted pictures of your truck. Won awards for their activities. Is the entire community seriously going to condone, reward, or even ignore this behavior?” Resistance To Transparency, Coupled With Bullying Instead of receiving an “accounting” and explanation of “what is being done to correct the situation,” Halldin and fellow “whistleblowers” were met with a coordinated campaign of resistance to transparency regarding the Birmingham Cavalier rescue group’s operations, post-auction foster care, Cavalier adoption program, and ownership information on the Cavaliers that were “saved” at the auction. This resistance was coupled with bullying legal maneuvers by Angie Ingram's rescue group. On February 20, 2015, Angie Ingram sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to Heather Halldin and fellow Cavalier lovers Cathy Moon a/k/a Cathy S. Hoffman, Karen Pearsall Orange (a Florida resident who had raised the same accountability concerns in a January 23, 2015 email to AL.com news reporter Joey Kennedy, to no avail), Liz Moe a/k/a Elizabeth M. Dickens (Ohio), Nancy Ann Friedman (Michigan), and Lisa Swoboda (California). Speaking for Brittney Wilk, Lisa Thompson, Christina Carnes, Amanda “Mandy” Johnson, Kara Ingram, Jasmine Lawson, Debbie Dame, and herself, Angie Ingram demanded that these “whistleblowers” stop “making false and defamatory statements regarding each of us and any ongoing matters regarding the rescue of the auction dogs in November 2014 and any events surrounding its outcome.” Ingram reminded the recipients of her ”Cease and Desist” letter that she is a debt collection attorney. “Thus, I have the ability to pursue legal action against you and the knowledge as to how to collect on a judgment once it is obtained,” said Ingram. On March 17, 2015, Ingram sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to Peggy Kenney a/k/a Peggy Leverso, a Massachusetts resident who raised similar concerns. On April 8, 2015, Angie Ingram filed a "defamation" lawsuit on behalf of Wilk, Thompson, Carnes, Johnson, Lawson, Kara Ingram, and herself against Orange, Moon, Halldin, Moe, Friedman, and Swoboda in the Jefferson County, Alabama Circuit Court. Ingram sued Heather Halldin even though Halldin posted a March 27, 2015 retraction of a “stray” comment she made on a “Beware Cavalier Rescue of Alabama” Facebook page on February 15, 2015. Halldin had also retracted some of the statements she made in her February 8, 2015 email to GBHS. On April 13, 2015, the plaintiffs added Peggy Kenny as a defendant to the "defamation" lawsuit. Later on, they added Shelby County, Alabama resident Beth Reed to the lawsuit. The lawsuit is still pending in court. The Allison Black Cornelius Affidavit On July 10, 2015, Allison Black Cornelius gave an affidavit to the plaintiffs, which was filed on the same day in their “defamation” lawsuit. The affidavit confirmed the following facts: 1. Lisa Thompson and Brittney Wilk asked GBHS to assist with transporting dogs that were purchased at the Missouri auction back to Birmingham. GBHS agreed to provide its TARA transport RV and two specially trained staff members for the “rescue” mission. 2. GBHS staffers attended the auction so they could see the dogs beforehand and witness the events. GBHS also met and conferred with Angie Ingram, Kara Ingram, and Christina Carnes, who comprised the bidding team for the Ingram’s group of rescuers. 3. Cornelius acknowledged receiving Heather Halldin’s February 8, 2015 email requesting an “accounting” and explanation of what was being done to correct the situation she had described in her email. Cornelius said she was at the auction and was “fully aware of how much money was spent at the auction for the dogs.” She also stated: “Although I did not request one, I was given a complete accounting of all donations and how it was spent.” 4. Cornelius understood that “Lisa Thompson, Brittney Wilk, and Angie Ingram were raising funds in their individual names and they were not acting as representatives of Cavalier Rescue USA, a nonprofit organization.” She stated that the “accounting they provided me was fully transparent as to how the funds were spent.” 5. Finally, Cornelius stated that she had known Lisa Thompson, Brittney Wilk, and Mandy Johnson for a number of years. “I know their character to be above reproach”, she said. Instead of providing the “accounting” and explanation sought by Heather Halldin in her February 8, 2015 email to GBHS, Allison Black Cornelius encouraged Angie Ingram “to sue the daylights out of this woman.” This is exactly what Ingram did -- for more than three years. The Truth Finally Emerges On February 6, 2017, the plaintiffs in Angie Ingram’s “defamation’ lawsuit admitted in a court filing that: (a) Christina Carnes and Angie Ingram took ownership of two “rescued” Cavalier King Charles Spaniels that were purchased at the auction for $24,200.00 using GoFundMe donor money, (b) Jasmine Lawson took ownership of one Cavalier that was purchased for $4,500.00 using donor money, (c) Mandy Johnson took ownership of a Cavalier named Gideon that was purchased for $4,300.00 using donor money; and (d) Brittney Wilk took ownership of a Cavalier named Happy Go Lucky that was purchased for $3,750.00 using donor money. Brittney Wilk and Lisa Thompson made the decision to adopt the two $24,200.00 Cavaliers to Angie Ingram and Christina Carnes. Wilk and Thompson also made the decision to adopt one of the $4,500.00 Cavaliers to Jasmine Lawson. Angie Ingram made the decision to adopt Gideon to Mandy Johnson. Lisa Thompson adopted Happy Go Lucky to Brittney Wilk. Deposition testimony in the case establishes that Wilk, Thompson, and Ingram were acting as Cavalier Rescue USA coordinators and volunteers prior to, during, and after the Missouri auction. They only disassociated themselves from Cavalier Rescue USA after questions were raised in December 2014 about the “insider” adoption transactions. Finally, Angie Ingram and her six Birmingham-area Cavalier “rescuers” contributed only $290.00 in cash, collectively, to the $268,000.00 GoFundMe account established for the Missouri "rescue" mission. Additionally, they only paid $1,200.00 in adoption fees for the right to own five Cavaliers that cost $36,750.00 at the auction. Stay tuned for more shocking developments in this unfolding story. PHOTO: Allison Black Cornelius, President and CEO of the Greater Birmingham Humane Society.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 5, 2018 On November 23, 2014, Birmingham, Alabama news reporter Joey Kennedy published a glowing article titled, “Cavalier Rescuers Buy 98 Alabama Pups at Auction, Bring 34 Back to Birmingham.” At the time, Kennedy covered animal rights issues for the Alabama Media Group, the state’s largest mainstream media organization. Kennedy’s article featured the work of dog “rescuers” Angie Ingram, a Birmingham attorney, her daughter Kara Ingram, and fellow “rescuers” Brittney Wilk, Lisa Thompson, Christina Carnes, and others who “saved” Cavaliers that were bred at Terri Easterbrooks’ Rock Cliff Farms in Lineville, Alabama. These Cavaliers were “rescued” at an auctioned held on November 22, 2014 in Missouri. Thirty-four of the Cavaliers were brought back to Birmingham. On December 22, 2014, Joey Kennedy featured Ingram’s “rescue” operation again in an article titled, “11 Animals Who Warmed Our Hearts in 2014.” Kennedy wrote, “A local group of Cavalier King Charles Spaniel lovers raised more than $200,000 to purchase, at a Missouri animal auction, a group of Cavaliers from an Alabama breeder. About 100 Cavaliers were saved by groups from around the country and more than 30 were brought back to Alabama.” On January 15, 2015, Joey Kennedy published another article titled, “Cavalier Group of Greater Birmingham Honored for Huge Auction Rescue.” This article featured the women with the Cavalier Group of Greater Birmingham who received the Judy M. Merritt Servant Leadership Award for rescuing 46 dogs at the Missouri auction. Most of these dogs were Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, noted Kennedy. Angie Ingram, Brittney Wilk, Christina Carnes and Kara Ingram received the Servant Leadership Award from the Youth Leadership Development Program in a ceremony at the world-famous 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham for their “courage and tenacity” in carrying out the Missouri “rescue” operation. The 16th Street Baptist Church is the church where four young girls died during Sunday School in a racially motivated church bombing on September 15, 1963. "We at first didn't realize the magnitude of what that award meant," Ingram said. "Then you're in this historic place and you realize what it means. We all got emotional." Kennedy’s January 15th article also acknowledged that Brittney Wilk and Lisa Thompson, who were directors of the Alabama division of Cavalier Rescue USA when the “rescue” occurred, were deeply involved in this effort. On January 23, 2015, Karen Pearsall Orange, a Florida resident and dog lover, emailed Kennedy to provide him with pertinent information about Angie Ingram’s “rescue” operation and her purchase of Cavaliers at the Missouri auction. The email disclosed certain financial information about the GoFundMe account Ingram used to purchase the dogs at the auction. After noting the positive press generated by Kennedy’s favorable articles on Ingram and her “rescue” work, Ms. Orange encouraged Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, to dig deeper into the “rescue” operation. “Find out where the dogs are now and who their new owners are,” Orange wrote. “I am sure you will find that they are now owned by the ladies who did the ‘rescue’ and their family and friends of the Birmingham Cavalier Social Club. They used other people’s money to purchase themselves dogs. That’s not the way rescue works …. ,” noted Orange. So, what did Joey Kennedy do with this information? Within two hours of receiving Ms. Orange’s “whistleblower” information, Kennedy forwarded the email to Angie Ingram. He did not request a response to the allegations made by Karen Orange. Instead, Kennedy sent Ingram this warm and fuzzy message: “Angie, I received this from Karen Orange. She is no friend. She says a lot of stuff I know not to be true. Hugs! J” With that, Joey Kennedy gave Angie Ingram and her “rescuers” a “pass” on investigating the allegations of financial improprieties and dog ownership that were made in Karen Orange’s email. Three days later, Kennedy resumed his promotional journalism of animal rescues by publishing a soft article on how “[a]rea shelters, rescues offer pets for forever homes.” Bullying the "Whistleblowers" On April 8, 2015, Brittney Wilk, Lisa Thompson, Christina Carnes, Amanda Markham Johnson, Kara Ingram, Jasmine Lawson, and Angie Ingram sued Karen Orange, Cathy Moon a/k/a Cathy S. Hoffman (Ohio), Heather Halldin (Pennsylvania), Liz Moe a/k/a Elizabeth Dickens (Ohio), Nancy Ann Friedman (Michigan), and Lisa Swoboda (California) in Jefferson County, Alabama Circuit Court for “defamation” because they publicly questioned Angie Ingram’s purchase of the Cavaliers with donor money and also questioned how Ingram and members of her “rescue” group became the owners of some of the most expensive Cavaliers purchased. As it turned out, Christina Carnes and Angie Ingram eventually secured ownership of the two highest priced Cavaliers purchased at the auction. On April 13, 2015, the plaintiffs added Peggy Kenny a/k/a Peggy Levero (Massachusetts) to the defamation lawsuit. Later on, they added Shelby County, Alabama resident Beth Reed to the lawsuit. The case was eventually transferred to the Shelby County Circuit Court. On February 6, 2017, the plaintiffs admitted in a court filing that: (a) Christina Carnes and Angie Ingram took ownership of two “rescued” Cavalier King Charles Spaniels that were purchased for $24,200.00 using GoFundMe donor money, (b) Jasmine Lawson took ownership of one Cavalier that was purchased for $4,500.00 using donor money, (c) Mandy Johnson took ownership of a Cavalier named Gideon that was purchased for $4,300.00 using donor money; and (d) Brittney Wilk took ownership of a Cavalier named Happy Go Lucky that was purchased for $3,750.00 using donor money. In short, Angie Ingram and her “rescue” group walked away from the Missouri auction with ownership of five Cavaliers that were purchased for a total of $36,750.00 using donor money. All of these “rescuers” were Cavalier Rescue USA volunteers and/or “insiders” at the time of the Missouri auction. They disassociated themselves from Cavalier Rescue USA about a month after their successful “rescue” operation and eventually formed Cavalier Rescue of Alabama, Inc., a non-profit organization. In the February 2017 court filing, Angie Ingram and the other six “rescuers” also admitted to contributing only $290.00 in cash, collectively, to the $268,000 GoFundMe campaign. Additionally, they admitted to paying only $1,200.00 in adoption fees for the right to own their five high-dollar Cavaliers. The dog lovers who “blew the whistle” on Angie Ingram’s “rescue” group have been cast as villains in plaintiffs’ court pleadings and have been persecuted in the Alabama court system. The case has been to the Alabama Supreme Court and back on whether the lawsuit should be dismissed. The case is still pending in Shelby County Circuit Court. Plaintiffs Are “Public Figures” Angie Ingram’s so-called “defamation” case is really a classic First Amendment “freedom of speech” case. Ingram and the other plaintiffs are “public figures.” They have engaged in a sustained campaign of self-promotion on social media and in the mainstream news media for their Cavalier "rescue" work.  They have openly aligned themselves with publicly funded animal welfare organizations like the Greater Birmingham Humane Society.  They have sought donations for their "rescue" operations using highly coordinated and well-publicized public solicitations. Friendly news reporters like Joey Kennedy have featured the plaintiffs in glowing articles about their Missouri "rescue" operation.  Additionally, Ingram and her group have received public awards and recognition for their Cavalier “rescue” work. As such, Angie Ingram and her co-plaintiffs fit every definition of a "public figure" that is provided in U.S. Supreme Court cases on "freedom of speech." The defendants are “whistleblowers” who have responsibly exercised their Constitutionally protected right of "freedom of speech" to raise questions about matters of significant public interests (i.e., Whether Angie Ingram and her “rescue” group “scammed” GoFundMe donors? Whether the rescuers' ownership of the highest priced dogs was appropriate? Whether the “rescuers” circumvented Cavalier Rescue USA’s adoption process in order to take ownership of high-price Cavaliers?). These questions involved well-known “public figures” within Birmingham’s Cavalier rescue community. A review of the published comments that form the basis of the plaintiffs’ “defamation” lawsuit, together with sworn deposition testimony taken in the case, shows that (a) the “whistleblowers” have acted “without malice” and (b) their published statements do not rise to the level of a “reckless disregard for the truth.” This case should have ended in the defendants' favor after the February 6, 2017 admissions by the plaintiffs. Instead, the “whistleblowers” are still battling Ingram and the other “rescuers” in court. Stay tuned for more shocking developments in this unfolding story. PHOTO: From left to right, Christina Carnes, Brittney Wilk, Angie Hubbard Ingram and her daughter Kara Ingram, with the Judy Merritt Servant Leader Award on January 15, 2015. (Photo by Jan Walsh).

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on May 3, 2018 Yesterday, President Donald Trump said out loud what many insiders have known for years: The United States Justice Department is “rigged” when it comes to certain high-profile cases that are driven by the prosecutor’s personal agenda or political motives. Trump has learned this truism from his personal experience with a special counsel investigation that was supposed to be probing Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during the 2016 Presidential election. Today, the Russian collusion investigation has apparently gone off the rails. It has morphed into (a) a probe of Trump’s business and personal finances and (b) a sensational voyeuristic look into Trump’s probable extramarital affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. I do not agree with Trump on many public policy issues. I am a longtime political independent. I did not vote for Trump in the Presidential election. However, based upon my recent experiences with federal prosecutors in Birmingham and my successful representation of high-profile clients in criminal cases, I know Trump is right on this point. Nobody in Washington is holding federal prosecutors accountable for so-called “investigations” that morph into “witch-hunts” that are fueled by the prosecutor’s personal ambition or political agenda. This growing trend is out of control and has been going on unabated since the formal COINTELPRO era. In my case, federal prosecutors have repeatedly ignored key provisions in the U.S. Attorneys Manual that mandate fairness and objectivity on their part when they are conducting grand jury investigations. They have threatened and intimidated grand jury witnesses. They have intentionally provided grand jury witnesses with a false and misleading narrative of the material documents in the case. They have turned a blind eye toward obvious conflicts of interest with grand jury witnesses who are collaborating with each other under the guise of an “attorney-client” privilege. They even tried to block my voluntary appearance before the grand jury in order to control their false and misleading spin on the evidence. In the course of their investigation, these federal prosecutors were provided a plethora of exculpatory evidence. Yet, they refused to present this information to the grand jury, as required by the U.S. Attorneys Manual. Finally, these prosecutors have deliberately misrepresented material facts to witnesses who are stakeholders in my businesses in order to make them feel “victimized.” They did this before and after learning the truth about the matters they misrepresented to these witnesses. Jay Town, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, has sanctioned all of this prosecutorial misconduct. Town and his team of prosecutors are desperately trying to manufacture a “crime” in my case, as opposed to investigating one. Prosecutors who frame innocent people are dangerous. If Town and his prosecutors were engaged in the private practice of law, they could be disbarred for this kind of misconduct. Instead, they are emboldened by the lack of accountability and proper oversight within the Justice Department. Unlike Trump, I do not have the power to fire rogue prosecutors. He does. Fortunately for me, I have a litigation background that has prepared me to "meet and defeat" rogue prosecutors in the "gladiator arena." When I appeared before the grand jury investigating my case on April 24, 2018, I got a chance to profile prosecutors Lloyd Peeples and Xavier Carter. After observing their demeanor and grand jury presentation, I walked away liking my chances of being the "gladiator" who will be victorious in this battle. Unlike members of the general public, I do not look for “fairness” in state and federal criminal justice systems. It does not exist. Instead, I look for ways to level the playing field, before and during the fight. Unlike Trump, I am a seasoned litigator with 45 years of experience in "righting" egregious "wrongs" in the gladiator arena. I started my legal career in Alabama in 1973 when some judges openly referred to me in court as the “nigger lawyer from Montgomery.” A few judges would not look at me or address me by any name when they were talking to me in the courtroom. They simply barked out instructions, which I deciphered was meant for me. Despite this abusive treatment, I found creative ways to win my cases in front of these judges and their all-white juries. What is more, I won these cases in small towns and cities across Alabama at a time in state’s history when I could not eat in a local restaurant or safely stay in a nearby motel where the case was being tried. This level of adversity has prepared me to (a) litigate cases with a laser focus and (b) win my cases in “rigged” venues. It has also prepared me to "meet and defeat" the rogue prosecutors and their accomplices in my case. . Finally, I am a former Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alabama. I prosecuted murder cases and other major felony crimes. I never had to cheat to do my job successfully. As such, I have no respect for rogue prosecutors, or those who cheat to win. Stay tuned. PHOTO: Jay E. Town (below), is the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Town is a political appointee who got his job because he campaigned for U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) in 2016. Shelby won his re-election and rewarded Town by sponsoring him for the U.S. Attorney's job. PHOTO: Lloyd Peeples (below), is the First Assistant United States Attorney who heads the criminal investigation in the Watkins case. In March of 2018, Peeples tried to block Watkins' grand jury appearance. This effort was unsuccessful. Peeples orchestrates the "witch-hunt" in the Watkins case and perpetuates the false and misleading narrative that drives the criminal investigation. His job is to manufacture criminal charges in the Watkins case, even if the Department is not likely to prevail in a subsequent trial. In doing so, Peeples has abandoned the Justice Department's mandate to bring criminal charges only in cases where there is a strong likelihood of prevailing under the "reasonable doubt" standard that is applicable in criminal cases. PHOTO: Xavier Carter (below), an Assistant United States Attorney, was added to the prosecution team in the Watkins investigation in an effort to sanitize the improper motives that are driving the investigation. He is the least experienced prosecutor and will be the first one sacrificed by his team members in the gladiator arena.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 26, 2018 For five decades, Bill Cosby lured young, unsuspecting, and vulnerable women into his private world of Hollywood fame and then drugged and sexually assaulted them with impunity. Cosby was a rich and powerful man who used his fame to evade justice for his criminal actions. At the end of the day, Bill Cosby was nothing more than a slick sexual predator who drugged his prey before having non-consensual sex with them. We knew Bill Cosby as a wonderful actor and comedian who entertained us for decades. His TV shows and films portrayed black America in a positive light. His philanthropic gestures to Spelman College and a host of other historically black institutions of higher education are admirable, but they do not sanitize his sexual assault crime spree. Today, Bill Cosby is a convicted felon and certified sexual abuser. Accuser Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, courageously pursued criminal charges against Cosby through two trials. She alleged that Cosby drugged and molested her in 2004 at his home in suburban Philadelphia. Guilty verdicts on all three counts were delivered this afternoon in Cosby’s sexual assault retrial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania. More than 60 women have accused the 80-year-old-entertainer of sexual assault.  Five of them testified during Cosby's retrial. The sheer number of sexual assault allegations and the striking similarity of the incidents reported were damning. In the legal arena, we call repeated instances of the same conduct a “pattern and practice” of behavior. This evidence is more convincing than a single episode of sexual abuse. Throughout Cosby’s two trials, his criminal defense lawyers only made matters worse by issuing insensitive denials as though they were on the scene of each incident. They also re-victimized Cosby’s victims by trashing their reputations and character. Cosby will be sentenced at a future date. He can be sentenced for up to 10 years on each of the three guilty verdicts. Cosby will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. After the guilty verdicts were announced, Cosby called Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele an “asshole” in the courtroom. This outburst was prompted by Steele’s request that Cosby’s bond be revoked. The trial judge denied Steele’s request. SPECIAL COMMENTARY At 80-years-old, Cosby needs to sunset his life with an outburst of truthfulness. He should come forward, take ownership of his reprehensible behavior, apologize to each of his female victims by name, and ask for their forgiveness. The pathway forward for Bill Cosby is sincere atonement, not ineffective PR denials by highly paid mouthpieces. Locally, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama Sheriff Ron Abernathy, former Tuscaloosa County District Attorney Lyn Head, current Tuscaloosa County District Attorney Hays Webb, and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall need to pay special attention to how strong and effective law enforcement officials like Kevin Steele and his staff handle sexual assault cases against rich and powerful rape suspects. They prosecute these suspects and win guilty verdicts under the most difficult of circumstances. I really wish a fearless prosecutor like Kevin Steele had handled University of Alabama honors student Megan Rondini’s 2005 rape case against Terry Jackson “Sweet T” Bunn, Jr. If a real prosecutor like Steele had been the district attorney in Tuscaloosa when Megan's rape case was reported to Sheriff Abernathy, she would be alive today and criminal justice would have been pursued in her rape case. Bill Cosby’s case proves that it is never too late to pursue criminal justice in sexual assault cases. All it takes is a sheriff or prosecutor who is not afraid of rich, powerful, and famous rape suspects.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 26, 2018 On May 26, 1999, I filed my application for a bank charter with the Alabama Banking Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. As the contemplated holder of 60% of the stock, I would become the majority shareholder in Alamerica Bank and the first African-American to be issued a charter for a full service bank by the State Banking Department. I had worked and saved for many years to secure my $3 million portion of the mandatory $5 million capital required for a Birmingham area community bank. I was excited when my four Alamerica Bank co-founders and I met with state and federal bank regulators to review our completed application. I was stunned when the State Banking Department informed us that the minimum capitalization requirement for a Birmingham community bank had just doubled to $10 million. I asked whether the new $10 million requirement applied to our group only, or whether it applied to every group seeking to acquire or start a Birmingham area community bank. I was assured that the $10 million minimum capitalization requirement would apply across-the-board to every group coming behind Alamerica Bank and that we just happened to be at the front end of this new requirement. We knew we were being screwed, and we knew why. I did not want to make waves about this matter because my shareholding group consisted of two African-Americans (including myself) and three friends of mine who are white. We were on the verge of becoming the most diversified bank ownership group and directors in Alabama banking history. I did not have $6 million saved for this start-up banking venture. I was only prepared for a $3 million investment of capital. Furthermore, our shareholding group had already spent $600,000 in organizational costs and legal expenses to prepare our application for a bank charter and FDIC insurance. Additionally, I had obligated myself to purchase a Class A office building on Highland Avenue to house Alamerica Bank. Finally, I had spent $600,000 in 1998 to buy a fledging waste-to-energy company in New York State. I scrambled to find the additional $3 million needed for my portion of the new capitalization requirement. I tried to borrow this money from Birmingham area banks, but that effort turned out to be an exercise in futility. Fortunately, Delos H. Yancey, Jr., a close personal friend and business mentor, found a commercial bank in Atlanta that was willing to make the $3 million loan to me. Yancey and his family also became the second largest shareholders in Alamerica Bank and held that equity position until they sold their shares in 2007. Yesterday, I read in the Birmingham Business Journal (“BBJ”) where a group of bank executives and investors has created a new company to acquire Covenant Bank in Leeds, Alabama. This community bank plans to expand into the Birmingham market. According to the BBJ, Millennial Bank raised at least $7.8 million in an offering, with the proceeds used to acquire Covenant Bank from its bank holding company. The remaining proceeds will be used to recapitalize Covenant Bank on a go-forward basis. Covenant Bank’s call report for December 31, 2017, showed total assets of $56 million, with $3.5 million of capital. Covenant’s Tier 1 Leverage Ratio was 5.7%; its Tier 1 Capital Ratio was 9.7%; and its Total Capital Ratio was 11%. This bank needs a substantial capital injection. In contrast, Alamerica Bank’s call report for December 31, 2017, showed total assets of $35 million, with $6.3 million in capital. Alamerica’s Tier 1 Leverage Ratio was 16.7%; its Tier 1 Capital Ratio was 18.8%; and its Total Capital Ratio was 21.1%. Alamerica’s regulatory capital ratios exceed the 13.3% national average and are among the best in the banking industry. It does not take a banking expert to know that a $7.8 million acquisition deal for Covenant Bank is insufficient to (a) buyout the bank’s existing shareholder (i.e., Covenant Bancgroup, Inc., its parent company) and (b) recapitalize Covenant at the $10 million minimum capital level that bank regulators said would be applied to all bank capitalization deals after ours. Of course, the composition of the group buying Covenant Bank mirrors the look of Alabama’s “old school” banking industry of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. If the state and federal bank regulators, who routinely subject Alamerica Bank to a level of heightened regulatory scrutiny that has never been applied to other banks in Alabama, give the Covenant Bank buyers a “pass” on the $10 million minimum capitalization requirement that was imposed upon Alamerica Bank in 1999, I am going to raise holy hell in Congress about the FDIC’s role in this “in-your-face” double standard in the banking industry. Alamerica Bank has never asked the State Banking Department or FDIC for any favors. We did not seek or take the “bailout” money that hundreds of banks around the nation gleefully accepted during the Great Recession of 2008. We survived the Recession by managing our bank in a prudent fashion. We have never been required to “recapitalize” Alamerica Bank. We have never participated in the symbolic “window dressing” programs that the FDIC claims it offers to minority-owned financial institutions. We compete for business in the Birmingham market on the merits of our banking services. We also have a very diverse and loyal customer base. Finally, we are well capitalized. Yet, Alamerica Bank catches more hell from state and federal regulators than any bank in Alabama. We all know why this is the case. I can deal with regulatory abuse, but I will not tolerate a dual standard on bank capitalization requirements. PHOTO: The Alabama Banking Department regulates state-chartered banks in Alabama. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issues insurance on customer deposits in these banks. The two agencies work together to determine and enforce bank capitalization requirements.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 21, 2018 After months of trying to get in front of a federal grand jury in Birmingham, Alabama, I will finally get a chance on Tuesday to tell my side of the story. This grand jury is investigating my businesses and personal affairs. This is the second grand jury to conduct such an investigation. In 2015 and 2016, a federal grand jury in Newark, New Jersey conducted a six-month investigation into the same businesses and personal affairs. The probe ended with no criminal charges filed. The same businesses and personal affairs have been the subject of the following legal proceedings: (a) an American Arbitration Association arbitration proceeding that was stayed for several years and subsequently dismissed, (b) a federal court lawsuit in New Jersey that was dismissed with prejudice by the plaintiff (one of my business partners) after five years of litigation, and (c) a federal court “securities fraud” lawsuit initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2016 against me that has stalled for lack of credible evidence of wrongdoing. Looking for bailout assistance with its baseless lawsuit, the SEC pitched the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which quickly formed a task force of law enforcement officials from different federal agencies and launched a full-scale, blitzkrieg-style grand jury investigation into my businesses and personal affairs. Unlike the extremely professional and objective approach taken by the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, Birmingham U.S. Attorney Jay Town wasted no time in designating me as a “target” of the investigation. Town is a political appointee who openly campaigned for Senator Richard Shelby's re-election in 2016. Town was rewarded for his partisan efforts with a presidential appointment to the U.S. Attorney job for the Northern District of Alabama. Town’s task force has questioned my business associates, close friends, ex-wife, former girlfriend, and a host of others who played a significant role in my business dealings during the past 13 years. Town has carpet-bombed my business environment with grand jury subpoenas directed to nearly everyone who has dealt with me in business. Inside the law enforcement community, this is the type of blitzkrieg campaign and carpet-bombing that is reserved for mafia figures, drug kingpins, international money launderers, terrorists, and modern-day COINTELPRO targets. Because of my online brand of hard-hitting investigative journalism, I fit in the latter category. On March 14, 2018, my attorney sent prosecutors a detailed Memorandum addressing and rebutting various allegations of wrongdoing that are the subject of the grand jury investigation. He requested that the Memorandum be provided to grand jurors because it serves as a comprehensive guide to exculpatory evidence that could be easily verified by business documents that are in the possession of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors refused to do so. My attorney also requested an opportunity for me to appear before the grand jury. Prosecutors blocked this request in March. After he renewed the push for my grand jury appearance and cited the applicable provisions in the U.S. Attorneys Manual that authorize my appearance, prosecutors relented and agreed to my appearance. Even then, they tried to control what I would be allowed to say and what exhibits I could present the grand jury. Of course, I rebuffed their improper, self-serving limitations. As an officer of the court and former Special Attorney General for the State of Alabama who handled major felony cases, I understand why the prosecutors in my case have shielded grand jurors from the favorable evidence highlighted in the March 14th Memorandum, and why they tried so hard to block my grand jury appearance. For months, these prosecutors have carefully screened potential witnesses and handpicked those individuals who would present anecdotal evidence to the grand jury in response to carefully worded, scripted questions about my financial transactions that were (a) taken completely out of context and (b) designed to paint me in the most negative light possible. This kind of “prepackaged” witness testimony is designed to “poison the well” against a grand jury “target.” To be clear, federal prosecutors have the power to charge any person with a criminal offense by using a criminal complaint signed by the U.S. Attorney. Those prosecutors who seek political "cover" for mischievous conduct and improper motives tend to use a grand jury platform. In order to carry out their abuse of power, rogue prosecutors will attempt to turn grand jurors against the “target” of an investigation by withholding favorable evidence and intentionally presenting a constant stream of one-sided, negative information that is designed to subtly prejudice the grand jury against the “target.” After the “well” has been sufficiently “poisoned,” prosecutors usually ask grand jurors to return criminal charges against this “target.” Sadly, this kind of prosecutorial abuse of power is typically done behind the closed door of a grand jury room with no one holding the abusers accountable for their improper actions. On Tuesday, I will finally go into the grand jury room and have an opportunity to present my business relationships and financial transactions in their full and complete context. My testimony is supported by hundreds of thousands of documents that were created and maintained in the regular course of business. Under the modern-day COINTELPRO law enforcement initiative and blitzkrieg campaign against me, prosecutors have usurped the grand jury’s traditional independence and have impermissibly controlled the entire grand jury proceeding. The only way to stop this kind of abuse of prosecutorial power is to personally appear before the grand jury and present the relevant exculpatory evidence inside the “Lion’s Den.” Unfortunately, we are living in an age where citizens can no longer presume that all federal prosecutors, FBI agents, and IRS officials are acting with professional integrity or with pure law enforcement motives. President Donald Trump has done an excellent job in exposing the fallacy of this presumption. I look forward to meeting with the grand jury on Tuesday and defending my name, character, and business dealings in front of them. This, alone, is worth a trip into the “Lion's Den.” PHOTO: I look forward to making my federal grand jury appearance in Birmingham, Alabama on April 24, 2018. I have been in the "Lion's Den" many times.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 25, 2018 For the fourth time in my career, I made a trip to a grand jury that looking into my professional conduct. I already knew that handpicked government witnesses had trashed my name and character in earlier sessions before this grand jury. I waived all of my constitutional rights and voluntarily entered the grand jury room to defend my name, character, and business dealings. Unlike the government’s witnesses, I do not have different versions of the truth to manage. I only have one version of the truth and it is embodied in the business governance documents, purchase agreements, and promissory notes that define my relationship with all stakeholders in my companies. You know the story: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which hates me because I beat the Commission in the 2005 high-profile criminal case involving Richard Scrushy, approached a handful of my business partners and suggested to them that they were “victims” of fraud. The SEC showed these so-called “victims” payments to various individuals that had been completely taken out of context. In doing so, the SEC ignored the plain language in the purchase agreements, business operating agreements, and promissory notes that authorized these payments. Their goal was to fabricate a fraud case against me. Once the SEC had identified and selected the alleged “victims,” they pitched the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Birmingham. Jay Town, the new Birmingham U.S. Attorney, wasted no time in convening a grand jury and designating me as a “target” of the investigation. A team of federal prosecutors, FBI agents, and IRS officials interviewed the alleged “victims,” handpicked the ones who best fit their scripted narrative, and streamed them in front of the grand jury. The narrative these witnesses followed in giving their testimony was one-sided and devoid of any consideration of the documents that define my rights, authority, and obligations as CEO of the companies in question. For four hours in the grand jury room, I waited for prosecutors to identify a single business transaction that was not authorized in the business operating agreements that were written and approved eight years before I became the CEO of these companies. Prosecutors never identified one such transaction. Instead, the prosecutors simply suggested in their line of questions that the alleged “victims” did not know how their money would be spent. I pointed out that the “victims” had Wall Street investment advisors with whom they consulted before making their purchase transactions. Our financial records are permanently maintained and have always been available to the alleged “victims” and their financial advisors. Not one of these so-called “victims” has ever taken to time to review them at our corporate headquarters in Birmingham. All of them are still stakeholders in my businesses. Next, prosecutor suggested that it was taking too long for the alleged “victims” to get a return on their investment. I reminded the grand jury that the purchase agreements in question stated in bold print that the “purchased economic interest involves a high degree of risk and is suitable only for persons who have no need for liquidity and can bear the loss of their entire investment.” Prosecutors did not respond to this statement because it does not support their false narrative. For the record, it took me ten years to build a global waste-to-energy business that is a recognized industry leader. No competitor has accomplished this feat in a shorter period of time. I also chronicled the increasing value of this business using documentation from third parties like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Football League, Citibank, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs. Contrary to what federal investigators suggested to the “victims,” no stakeholder in my business has lost any money. One of the so-called “victims” owns a 20% economic interest in my 21.5% of an oil and gas exploration company. In October 2015, this company received a recoverable resource summary from one of the world’s leading geophysics firms that confirmed the presence of 522 million unrisked barrels of oil and 583 billion cubic feet of unrisked methane gas in our offshore oil block, based upon an interpretation of data gathered from our 2D seismic geotechnical work program. The company is now defining and scoping the 3D seismic work program that is required before test wells and commercial extraction can begin. Oil traded at $67 per barrel while I was testifying yesterday. It takes about $15 per barrel to extract it. Yet, federal agents led this alleged “victim” to believe he had lost his money in this deal. Finally, we spent a considerable amount of time in the grand jury on the interpretation of the purchase contracts. I have never seen the federal criminal justice system used as a forum for interpreting the key provisions of economic participation agreements, shareholder purchase contracts, and creditor rights statutes. This typically occurs in civil proceedings. My takeaway from yesterday’s grand jury appearance was this: SEC lawyers and federal prosecutors have targeted me for modern-day form of COINTELPRO treatment. This case has nothing to do with “fraud.” It is a thinly veiled effort to damage my reputation and neutralize the effectiveness of my hard-hitting investigative journalism. I do not know how much influence the prosecutors have over this grand jury, or what the grand jury will do in my case. At least the grand jury now knows my side of the story and they have seen the documents that should govern the outcome of the case. Federal prosecutors in New Jersey probed the same allegations and reviewed the same evidence in a fair and professional manner. They ended their six-month probe in early 2016. In contrast, the federal prosecutors in Birmingham are desperately looking for any justification to bring criminal charges against me, even if it means “twisting” evidence, misinterpreting the pertinent contracts, and ignoring the CEO's authority under the applicable provisions of governing documents. Their conduct is a definite throwback to the old COINTELPRO days. We will see whether justice prevails in the Birmingham grand jury probe like it did in the New Jersey probe, or whether COINTELPRO will rise again in Alabama. PHOTO: First Assistant United States Attorney Lloyd Peeples is leading the team of prosecutors and federal agents in this grand jury probe. PHOTO: The newspaper articles below chronicle my first trip to the "Lion's Den" in 1976. High ranking Montgomery, Alabama police officers tried to frame me on bribery and witness intimidation charges after I exposed a police scandal involving the 1975 murder of Bernard Whitehurst by patrolman Donnie Foster. A Montgomery County grand jury refused to indictment me. The case evolved into a nationally recognized scandal that resulted in the resignations of Montgomery’s mayor and police commissioner, the indictment of three police officers, and the firing or resignation of eight others.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 14, 2018; Updated at 8 p.m. EST On April 8, 2018, CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired a gut-wrenching story about lynchings in America. The segment included graphic photographs of lynchings in a report by contributor Oprah Winfrey. Like millions of Americans, I watched this powerful story. It documented a tragic but important part of the African-American experience. In my lifetime, I have seen horrendous acts that have revealed the inhumanity of mankind. I have seen blacks savagely beaten for trying to use a public water fountains and restrooms that was reserved for “Whites Only” and for trying to eat at segregated lunch counters in a local department store. State laws forced me to attend all-black schools in Memphis, Tennessee and Montgomery, Alabama. This situation lasted until I went to college at Southern Illinois University in 1966. During the first half of the 20th Century, black men in the South were burned alive by white “Christians” for alleged crimes against white women while law enforcement officials looked on. In 1955, I saw the Jet Magazine photos of 14-year-old Emmett Till’s battered, beaten and mutilated body during his open-casket funeral and listened in horror as my parents told us what happened to him. Till was viciously beaten and murdered in Mississippi for reportedly flirting with a white woman. I watched the 1963 Birmingham church bombing on TV while I was a teenager in Montgomery. During this same period, I saw the City of Birmingham, Alabama’s fire hoses and police dogs turned on school children who were protesting for an end to racial segregation in public accommodations and schools. In the early 1960s, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, and Rosa Parks sat in my parents’ home as I listened to them describe the rivers of blood that flowed from the civil rights protesters’ courageous acts of civil disobedience across the South. I watched the news in August 1964 when federal authorities discovered the bodies of three civil rights workers who were kidnapped by local sheriff’s deputies and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan while registering blacks to vote in Mississippi. I watched real-time TV news accounts about the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers in Mississippi, the 1965 murders of civil rights workers Viola Liuzzo (from Michigan) and Jimmy Lee Jackson (from Selma) in Alabama, and the 1968 assassination of Dr. King in Memphis. In 1963, I watched Governor George Wallace block the admission of Vivian Malone and James Hood to the University of Alabama. In 1965, I watched John Lewis and other civil rights marchers brave horrendous beatings by Alabama state troopers at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. In 1974, Clarence Norris told me about the beatings and torture he and the other eight Scottsboro Boys endured after their 1931 arrest on false rape charges and imprisonment in Alabama. When I retrieved the Scottsboro Boys’ case file from state archives, the old prison records verified Norris’ account of the prison system’s brutality. As young children, our parents told us about the lynching of my maternal grandfather’s cousin in Mississippi and how my mother’s father barely escaped death in the same incident. On March 21, 1981, the Ku Klux Klan kidnapped and lynched a 19-year-old African-American teenager named Michael Donald in downtown Mobile, Alabama. This was the last recorded lynching in America. In 1966, I saw young white college students throw garbage on my brother Levi Watkins, Jr., after he entered Vanderbilt’s University's medical school as its first black medical student. I also witnessed first-hand the isolation and hatred Levi endured during his four years as a trailblazer at Vanderbilt. When I desegregated the University of Alabama’s law school in 1970, I began the longest and loneliest three-year chapter of my life. After I graduated from the law school and started practicing law in an all-white judiciary and in front of all-white juries, some white state court judges routinely referred to me for the first couple of years as the “nigger lawyer from Montgomery”. Several federal judges did not call me by any name or title; they simply barked out orders and rulings in a nasty and demeaning tone. After I became a lawyer in 1973, I was threatened with bodily harm and death on so many occasions because of my representation of poor, underprivileged, and disadvantaged citizens that I have simply lost count of the number of such threats. I have been hauled before grand juries and threatened by rogue prosecutors with made-up offenses (which never went anywhere), attacked by state and federal regulatory bodies with oversight responsibility for my private businesses, and peppered with personal attacks on my character by public officials whose propensity for racial animosity exceeds all known means for objective measurement. These were not experiences I read about in scholarly journals or best-selling books; these were my real life experiences. Through it all, I have learned what it is like to be a victim of unimaginable acts of hatred, denigration, harassment, and abuse of power and process solely because of the color of my skin and negative racial stereotyping. These experiences have not made me bitter, but they have heightened my awareness of just how evil some people can be. As a result, I am aggressive and passionate in the way I fight to safeguard the human and civil rights of others. This is why I fought as hard as I could from 1974 to 1976 to secure a full and unconditional pardon for Clarence Norris, the only one of the “Scottsboro Boys” who lived long enough to see the State of Alabama officially declare their innocence of rape charges lodged against them in 1931. Norris’s pardon was the first and only time the State of Alabama has awarded a former death row inmate a such pardon based upon a finding that the recipient was “innocent" of the rape charges for which he was convicted. This is why I worked so hard in 2016 to solve the 2005 murder of 19-year-old Army Private LaVena Johnson on a military base in Balad, Iraq by General Kevin P. Byrnes (Retired) and to expose a cover-up of her death by the Pentagon’s top chain of command. To this day, the Army’s investigative files in Private Johnson’s death, which the Army officially classified as a “suicide," are still classified as a matter of “national security” and can only be released to the public with the approval of the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is why I blasted Rep. Steve Hurst (R-Talladega) for introducing a bill in the Alabama Legislature in 2016 that required the surgical castration of sex offenders in Alabama prisons. State-mandated mutilation of the human body simply has no place in a post-Nazi era civilized society. I have lived through some barbaric times in Alabama, and I do not want to see us return to this dark period in our history. Alabama has subjected its black citizens to unimaginable acts of horror. ISIS and the Nazis might have picked up some of their brutality and torture techniques from Alabama’s public officials and the state’s die-hard “Christian” segregationists. ISIS’s practice of burning people alive comes straight out of Alabama’s long and ugly history of burning black men alive as part of the lynching ritual. ISIS’s acts of bombing and burning churches and other places of worship come straight out of 1950s and 60s era Birmingham. The Nazis’ regiment of beating, torturing, hogtieing prisoners to posts, and murdering them came straight out of Alabama’s prison system. Nazi medical experiments on Jewish concentration camp internees were preceded by Alabama’s infamous “Tuskegee Syphilis Study” experiments on black men from 1932 to 1972. I have seen the devastating effects of hatred in the name of God, religion and “states rights”. We can never go back to this dark place in American history. PHOTO: "Scottsboro Boy" Clarence Norris (right) and Attorney Donald Watkins (left) receiving Norris's full and unconditional pardon from the State of Alabama in 1976. This was the first and only time the State has awarded a former death row inmate such a pardon upon a finding that the recipient was "innocent" of the rape charges for which he was convicted. PHOTO: Army Private LaVena Johnson was murdered in 2005 by one of her Commanders while serving her country on a military base in Balad, Iraq. The Army's investigative files in her "suicide" case remain remain sealed 13 years later as a matter of national security.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 11, 2018 In their zest to investigate my business and personal affairs, federal prosecutors in Birmingham, Alabama requested a mountain of documents that I provided to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in response to a civil subpoena issued in the SEC’s 2016 lawsuit against me. These documents included privileged attorney-client correspondence that was protected by a claw-back agreement designed to keep them from being inappropriately disclosed to other government agencies. Shortly after Jay E. Town was sworn in as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, his office commenced a blitzkrieg campaign against me. This new-wave COINTELPRO law enforcement campaign is designed to take me down, smear my name, and stop my online journalism. It has no legitimate law enforcement purpose. To accomplish this unlawful goal, prosecutors have deliberately misrepresented the rights and obligations between my business partners and me under the plain language of corporate governance documents, purchase agreements, and promissory notes. Prosecutors have also threatened potential witnesses and “twisted” the proper context of business transactions that span the course of thirteen years. In some cases, prosecutors encouraged my business partners to feel “victimized” based upon their intentional misrepresentations of the contractual nature and scope of the business relationships at issue. To be clear, no investor in my businesses has lost money. Each one gave me prior written authorization for every category of financial expenditures that prosecutors have under review. At some point during their blitzkrieg campaign, Mr. Town’s prosecutors made a records access request to the SEC for its investigative records in the civil case. The SEC, whose high profile securities fraud lawsuit against me has stalled, dutifully complied with this request. During the records access process, the SEC wrongfully provided prosecutors with access to my privileged documents. To cover its exposure in this “discovery documents” breach, the SEC alerted my attorney to this situation. Once my attorney learned of this breach, he demanded the immediate return my privileged documents. Among these documents was a vast cache of attorney-client emails between 31 lawyers and myself. Prosecutors have acknowledged their receipt of the privileged documents, but now claim they did not review them as part of their blitzkrieg campaign. This explanation is simply not credibile. Mr. Town’s prosecutors have known for some time that they were in possession of my privileged attorney-client documents. Yet, they only disclosed this fact to my lawyer for the first time on April 6, 2018. Even then, their disclosure occurred only after my attorney first raised this issue with prosecutors in an April 3, 2018 letter. The government’s possession of my privileged attorney-client documents is inexcusable and has tainted whatever investigation prosecutors are conducting. In “Never Let Your Enemies Define Who You Are”, I exposed how prosecutors in my case have intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence from Grand Jurors in violation of their affirmative duty to disclose such evidence under Sections 9-11.010 and 9-11.233 of the U.S. Attorney’s Manual. In light of (a) the misrepresentations made by prosecutors to my business partners about the nature and scope of our business relationships, (b) their threats to potential witnesses, and (c) their suppression of exculpatory evidence in my case, this recently admitted “discovery documents” breach further demonstrates a disturbing pattern and practice of prosecutorial misconduct in this investigation. Based upon what the public is presently witnessing in the federal investigation of President Donald Trump, it is clear that the prosecutorial misconduct in my case is not an isolated incident. On Monday, the FBI disregarded the President’s attorney-client privilege and disrespected him by raiding the office, home, and hotel room of Michael Cohen, who is Mr. Trump’s personal attorney. This raid has created a firestorm in Washington. At this juncture, we do not know what impact the improper possession of my privileged attorney-client communications has had in Mr. Town’s blitzkrieg campaign. What we know for sure is the indisputable fact that nothing in these privileged documents evidences any illegal activity on my part. We have demanded a listing of the government law enforcement agents who reviewed my privileged attorney-client documents, as well as an accounting of how these documents have been used in the presentation of any evidence to the Grand Jury. To date, this issue has not been resolved. PHOTO: Attorney-client documents are privileged and protected from disclosure.

By Donald V. Watkins ©Copyrighted and Published on April 10, 2018; Updated at 4 p.m. EST on April 10, 2018 I do not agree with President Donald Trump on many issues. We are polar opposites in the political world. One issue where Trump is absolutely right is his observation that federal prosecutors have politicized the law enforcement process. In many instances, they are out of control and accountable to no one. This is especially true where they personally dislike the “target” of their criminal investigations. Yesterday, FBI agents raided Attorney Michael Cohen’s law office, home, and hotel room in New York. This raid crossed the line. Cohen is Trump’s personal attorney. The raid was the FBI's way of belittling and disrespecting President Trump in front of the nation and the international community. This is not the first time America has experienced lawlessness inside federal law enforcement agencies. In 1976, the Church Committee (named after U.S. Senator Frank Church) brought this problem to the public’s attention with its Congressional Report about COINTELPRO, the FBI’s official campaign from 1956 to 1971 to smear and harass activists for social justice and equal opportunity in America. During the COINTELPRO campaign, the FBI and other federal agencies routinely lied, cheated, and framed targeted activists. I have seen this abuse of prosecutorial power during most of my 45-year legal career. Every time I thought this situation was getting better, it only got worse. Today, unelected federal prosecutors act like they have more power than the President of the United States, who happens to be their boss. The only checks and balances on the lawlessness of federal prosecutors are a handful of brave federal judges and those enlightened jurors who sit in judgment of falsely accused defendants in criminal cases. Nothing else seems to work. The best chance for reforming this systemic abuse of federal prosecutorial power lies with Donald Trump. He can and should reign in this abuse of power. All Trump has to do is make some heads roll within the Department of Justice in Washington and inside several U.S. Attorney’s Offices. Trump should fire these rogue law enforcement officials in the Oval Office on live TV and have the Secret Service escort each one of them from the White House grounds. As for me, I do not condone the conduct of prosecutors who cheat to win simply because they can. This is not a partisan issue for me; it is a law enforcement issue. As a nation, we must not morph into a country where federal prosecutors can intimidate, harass, and abuse ordinary citizens with reckless abandon. PHOTO: Attorney Michael Cohen with President Donald Trump