SYRACUSE -- One of the most litigious ex-convicts in America has asked the U.S. Federal Court in Syracuse for the right to intervene in the Laurie Fine lawsuit against ESPN.
Jonathan Lee Riches has received extensive attention over the last eight years for filing suits, briefs and other legal action in some 5,000 cases. It took Federal Magistrate Judge David Peebles in Syracuse one day to dismiss the Motion to Intervene as Plaintiff in the Laurie Fine lawsuit.
Riches mailed the motion from Brooklyn just one month after being released from Federal Prison in South Carolina after serving time for fraud. He used the pseudonym Gino Romano for this motion. Changing his name was not enough to fool the court from recognizing the frivolous nature of the claim.
The judge noted that ESPN has not yet responded to the suit filed by Laurie Fine and her attorney Lawrence Fisher last month. And, Riches, a.k.a Romano, did not request from the court an opportunity to intervene in court before filing the motion.
Riches makes outlandish claims in the motion that we won't detail. The names included in addition to Laurie and Bernie Fine are celebrities like Brad Pitt, Carmelo Anthony, Erin Andrews and Chris Berman of ESPN.
He even cites his own laundry list of past suits against such public figures as Michael Vick, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg. Riches makes the claim that he cannot get a job "because the prison abuse from the staff at the Federal Medical Center who held Riches in solitary confinement for years."
Riches once filed action claiming he was Bernie Madoff. He has sued others like Eliot Spitzer, Molly Ringwald and Barry Bonds. The Guiness Book of World Records named Riches the "Most Litigious Man in the World."
The actual complaint at the center of the lawsuit was filed by Laurie Fine on May 21st. ESPN has yet to formally respond. No court dates are scheduled until the fall.
