UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

CASE NO. 08-MD-01916-MARRA

IN RE: CHIQUITA BRANDS INTERNATIONAL, INC.

ALIEN TORT STATUTE AND SHAREHOLDER
DERIVATIVE LITIGATION

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This Document Relates to:

ATS ACTIONS

08-80465-CIV-MARRA (D.C. Action) (Does 1-144)

10-80652-CIV-MARRA (D.C. Action) (Does 1-976)
11-80404-CIV-MARRA (D.C. Action) (Does 1-677)
11-80405-CIV-MARRA (D.C. Action) (Does 1-254)
13-80146-CIV-MARRA (D.C. Action) (Does 1-98)
17-80475-CIV-MARRA (O.H. Action) (Does 1-2146)

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Plaintiffs' Response to Order [DE 2892] on Duplicate Claims

On April 28, 2021, the Court ordered that "Plaintiffs in the above-captioned cases1 shall

submit under seal a roster of the true names of all Plaintiffs identified in these actions along with

their corresponding Doe designations and decedents, clearly indicated by line item, in addition to

a cross-reference indicating, where applicable, where the claimants in one complaint have also

appeared as Plaintiffs in any other complaint. This roster shall be separately published to

1
The caption in the Court's Order didn't include Case No. 11-80405-CIV-MARRA, which
comprises 254 cases brought by plaintiffs alleging injuries by the FARC, rather than AUC. In
searching for duplicates, four plaintiffs in this complaint were found to have duplicate claims
filed by other attorneys, alleging that the AUC, rather than the FARC, was responsible.
Disclosing these duplicates will potentially harm the plaintiffs and cause Chiquita to select them
as bellwether plaintiffs, and wasn't ordered by the Court. Chiquita will have the opportunity to
depose the plaintiffs in cases selected for discovery, and ask them about other attorneys and
complaints.

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Defendants, as well as counsel for all other Plaintiffs’ groups in this MDL and provided to them

in Microsoft Word or Excel format.

The Roster is attached hereto as Sealed Exhibit 4. It lists the first 173 cases in Case No.

08-80465-CIV-MARRA (filed by Plaintiffs Does 1-144, some of whom filed more than one

case) and then 2,146 cases filed in the Southern District of Ohio, in Case No.

17-80475-CIV-MARRA. The Ohio Complaint had listed, sequentially, Does 1-976 from Case

No. 10-80652-CIV-MARRA, followed by Does 1-677 from Case No. 11-80404-CIV-MARRA,

followed by 493 additional Plaintiffs who only sued Individual Defendants in Ohio.

Three sources were used to compile the Roster. First, a comparison was made with the

list sent by Earthrights International Inc. on March 31, 2021, which identified 22 duplicates out

of the 319 cases filed by Earthrights in their most recent complaint. These are designated in the

Roster with the symbol ER in the Conflict column. Other duplicates were found using a report

made by John Hopkins of Searcy Denny Scarola Barnhardt & Shipley PA ("SDSBS") on about

September 22, 2011, who made the report after this information was previously provided to

them. Most of the duplicates, however, were found by making manual comparisons to four

different complaints filed by Boies Schiller & Flexner, LLP (BSF), who didn't use pseudonyms.

There are a total of 226 duplicate claims according to the information undersigned counsel has

been able to obtain. In addition to the 22 Earthrights duplicates, there are 185 duplicates with

Boies Schiller & Flexner, LLP (indicated as "BSF" in the Roster) and 19 duplicates with

Attorney Jonathan Reiter (indicated as "JR" in the Roster).

With the exception of the recent change of position by Attorney Collingsworth, counsel's

efforts to remove duplicate claims have always led to dead ends. On about July 25, 2011,

Plaintiffs' counsel signed an agreement to share the identities of all of the plaintiffs in the MDL,

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for the purpose of de-duplicating them. See Exhibit 1, attached hereto. Per the agreement,

undersigned counsel provided all of the contact information for the cases obtained at that time, to

John Hopkins of Searcy Denny Scarola Barnhardt & Shipley PA (SDSBS). Other counsel

apparently did the same. However, instead of sharing the contact information with all counsel

per the agreement, SDSBS only provided undersigned counsel with a list of duplicates they had

identified, making it impossible to do our own comparison. Earthrights also apparently didn't

receive it, or they wouldn't have filed a motion for me to provide the information again.

The SDSBS Report is attached hereto as Sealed Exhibit 2. It identified 88 of undersigned

counsel's cases as overlapping with BSF (out of 185) and 15 as overlapping with Jonathan Reiter.

(out of 19) Id. A spreadsheet of BSF duplicates found by a manual search was provided to Lee

Wolosky of BSF on June 26, 2011, and is attached hereto as Sealed Exhibit 3. Undersigned

counsel then obtained sworn declarations, taken by a Colombian notario, from 97 of these

plaintiffs stating the circumstances of their contacts with Boies Schiller & Flexner describing

various fraudulent means to secure their signatures. These plaintiffs sued BSF for fraud, to try to

regain control of their cases. The Court dismissed the claims and did not resolve the

representation. An appeal was dismissed, since the Plaintiffs couldn't show financial harm. See

Case No. 17-11993.

Undersigned counsel didn't appeal the Court's ruling on the use of pseudonyms, which

appears prudent and harmless to the Defendants, but within the Court's discretion to deny. The

anonymity allowed SDSBS to steal about 185 of my cases, but has also facilitated the bribery of

paramilitary witnesses and many Motions for Rule 11 Sanctions filed against me for trying to

stay out of the RICO conspiracy. In addition, they do not disclose the champertous involvement

of celebrity Attorney Tom Girardi, who's been involved in this case since the beginning, but was

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recently disbarred in connection with embezzling tens of millions of dollars from many different

clients, including at least one MDL. Girarda has never entered an appearance, even though he

was supposed to finance the litigation of the non-Wolf Plaintiffs' cases. I've met with Mr. Girardi

on two occasions that I can remember, and spoke with him another time by phone on a

conference call with Attorney Collingsworth. I believe he was also involved in our meeting with

Eric Holder in 2007, but do not have proof of that. In addition, a representative of Girardi &

Keese named Kirk attended the meeting on June 22, 2011 at the office Cohen Milstein Sellers &

Toll when Mike Hugo and myself confronted Attorney Collingsworth about the bribery in

Drummond, and an impromptu two hour meeting among Plaintiffs' counsel at an airport

restaurant afterwards.

During the year that I worked with Attorney Collingsworth, one of our goals was to

secure Mr. Girardi as a financial backer for the case. However, it appears that Mr. Girardi's

relationship was with William Wichmann. When Mr. Wichmann left Conrad & Scherer, Girardi

continued his relationship with Wichman but not Conrad & Scherer. Girardi & Wichmann were

co-counsel in a toxic tort case against Dyncorp involving spraying glyphosate on coca crops on

the border of Colombia and Ecuador. See Arias v. Dyncorp, 856 F. Supp. 2d 46 (D.D.C. 2012).

Proof of Mr. Girardi's champertous involvement is filed as Sealed Exhibit 5. Unlike

Sealed Exhibits 2, 3, and 4, Exhibit 5 isn't being shared with counsel for the Defendants because

it arguably falls within the attorney work product privilege. The first email in Exhibit 5 is a

proposal from Walter J. Lack and Stephen R. Terrell of Engstrom Lipstrom & Lack, for Tom

Girardi to be lead counsel in the MDL, with William Wichmann named as liaison counsel. I

forwarded the message to my then- co-counsel Terry Collingworth, expressing my surprise and

objecting that it was a conflict of interest. Id. at 2-4. Collingsworth replied with several

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proposals, including a proposed Attorney Cooperation Agreement, splitting legal fees among

myself, Conrad & Scherer and Girardi & Keese. Id. at 5-6. I never agreed to this, but instead

replied to Bill Scherer, id. at 7, stating that I didn't believe it would be productive to try to work

with Mr. Collingsworth any more, and suggesting we either divide the clients by region (my

clients are in Uraba, while Collingsworth's and Wichmann's are in Magdalena) or that he

designate another person in his firm to communicate with me. Id. I don't know whether either

Terry Collingsworth or Conrad & Scherer LLP ever made any other agreements with Mr. Girardi

with regard to Mr. Wichmann's cases. There's been litigation between Mr. Wichmann and

Conrad & Scherer over his separation.

Nevertheless, the non-Wolf Plaintiffs fail to disclose his central role in the case. Neither

Tom Girardi nor anyone else from Girardi & Keese have ever entered an appearance. Exhibit 6,

attached hereto, is a composite of four different Certificates of Interested Persons filed in the two

main appeals. All of my CIPs include Tom Girardi. None of the other Plaintiffs' Counsel's CIPs

mention Mr. Girardi, even though his relationship is with them, not me. See Exhibit 6 at pages

10, 23, 37 and 56.

Mr. Girardi's hidden role and history of embezzling money from settlements in other

cases illustrates the lack of accountability in Multi District Litigation, which creates criminal

opportunities of all kinds. Colombian Attorney Luis Alfonso Fajardo Sanchez was dismayed to

learn that Girardi and Wichmann didn't file several hundred of his cases, but instead held them in

reserve as community property plaintiffs. See declaration filed May 1, 2015. Finally, in addition

to the unethical agreement not to file new claims, and represent them as "community property"

class action members, Scarola also told me verbally about a plan to pay any settlement funds to

plaintiffs over time, instead of when it is owed to them. Scarola said that was what SDSBS did

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in a toxic tort case involving Central American plaintiffs, who according to Scarola, weren't

sophisticated enough to manage their own settlements. A Catholic priest was used as the trustee.

Conclusion

We first tried to resolve the duplicate claims filed by Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP ten

years ago. Now BSF's clients are being represented by SDSBS, who claim to have an improper

relationship with the Court. Although Tom Girardi has been disbarred, the Plaintiffs still have no

assurance that their rights will be protected. Counsel has moved the Court various times to

resolve the representation disputes, which remain unresolved.

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Paul Wolf

_______________________
Paul Wolf, DC Bar #480285
Attorney for Plaintiffs
PO Box 21840
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 431-6986
fax: n/a
paulwolf@yahoo.com

May 11, 2021

Certificate of Service

I hereby certify that on this 11th day of May, 2021, I filed the foregoing document, with
the Clerk of the Court using the Court's Electronic Case Filing (ECF) system, which will send
electronic notices to all persons entitled to receive them.

/s/ Paul Wolf

_________________
Paul Wolf