Crooked Toxic Site Developer And Demo Party Contributor Stuart Lichter Loses SLAPP Suit

CCWMD Press Release:Crooked Toxic Developer And Democratic Party Contributor Stuart Lichter Loses SLAP Suit Afraid To Be Deposed By Injured Workers/Advocates Lawyers

CCWMD Press Release

11/13/2009

Crooked Toxic Developer And Democratic Party Contributor Stuart Lichter Loses SLAPP Suit

Afraid To Be Deposed By Injured Workers/Advocates Lawyers


California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day Press Release

http://www.workersmemorialday.org



Stuart Lichter, the national toxic dump site developer of IRG and Democratic Party contributor has lost his SLAPP suit to silence injured workers and their advocates from exposing the injuries and sickness caused by the failure of him and his company to properly clean up the Downey toxic dump site in Southern California. He has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to mostly Democratic politicians who have helped continued the cover-up on this regional healthcare hazard in Los Angeles County.

Lichter had sued former Peace and Freedom Congressional candidate Dina Padilla, Kaiserpapers web site developer Vickie Travis, injured IATSE Local 44 member Bruce Norrbom and former IATSE Local 44 Executive Board member and injured worker Leonard Martin.

The suit VC 051486 filed in Norwalk Superior Court charged that Lichter had been slandered and harmed by the publicity about the injuries and the failure to properly clean up the site. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and the production of extensive documentation supposedly showing the slander, the suit was dismissed with prejudice when Lichter refused to be deposed by Gonzalez Leigh firm in San Francisco. Matt Gonzalez’s law firm took the case on contingency and previously when Gonzalez was a candidate for Vice President with Ralph Nader he had spoken out in Los Angeles and Sacramento in defense of the injured workers and their families. The suit against Martin continues but will also likely be dismissed.

Lichter, initially had said he was sick and could not be deposed while at the same time he was giving interviews to newspapers following the breaking of the toxic dump site story in the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-downey2-2009aug02,0,5980999.story

Lichter, runs one of the largest toxic site developer site companies in the world International Risk Group. IRG develops toxic and radioactive dump sites not only in the US but internationally. Formerly he worked for the US General Services Administration GSA and supported the privatization of thousands of former US government and military sites as Brownfield sites. He bought these sites for cents on the dollar. The Brownfield privatization scheme was passed by Congress as a way of outsourcing the clean-up and restoration of toxic sites so they could be developed quickly to make a large profit for the developers. In fact he has even tried to patent his commercial plan for developing this toxic sites.

Instead of properly cleaning up these sites however, the developers including Lichter have failed to properly clean up the sites leading to health problems including cancer and fungus infections and many other serious ailments throughout the United States.

In Downey, California Lichter after making significant contributions to Democratic party officials received special permission with an exemption from former Governor Gray Davis to develop the site. Lichter built the Downey Studios which has produced many movie productions and leased the studio to companies including Dreamworks. IATSE members as well as LIUNA members immediately began to get sick at the site and the union initially sued IATSE Local 44 for harming his business. They settled for $750,000 paid to Lichter and told their members the site was safe although members continued to get sick.

Additionally the Kaiser Hospital Foundation has spent over $700 million dollars building one of the largest hospital complexes in Southern California on this same dump site. Workers including SEIU hospital worker Gail Shephard was seriously sickened by the fungus and chemicals on the site and her daughter recently died from some of the same contaminants.

Lichter in his suit filed by his lawyer Donald White included the testimony of these injured IATSE workers about their illnesses supposedly to show he had been slandered. His lawyer White has also personally threatened IATSE Local 44 member Leonard Martin to pressure him to drop his other lawsuits as well as settle this case.

Despite publicity about the injured workers and even the death of family members CA OSHA, the EPA, California governor Anold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown Attorney General of California, Steve Poizner, Insurance Commissioner and the Fraud Assessment Commission FAC, Hilda Solis, US Secretary Of Labor as well as Congressman Henry Waxman, Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein have refused to hold hearings, meet with any of the workers or even investigate this major health and safety hazard in Southern California.

While powerful house chair Henry Waxman has called hearings on the use of Steroids by athletes, he refuses as chair of the House Commerce and Energy Committee to have any hearings or investigation of the many illnesses causes by the crooked development of these former government sites.

A major reason for this is the systemic corruption by both the Democratic and Republican parties in privatizing these toxic and radioactive sites. An serious investigation of the cover-up of the Downey site would show not only that the government was aware of the failure to clean up the site but that this is not an unusual and unique situation but systemic in the whole Brownfield developer’s scheme.

These dump site developers like Lichter have giving millions of dollars to politicians and cities to buy them off so they will not only accept the development but also silence workers and community members who are speaking out about the health problems.

The workers and the California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day are supporting the following demands:

*An immediate NIOSH epidemiological study on all workers and community people who have been on the site or near the Downey site.

*Free medical care and compensation for all Downey workers and members of the community sickened by these sites

*Congressional Hearings on the privatization of Superfund US/Military sites into "Brownfield" sites including testimony from injured workers and people in the Downey community who have been made ill by this site.

*Report from all insurance companies in the United States on their workers compensation and personal insurance claims that have been made by workers and community people at toxic dump sites, the acceptance or rejection of these claims and how many of there workers and people in the community are now having their healthcare costs being paid for by SSI or other US government agencies.

*Criminal prosecution of all insurance companies and employers who have shifted healthcare costs from the Brownfield sites to Local, State and the Federal government.



*The elimination of all privatized Brownfield sites nationally and the clean-up of the sites with community-labor oversight on this clean-up.



California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day

http://www.workersmemorialday.org


http://letsintroduceourselves.us/wordpress/

Video: Downey Toxic Dump Site - LA Press Conference

http://blip.tv/file/2483914

Video:Downey Toxic Dump Site - LA Press Conference

http://blip.tv/file/2483914

Injured Downey Movie Workers & Kaiser Workers Speak-out at Downey Toxic Dump Site

http://blip.tv/file/2453925

Injured Workers, Mold, ACOEM And The Democrats

http://blip.tv/file/2520407

YouTube - Injured Worker Advocate Dina Padilla Challenges FAC On Insurance Fraud At Downey Movie Studio and Downey Kaiser Hospital Complex

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qabX5N8iQ8

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august022009/downey_exposure_8-2-09.php

http://downey.kaiserpapers.info/