April 13-19, 2006

Naked City : Fine Print

Trial of the Century

We don't know much about Jonathan Lee Riches. According to a 2004 Houston Chronicle article, the current resident of the Federal Correctional Institution Williamsburg in Salters, S.C., pleaded guilty to his involvement in an identity theft/credit card fraud ring.

But we do know this: The guy's a comic genius. Dude penned perhaps the most engrossing and amusing legal document ever. Faint praise? You be the judge (download full PDF).

On March 9, Riches filed a prisoner civil rights suit (2:06-cv-01055-LP) in Philadelphia's U.S. District Court complete with a 57-page defendant list crammed with luminaries both living (President Bush, Grace Jones) and dead (George Orwell, Malcolm X), as well as nonentities like the Magna Carta, www.accuweather.com and Skittles candy (see list below). It's a magnificent, flowing piece of free-association blame-core.

A source at the court tells us that this sort of filing comes along every once in a while and that it's likely it will be thrown out long before it goes to trial.

Which is a shame. We'd really like to see these people in town pleading their cases.

Selected defendants in the case of Riches v. Bush et al.

George W. Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, James Hoffa, www.google.com, Pope Benedict XVI, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, John Deere, www.accuweather.com, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party, Roc-A-Fella Records, Shawn Carter (doing business at Jay-Z), Japan's Nikkei Stock Exchange, Gambino (crime family), Three Mile Island, Tony Danza, Islamic Republic of Iran, University of Miami, GEICO Insurance, Jewish State of Israel, Soledad O'Brien, Tsunami victims, The American Red Cross, Jessica Alba, Charles Moose, al-Qaida Islamic Arm,Fruit of A-Loom [sic], Outback Steakhouse, Donald J. Trump, Chris Berman, Shawn John Combs (doing business as Puff Daddy, doing business as Mr. Ditty [sic]), Vincent K. McMahon, Meals on Wheels, Saddam Hussein, Jewish workers at NBC/Universal, Elizabeth Smart, The Panama Canal Commission, Kelly Clarkston [sic], 13 tribes of Israel, Plato, Lincoln Memorial, Boris Becker, Various Buddhist monks, Christina Applegate, Jewish Mossad, National Vanguard Books, Mein Kampf, Venus Williams, Medieval Times, Denny's, Brotherhood of the Snake, Larry King, Larry King Live 9 p.m., Rastafarian natives, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Ulluminati [sic], Wu-Tang Clan, Wu Wear Inc., Nordic gods, The Da Vinci Code, Sears Tower, Mike Tyson, Native American Fish Society, Green Bay's Lambeau Field, Pizza Hut, Ming Dynasty, Barry Bonds, Gangs in Hong Kong, Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, National Hockey League Players' Association, Philadelphia Eagles (2005 roster, including Donovan McNabb), The Waffle House …

It just goes on like this. We're working around the clock to bring you the entire defendant list which you can read at www.citypaper.net.

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