by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

"Why is it that the only people who got paid in this lawsuit are the white monitor, the
white lead counsel, the white judge, the white arbitrators; the black lawyers didn’t get paid and
the black farmers didn’t get paid?"

We raised this question to Attorney Randi Roth, the Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit monitor, at the
Congressional Black Caucus issues forum in September of this year. This question sparked a verbal
"tit for tat" between myself and Al Pires, the lead counsel for Pigford v. Glickman
lawsuit. The specifics of our argument were detailed in "Doc Confronts Al Pires" on the
"The Farmers Newsletter" at www.MuhammadFarms.com.

Since that time we have found out these facts. According to the court record Al Pires, lead
counsel, has received at least $14.9 million. Mr. Gary Grant, the president of BFAA, said that the
USDA admits to spending $60 million to fight the case trying to deny Black farmers their
settlements.

We recently questioned lawyers from the monitors office at a "Strategies for Success"
conference at Ft. Valley State University on November 6, 2002. Stephen Carpenter, Senior Counsel for
the monitor’s office, said that they have been paid about $15 million thus far. When a farmer is
denied in the lawsuit, he can appeal to the monitor’s office. However, all the monitor can do is
to recommend that the adjudicator review the decision made. The monitor can not reverse any
decisions by the adjudicators or arbitrators. We asked Mr. Carpenter how much did the adjudicators
and arbitrators make from this case. He said that how much they were paid was "private
information".

Now the lead counsel is "white", the monitor is "white", most of the
arbitrators and adjudicators are "white" and the facilitator, Poorman-Douglas, is white.
Mr. Pires said that most of the law firms that worked under him were Black and got most of the
money. I let Attorney Rose Sanders, whose law firm Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders and Pettaway, Campbell
& Albright P.C., out of Selma, Al., listen to the tape of the public confrontation between Al
Pires and myself. She said that Al Pires was lying about the money. Her law firm received only
fractions of the money for each case. Al Pires received all of the money for each case. He then
parceled out most of the cases to subordinate law firms, but reimbursed to them only a fraction of
what it cost them to litigate the cases leaving her firm in the red.

So what about the Black farmers, did they get paid? The latest statistics regarding Pigford v.
Glickman (now Veneman) in the Track A implementation as of November 4, 2002 show that of the total
21,549 "eligible" class members 12,927 or 60% have been approved with cash settlement and
debt relief amounting to $792,766,834. This is far below what the media has been putting out as a
$2.5 billion settlement.

We asked the monitor’s office how many farmers’ appeals were they sending back to the
adjudicators. Attorney Carpenter said about 60% would be sent back for review and 40% denied. This
60% approval rate seems to be a magic number in this case which reminds one of the 3/5ths or 60%
clause in the US Constitution.

But let us get back to the money. Each farmer who "won" under Class A was to receive
$50,000 in cash, a $12,500 credit with the IRS to pay the taxes on the $50,000 and debt relief. Mr.
Carpenter told the audience of Black farmers that unfortunately there was miscommunication between
the USDA and IRS. The IRS did not accept the $12,500 as payment on the taxes, but considered that
income. The farmers were not informed and therefore did not declare this $12,500 as income nor did
they pay the taxes on the $50,000 because they thought that the government had done so. Therefore,
these farmers were penalized for not reporting income and not paying taxes on income received.

In addition the $50,000 plus $12,500 plus any debt relief was added to the current year income
figure for the farmers placing many in the highest income bracket but with no cash to pay the taxes.
For instance if a farmer owed the USDA $100,000 which was forgiven, then he would have to pay taxes
on $100,000 plus $50,000 plus $12,500 or $162,500. If he was in the 40% tax bracket then he would
owe $65,000 causing him to cough up an additional $2,500 of his own money even though he
"won". 

We must add that in many cases the debt owed to the USDA was the accumulation of interest on debt
that the farmers had contested, which is why they went to court in the first place.  Therefore
if the farmer "won" in the lawsuit, he was forced to pay taxes on interest on what was
determined to be an illegal debt anyway.

However, if you read such stories as "Who Wants to be a Black Millionaire?: The untold story
of how USDA is handing out billions because of ‘racism’" at http://www.amren.com/whowants.htm,
you would think that the Black farmers got rich. This article brought out some interesting
"facts" about the lawsuit that we were not able to get directly but suspected. For
instance this February 2001 article stated, "It is highly significant that of the 11,932
claimants who had won so far, there were actual records of USDA loans for only 1,140 or 9.5 percent
of them. This means only a tiny minority of successful claimants had some kind of documented
borrowing relationship with USDA."

If this statement is true, and we believe that it is, it proves what the farmers have been saying
all along. The real Black farmers who suffered under discrimination from the USDA loan programs did
not get paid. Some Black people got paid, but they were not farmers. Instead most of the 3,000
farmers whose property was under the threat of foreclosure in 1997 were denied in this case and now
face foreclosure again with no legal right to fight, because they signed on to this consent decree.
And most of the real farmers who got paid did not owe a debt to the USDA. In other words this whole
process was a big government scam and cover up. 

Don’t forget that Al Pires did not allow the farmers to read the consent decree until he had sent
it to the court.  When the farmers read the document they went to Federal Court to protest
against it at the Fairness Hearing in March of 1999.  Judge Friedman signed the document even
though all the farmers were against it and everything that the farmers said would happen, happened.

The "system" took the license away from the Black lawyer most instrumental in
developing the case against the USDA, James Myart, then they brought in a former employee of the
Justice Department, Al Pires, to produce a consent decree with holes in it for the government to
slip through. Why? In later articles we will begin to document cases of outright fraud and
wickedness by USDA employees and county employees who stole land from the Black farmers and money
from the US government. If these Black farmers had a jury trial, their stories would not only make a
"brass monkey cry", but would have exposed crooks guilty of federal crimes who are still
alive with the money and deeds to stolen land in their hands.

Welcome to America: Land of the slaves, stolen by liars to their grave.

Peace, Doc