Could Johnny Chisholm Be Banned From Circuit Party Promotions For Life?

At this moment, the answer appears to be yes. Indeed, indications are such a ban could be imposed relatively soon*.

This intriguing possibility arises due to the pending default motion against Chisholm in the Bardfield case. If you recall, one of the causes of action brought by Bardfield and Carver in their OMW lawsuit was for civil RICO violations, and it so happens a victorious litigant can not only win money damages under civil RICO, but under Florida law can also get permanent post-judgment injunctive relief as well.

We've already seen how powerful the pre-judgment injunctive relief under the Florida civil RICO statute can be: The freezing of Chisholm's bank accounts last June when the Bardfield lawsuit got underway. So what kind of permanent injunctive relief is available to RICO plaintiffs post-judgment? Well, according to Fla. Stat. 895.05(1):

OFFENSES CONCERNING RACKETEERING AND ILLEGAL DEBTS

895.05 Civil remedies.--

(1) Any circuit court may, after making due provision for the rights of innocent persons, enjoin violations of the provisions of s. 895.03 by issuing appropriate orders and judgments, including, but not limited to:

(a) Ordering any defendant to divest himself or herself of any interest in any enterprise, including real property.

(b) Imposing reasonable restrictions upon the future activities or investments of any defendant, including, but not limited to, prohibiting any defendant from engaging in the same type of endeavor as the enterprise in which the defendant was engaged in violation of the provisions of s. 895.03.

(c) Ordering the dissolution or reorganization of any enterprise.

(d) Ordering the suspension or revocation of a license, permit, or prior approval granted to any enterprise by any agency of the state.

(e) Ordering the forfeiture of the charter of a corporation organized under the laws of the state, or the revocation of a certificate authorizing a foreign corporation to conduct business within the state, upon finding that the board of directors or a managerial agent acting on behalf of the corporation, in conducting the affairs of the corporation, has authorized or engaged in conduct in violation of s. 895.03 and that, for the prevention of future criminal activity, the public interest requires the charter of the corporation forfeited and the corporation dissolved or the certificate revoked.

As you can see, courts have pretty sweeping authority under Florida RICO law to put an end to the corrupt practices of discovered racketeers. In particular, the "prohibiting any defendant from engaging in the same type of endeavor as the enterprise in which the defendant was engaged in violation of the provisions of" Florida racketeering laws.

And the enterprise Chisholm was engaged in when he defrauded DeForest, Bardfield and Carver was the production of circuit parties. So, if this default goes through and Chisholm is therefore found to be a racketeer, it is certainly within the power of the court to injunctively force Chisholm sell his interests in and/or dissolve his party corporations, to revoke his state business licences...it could even outright prohibit Chisholm from engaging in circuit party business endeavors, period.

So, you might ask, are Bardfield and Carver actually asking the court to slap Chisholm with such a prohibition on future party production endeavors?

And the answer is...YES they are. This from the pending default motion:

Now, it should be noted that even though the plaintiffs are asking for this ban, and the court can impose this ban, there is no guarantee the court will impose such a ban. It's up to the discretion of the court whether such a ban would be "appropriate" and "reasonable" under the circumstances. However, when you look at the circumstances....Chisholm's violations of the TRO (including at one point stuffing cash in a desk drawer to avoid depositing it into a frozen account), ignoring the lawsuit and "thumbing his nose" at numerous court orders for months, discovery violations, and supinely letting the case slide into default...they don't make a very good case for the court to show much leniency towards Chisholm when it comes to making this decision.

Indeed, if the court wanted to send Chisholm a message after months of these shenanigans on his part...such a permanent injunction would fit the bill nicely.

So, as a practical matter, what does this mean for the party-going public? Obviously, a bit of consumer protection wariness is called for, I'd say...it would be foolhardy, for example, to purchase advance tickets to an event that may in the near future be effectively cancelled by order of a Federal judge. You could end up not only losing your ticket money (as many did during the Chisholm fiasco of 2009) but also stuck with nonrefundable deposits at a "host" hotel that is no longer hosting anything (the notoriously inflexible policy of the Buena Vista Palace Hotel despite cancelled venues last year springs to mind).

So, as long as this ticking time bomb of a default motion is out there...caveat emptor, folks.

* See March 1, 2010 post: "Additionally, at the earliest possible time, this court anticipates entering a separate Report and Recommendation to the district court on Plaintiffs’ motion for default judgment against Defendant Chisholm."