KingCast presents: Christopher King v. Citibank, MCAD 09BPA02502

MCAD 09BPA02502 King Citibank Carlo Caramanna-1 Dear Attorney Velella:

Your move, Counselor. I look forward to Citibank's position statement and explanation of why you denied me the right to open a bank account on 24 March, 2009. Of course, you're not worried. You've got video that substantiates your position, so I'm sure you'll be eager to share the video from all four (4) bank visits with MCAD.

Well whether you're eager to do it or not, you will.

See you soon.

Christopher King, J.D.

"White Privilege -- Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh:

13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the
appearance of financial reliability.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me
more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

Dear Attorney Velella: You are about to get your wish, and a public discussion and boycott to boot.

I'm filing with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) on Thursday, 24 September, 2009. Then you can produce for them the bank video and audio that you claim shows me to be acting in such a manner that would warrant your client refusing to open a bank account for me to cash Derrick Gillenwater's legal malpractice settlement check. And you can explain why you let my white girlfriend open such an account. And you can also furnish the other three (3) bank videos and audio including the express representations that your client would cash Mr. Gillenwater's check once he updated his state ID card.

And you can listen in online to Touch FM 106.1 at 8:30 a.m. on 8 October 2009 to listen to me discuss this case and urge a boycott of all of your client's banks.

In fact, you can tune in earlier -- at 8:00 that morning -- and listen to Boston Strangler Investigative writer Casey Sherman and me describe our respective attempts to put together the Truth about the Franconia NH shooting tragedy of 5/11 2007. Casey's book, "Bad Blood: Freedom and Death in the White Mountains" is published on 1 October 2009.

Touch FM does a lot of good things in the City of Boston, take a look.

Suggested reading:
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh

KingCast shares Ethnic Online Volume 1.

Ethnic Online: New England's Magazine for Ethnic Professionals. Here is my profile and here is the Editor's Note from Kaye Long.

Additionally we want to demonstrate to our youth that to be positively profiled in the media, you don’t have to be an athlete, rapper or entertainer….but there are other positive and rewarding skills that can be developed. Ethnic On-line will also become the “Ethnic Media” platform of choice for our many “corporate partners” for recruiting and retaining the best of the best of New England’s talented professionals along with the many products and services they have to offer.

I told you about this last week during my ride to visit my sister and family in Connecticut. As I said in the profile:

“Surround yourself with brilliant and dedicated people and believe in your dreams… because there are no guarantees in life but if you manage to keep on doing what you love, you have succeeded.”

PS: Of course to Citibank I am a threatening black man. That's okay. There will be MCAD, Federal Court and community discussions about all of that soon enough.

Citibank racism: KingCast receives transcript, asks for beer summit and consults Union of Minority Neighborhoods.org

Citibank racist 911 transcript KingCast seeks beer summit with 911 dispatcher to explain the facts that Citibank left out: The Citibank 911 transcript and my new racket came in this weekend, a Wilson Surge to replace the defective Wilson K Pro Tour that cracked. That's a responsible corporation, living up to its word on customer service. Citibank is anything but that, having even refused my request to open an account, then claiming that it was okay for them to threaten to arrest me and not cash a legal malpractice settlement check I would have deposited into my account for Derrick Gillenwater.

First of all a minor apology to Attorney Velella, as his letter claiming I swore prior to a 911 call is only partially incorrect -- it is however, entirely misleading:

The transcript I received (which will be scanned and linked by Monday -- in which Citibank convinces the dispatcher that our conduct was "outrageous") does not reflect the FIRST call to 911 that was made before our eyes at the teller window. Perhaps they did not connect with 911 but the threat of arrest was made at that time, even as I was asking the bank manager Carlo Carmanna to open an account in my name. He refused me for no lawful reason. I was fully qualified to open an account and cash Mr. Gillenwater’s check if the bank was going to refuse to cash it for a non-customer, which is questionable in the first instance because he was a Holder in Due Course with an instrument drawn on their bank.

Therefore, it was THAT call, plus the fact that the bank was:
a) reneging on its specific promise to pay the check once a new State Identification Card and birth certificate was provided as requested;
b) refusing to allow me to open a bank account even though I was most definitely qualified to open one, and even though they had opened an account for my Caucasian girlfriend., a violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981;
c) threatening to arrest me after I showed them the law of Your Style v. Mid Town Bank of Chicago, 501 N.E.2d 805 (1986).

Those facts did indeed cause me to call Carlo Caramanna a “Motherfucker,” but only AFTER he had dialed 911 and threatened to have us arrested.

It must be noted that given those circumstances there was nothing “outrageous” about us trying to cash the check that was drawn on Citibank. The dispatcher did not even ask that question and was playing lawyer making legal conclusions – based on the erroneous and incomplete representations issued by Citibank.

Let's be clear: I’m not blaming the 911 dispatcher, just offering to take him or her out to lunch and discuss what happened here -- although I'm certain the pigs at Citibank will try to say that I bought another racket to use it to threaten them or beat them up, you know that's how African-American men are. Dumb and Violent.

PS: It is pretty interesting that they description from the bank was all about “two African-american males,” and the female’s race was not even mentioned. They didn’t even get her hair colour right – it’s screaming red, not black – like Derrick and me.

That's why, in addition to initiating legal action in the next week or two, my lawyer and I will be contacting the Union of Minority Neighborhoods and Horace Small.

The mission of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods is to ensure that skilled, committed, grassroots leaders of color, effectively organize on issues of concern in their communities, regions and nation. Based in Boston, we bring our mission to life by:

Organizing
Developing new leaders
Building broad-based coalition
Our programs are constituent driven. Activists develop skills and then put these skills into practice by organizing on the issues that affect them.

Our goal is full civic engagement of people of color: no more second class citizenship, no more being a political afterthought, no more ineffective Black political leadership, no more needing well-meaning people speaking on our behalf.

The 5 pages of racist Citibank transcript are now available, a 42 U.S.C. 1981 lawsuit is next.

I'll be down at Schroeder Plaza in the next hour or so to pay my $15.00 to receive the five (5) page transcript from Citibank calling the police on us on 24 March, 2009 and accusing us of being "suspicious persons" as noted in the police report.

Next, I will post it, probably later this week they should provide the sacred documents to me.

Then we will file an ethics complaint against Attorney Benjamin Velella for willfully misrepresenting (read: lying) to my attorney about the sequence of events on 24 March, 2009 because he said I used profanity BEFORE Citibank called the police on us. The transcript and bank video (that he touted himself) will prove otherwise.

Then we will file a legal action against the bank and its representatives and sue the City of Boston for the actual audio of the recording. First we want to be certain the transcript is 100% accurate and the City has not yet told me the name of the company who performed the transcription even though I asked last week. Second, there's so much you lose in the inflection that a Jury should get to hear so they can determine the real reason why Citibank refused to open a bank account for a black man even though they opened one for a white woman, and why 42 U.S.C. 1981 applies in this case.

Here are some sample 42 U.S.C. 1981 Jury Instructions.

Boston Bob and Derrick Gillenwater seek Professor Ogletree's support for a Boston "Beer Summit" with Citibank regional President.

Greetings Professor Ogletree and staff:

We are not asking for legal help per se. The police will eventually provide us with the sought written transcript and we will sue for the actual audio transcript after that. We don't need your help with that.

However, we are asking you to support a meeting, not unlike the Cambridge/White House beer summit, involving Professor Gates, Officer Crowley and President Obama, where the individual litigants can come together before we proceed to litigation. I have found often though my legal practice and through other outreach programs that such meetings can indeed prove fruitful.

Can we arrange a time to meet to get your support for this meeting? Please write or call me in the next calendar week, because Mr. Gillenwater is finishing up his studio work and we are gearing up for some serious warfare, and once we start to publicly address the bank's wrongful dishonor of a check to a Holder in Due Course -- and to threaten arrest -- it's going to get ugly.

Very ugly.

Mr. Gillenwater and I will take care of the tab and the Top of the Hub at a lunch date of the President's choice.

cc: Chuck Turner

At Citibank "Suspicious people" include a Holder in Due Course, a lawyer and a local artist trying to cash a check drawn against Citibank itself!

10 August 2009 VIA FAX TRANSMITTAL

Dear Keeper of Records of the Office of Legal Advisor:

Please don’t waste the time it takes to give me an estimate for the short written transcript of the 911 call I requested via fax transmittal on 3 August, 2009. My income bracket as a telecommunications manager is such that I scarcely worry about that. I know by law you can charge a reasonable fee and that’s it. So when it is ready, just email me or write me or call me with the AMOUNT DUE and I will retrieve it that very day and blog it.

Next issue: Your correspondence to me included a three (3) page legal memoranda to an unspecified person that reiterated your right to redact certain information before passing on legal documents pursuant to a Right-to-Know request. At no point in time does that correspondence direct you to withhold the actual recording, if redacted, from the actual subject(s) of the phone call (i.e. me), yet that is what you are doing to me despite the fact that I explicitly told you to redact any inappropriate audio if you believe there is any.

I asked you in my last letter of 6 August, 2009 to affirmatively tell me your Final Answer as to whether you are going to provide the audio and your return letter sidestepped the issue and I don’t understand why? Providing me the audio does nothing to threaten any pending investigation because there is no pending investigation, the matter is closed (except for the Civil Litigation).

This is a yes or no question and I demand a yes or no answer, are we clear?

Last issue: I read in the redacted copy of the “Incident History” (soon to be scanned and posted) that we were “suspicious person(s).” How and when did we become “suspicious persons?” We had a Holder in Due Course/local musician, a telecommunications manager with a law degree (and former Assistant Attorney General) and a local artist whose work was featured on the 2009 Mass Art Auction flier. We presented case law on the wrongful dishonor of a check and requested that the bank honor the check that was drawn against it, seeing as proper Identification had been provided pursuant to discussion with the branch manager at Chinatown.

The local artist is not Patty Hearst and we are not the SLA. We did not try to steal money, we only came for what is rightfully Derrick’s. The Jury will understand the distinction, I feel.

Sincerely,

____________________________
Christopher King, J.D.

cc:

John N. Moore, Esq.
Benjamin Velella, Esq.
Charles Ogletree, Esq.
Barack Obama, Esq.
Professor Henry Louis Gates