Thank you all for being behind us, but the judge who has the power to help us turned us down, let us down, and gavel us down!
“The Community Members and other individuals submitting victim impact statements have identified the following illnesses and other medical conditions from which they claim they have suffered (or currently suffer) as a result of CITGO’s crimes: several types of cancer, including cancer of the brain, nose, colon, throat, prostate, breast, ovaries, and thyroid, as well as chronic lymphoma; various “heart problems,” including heart attacks, heart disease, and irregular heartbeat; chronic sinus infections and sinusitis; respiratory issues, including COPD, lung infections, asthma, bronchitis, upper respiratory infections, emphysema, pneumonia, and collapsed lung; general “stomach problems,” as well as gastroenteritis, severe diarrhea, and a flesh-eating bacterial infection leading to a hole in the abdomen; various mental health issues, including nervous breakdown, general “mental disorders”, anxiety, depression, stress, memory problems, and blackouts; lung, liver, kidney, thyroid, and eye “problems”; and nearly two dozen other health issues, including sclerma, epilepsy, chronic migraines, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, diabetes, earaches, cysts in the breast and brain, kidney stones, hair loss, neuropathy, shingles, muscle spasms, brain tumor, cataracts, liver disease, anemia, tremors, chronic laryngitis, vocal cord “pallets”, and the inability to have children.”
Determining whether these or any other illnesses the 800+ victims may develop 5, 10, 20, or even 30 years from now were proximately caused by exposure to Tanks 116 and 117 would require that the Court examine medical records; hear testimony by experts regarding chemical exposure, causation, and loss calculations; and allow CITGO to cross-examine each individual seeking a payout to determine whether emissions from Tanks 116 and 117 between January 1994 and May 2003 caused the loss—effectively turning each request for a payout into a mini personal injury case.
This “could easily extend the sentencing phase longer than any trial and would require complex—and to some inevitable extent, speculative—calculation.” BP Products, 610 F. Supp. at 700–01.
As such, the Court finds that the “magnitude of expected future harm can[not] be reasonably estimated” and that the “complication and prolongation of the sentencing process resulting from the fashioning of an order of restitution” for future medical expenses “outweighs the need to provide restitution to any victims.” See 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(1)(B)(ii); U.S.S.G. §8B1.2(b). The Community Members’ request for a remedial order directing CITGO to create a trust fund in the amount of $11,000,000.00 to cover future medical expenses is therefore DENIED. Quoted from Rainey’s 4/30/2014 MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER.
The Community Members first ask for $80,900.00 in restitution for “necessary medical screening”, explaining that they were exposed to what the Government has called a “chemical cocktail” from Tanks 116 and 117 and therefore need to monitor their health. According to the Case 2:06-cr-00563 Document 962 Filed in TXSD on 04/30/14 Page 7 of 20 Community Members, annual medical screening is necessary to allay their fears that they may suffer from cancer or other diseases because CITGO placed them criminally at risk, and the fact that the identity of the chemicals to which they were exposed is unknown further exacerbates this need.
Restitution is permissible for “necessary medical and related professional services” where a criminal offense results in “bodily injury to a victim”. 18 U.S.C. § 3663(b)(2)(A). Assuming the short-term health effects suffered by the Community Members and other similarly-situated victims constitute “bodily injury” under the statute, before ordering restitution for medical monitoring, the Court must determine whether medical monitoring is necessary for each person making such a request, as well as the cost of such screening.
The Parties have had ample time to present such evidence to the Court, and to allow them even more time to do so would unduly delay the sentencing process. The Court further finds that the “complication and prolongation of the sentencing process resulting from the fashioning of an order of restitution” for medical monitoring “outweighs the need to provide restitution to any victims.” See 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(1)(B)(ii). The Community Members’ request for $80,900.00 in restitution for “necessary medical screening” is therefore DENIED.
Despite their testimonies under oath in open court, you denied every request for restitution they deserve. How could you even turn down their minimum request for annual medical checkup and/or screening for $250.00?
Your denial is inexcusable in that it was John D. Rainey, who slept on these crime victims’ rights by delaying the sentencing for seven years after the jury’s guilty verdict rendered on June 27, 2007.
If you cannot handle a case like this, how can you handle class actions involving thousands of victims?
According to your argument, in all class actions, the Courts would find that the “complication and prolongation of the sentencing process resulting from the fashioning of an order of restitution” for compensatory and punitive damages “outweighs the need to provide restitution to any victims.”
As a federal judge, your ignorance, ineptness, incompetence, maliciousness, insensitivity, and deliberate indifference to the crime victims’ rights have made you the laughingstock of the whole world!
TO BE CONTINUED.
Paul Chen
* Click Images for judge skipper koetter’s corruption, and you will see 12 photos. Click any one of them, wait awhile, and it will take you to 82 images linking to my BLOG. Have these given you sleepless nights, Skipper and John?