Creature of Habit, the RTumpster Is -- Spy Magazine -- 11/1986

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WILL TRUMP GET SPANKED?

by M. Connor

THANKSGIVING APPROACHES.

Where should gratitude be affixed? As far as we’re concerned, any setback encountered by casino operator Donald Trump is providential, always cause for merrymaking. And in a little-known court case, the litigious Trump, we hope, may be punished for filing a federal lawsuit in bad faith.

Sixteen years ago Congress enacted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), a law that invented a new federal crime called racketeering. The intent of RICO was to make it easier to prosecute mobsters, which it has done. But the RICO act also had a provision that permitted the bringing of civil RICO suits by private parties.

Just before Christmas last year, Trump had his lawyer, Richard Golub (Mr. Marisa Berenson), file a civil RICO suit against the perfectly respectable law firm of Fischbein, Olivieri, Rozenholc and (Herman) Badillo—the firm that had, in a highly publicized case, successfully represented the tenants of an apartment building Trump owns at 100 Central Park South. “1 don’t like being pushed around," Trump said at the time, “and now they're beginning to learn it."

Trump essentially argued that the opposing lawyers were racketeers because they opposed him--that their intention to “prevent, frustrate and inhibit" him from making larger profits by evicting the tenants constituted "extortion." A New York federal court told Trump to get lost, dismissing his case.

Last spring the U.S. Court of Appeals tor the Second Circuit affirmed that decision. Now pending in district court is a motion by Fischbein, Olivieri asking that a Trump company and its lawyers be sanctioned tor violating Rule 11 of the federal rules of civil procedure.

Rule 11 prohibits lawyers from instituting, on behalf of their clients, civil suits that are filed "to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation." If Trump loses, the court could order him to pay the legal expenses incurred by Fischbein, Olivieri.

Happily, the tide now seems to be running against Trump. The U.S, Department of Justice has come out in favor of forbidding civil RICO suits like Trump’s. And Congress seems about to do just that, by amending the law so that it permits civil suits only against convicted criminals.


https://archive.org/details/SpyMagazine/Spy%20Magazine%201986-1998/1986/1986-11-NOV/page/n47/mode/1up?view=theater

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