Slavery in Modern America: Abuse of Court Power and Government Agencies
Tags: Politics, Police, America, Corruption, Justice

Image by Klaus Hausmann from Pixabay

When we think of state-sponsored persecutions, many of us conjure up authoritarian regimes in nondemocratic nations. Rarely do we think of America. Consider one American, Internet pioneer Jeff Baron, who has been the subject of a tyrannical “civil lockdown” for the last ten years while the U.S. judicial system attempts to cover it up.

Who is Jeff Baron?

Jeff Baron

Jeff Baron was born in Detroit, Michigan, before relocating to Dallas, Texas, in 1980. In middle school, Jeff took an interest in computers, specifically the then-new Apple operating system invented by his idol Steve Jobs. However, due to Jeff being a kid and the expensive nature of home computers at the time, his parents would never get a computer. He would go on to attend Pearce High School in a Dallas suburb. Jeff would stay in state to attend college at the University of Texas. He would use one of his student loans to buy one of his first Macintosh computers. While Baron was interested in computers, he ultimately decided to major in business and only took a single introductory computer class. He was one of the few persons to use computer modems and computer bulletin boards- the precursor to the internet. Following his graduation summa cum laude honors, he started a small computer consulting business from his apartment and then worked for the Mary Kay Corporation. Mary Kay was one of the first companies to have access to the internet. Jeff would use this opportunity to enlist himself in classes to have access to a tool that few people at the time had an interest in.

While using the internet, Baron was intrigued by the thought of using internet domain names as the web’s real estate. The only issue is that he did not have programming experience nor had the money to pay professionals. Baron began to read computer programming books and eventually self-taught himself to code. The only help he had was guidance from a university professor he befriended. With less than $100, he would invent software to register internet domain names. In 2000, Jeff left Mary Kay to start his own company, Ondova, which got its name from being easy to type on a keyboard as home computers were still a new fad. By the early 2000s, his company would become a significant success placing him into wealth. Jeff did not use his newfound cash to spend on fancy cars and houses; instead, he focused most of his income to fund type 1 diabetes research. Doctors diagnosed him with juvenile type 1 diabetes at three years old, and growing up with the disease would be a primary inspiration and driver for Jeff in later life to find a cure for the millions who suffer from it.

The Venture Deal

Jeff’s vision was to build infrastructure to create a secondary Internet backbone. Accomplishing that would require massive domain name registrations, and that became Jeff’s expertise. By 2001, Jeff was well along the way to his goal, and his business was financially successful. His technology had achieved worldwide acclaim and accreditation by the Internet Corporation and Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). He had acquired ownership of the building blocks for the secondary Internet backbone.

In 2001, Baron received a life-changing call from a man named Rohit Krishan. He told Baron that his brother Munish Krishan already owned callingcards.com and would like to purchase phonecards.com domain names. Baron, however, told Rohit that phonecards.com was not for sale. Throughout the next several months, Munish contacted Baron multiple times to buy the domain name until the two finally agreed to a leasing agreement for phonecards.com. This agreement between the two was very successful, netting a large profit for Jeff. The initial deal’s success would be the spark that led him to trust Krishan. In 2003, Baron wanted to expand his corporate reach with searchguide.com, a competitor to a rapidly growing tech company called Google. Krishan promised Jeff that he had a team of developers that could complete such a task. This promise, however, ended up broken. The two entered into an agreement with Krishan responsible for the technology’s future development, but Krishan’s squad was utterly unsuccessful. Failure of the search engine led Jeff to re-focus on the secondary internet backbone and his domain name and registration business while Krishan tried to bring the search engine infrastructure back to life.

By 2005, the two met attorney Elizabeth Schurig (now Elizabeth L. Morgan), who convinced Baron that she was a good hire through her professional accolades. Schurig constructed a deal that split the earnings from the software the two developed together 50/50. Jeff would keep all profits generated with his software and domain names. He designated this newfound wealth into a nonprofit juvenile diabetes research organization as the final beneficiary of all his business assets. Schurig’s legal deal, however, was the occurrence of the first red flag. Unknown to Jeff at the time, the structure’s design was reportedly intentionally confusing and placed Adrian Taylor, a trustee and lawyer who had a very close relationship with her. This deal’s design allowed her to control everything without her officially being on the record as the person in control. Under this contract, Schurig could call this trustee to hire her law firm and demand a specific payment amount. Even if Jeff objected, the document would overrule any disagreement if the trustee had agreed and signed off. As part of the deal, the venture was supposed to join forces with Google since Krishan still had not sufficiently developed the search engine as promised. Another aspect of Schurig’s plan spun off Ondova, and the diabetes research trust became the owner of most of Jeff’s business. Munish would then meet with Google but would enter agreements under his own company, Netsphere, instead of the joint venture. His financial control grew more as Baron battled significant health issues, so Krishan became the business’s face with Google as a key contact.

How The Deal Went South

Unknown to Baron, Krishan had a record of theft and forgery felonies while making millions from his pornography website, freesex.com. During this time, Baron hired general counsel Samantha Clark to perform in-house legal work instead of paying big legal firms. However, Clark would outsource her job to lawyer John MacPete and his law firm. This outsourcing was a stab in the back because Baron had hired her to precisely cut legal costs from costly firms like MacPete’s. As friction in this relationship developed, she and MacPete then reportedly went to Krishan to convince him that he should get rid of Jeff and pay them over a million dollars to craft a litigation strategy to divest Jeff of his business ownership. Clark and MacPete allegedly reasoned that paying them large fees was a good investment if it meant that they could end up with Jeff’s assets. They would strategize on dissecting Schurig’s business structuring and craft a convoluted, fraudulent story centered around claiming that Krishan owned Baron’s assets and business.

After the plan, Krishan sent Baron an email stating that he had psoriasis, a skin disease causing rashes with a picture attachment, and would need to take some time off from work to recover. He further explained how he would need Jeff to assist his relatives that were aiding some of the projects on his side. However, suspicion grew when Krishan’s family members working with Jeff refused to allow him to speak with Krishan. The family members insisted that Krishan was very sick and needed time to recover. Months later, Baron would find out that Krishan had misled, looted, and misappropriated company assets to further his business while using his family as a tool to separate himself from any fraud or criminal allegations. He further discovered that while supposedly being on “medical leave,” Krishan had embezzled nearly ten million dollars, depleting all the cash accounts, and was diverting all its future revenues.

This discovery would lead Krishan, MacPete, and Clark to spring their litigation scheme with Krishan (and his proxies) filing six legal proceedings against Jeff between 2006 and 2009. During these two years, Krishan never won a single trial or hearing. Jeff came to realize that Munish kept filing lawsuits, not in an effort to claim victory but to break Jeff and his company down financially, attempting to cause Jeff to collapse.

One of Munish’s lawsuits claimed that hundreds of thousands of domain names that Baron registered belonged to him and his family, not Jeff. The repeated false accusations tarnished Jeff and his business’s reputation and relationships. Munish’s diversion of Jeff’s revenue left him with millions of dollars in monthly domain name registration fees without funds to pay them. In Jeff’s business operations, he was required to pay over half a million dollars a month to keep his domain names registered. In addition, Krishan’s multiple bogus legal claims forced Jeff to pay increasingly large sums of money to lawyers to defend against the harassing lawsuits.

After evading testifying, Munish was ordered by the court to sit for a deposition or be fined $50,000 per day. This order caused Munish to come to the settlement table. Ondova and Krishan’s company, Netsphere, reached settlement terms, which would give Jeff $50 million and releases on any claims Krishan had on Jeff’s assets. In return, Krishan received the assets the two had created together. However, this settlement would not be formally signed as MacPete reportedly interfered, stating that something was wrong with the agreement and needed to be fixed.

The breakdown in settlement efforts forced Jeff back into litigation, having to defend multiple lawsuits across the country simultaneously. Ultimately, Baron would file a lawsuit in Dallas, Texas, to have a court declare the domain names’ rightful owner. Despite multiple frivolous attempts by Krishan, Jeff would pay off the legal fees in a few months. After settlement negotiations broke down, Krishan would file yet another lawsuit against Baron and Ondova. This case would be assigned to federal judge Royal Furgeson who had just moved to Dallas. Judge Furgeson is most known for the lawsuit that he filed on his behalf against the United States of America, insisting he and his fellow judges did not receive enough salary seeking himself and other judges to be paid more taxpayer money.

Faced with more litigation, Jeff would hire lawyers Charla Aldous and Jeffrey Rasansky. After a few weeks of work, those lawyers, determining that they were unqualified to handle Jeff’s litigation, would resign. Even though Aldous and Rasansky worked for a short time for Jeff, it was long enough for them to become aware of his property’s enormous value. Promptly after resigning, Aldous and Rasansky would demand $7 million from Jeff as a “fee” and threatened to “intervene” against Jeff in his case unless he immediately paid. Unknown to Jeff at that time, Aldous had a special connection to Judge Furgeson — Aldous’s partner is Judge Furgeson’s brother-in-law.

After these threats, leaked emails show several attorneys –Charla Aldous, Jeff Rasansky, and Jerry Mason exchanging emails wishing physical harm against Jeff. Emails sent between the group includes a strategy to disclose confidential information to damage Jeff’s case. This email showcases plans to intervene in the trial, laughing while talking about how they should have physically assaulted him. They went on to call Jeff a whiny baby for fighting back against fallacious claims. Attorney Jason Mason sent an email saying that he planned to hire a prostitute to go to Baron’s residence and assault him. In another email, Mason asks Aldous whether she has killed him, to which Aldous replies, “not yet.” Then he would say that the internet pioneer should have joined the marines and go to Afghanistan. The other lawyers gave a response of agreement. After the exchanges of emails, they discussed who owes each other drinks.

Aldous and Rasansky then made good on their threat to intervene in Jeff’s case. Judge Furgeson denied Jeff an opportunity even to object. It appeared that the Aldous-Furgeson connection was improper. This intervention would be the beginning of the many problems Jeff would face. This discovery would be the beginning of the many issues Jeff would face.

Judge Royal Furgeson

Judge Royal Furgeson

Aldous, having quit, and Jeff without a lawyer, it was nearly impossible for Jeff to find a replacement lawyer to represent him on such short notice and in such a hostile environment. The only lawyer who would agree was Dallas lawyer Larry Friedman. Public records show that Friedman has a notoriously infamous reputation and that Jeff had few if any alternatives.

Official court transcripts of the very first hearing show a confused and deranged judge who was fixated on Jeff’s earned wealth and how he could re-distribute it to lawyers. After threatening to put Jeff’s business into a “receivership” because Jeff could not recall detailed specifics about one of the hundreds of thousands of domain names, judge Furgeson observed, “Apparently, there is a lot of money to be had here.” Furgeson then unexplainably began praising lawyers, and oddly ordered 100% of the $500,000 per month in Jeff’s corporate revenues to be indefinitely diverted in equal parts to Friedman and Krishan. Furgeson offered little explanation or basis for why he did this and did not provide Jeff with any opportunity to object to his company’s destruction.

Friedman refused Jeff’s request to object to the devastating order and repeatedly threatened Jeff if he attempted in any way to seek relief from it.

These events would be explained in court filings as follows:

“Jeff Baron hired Friedman and paid him *in full* his requested fee. Friedman, however, saw an opportunity. He used his position to have the court bypass his contract with Jeff and order that he be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. Friedman had the Court order 50% of the income of Jeffs company (Ondova), to be paid to Friedman’s trust account. (The other 50% went to the plaintiff). With 100% of its [i]income diverted, Ondova went bankrupt.”

Judge Stacey Jernigan

Although Ondova filed for Chapter `11 bankruptcy, the rest of Jeff’s business did not and were not affected. Furgeson’s close colleague Stacy Jernigan was appointed bankruptcy judge in Ondova’s case. The bankruptcy was filed under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code to protect it against the diversion of its funds to Friedman and Krishan. This protection further enraged Furgeson, accusing Jeff of trying to escape his jurisdiction. Transcripts show that Furgeson and Jernigan worked in tandem, often discussed Jeff’s case, and even had at least one hearing where both judges sat on the same bench and issued joint rulings. Ondova’s bankruptcy left Baron financially and legally constrained. Furgeson continued to make threats to put Jeff and the rest of his business into receivership, which would allow Furgeson to appoint someone to take custody of Jeff’s property, business, rents, and profits without any legal basis or evidence of any wrongdoing. Judge Furgeson shouted in court,

“You realize the order is the court’s order. So, any failure to comply with that order is contempt, punishable by lots of dollars, punishable by possible jail, death.”

After Baron’s lawyer suggested that the court may not have the jurisdiction to enforce the court’s directive, Furgeson made a more direct threat:

“You want to challenge the court order I have the marshals behind me. I can come to your house, pick you up, put you in jail. I can seize your property; do anything I need to do to enforce my orders. I’m telling you don’t screw with me. You are a fool, a fool, a fool, a fool to screw with a federal judge, and if you don’t understand that, I can make you understand it. I have the force of the Navy, Army, Marines and Navy behind me.”

Peter Vogel

During this hearing, Furgeson appointed Peter Vogel, a colleague, and co-blogger of his, as a “special master” judge. He was delegated authority to issue orders and directives on behalf of the court on topics assigned to him by Furgeson. Furgeson ordered Jeff to pay Vogel’s fees. However, these appointments were unlawful because Vogel was not an “indifferent person” as required by law. Vogel was a long-time-adversary of Baron. Several years before the lawsuits with Krishan began, Jeff met with Vogel and his law firm. Munish’s software was causing legal problems for Jeff’s business, and he sought to hire Vogel and his firm for advice and legal representation. Before meeting Munish, Jeff hand-selected his registered domain names choosing names that reflected goods, services, and public interests. For example, Jeff identified names like servers.com, rewards.com, and bunkbeds.com and registered them for his business.

In contrast, Munish’s software was automated and did not identify any specific domain names prior. Instead, the software used massive internet search data reflecting global internet users’ interest and registered those names without any filter for undesirable names. Just as internet users mostly search for goods, services and public interest, some internet users search for things like gambling, pornography and misspellings of other companies’ websites (for example, Aple.com). Although no websites would be established at these undesirable names, the mere fact that the domain names were registered to Jeff began to tarnish his reputation. Jeff disclosed all of this to Vogel and his law firm and asked for advice on fixing these problems of “infringing” domain names.

Approximately a year after receiving the data, Vogel’s law firm sued Baron and Ondova on behalf of the two of their clients, using the information that Baron shared with Vogel’s firm in confidence. Vogel’s firm sued Jeff for “infringement” and registering, selling, or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else’s trademark, also known as “cybersquatting” — the exact subject that he sought from them in confidence. Then, Vogel’s firm engaged another client to sue Baron and Ondova, using the same information. One of Vogel’s partners in the lawsuit was Barry Golden, the same lawyer that would eventually represent Vogel in Judge Furgeson’s court in his persecution of Jeff.

After meeting with Judge Furgeson, Judge Jernigan ordered Jeff’s removal from operating his company and replacing him with a trustee, Daniel “Corky” Sherman. Sherman is a lawyer and close colleague of Jernigan. In a Chapter 11 case, replacing an owner with a bankruptcy trustee usually is only done in unusual circumstances because it dramatically increases costs and can harm the business. Soon after Sherman was appointed as trustee, Jernigan began to allow Sherman near unlimited access to use Ondova’s money to pay himself and his lawyers. According to court documents, Jernigan allowed this access by teaming up with Sherman to enable attorney fee overbilling at the expense of Ondova’s creditors and owner.

Reportedly, Vogel and Sherman gave Baron an ultimatum. That is, they informed Baron that they would continue to bleed Ondova and Baron unless Baron agreed to a settlement that they had negotiated with Krishan. That settlement would have Jeff releasing many of his claims against Krishan, Krishan paying Jeff a fraction of the $50 million previously agreed, and Jeff using that money to fund Sherman and the Ondova bankruptcy, which, in turn, would pay any legitimate creditors. In exchange for Jeff doing this, Sherman and Vogel agreed to have all of the litigation dismissed and to give Onodova back to Jeff with a million dollars in operating funds. This proposed settlement would also leave Jeff’s diabetes research trust with all of its assets, including all of the domain names — and perhaps most importantly — would eliminate the need for Jeff to keep paying lawyers.



Reluctantly, Jeff agreed, and in late 2010, the case completely settled. The settlement agreement included a “stipulated dismissal” of all lawsuits, including the case in Judge Furgeson’s court. Sherman held the dismissal document and agreed to file it in the Court. By September 2010, Jeff fulfilled all his obligations under the settlement terms, including funding Sherman and the Ondova bankruptcy estate over 2 million dollars. At this point, Sherman had nearly three times the amount of money to pay all creditor claims in the bankruptcy estate, including the fees billed by himself and his lawyers. The bankruptcy case was about to come to an end — or so it seemed.

However, Sherman’s representations would be a ruse.

Instead of complying with the settlement, Sherman and Vogel would manufacture excuses to keep the court cases open, enabling them to continue billing. Records show that they ran a fallacious narrative that involved contacting Jeff’s former personal attorneys and soliciting them to make dishonest claims against Baron and Ondova. To make this possible, Sherman teamed up with Jernigan to extend the claims due date, which had long passed. Sherman, Vogel, and Jernigan ignored the fact that the lawyers were paid in full according to their contract and proceeded to push Jeff’s attorneys to make fictitious claims. These claims allowed Sherman to continue to bill for attorney fees and drain money from Ondova and the legitimate creditors.

Then, Sherman began to create more false controversies, blaming each on Jeff. Court records show Sherman alleging problem after problem and then requesting large attorney fees for the alleged work for “fixing” them. He claimed that Jeff was causing so many problems that Sherman and his lawyers were forced to continue their “work.”

This narrative resulted in Sherman and Vogel’s dramatically increased legal fee billing — which continues to date — and enabled them to divert money from going to Jeff to themselves. Jernigan encouraged the behavior and enabled Sherman to avoid paying any creditors or returning Ondova to Jeff. Jernigan and Sherman would use their power to open Ondova’s accounts, including the million-dollar surplus funded by Jeff, to pay Sherman’s fees and those of his private lawyers. Eventually, they would empty the entire bankruptcy estate with their billing without paying the creditors’ or Jeff even a penny.

Before that would happen, Jernigan made a “Report and Recommendation” to Judge Furgeson that he should employ Vogel to mediate the alleged disputes that she and Sherman had created. Blaming this self-created controversy on Baron, Vogel, and Sherman then falsely stated that Jeff refused to mediate and was “hiring and firing dozens of lawyers.” Sherman used this “controversy” as another excuse to request Jernigan to approve more payments of attorney fees. This time, Baron filed an objection in the Court to Sherman’s overbilling of $300,000, arguing that the case should be over and the massive lawyer billings should cease.

Not happy with this situation, Sherman conferred with Vogel, and on November 24, 2010, had a private, undisclosed meeting with Judge Furgeson. At the meeting, the judge immediately appointed Vogel as a “receiver” over Jeff, personally, and stripped Jeff of all his property and civil/constitutional rights. The judge reasoned that Jeff supposedly “delaying” the bankruptcy and “hiring and firing lawyers” justified him stripping Jeff of his civil rights and property.

These violations against Jeff’s constitutional rights resemble the controversial civil asset forfeiture laws, a law enforcement mechanism on a federal, state, and local level to lawfully seize the property or money of individuals they suspect of being involved in a crime. In contrast, 59% of Americans oppose “allowing law enforcement agencies to use forfeited property or its proceeds for their own use.” A report by the U.S. Department of Justice documents that the U.S. has 16,198 assets seized on hand valued at $2.86 billion as of September 30, 2019. The difference is that Furgeson’s receivership order is completely illegal under the current law and is far more extreme. Most importantly, no institution has used this ruling against a human since the end of slavery in 1865. At the meeting or immediately after that, Judge Furgeson would enter the order doing just that, potentially setting a new legal precedent to impose human receiverships.

The devastating news would hit Jeff that evening when Vogel emailed Jeff with a copy of the order and demanded Jeff’s “full compliance” Vogel immediately fired Jeff’s only lawyer. Meanwhile, Vogel’s lawyer, Barry Golden, followed up with another threatening email to Jeff, emphasizing that Judge Furgeson’s order gives Vogel:

“exclusive control over, any, and all receivership parties, which term shall include Jeffrey Baron,”

Baron was forbidden under threat of contempt and jail to acquire legal representation, including help from an attorney. The same order also stripped the self-made internet pioneer of all his possessions. These possessions include his home, car, and bank accounts while forbidding him from having a job, earning money, hiring legal counsel, or engaging in commerce. Also, according to the records, Judge Furgeson also ordered Jeff to be confined to his district. By this order, The Federal Court became the owner of all of Jeff’s present and future possessions and civic/human rights.

These restrictions mean that the United States justice system has effectively stripped away several of Baron’s constitutional rights, including his right to be represented by a lawyer, right to secure against all unreasonable search and seizure, right to due process of the law before being denied life, liberty, or property, and the right to be tried before a jury. Baron’s Fourth, Fifth, Seventh Amendment rights have been away.

Vogel had “exclusive control” over Jeff and his rights — there were no exceptions. Jeff was prohibited from even speaking in court. The order meant that Vogel was the only person authorized to represent Jeff’s interest in any court. In addition, Judge Furgeson’s order made Jeff “property” of his court, like how slaves were bought and sold in America before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. New York attorney David Relkin was shocked after reviewing the case and told the press,

“The only accurate analogy to Baron’s situation while under the Receiver’s control is that he became an inmate at Guantanamo Bay.”

Jeff, however, was not accused of a crime.

The order was illegal in many ways. First, it made Vogel a special master, mediator, and now receiver all at the same time — creating apparent conflicts of interest. Second, the order stripped Jeff of all his human rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. Third, it deprived Jeff of all his property — past, present, and future — without due process. This order violated the Fifth and Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, not to mention that Jeff was not afforded a hearing and forbidden to be represented by legal counsel.

A few hours after the order was entered, Sherman filed a “motion to appoint receiver” to conceal that the order was entered during an undisclosed meeting. This procedure is also illegal.

Backed by Furgeson and Jernigan, Vogel took the position that he had the “exclusive right” to speak for Jeff, despite Jeff’s interest being opposed to Vogel’s. Vogel assumed Jeff’s identity in court, and Jeff was prohibited from representing himself while also being banned from hiring a lawyer.

As part of assuming Jeff’s identity, Vogel opened bank accounts in Jeff’s name using Jeff’s social security number and made himself the only authorized signor on the account. Now, Vogel could operate all of Jeff’s business and personal affairs, masquerading as Jeff. At the same time, Jeff was forbidden under threat of jail for interfering with any of Vogel’s acts. Vogel signed checks with Jeff’s name as payer, as though he was Jeff. When presented with Judge Furgeson’s order, the banks that Jeff was forced into transferring Jeff’s money to the Vogel controlled accounts with Baron’s name printed on the checks.

Now in full control of all of Jeff’s legal rights, Vogel — in an apparent quid pro quo — withdrew Jeff’s objection to Sherman’s abusive billing, purporting to do so on behalf of Jeff. He then declared that as the holder of Jeff’s rights, he would not object to any of Sherman’s future actions. Jeff was forbidden from exercising any rights in court and was banned from speaking in court or objecting to anything Vogel did on Jeff’s behalf.

This would allow Sherman would take over $600,000 at the time (to this date, it is nearly $4 million total) and would enable Sherman’s counterpart, Vogel, to steal nearly $2 million in a little over six months by charging approximately $10,000 a day in bogus fees.

Court transcripts show that the various judges and lawyers used intense intimidation, attempting to coerce Jeff into submission and capitulation, but Jeff pressed on — he had no choice. With this unchecked arrangement, Sherman and his lawyers would dramatically increase their frivolous attorney fees to empty the estate, which Jeff had funded via the settlement agreement. Sherman would use his power to clean out Ondova’s accounts, including the million-dollar surplus, and eventually bill nearly $4 million in attorney fees. Now almost nine years later, he still has not closed the case.

By their side, with Sherman, Vogel and his partners charged approximately $10,000 per day in bogus fees and were able to steal nearly $2 million in a little over six months.

After learning about Jeff’s case, “volunteer lawyers,” Gary Schepps and Shawn Frazin would resist Judge Furgeson’s order. He would file documents with the court explaining:

“This Court seems intent on moving forward with setting up a

kangaroo court with Mr. Vogel acting on behalf of this court as prosecutor and judge. Accordingly, Mr. Baron needs access to his money to hire experienced trial counsel to defend each of the ‘claims’ solicited by the prosecutor/judge receiver.”

While being a virtuous act by the two lawyers, unknown to Baron at the time, the two lawyers had a murky 20-year past, including stealing their clients’ property, an act that Jeff soon experienced in the future.

Schepps’ appeal enraged Judge Furgeson, who saw it as a violation of his order and rejected Schepps’ plea. The order also forced Baron to choose between his right to privacy concerning his private medical care and the ability to obtain that care. As documented by district court files, Jeff could not access $2,000 of his own money to pay his insurance deductible necessary to receive care. The only way he would be allowed to do so is to give away his rights to doctor/patient privacy. In this case, he would have disclosed his treating doctors’ identities to Vogel, along with medical and physician reports. Due to Baron’s type 1 diabetes and other health problems, which required continuous medication and cared to survive, the only real choice was to receive medical care. This decision prompted Vogel to request a court order to control the doctors who would examine and treat Baron. Furgeson did not grant his request. However, Furgeson did grant a right to appoint and force Jeff to see a psychiatrist to gain mental health reports that could potentially be used Jeff against him to create a new avenue for making Vogel Jeff’s master. This effort ultimately failed after the psychiatrist refused to comply with the plans of the court.

In 2012, this clear abuse of power was reported to the Federal Ethics Center in Washington, D.C. On April 9, 2012, the F.E.C. sent out a letter to approximately 300 members of Congress documenting the court’s corruption. It notes that:

“Judge W. Royal Furgeson, Jr., in coordination with 5th Circuit bankruptcy judge Stacey G.C. Jernigan, acted ultra vires in limiting the rights of U.S. citizen Jeff Baron, including expressly and strangely barring him from legal counsel in defense of an unlawful receivership proceeding against his financial interests and individual freedom, even threatening Mr. Baron with “death” by means of the combined forces of the United States Military.”

This message to Congress went ignored mainly as the email received little response, and no action was taken. However, in a now-archived article from Texas Insider, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, an authority on judicial corruption, called for Judge Furgeson’s impeachment, stating:

“I’ve found case after case after case where our judiciary is being used and misused, whether it be politicians misusing the courts to stop people from giving money to campaigns, or this [Jeff Baron’s] situation where the federal government, through the federal judiciary, has illegally confiscated someone’s property and destroyed their lives because they have a vendetta against them.”

Jeff would also report this abuse to various government agencies such as the United States Department of Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Even with numerous attorneys and politicians pointing out the blatant nature of the corruption, Furgeson, along with his partners, would not see any form of punishment.

At this point, Jeff was now a slave to the United States Federal Court, yet never accused of any crime. Furgeson, Sherman, and Vogel later offered justification for punishing Jeff, alleging that he had been changing lawyers too frequently and deemed him a “vexatious litigant,” an individual who files multiple failed lawsuits without legitimate focus and representation from a lawyer. However, Jeff did not fit this definition as he had never lost a case and was always represented by a lawyer. According to documents, Jeff only changed lawyers with specific approval and authorization by the court.

After it became clear that the receivership grounds were unlawful, Vogel, Sherman, and Ferguson created another justification for the order. They then claimed that Jeff allegedly did not pay enough money to “many attorneys.” At the same time, Vogel and Sherman repeatedly solicited lawyers to file false claims for fees to bolster their accusations against Jeff.

The court documents state that Vogel and Sherman,

“actively solicited hundreds of attorneys to make ‘claims’. In the end, two dozen did. My [Schepps] first effort was to find some legitimate claims we could concede to establish some credibility with the court. I could not find a single one. Jeff paid his attorneys per their engagement agreements.”

Most of these lawyers never worked for Jeff, but the group still claimed that Baron hired and fired “dozens of attorneys” while also refusing to pay them. When it became clear that these accusations were not enough to justify their illegal human receivership, the lawyers created additional false charges. The lawyers would then allege that Jeff is involved in a “Ponzi Scheme.” These claims, however, were false as Jeff’s lawyers, who did represent him, received full payment.

The court would then appoint Gary Schepps to review Sherman and Vogel’s accusations against Jeff; however, Judge Furgeson refused to allow Schepps to be paid for any work. After reviewing the situation, Schepps contacted David Tombers from World Net Daily, asserting that the court had acted unlawfully along with Vogel and Sherman. He wrote, stating that the two have been committing acts of fraud and abuse against Baron for years. Schepps went on to expose their scheme against Jeff, saying:

“The claims and we’ve document this clearly, are 100% fabricated garbage. Notice the huge number of attorneys that somehow can’t find their contracts and all claim $300/hour fees. Their invoices and letters to other lawyers, however, showed they were working for $40/hour or flat fees, etc. — and were paid IN FULL.”

Baron filed an opposition to the fraudulent charges. However, Furgeson immediately sealed the objections, preventing the public from viewing them and refusing to consider any evidence or provide Jeff with due process.

Vogel operated Jeff’s business for three years and took all the money made by the company to pay himself and his lawyers. Vogel registered hundreds of thousands of incomes producing domain names using Jeff’s business to maximize the money he received. Then, Vogel compiled a list of the domain names that he registered, provided it to the court without disclosing that he had registered them, and complained that the domain names were “illegal “cybersquatting,” blaming it on Jeff. Since Vogel was Jeff’s court-appointed representative, the court adopted Vogel’s smear and absolved Vogel of the liability.

These were the same false allegations that Vogel’s firm had maligned Jeff with years ago when they breached the confidences that Jeff entrusted in them.

Justice David J. Schenck

Justice David J. Schenck

Another judge who participated in the scheme is now the current Texas court of appeals justice David Schenck. Before Schenck became a justice, Vogel, who was then the receiver, hired him to prosecute Jeff’s receivership. Using the power granted to Vogel through the illegal power grab, Schenck took over a million dollars of Baron’s money for personal benefit. This act of looting money continued even after the higher courts reversed the receivership, which was deemed illegal. In this case, Schenck took vast sums of money from Baron, knowing that Baron’s receivership was unlawful. Vogel and Schenck spent all the misused cash for personal benefit instead of paying off the creditors. This act would be in direct violation of the law requiring receivers to preserve assets in the interests of creditors and stakeholders.

Harassment in Action

Jeff was continuously persecuted and harassed by numerous court officials and government agencies that had been assembled by the judges and lawyers. They also threatened and coerced Jeff’s friends and associates to break off ties with him and to make sworn statements against Jeff. When some resisted, they were attacked by the judges and lawyers and hired attorneys to defend themselves.

Jeff’s continuing to appeal Judge Furgeson’s orders further infuriated the judges, and the dozens of lawyers lined up against Jeff. He was now faced with both the possibility of paying back the misappropriated money and scrutiny by other judges.

Furgeson also kept his promise to use U.S. Marshals and other government agencies against Baron for no legitimate reason. Along with intimidation efforts coordinated by the court, leaked audio seems to show that U.S. Marshals were also harassing Baron’s neighbors, friends, family, and a whistleblower named John Margetis. In the audio, U.S. Marshals approached Margetis, who was also victimized by the same judges, attempting to pressure him into making false statements against Jeff, that he was “angry” at the court system. Margetis also stated in the audio that the F.B.I. was harassing him due to exposing the corruption. He would then report this incident to The Post & Email, who contacted the U.S. Attorney, who did not respond. They also reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice Trustee Division twice to report Sherman and Vogel’s bankruptcy fraud and again received no response. This tactic of intimidation was not a one-off incident. According to The Post & Email article, U.S. Marshals or impersonators have contacted and harassed Baron’s friends, acquaintances, and family members between 15 and 20 times from December 2011 to the time the article was written on March 26, 2012.

On February 10, 2011, during an emergency motion with Schepps in attendance, Furgeson continued to threaten to drain Baron financially regardless of his receivership status, stating:

“This is going on and on and on until Mr. Baron has nothing. I mean, actually, everything is depleted. I gather that Mr. Baron is worth lots of money. But it may be that we sell all the domain names. We may sell all his stock. We may cash in all of his CD’s, and we may seize all of his bank accounts.”

He would again invoke military power expressing:

“he’s going to be accountable unless he wants to live on a desert island somewhere and escape the clutches of the U.S. Army and the Navy and the Marines and the Air Force and the U.S. Marshals. So, Mr. Schepps, you are the only one here I think that can talk to Mr. Baron. I have no earthly idea if you are interested in talking to him about this. But you know, this kind of litigation is eventually going to bring Mr. Baron to a penurious condition. No way around it. Somewhere, sometime it’s going to bring him to that condition.”

On March 16, 2012, Margetis sent a letter to the U.S. Marshal Service Director, Stacia Hylton, pleading with her to resolve mass corruption with Furgeson and Jernigan. In his message, he addressed Jernigan’s allege fraudulent $866,000 judgment against his mother, which he fought for over six years. In these six years, he would have three visits to the White House, the Attorney General’s Office, Hillary Clinton’s Office, and the Executive Office of the United States Trustee. After four complaints to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Stacy was forced to confirm her lies in 2007. Before her ruling in 2011, the Federal Government, the Trustee, and their attorneys contacted Margetis to settle an agreement.

After seven years of attempting to expose the corruption, Margetis was approached by two F.B.I. agents, Gary Koenig and Edward Quintana, under the pretense of helping his mother and other victims of Jernigan, building a case against her. Soon afterward, the same agents falsely accused Margetis of making a death threat to Judge Jernigan and demanded him to take a lie detector test. Margetis would include a short audio clip in the email documenting the interaction with U.S. Marshals during a different meeting. He believed that the F.B.I. agents lied to him to gain opposition information on the victims, including Jeff Baron, before blackmailing him. In his letter to Hylton, Margetis explains his contact with additional government officials:

“I also contacted the Inspector General’s Office, Ron Holland who told me that he believed that Don Freese would handle this unfortunate situation and that my Mother and I should just live our lives. Mr. Holland also told me that if I did not get any resolve from Mr. Freese, to contact him again. Mr. Freese did absolutely nothing but helped sweep these crimes under the carpet. I will be contacting Ron Holland first thing Monday morning to get this horrendous situation resolved.”

He continued to list seven ways that U.S. Marshalls and the F.B.I. have harassed him and Jeff, including:

“On March 12th, or 13th, 2012 the Marshals obviously had our store staked out and waited until one of our employees went to lunch and approached him in public at a gas station claiming to be Marshals talking loudly and openly in public making accusations against him now and making unbelievable derogatory statements, which are unbelievable and untrue about me and Jeff Baron. They also admitted to the employee, Mike Briscoe, that they were perfectly aware that Mr. Baron was in Washington D.C.”

and how:

“It is perfectly documented that my 81-year-old Mother, Mickey Margetis, Jeff Baron, and I are victims, and we are being retaliated against for exposing Stacey G.C. Jernigan’s and Royal Ferguson’s, and numerous trustees, as well as countless attorney’s criminal acts. This is clearly a documented Federal, criminal offense.”

The intimidation and abuse against Jeff by the dozens of lawyers and judges were intensifying. Their goal was to coerce Jeff to capitulate and give up his appeal. However, Baron stood firm. At one court hearing, the lawyers trying to bully Jeff into submission implied that physical harm was still on deck for Jeff:

“I liken what’s happening here with the efforts of Mr. Schepps and Mr. Baron to fight the court over the receivership order is essentially like: Look, you’re being arrested and you’re going to end up in the squad car with your hands cuffed behind your back. And you can either go quietly and then argue about whether it was a wrongful arrest later or you can fight the cop. And then you’re going to get maced in the face and you get a kicked in the ribs and you’re going to get hit with a billy club and you’re still going to end up in the police car with your hands cuffed behind your back.”

The judge applauded the threats. While Jeff was innocent and not even accused of a crime, the officials charged with ensuring law and order were using their power as a weapon against Jeff, and it seemed he had nowhere to turn for justice or protection.

A Nightmare Not Yet Over

At this point, Jeff had lost millions of dollars fighting the numerous lawsuits brought by Krishan. This loss was in addition to the $10 million stolen by Munish through embezzlement and over $200 million in assets he hijacked. Moreover, federal judges’ appointees and attorneys paid themselves approximately $7 million in legal fees from Jeff’s assets. Documents show that judges assisted numerous closely connected lawyers in stealing assets from Jeff and his medical research trust companies, including those not involved in the case and which the court lacked jurisdiction. These companies include the diabetes research trust companies Novo Point and Quantec, and Baron himself, coming to $11.5 million in cash plus the hundreds and millions of dollars in assets. Furgeson, Vogel, and others have sold other valuable domain names of Jeff’s to Chinese buyers at pennies on the dollar.

By now, the Court of Appeals was poised to enter an order deeming the receivership orders illegal and order the assets returned to Jeff. According to filed court documents, this would trigger Judge Furgeson, Judge Jernigan, Vogel, and Sherman to frantically,

“intensify their efforts to dismantle Baron and the L.L.C.s and moot the appeal, frantically arranging liquidation of all of [Baron’s] remaining assets and billing the receivership estate at an astounding $ $300,000 per month.”,

Former Assistant United States Attorney Steve Cochell was permitted to make an appearance in the case to oppose this liquidation plan. After participating in the proceeding, he became alarmed about the corruption, and on January 17, 2012, he wrote to the F.B.I. describing his observations.

Vogel and Sherman filed a Joint Chapter 11 Plan designed to transfer assets from non-debtors, Novo Point, L.L.C., and Quantec, L.L.C., to the Bankruptcy Court as part of a so-called Liquidating Trust. The Liquidating Trust was to pay attorney-claims made by various lawyers but, more importantly, would pay approximately $1.1 million in fees to Vogel and his lawyers. The transfer was based on a sham transaction, which Vogel and Sherman claimed was a settlement of a disputed claim Sherman supposedly made by Sherman against Vogel for fees incurred by Sherman on behalf of the receivership. However, there was no basis for the claim. The primary purpose of a liquidating trust was for Sherman and Vogel to circumvent the court of appeals, which was about to overturn the orders.

It was designed to exploit bankruptcy law loophole and pay Sherman for his mismanagement of the Ondova bankruptcy state, which had reached a $2 million shortfall. The plan would effectively launder the proceeds of Baron’s assets so that when the court of appeals invalidated the receivership, the lawyers could keep the assets instead of them being returned to Baron.

The judges approved that the 153,000 domain names owned by Novo Point L.L.C. and Quantec L.L.C.would be sold and the proceeds placed into the Liquidating Trust, with proceeds being distributed to Vogel, Sherman, and other lawyers. However, Neither Jeff, Novo Point, nor Quantec was even in bankruptcy.

To sell the domain names, Vogel and Sherman represented that Vogel was conducting a public auction as required by law; however, he only permitted two entities, Trans, Ltd. and Special Jewel, participated in the auction. As Cochell would explain to the F.B.I., the arrangement was a sham.

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Vogel misrepresented the assets’ value as worth $3- $5 million and testified that his employee Nelson confirmed that value. Credible valuation experts that Nelson had previously relied on appraised the assets at over $65 million. Nevertheless, Sherman and Vogel convinced Jernigan and the U.S. Trustee and Bankruptcy Judge to approve the sale of all these assets.

Vogel refused to provide Cochell with the necessary data to prove its real value and expose corruption. When Cochell asked Jernigan to require Vogel to offer it, Jernigan denied the request.

Vogel also concealed the critical financial and business information from the public, while only Trans had access. The intention was to give crucial inside information to these sham purchasers while preventing other bidders from access; consequently, chilling the bids. As a result, the only bidders to the supposed public auction were Trans and Special Jewel.

The public auction was held at the United States Trustee’s office. Cochell writes that he was surprised to learn that the bidders in this public auction could remain anonymous. Trans was the high bidder of the auction at $4.1 million, approximately 5% of the assets’ value. Suspiciously, the sale price was in the middle of the range that Vogel had just approximated the value.

Using Nelson’s valuation methodology, Cochell had the domain names appraised by a domain name valuation expert with a doctorate in economics, and the value was approximately $80 million.

After the auction, Trans, Ltd.’s attorney, Stevan Lieberman, gave testimony in the bankruptcy court to support Sherman’s motion to approve the sale to Trans. Lieberman testified that Trans and Special Jewel were not related and were competitors. He would then refuse to disclose the owner of Trans. Lieberman did admit that he represented Special Jewel during cross-examination by Cochell but declined to answer other key questions. These omissions presented a problem for the schemers as it would not enable them to meet the requirements needed to complete the auction. In the middle of Cochell’s cross-examination, Judge Jernigan ordered all the non-court personnel to be cleared from the courtroom — over Cochell’s objection — where she would have a private discussion with witness Lieberman while he was still on the witness stand. Cochell states that this was an unprecedented act in any court. After the private conversation between the two, Jernigan allowed everyone back into the courtroom to resume Lieberman’s hearing and testimony. Upon resumption of Mr. Cochell’s examination of the witness, Lieberman completely changed his testimony.

During this examination, that it would be revealed that Lieberman represented both bidders at the auction. Cochell then filed another discovery request to determine the names of owners of Trans and Special Jewel. Once again, Jernigan rejected the motion and lambasted Cochell for suggesting that Vogel and Sherman were involved in impropriety. Instead, she would then ask the U.S. Trustee to investigate the matter. Cochell explains that the U.S. Trustee was not.

“interested in gathering evidence that would show that the Liquidating Plan was abusive, as the Trustee’s Office reportedly recommended the plan, or the sales process and auction was flawed , as it was conducted at the Trustee’s Office, and was the product of collusion. Despite knowledge that both bidders were from St. Kitts-Nevis, the Trustee’s Office was not in the least concerned about collusion.”

When Cochell pressed the issue, the U.S. Trustee’s office became defensive and antagonistic to Baron and the former U.S. Attorney.

Despite Jernigan denying Cochell the information, it was eventually discovered that Special Jewel and Trans have the same owner. This evidence means that the testimony and representation were lies and designed to defraud Jeff. It proved that these companies were not competitors but instead work under the same group, by the same person, and in the same area.

These findings led Cochell to believe that the auction scheme involved:

“collusive bidding, attempts to fix prices in a public auction, and attempts to cover up and conceal other potentially criminal misconduct in the sales of the domain names.”

Cochell explains the “public auction” that occurred was a “sham” and a cover-up for a pre-arranged sale to an insider through an elaborate offshore enterprise with concealed ownership. It was conducted with the participation of the United States Trustee, who participated in many aspects of the sale, in coordination with Vogel and Sherman.

The shenanigans were brought to the attention of the court of appeals, where, according to a filed document in that court:

“The Court of Appeals enjoined Vogel and Sherman from completing the sale, but not before the Vogel‐Sherman team racked up over $700,000 in billing for their feverish and failed attempt to fire sale all of the remaining assets in the receivership,”

Baron’s personal and business assets would not be the only things looted and destroyed. Over the years of Baron’s success, he had always donated most of his wealth to a medical research trust fund to find a cure for juvenile diabetes. At the time of the receivership order, this research fund had a value of around $100 million. Through Furgeson’s orders, Vogel and Sherman misappropriated all of it.

By the end of 2012, Jeff had won the appeal. In a historic decision, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit deemed that Judge Furgeson “abused his discretion” in imposing the human receivership. It overturned over 80 unlawful orders from Judge Furgeson. Overturning federal receiverships is extremely rare, with only a handful of such rulings having been made in over 200 years. As part of its order, the court of appeals enjoined any further sales of Jeff’s assets and mandated Judge Furgeson to return everything to Jeff “expeditiously.” While Jeff’s receivership was still being overturned, Judge Jernigan granted a petition to put him into involuntary bankruptcy in coordination with the same lawyers who had had just lost at the Court of Appeals.

In addition to receiving over $6 million from Jeff and failing to preserve Jeff’s properties, Vogel and his legal team refused to file any tax returns as required by law. Vogel also refused to return any money to pay for taxes. Furgeson ordered that Jeff be responsible for the taxes on money that Vogel took while prohibiting him from obtaining the financial documents or money to file and pay the taxes. By 2013, Schepps and Frazin quit their roles as Jeff’s attorneys and plotted extortion schemes with the help of lawyer Christopher Payne.

Judge Royal Furgeson would announce plans to” retire” and become the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law’s founding dean. He would hand off the case to Judge Sam Lindsay. In 2014, the involuntary bankruptcy was also reversed on appeal. It was only the reported case like it in the United States Federal Court System to be reversed by an appellate court. However, Jeff’s assets are still not in his possession to this day. After Lindsay officially replaced Ferguson, he entered a “release of liability” order granting all the lawyers and anyone associated with the receivership releases of any civil charges.

During this time, Schepps’ bagman Lisa Katz falsely claimed possession rights to Jeff’s L.L.C.’s Novo Point and Quantec. This filing would lead to another legal battle involving Baron that has not been resolved today, currently residing under Judge Paula Rosales.

While the receivership case is now in suspension, for now, the illegal ruling had already taken its toll. The result is a loss of everything Jeff owned, including the diabetes research trust and the business he built from the ground up. Now, all he is left with is millions of dollars in liabilities. His reputation, along with his human rights and American Constitutional rights, has been destroyed. The multiple trials have also placed a heavy toll on his health. Severe stress aggravated his conditions and caused new ones to manifest. To this day, over 40,000 sealed documents regarding corruption and receivership. The battle for domain names continues as his company navigates through the legal world without anyone or institution, holding any transgressors accountable.

When contacted to respond to the accusations or statements made in multiple documents for this report, Judge Furgeson and Peter Vogel did not respond. Daniel Sherman described his relationship with Jeff as “contentious.” He then asked why the story was written before refusing to conduct an interview. Stacey Jernigan’s courtroom deputy sent a reply stating:

“Judge Jernigan has asked me to reply that she does not believe it is appropriate to comment.”