Red indicates typos which were part of the document.
IN THE UNITED STATES
DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINA
Alexandria Division
| CPC INTERNATIONAL, INC., | |
| Plaintiff | |
| Civil Action Number 86-0109-A | |
| SKIPPY,INC., and PINELAND PEANUT PROCESSORS, INC., and JOAN CROSBY TIBBETTS, |
|
| Defendants |
SUBMISSION OF SUBSTITUTE ORDER OF CONTEMPT
Subsequent to the telephone conference with Judge Williams on August 11, 1999, Bestfoods again reviewed the Skippy.com website and found that new passages in the text of the Skippy.com website have been added to the website that violate the Court's Order of September 4,1986, and noted that it had omitted some few passages from the proposed Order of Contempt and Schedule A submitted to this Court on July 23, 1999.
The enclosed Exhibit A highlights the new material that violates the Order and the material omitted from the website copy filed with Bestfoods' Motion.
It also appears that Skippy, Inc. and Ms. Tibbetts have engaged the assistance of others to spread their accusations against (??Note??). Therefore, Bestfoods has amended the Proposed Order of
1
Contempt to extend to those who continue to act in violation of the Court's Order of September 4,1999 after they have actual knowledge of it.
For these reasons, Bestfoods submits herewith for the Court's considerations a Revised Proposed Order of Contempt and Schedule A.
Date: August 20, 1999 |
Respectfully Submitted, [WM Webner signature] |
2
This is a reproduction, the orginal is available.
Editorial NOTE!!!!
Page 2 refers to those who violate the
Court's order of SEPTEMBER 4, 1999.
1999!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also on page one (third paragagraph)--sentence
ends abruptly "spread their accusations against."
Period (the attached TYPED copy has "(??Note??)"
inserted to denote that the typo is in the complaint.
There are similar errors in Schedule A
below.
The following passages have appeared in the Skippy.com website and are to be permanently removed from the website.
In the cascade of page names appearing at the top of each page
and in the metatags of the website, delete "CPC'S FRAUD ON
THE COURTS" and "CPC'S MALICIOUS PROSECUTION."
Page 2
During this time, Crosby's famous Skippy trademark and its
valuable goodwill was pirated by a bankrupt peanut company, which
later merged with a Fortune 500 company, making a fortune in
illicit sales under the Skippy brand name.
* * *
Thanks to the advent of the Internet, the lawful Skippy heirs
can reveal what the food pirates (Bestfoods) and their army of
attorneys concealed from the courts and the public for decades .
. . . Bestfoods' legal department, apprehensive of being exposed
on the Internet as the naked Emperor, has recently changed its
website about its Skippy history, and compounded its conduct by
engaging in willful wire fraud, a federal crime.
Page 11
Percy Crosby referred to the NRA as Roosevelt's "New
Russian Administration", unaware that it was by means of the
NRA peanut butter code that a bankrupt California food packer
(Rosefield) would steal Skippy and make a fortune.
Page 12
In 1933, Rosefield Packing Co., Ltd., attempted to register
Skippy as a federal trademark for peanut butter, using the same
fence theme with Skippy's bucket of red paint and artist's brush,
and Crosby's distinctive Skippy lettering on the fence. Skippy,
Inc. immediately filed suit in the U.S. Patent Office through
Skippy's counsel, Lord, Day & Lord, and prevailed.
Rosefield's Chicago lawyer, then under investigation by the
Justice Department for a racketeering case in Chicago, advised
his client that an appeal would be futile, and wrote that a
better method was to inform the "criminal division" of
Justice (the IRS) should Skippy, Inc. discover Rosefields' Skippy
scheme.
Page 15-16
In June, 1944, he discovered that, despite the 1934 final
decision for Skippy, Inc., Rosefield had continued to sell its
peanut butter under the counterfeit Skippy label. A cease and
desist letter from Crosby's new attorney resulted in Rosefield's
renewed request to its Chicago attorney to report Crosby and
Skippy, Inc. to the "criminal division" of the Justice
Department.
* * *
Crosby, unable to pay an attorney, was forced to sue Rosefield
pro se in New York (these document remain concealed by Bestfoods
to date), which action was allegedly dismissed for failure to
prosecute. It was during this period that Crosby's licensing
agent said that the artists was "hounded and harassed",
and was like "a hunted man" . . ." His phone was
tapped, his mail intercepted, and he trusted noone.
Page 17-18
Five days later, on December 21, 1948, Rosefield was issued a
federal trademark for Skippy the U.S. Patent Office after
Rosefield's fraudulent application swore that no other person,
firm or corporation had a right to the mark. Rosefield and its
Chicago counsel had not appealed the 1934 decision for Skippy,
Inc., and knew this federal registration was at their own peril
as long as Percy Crosby was alive to make a protest.
* * *
Stein became president of Skippy, Inc., which now was under
the virtual control of the peanut butter racket and its ruthless
drive to destroy Crosby's reputation and convert the meaning of
the famous Skippy trademark to a brand name peanut butter.
Because of Percy Crosby's distinctive, stylized Skippy name on
the label, millions of consumer associated the brand name with
the comic character . . . .
* * *
Rosefield and its attorneys lost no time in filing a
prospectus of its Skippy criminal enterprise with the SEC in
1950, claiming there had been no material litigation. By 1954,
Rosefield's business had made over $22 million in Skippy sales.
Page 19
In 1954, Rosefield sold its Skippy business to Best Foods,
Inc. for $7.5 million, Jerome Rosefield became a Best Foods
officer, director and head of the Skippy division, which bought
corn syrup (dextrose) from Corn Products Refining Co. (CPC), a
major client of Lord, Day & Lord. In 1958, Brownell rejoined
the firm after resigning as Attorney General. Several months
later CPC merged with Best Foods and Lord Day & Lord served
as CPC's primary counsel. Clearly, it was not in Brownell's or
the firm's interest to advise the New York Supreme Court that
their former client had outstanding legal claims for the theft of
the valuable Skippy name and business. Crosby was never aware of
these transactions and the conspiracy by his lawyers and
court-appointed "committee" to sell Skippy on the New
York Stock Exchange as a legitimate business.
Page 21
Little did I know when I was appointed by the New York
Surrogate Court as his administratrix in March, 1965 that he was
a political prisoner of the powerful Corn Products Corporation
("CPC"), which had stolen his Skippy business,
destroyed his reputation and career, and looted his estate of
valuable assets. I was then age 32, with four infant children,
unaware that I was now "under surveillance", and that
it was the intent of CPC and its allies (including my father's
and Skippy, Inc. former counsel, Lord, Day & Lord) to steal
our inheritance, and to subject Skippy, Inc. and me to years of
prolonged, vexatious lawsuits.
Years later, I learned that CPC was the infamous "Glucose
Trust" the government had broken up for antitrust
violations.
* * *
In that case, which became the Rosetta Stone for the lawful
Skippy heirs, the government gave incriminating evidence of
internal memos re CPC's illegal schemes, including the
president's boast, "We have built a Chinese Wall around our
competitors and have them in chains." My father was held
hostage by this evil combination, and died in virtual poverty,
while CPC made hundreds and millions of dollars from the Skippy
criminal enterprise. Ironically, my father died on the date that
CPC, aided and abetted by Percy Crosby's court-appointed
committee, intended to buy the priceless Skippy assets for a mere
$4,000, without court approval, using a Chicago syndicate as a
front. His death aborted the illegal scheme and the assets of
Skippy, Inc. became a major portion of the Crosby estate, which
attorney Rose Lehman Stein, then Skippy's president, claimed to
own over ninety percent.
* * *
Stein, an accomplice of Rosefield and CPC, lied to my attorney
that Percy Crosby "gave permission" for the brand name
Skippy in 1935, and that she investigated, telling him the estate
had no legal claims.
Page 22
It was not until after Stein's death in 1985 that I learned of
her ties to Rosefield and the Skippy peanut butter racket.
I became Skippy president in 1968, and reported to the Court
that the assets of Percy Crosby estate were under $60,000,
unaware that CPC had been a silent partner in the litigation and
was concealing a fortune in stolen Skippy assets.
It was not until April 23,1987 that a top level CPC officer
admitted to a news reporter after CPC's annual meeting that
"CPC has been in court with the Crosby heirs for the past 20
years." (Bergen County NJ Record, 4/24/87, page B-1). This
confession came after my four children (then adult) and I
appeared at the annual meeting, distributed press releases, and
made a public protest about CPC's theft of Skippy.
Page 23
CPC'S FRAUD ON THE COURTS (1980-87)
* * *
I asked Heller if he had a copy of the action with him, and he
said it was in his briefcase, but would not show it to me. He
falsely told me that he had no knowledge of trademark law, and
stated falsely that the statute of limitations had expired.
Although he admitted that Rosefield's conduct in taking Skippy
was "unconscionable", he denied that Best Foods/CPC had
any liability. But he did not disclose that Jerome Rosefield
became Best Foods officer, director and head of the "Skippy
division" in 1955. He denied any knowledge Lord, Day &
Lord represented CPC, and had refused to give me legal files of
Skippy, Inc. and Percy Crosby I demanded. He offered me $10,000
to file a dissolution as a Delaware corporation, which I refused.
He asked me what I would do if I had "a lot of money",
and I said I would use it to sue CPC if, as I believed, CPC had
no legal right to the Skippy trademark. Heller claimed he was
"sympathetic" to what happened to my father and wanted
to "help". His "help" came in the use of
fraud, trickery and threats to induce me to sign an option
agreement to CPC for the Skippy property, with a payment of
$25,000, which required me to release CPC before I could receive
the legal files from Lord, Day & Lord.
* *
When I got the files in 1978, I was angry and phoned Heller to
protest that they were highly material and deliberately concealed
from my father's estate. His comment: "I was afraid you'd
find them helpful." I was unaware then he had written a memo
of our first meeting, admitting that the Skippy peanut butter
label was "plagiarized" from my father's work, and
stated his concern about "adverse publicity" to CPC if
I pursued Skippy's legal claims. Heller refused to settle out of
court, and warned me that if Skippy Inc. sued to cancel CPC's
Skippy trademark, "We'll fight you to the death...CPC has
considerable influence in Washington corridors and can see to it
that certain doors remain forever closed to you and Skippy."
As my family and I were to learn, CPC had no qualms about using
its corrupt influence to compromise Skippy, Inc. counsel, to
obstruct justice and to use its political influence with law
firms and government agencies to suppress a criminal
investigation of its Skippy enterprise.
Page 24
Trattner not only lost our jury trial demand for damages, and
request for an injunction, but he concealed incriminating
evidence in CPC's legal files from his client and the Court, and
never revealed that the New York Supreme Court had original
jurisdiction over Rosefield's fraudulent conveyance of Skippy to
Best Foods in 1955. Skippy, Inc. v. CPC International, Inc., 210
U.S.P.Q. 589, E.D. Va.,1980.
* * *
CPC refused to heed the district judge's request for a
certified order .... Little did we know then that CPC had
fraudulently concealed "smoking gun" evidence of its
infamous battle with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) re
peanut butter standards, and the FDA decision in 1966 that
"Skippy is adulterated and outlawed." CPC lost its
appeal of the FDA decision in 1970 (U.S. Court of Appeals, Third
Circuit).
Page 25
It was dismissed in 1985, the Court finding that Lord, Day
& Lord should have been named defendant with CPC in 1980.
There were major omissions in the case pleadings as well, notably
the fact that it was Lord, Day & Lord who drafted and filed
the original 1933 Skippy Inc. action v. Rosefield in the Patent
Office, and had destroyed the evidence before sending the legal
files to me in 1978. No conspiracy count was included in the
complaint. Trattner received a letter from Chester Vincent dated
June 30,1981 that he told me proved his belief of CPC's
"fraud", but he would not give me a copy of letter. I
typed a copy of the letter while he was absent from his office,
and phoned Vincent after I fired Trattner. Vincent confirmed that
Trattner lied to me he contacted Vincent, who alleged that the
Rosefield family put millions of dollars in off-shore banked to
keep it "out of the reach of the Crosby heirs."
CPC'S MALICIOUS PROSECUTION (1982-87)
One month before the Fourth Circuit decision in 1982, CPC
filed oppositions to Skippy, Inc. service mark applications in
the Patent Office, accusing Skippy of fraud, but acknowledging
the confusion of consumers, which CPC had denied in 1980 and as
appellee. This was blatant harassment and intent to restrain
Skippy's trade, but CPC refused to dismiss case. The decision for
CPC was viewed by many attorneys as being incontrovertible
evidence of CPC's political influence with certain Patent Office
officials, and CPC's continuing, reckless fraud on the Patent
Office. CPC v. Skippy, Inc., 3 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1457, PTO/TTAB, 1987
Page 26
I discovered why CPC had fraudulently concealed this
incriminating evidence from the 1980 Court. Not only had Jerome
Rosefield given knowingly false testimony to the FDA Examiner at
the 1966 peanut butter hearings, denying the Examiner's question,
"Are you sure there isn't some patent abuse here (with
Skippy)?", but CPC officer John Volkhardt had given
testimony to the FDA : "Skippy was originally named after
the cartoon character who was painting his name on a fence."
This blatant admission of trade forgery of Percy Crosby's Skippy
signature and comic symbols was the basis of our 1980 lawsuit,
yet Volkhardt 's 1980 sworn testimony denied any connection.
Rosefield also admitted that the FDA complained about Rosefield's
1933 Skippy label, but he did not reveal to the FDA Examiner in
1966 that the Patent Office had prohibited Rosefield's Skippy
application as a matter of statutory law in 1934.
I sent a demand letter to CPC counsel Hanes Heller, warning
him Skippy would re-enter the food market with an authentic
Skippy product, but I got no reply. My husband and I found a
licensee interested in selling Skippy caramel corn with peanuts
in a child's sand pail that my sister (a commercial artist) and I
designed with Percy Crosby's Skippy character to parody
Volkhardt's admissions of trade forgery. Skippy counsel James L.
Kurtz advised us to recapture the market "CPC stole from
your father", assuring us CPC would "commit legal
suicide" if they dared to sue. Annual minimum sales of the
product were estimated at $1.5 million dollars, and the artistic
pail was an instant success. Then our attorney suddenly refused
to represent Skippy, denying that CPC had influenced him. CPC
then made a major change on its Skippy label to conceal its
imitation of Crosby's distinctive lettering. Our licensee told us
they were having problems getting the product on store shelves
via jobbers and distributors who were afraid of CPC's reprisal,
but did not tell us that CPC had sent a cease and desist letter
to our licensee, Pineland Peanut Processors. My husband and I
became alarmed when attorney Kurtz warned us CPC intended to sue
until we were "both dead." We met with the assistant
U.S. Attorney. He told us there was "strong evidence of
CPC's fraud on the court in 1980", and assured us he would
take action if CPC sued. Both Kurtz and CPC were fully aware my
husband had been hospitalized and diagnosed with congestive heart
disease, and that further litigation could be dangerous.
Pages 27-28
CPC made a secret with our licensee to cut off our royalty
income and got a preliminary injunction. My pro se protests were
futile. I was unaware then that Congress in 1984 made trademark
counterfeiting a federal crime, but could not believe that the
government would turn a deaf ear and blind eye to CPC's predatory
conduct.
* * *
We returned to Virginia, unaware that CPC had filed a bogus
default motion in our absence.
* * *
I phones the attorney the next morning, who told me CPC would
not let him defend us because of a "conflict", which he
denied. He promised to find us counsel, but never revealed that
his new partner had defended CPC in the 1980 case.
I hired the attorney he referred to me, unaware of the serious
conflict, who assured me he could convince CPC to dismiss the
case and pay Skippy, Inc., in view of Waldo's critical condition.
CPC refused to dismiss the case, and it went to trial (a half
day), after which our attorney suddenly withdrew.
* * *
Scores of consumers boycotted Skippy peanut butter in protest,
and I filed a complaint with the Justice Department at the
assistant U.S. Attorney's request. Notably, CPC never advised its
stockholders or the Securities & Exchange Commission of its
alleged victories in the Skippy litigation, knowing full well
that title to stolen property can not be conveyed.
Page 29
. . . remained convinced CPC and its lawyers would eventually
pay a high price for their "utter cowardice and greed."
* * *
His greatest anguish was at the rank betrayal of the attorneys
we hired and paid to expose fraud and CPC's Skippy criminal
enterprise, who remained silent in the face of a clear duty to
speak and inform federal authorities of fraud on the government.
New Matter on Website since July 16, 19991
At pages 3, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and
28, delete the following text:
Due to a pending lawsuit from Best Foods, this portion of the story has
been temporarily deleted.
At page 28, delete the following text:
Immediately after the release of this web site, CPC filed a
motion in court to silence Joan Crosby Tibbetts from publishing
the true story of Skippy. Ms. Tibbetts is in need of your support
to help protect the property rights of Skippy that her father
lived and died to preserve. For more information on how you can
help, please email Joan Crosby Tibbetts. Your support of Skippy
is very much appreciated!
Also delete the cartoon at page 28 and its caption, "Why is Bestfoods bullying the
little Skippy once again?"
______________________
1The page numbering of the July 16 and the August
13 printouts differs slightly because of the addition of an
"introductory" page just before the
"Prologue" page and because the deletion of some text
has shortened some pages from two pages of printout to one.