I Fought The Law...

Sometimes, I search for things via search engines that may not appear in local newspapers or your favorite hockey websites. One of those things I found were the insane lawsuits filed by the guy to the left, namely Mr. Jonathan Lee Riches. Mr. Riches is currently serving time at Federal Correctional Institute Williamsburg in Salters, South Carolina for wire fraud. His projected release date will be March 23, 2012. Since January 8, 2006, he has filed over a thousand lawsuits in courts across the United States (according to his Wikipedia page), and some of these have included some very notable athletes, celebrities, and dignitaries.

Why is Hockey Blog In Canada talking about a convicted criminal's lawsuits?

Well, mainly because one lawsuit included Wayne Gretzky. Mr. Gretzky - along with his co-defendants LeBron James, Michael Vick, Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, Tony Montana, Mickey Mantle, and Allen Iverson - were being sued by Mr. Riches for $83 billion and a restraining order from using any of Mr. Riches' "copyrighted name and property".

Check it out below:

You have to laugh at some of the claims that Mr. Riches is making against these indivduals.

In Complaint #3, Mr. Riches states that "Wayne Gretzky carries Jonathan Lee Riches bibles". While I can't confirm or deny that Mr. Gretzky is a religious man, I have never once seen him carrying a bible in public anywhere. I'm not even going to ask how Mr. Riches was able to have a bible named after him, but this is pretty ridiculous.

In Complaint #6, Mr. Riches makes the outrageous accusation that the defendants "fought in the battle of hastings (sic) 1066 with the Duke of Normandy". Really? All of the defendants are nearly 1000 years old? Gretzky looks pretty good for his age!

In Complaint #10, Mr. Riches asserts that the defendants "broke into watergate (sic) in the 1970's". Since Watergate officially ended Richard Nixon's tenure as President on August 9, 1974, a few of these athletes are phenomenally-skilled. For example, Michael Vick was born June 26, 1980 - three years after the Watergate scandal. LeBron James was born December 30, 1984 - over a decade after the Watergate scandal. Breaking into Watergate when you're not even a twinkle in your parents' eyes? That takes some serious skill!

Clearly, this guy is a few bricks short of a stable house. Mr. Riches is definitely using his time in prison to educate himself on how to write legal documents, but he's wasted the court's time in every instance. None of his ridiculous lawsuits have gone to trial.

Some of the other notable "defendants" in his trials have included: Hank Aaron's bat, the Magna Carta, the Kremlin, the Kyoto Protocol, the Holy Grail, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party, Japan's Nikkei Stock Exchange, Three Mile Island, Nuclear Power Plant (Teebz: no specific one?), Trump Plaza, Jewish workers at NBC/Universal (Teebz: racist much?), "Thirteen Tribes of Israel", the Lincoln Memorial, and various Buddhist monks. Most of these "defendants" actually come from one lawsuit where he named an incredible 784 defendants over 57 pages!

Anyway, I thought I'd post that one about Mr. Gretzky and his co-defendants for some laughs. Take a read through, and have a chuckle. If this guy has piqued any sort of interest in you when it comes to his frivolous lawsuits, you can check out a pile more here.

UPDATE: Here's a lawsuit against the New Jersey Devils and Martin Brodeur! And he throws Alexander Ovechkin in for good measure.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!