Sex Addiction And Big Bucks Are At The Heart Of a Juicy Divorce Story In The Deep South

Glen and Danielle Rollins

Perhaps the juiciest divorce case in the country is unfolding in Atlanta, and it involves one of the wealthiest families in the South--or any other region. Best we can tell, the case presents no major legal issues, but it does involve allegations of rampant misconduct against a husband who apparently suffers from a sex addiction. And, by golly, that's enough to get our attention, especially since we've written dozens of posts about the family involved.

We're talking about the divorce of Danielle Rollins--socialite, writer, and multimedia personality--from Glen Rollins, former president of Orkin Pest Control.

If those names sound familiar, it's because they are related to Ted Rollins, a central figure in the monstrous courtroom cheat job styled Rollins v. Rollins here in Alabama. In terms of legal significance, the ongoing Atlanta case almost certainly pales in comparison to the case that unfolded in my neck of the woods, Shelby County, Alabama. Danielle Rollins probably has competent attorneys and a semi-ethical judge, so she isn't likely to get screwed over by the Rollins family machine. Sherry Carroll Rollins, on the other hand, had spineless attorneys (MaryLee Abele, Conrad Fowler, etc.) and a wildly corrupt judge (D. Al Crowson), so she and her daughters took a legal thrashing.

So why is the story of Danielle v. Glen Rollins capturing public attention, including a recent item at The Daily titled "Getting rid of a pest: Wife of Orkin heir in contentious divorce with alleged sex addict hubby"? The answer probably lies in the last three words of the headline. Danielle Rollins alleges that her husband suffers from a sex addiction--and angles in divorce cases don't get much more titillating than that.

According to published reports, Glen Rollins has sought treatment, apparently without much success, at the same Mississippi sex-addiction clinic that treated golf star Tiger Woods. That means the Rollins story surely is headed for the front pages of The Globe any day now. Here's how The Daily dives into the story:

High society in Atlanta is bracing for the high-profile divorce of Glen Rollins, an Orkin Pest Control heir — whose estranged wife claims he is an abusive sex addict. 

Danielle Rollins, who has three children with Glen, declined to talk to The Daily, but she told a Georgia judge in a court hearing last May that their $7 million house was nearly foreclosed on, and she has been unable to pay her bills, which average $286,000 a month. 

“I was incredibly betrayed by Glen with the infidelity. The financial misleadings were even more devastating to me,” Danielle testified. “We had three mortgages on the house that I didn’t know we had.” 

The case is still in the discovery phase and no trial date has been set.

You need a scorecard to keep up with all of the Rollinses, so we will lay it out for you this way:

* Brothers R. Randall and Gary Rollins are the chairman and CEO/president, respectively, of Rollins Inc., the umbrella company of Orkin and other profitable enterprises. Published reports indicate each of the Rollins brothers has a net worth of more than $1 billion;

* Glen Rollins is Gary Rollins' son, and Glen was the head of Orkin until he was fired in September 2010 after he and his siblings filed a lawsuit against their father, their uncle, and various business associates, alleging mismanagement of trust accounts.

Boxwood mansion

* Danielle Rollins married Glen Rollins in 1995, and they have three children. Their mansion, called Boxwood, has hosted some of Atlanta's finest parties. The Peak of Chic blog provides an inside glimpse of one lavish Boxwood event from 2010. Danielle Rollins is the author of Soiree: Entertaining With Style, a contributing editor at Veranda magazine, and a major presence in multimedia circles.

* Ted Rollins is a cousin to Randall and Gary Rollins. In fact, Ted and Randall have done business together, starting a real-estate development company called St. James Capital that mysteriously disappeared when the Rollins v. Rollins divorce case unlawfully shifted from Greenville, South Carolina, (where the family lived, where Sherry Rollins filed for divorce, where the case was litigated for three years) to Shelby County, Alabama.

What might be coming next in the Danielle and Glen Rollins divorce case? It could involve some fascinating twists and turns. The Daily sets the stage:

[Glen] Rollins, who was the CEO of Orkin until he and his siblings sued their father in 2010 to get more money out of the family trusts, earned $19.9 million in 2011, and $13.7 million the year before. But he has been treated at two different sex-addiction facilities, including Pine Grove in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where Tiger Woods was a patient. 

When the divorce finally does go to trial, Danielle is set to testify she first learned of Glen’s sexual addiction when she was pregnant with their youngest son, who is 10 now. “At the time she blamed herself. She thought she had problems with intimacy,” a friend said. 

Glen’s lawyer R. Scott Berryman told The Daily, “It’s a private matter. I don’t have anything to say.”

It's hard to beat a good story about sex addiction. But for real ugliness in the courtroom, it's almost impossible to top the Rollins v. Rollins case here in Alabama. After all, Birmingham resident Sherry Rollins and her daughters, Sarah and Emma, wound up on food stamps because of Ted Rollins' deceitful actions in court.

I doubt that Danielle Rollins and her children will be going hungry anytime soon.

Epic divorce case of Danielle and Glen Rollins has moved from sex addiction to attempted home invasions that were intended to have violent endings

A Fox News report about attempted home invasions at Danielle Rollins' home in Atlanta


We know from our series of posts about Birmingham resident Sherry Carroll Rollins that marrying into the mega-wealthy Rollins family and then trying to get divorced can be a harrowing experience--especially if you are a woman.

The folks behind Atlanta-based Rollins Inc., the parent company of Orkin Pest Control and other highly profitable enterprises, apparently are more than willing to play hardball when family assets are at stake. Atlanta author, socialite, and Southern Living contributor Danielle Rollins is the latest to learn just how dangerous the hardball can get.

We first reported on Danielle Rollins with an October 2012 post titled "Sex Addiction And Big Bucks Are At The Heart Of a Juicy Divorce Story In The Deep South." Danielle's husband, former Orkin president Glen Rollins, reportedly sought treatment--apparently without much success--at the same sex addiction clinic that treated Tiger Woods.

The sex addiction issue seems quaint compared to recent events in the Danielle/Glen story.

Danielle divorced Glen Rollins in 2013, but the case is ongoing as Danielle challenges her proceeds from the case and reportedly seeks a share of Glen's trust fund. Danielle also is suing her original lawyers in the divorce, who she claims (according to an article at dailyreportonline.com) "pressured her to sign a hastily prepared, handwritten settlement agreement that gave her some $15 million—but cut her out of millions more—and saw her and the couple's three children forced to vacate their Buckhead estate, Boxwood."

Is someone unhappy with Danielle's aggressive legal tactics, especially her pursuit of an equitable share of Glen's trust fund, reportedly valued at more than $1 billion? Recent evidence suggests the answer might be yes.

Danielle recently made national headlines when she and security personnel had to scare off a home invasion or attempted robbery at her Buckhead residence for the third time in one month. From a New York Daily News article:

"A security guard hired by Danielle Rollins, the Southern Living contributor the magazine calls “Atlanta’s preeminent hostess and tastemaker,” chased away men Rollins heard trying to break in Saturday night, she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“I’m obviously rather freaked out and tired, but I’m not going to be scared out of my own house,” Rollins said.

How bad could the situation have gotten? A report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provides clues:

(Danielle) was unpacking the night after Christmas, after a holiday break, when someone tried to enter her home.

“The private security guard I hired after my last break-in three weeks ago, and probably for the rest of my life now after this, chased at least two men through a neighbor’s yard,” she said in a post to her Facebook page, which she granted the AJC permission to share. “They dropped a backpack containing items including but not limited to guns, mace and ties. The Atlanta Police Department responded immediately, blocking and securing the area, with helicopter and canine patrol. This is not a way to live.”

Atlanta Police Department officers recovered a cache of weapons including a stolen gun, duct tape, rubber gloves, binoculars and other items dropped by the suspects as they ran off. Officers were unable to chase down the suspects but recovered a black ski mask, glove and other items inside a backpack the suspects dropped.

Contents of the backpack included some disturbing evidence. Somebody was taking their assigned task seriously:

Inside the backpack were a “loaded Ruger SR9c 9mm (Serial #33380289) with a 10 round capacity magazine with 7 rounds loaded,” an Atlanta police report said. “A second magazine was located that had a 17-round capacity with 13 rounds loaded and a 9mm ammo box with 4 rounds left. The gun was checked on ACIC and it came back stolen from Sandy Springs Police Department (Case # 2015015698). The gun was taken in a burglary where the victim walked in on the suspect still inside his home.”

Also recovered: 3- particulate respirators. 1-Bushnell 16×32 binoculars, 1 small roll of Duct tape, 2- small Mace brand pepper sprays, 14- black rubber gloves, and 1-verizon blackberry (no battery or backing).”

Was someone planning a kidnapping, a murder, or both? It sure sounds like it.

How could a divorce case turn so ugly? For one thing, the Rollins family's net worth is an estimated $7.4 billion, according to a recent AJC report. (Our sources say that figure is way too low.) Also, ugliness is not new in Rollins divorces. During her divorce from Ted Rollins, Sherry Rollins said, several wheels on her vehicle mysteriously came off while she was driving--and a mechanic said all of the lug nuts had been loosened. Also, she awoke one morning to find a bloody, dead deer lying on her doorstep.

Danielle and Glen Rollins
(From Forbes)

What about money? In most states, divorce law calls for an equitable division of marital assets, which can be 50/50--or even higher in cases where marital misconduct was involved.

Was misconduct present in the Danielle and Glen Rollins marriage? The answer is yes, and some might call it misconduct of a gross nature. From an AJC report:

After their storybook beginning, Danielle discovered that Glen had begun consorting with prostitutes — by the time of their divorce, they numbered between 25 and 50, he has admitted in court.

That suggests Danielle Rollins might be entitled to more than a 50/50 split of assets, but the share she received in the settlement was nowhere near that. She and the couple's children even were forced to move out of the marital residence, which normally goes to a mother and children--although, as Sherry Rollins knows, that doesn't necessarily happen in a Rollins divorce.

In her case, Ted Rollins failed to make court-ordered payments on the family home, causing Ms. Rollins and the couple's daughters--Sarah and Emma--to flee to Alabama, where they had family members living. Ted Rollins then sued Ms. Rollins for divorce in Alabama, and Shelby County Judge D. Al Crowson issued a divorce decree, even though Ms. Rollins already had initiated divorce proceedings in South Carolina, where the family had lived, and the case had been litigated there for three years.

That can't lawfully be done, based on an Alabama case styled Wesson v. Wesson 628 So. 2d 953 (1993), which holds:

Once jurisdiction has attached in one court, that court has the exclusive right to continue its exercise of power until the completion of the case, and is only subject to appellate authority.

Al Crowson essentially stole the case from South Carolina, regardless of what the law says--and he proceeded to issue a final order that was wildly favorable to Ted Rollins. As Danielle Rollins is learning, strange things can happen in Rollins divorce cases.

What will happen next in the Danielle/Glen case, which is perhaps the messiest, high-profile divorce the South has seen in years. That's hard to say, but the case is making national news. Here is a report from Good Morning America:

New Court Ruling Might Force Wealthy Rollins Clan To Allow Light Into Some Dark Financial Corners

Sarah Rollins (right), with her sister,
Emma, and father, Ted

Most states have laws that require a trustee to tell beneficiaries about the existence and provisions of a trust fund at age 18. The wealthy Rollins family, with its primary bases in Georgia and Delaware, doesn't seem to do it that way. But a recent court ruling in an Atlanta lawsuit apparently will force the family to change the way it manages trust accounts--and it might shine light on our reporting of Rollins-related matters here in Alabama.

The Rollinses, the folks behind Orkin Pest Control and other highly profitable enterprises, are one of the nation's wealthiest families. But the clan's patriarchs apparently have a habit of keeping the next generation largely in the dark about trust funds. That sparked a lawsuit in 2010, with four of Gary Rollins' children alleging that their father and his brother, Randall Rollins, had breached their fiduciary duty as trustees. A recent Georgia appellate ruling found that the children's case presented issues that should be determined by a jury.

Randall and Gary Rollins are the heads of Atlanta-based Rollins Inc., the umbrella company for Orkin Pest Control, RPC Inc. (formerly Rollins Energy Services), and other entities. But they now stand accused of essentially raiding trust funds for their own benefit, and a Georgia court has found those claims should go to trial. (The full appellate ruling can be viewed at the end of this post.)

How might this shape the Rollins story in Alabama? The answer to that question remains unclear, but we do know this: Ted Rollins, Randall and Gary's cousin, is CEO of Charlotte-based Campus Crest Communities, a developer of student housing near public universities around the country. Campus Crest has four projects in Alabama, and Ted Rollins played a central role in a divorce case here that resulted in a monstrous cheat job against his ex wife, Birmingham resident Sherry Carroll Rollins, and their two daughters. One of those daughters, 19-year-old Sarah Rollins, apparently has a trust fund about which she knows almost nothing.

Many questions surround Sarah Rollins' trust fund. In what state was it established? What rules govern disbursements to her as beneficiary? Who are the trustees, and have they fulfilled their legal duties to her? But Sherry Rollins has provided information that indicates the trust fund exists--and under the law, Sarah Rollins almost certainly has a right to know about it.

A New York Times article in March 2013 states that in almost all states, an 18-year-old is considered an adult who is entitled to know about provisions of a trust fund. Sherry Rollins says her daughter is mostly in the dark about her trust fund--and Ms. Rollins says she has seen signs that Ted Rollins wants to keep it that way.

Randall Rollins

Unless the two sides reach a settlement, a Georgia jury soon will decide if Randall and Gary Rollins managed trust funds to enrich themselves, at the expense of beneficiaries. Given that Ted and Randall Rollins have engaged in at least one joint business venture--a real-estate development company called St. James Capital LLC--a reasonable person might ask: Is Ted Rollins taking a page from his cousin's playbook by keeping Sarah Rollins out of the loop on her trust fund?

What is the genesis of the Rollins trust-fund feud in Atlanta? We wrote about it in an October 26, 2010, post titled "A Wealthy Republican Family Hangs Out Its Dirty Laundry Down South." Here's how Atlanta Business Chronicle reporter Jacques Couret outlined the current issues in a report dated April 1, 2013:

At the heart of the case is a feud over how Gary W. Rollins handles his children’s trusts. Glen Rollins, his brother O. Wayne Rollins II and sisters Ruth Ellen Rollins and Nancy Louise Rollins in August 2010 sued their father, Gary, and uncle, Randall, for their handling of several family trusts. Two days after the children filed their lawsuit, Gary Rollins’ wife of nearly 45 years, Ruth, filed for divorce.

How nasty can these sorts of issues get in a wealthy family? Jacques Couret's report provides a clue:

The siblings filed suit over the trust that had been established for them, and how they stood to be paid under the plan known as the Rollins Perpetual Management Trust.

That lawsuit led to Glen Rollins being fired from his executive positions with Rollins on Sept. 7, 2010. He left Rollins Inc. in April 2011.

Ouch! A son gets booted out of the family firm because he asks questions about funds to which it appears he is legally entitled?

Randall and Gary Rollins have shown signs that they can get vicious when confronted about their actions as trustees. Ted Rollins also has shown signs that he is willing to threaten alarming actions when confronted about Sarah Rollins' trust fund.

How exactly has Ted Rollins behaved under such circumstances? We will answer that question in upcoming posts.


(To be continued)

Rollins Trust Fund Ruling by Roger Shuler

Rollins grandchildren win favorable ruling from appellate court in battle over family trust funds

Glen Rollins (right) and other members
of the Rollins family in court.
(From dailyreportonline.com)

Four adult grandchildren of the late co-founder of Rollins Inc. last week received a favorable ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals in a long-running battle over trust funds in one of the South's most wealthy families.

A trial court had dismissed the grandchildren's claims, but the appellate court found the case presented factual issues that should go to a jury, according to an article by Alyson Palmer at dailyreportonline.

The grandchildren are suing their father, Gary W. Rollins, and their uncle, R. Randall Rollins, who head Orkin Pest Control and its parent company, Atlanta-based Rollins Inc. Gary and Randall Rollins are the sons of the late O. Wayne Rollins, founder of Rollins Inc. O. Wayne Rollins started the family's business empire with his brother, the late John W. Rollins Sr.

The John Rollins side of the family is based mostly in Delaware and the Carolinas, and it includes Ted Rollins, who recently was removed as CEO of Campus Crest Communities. Ted Rollins has been the subject of numerous posts here at Legal Schnauzer, mainly because of his central role in a grossly unlawful divorce case in Shelby County, Alabama, from his second wife, Birmingham resident Sherry Carroll Rollins. Also, Ted Rollins has student-housing developments at four Alabama campuses (South Alabama, Troy, Jacksonville State, and Auburn), even though he has a criminal conviction for assault from the brutal beating of his stepson.

The Georgia court case does not involve Ted Rollins, but the controversy involves millions of dollars and recently attracted the attention of Forbes magazine, with reporter Clare O'Connor producing a major investigative report.

At the heart of the case are trust funds that O. Wayne Rollins established for his grandchildren, with the recipients having limited access to them. That strategy seems to run in the Rollins family. As we reported in a previous post, Sarah Rollins of Birmingham (the daughter of Ted and Sherry Rollins) has a trust fund established by John W. Rollins, and she has reached the age where, by law, she is entitled to information about the fund. Sherry Rollins states that nothing about the fund has been disclosed to her daughter, while Sherry, Sarah, and her sister Emma have relied on food stamps off and on for several years.

What's the gist of the ongoing court case in Georgia? Here is how Alyson Palmer explains it:

The siblings complain that their father and uncle have established unfair distribution systems at odds with the terms of the trusts created for their benefit by their grandfather. . .

In their lawsuit, filed in 2010, the plaintiffs contend that, after their grandfather died in 1991, their father and uncle breached their duties when they made various changes to the structure, leadership, holdings and distribution methods used within the various family entities held within the trusts. They point to a "conduct-based distribution system" imposed by their father and uncle after their grandfather's death that made distributions from entities held in the trusts based on factors such as the plaintiffs' attendance at entity shareholder meetings and engagement in "serious pursuits." They also complain that their father and uncle unilaterally amended the agreement for a family partnership held within the S-trusts, the Rollins Investment Fund (RIF), to concentrate power in themselves and permit non-pro-rata distributions to themselves at their own discretion. . . .

The plaintiffs claim the changes amounted to breaches of trust and breaches of fiduciary duty. They say their father threatened to cut off distributions to them entirely if they sued and that he and their uncle had Glen Rollins fired from his position at the family company, where he had worked for his entire career.

The establishment of trust funds comes with significant tax advantages and can involve huge sums of money. How much is at stake in the Rollins case. Alyson Palmer provides an idea:

Giving some hint as to how much money is at stake, Wednesday's decision said the plaintiffs, in support of their allegations of inequitable distributions, say that Gary and Randall received a total of $46.7 million from RIF between 1993 and 2011, while the four plaintiffs received a total of $53.5 million from RIF during the same time.

From surveillance to sex addiction, dysfunction reigns as Forbes magazine turns spotlight on Rollins family

An illustration of the Rollins family
from Forbes magazine

Two billionaire brothers in the family that controls Orkin Pest Control were prepared to use private investigators to help determine if their children qualified for proceeds from trust funds.

That is just one of many juicy tidbits in a new Forbes magazine article about the Rollins family, which has been the focus of numerous posts here at Legal Schnauzer. Title of the Forbes piece is "Inside An $8 Billion Family Feud: Who Poisoned the Orkin Fortune?"

The Rollins family has a significant presence in Alabama, and we have focused largely on their legal and business issues in "The Heart of Dixie." Of special interest has been a divorce case in Shelby County, where Sherry Carroll Rollins received what we have called "the worst courtroom cheat job in our experience" in her divorce from Ted Rollins, the CEO of Campus Crest Communities. Shelby County Circuit Judge Al Crowson played a central role in the Rollins divorce fiasco, taking the case even though it already had been litigated in South Carolina for three years and clear case law (see Wesson v. Wesson, 628 So. 2d 953, Ala. Civ. App, 1993) shows the jurisdiction could not lawfully be changed.

Ted Rollins has major business interests in Alabama, with student-housing complexes already built or going up on five campuses in the state--at South Alabama, Troy, Jacksonville State, Auburn, and the University of Alabama.

The Rollins family has two primary branches, with Ted belonging to what might be called the "Delaware/Carolina" branch, descending from Ted's father, John Rollins Sr. The other branch mainly is in Georgia, descending from Wayne Rollins, John Sr.'s brother.

At the heart of the current controversy are Gary and Randall Rollins, Wayne's sons who head up Rollins Inc. (parent company of Orkin) and are worth about $2.7 billion each, ranking No. 225 on the Forbes 400

Forbes focuses almost entirely on the Georgia branch and its struggles over trust funds, divorces, and related ugliness. The article does not mention Ted Rollins by name, making only reference to him as a cousin to Gary and Randall,

We have reported on the trust-fund controversy in several posts, and Forbes Reporter Clare O'Connor provides important new details, producing some top-notch journalism along the way. Here is how she describes issues swirling around the Rollins family in Atlanta:

Orkin, and the nine related extermination companies housed under Rollins Inc., remains the leading company in pest control: rats, roaches and their ilk are as perennial in this world as sticky Atlanta summers. But for the Rollins family, the party is over.

Glen has sued his father, Gary, CEO of Rollins Inc., as well as his uncle Randall, company chairman. Glen’s three siblings also joined in, claiming they were being denied their rightful cash allocations–though Randall’s five kids stuck by their dad and Gary. Ruthie apparently took her kids’ side in the money fight, filing for divorce from Gary, after 45 years, at almost precisely the same time. And then Glen and Danielle began their own ugly divorce. The cumulative effect–father vs. sons, wives vs. husbands, cousins vs. cousins–makes this one of the nastiest intergenerational battles ever to take place among members of The Forbes 400 (Gary and Randall rank 225th on the list, at $2.7 billion each). “It’s like a Greek tragedy,” says Danielle.

Wealthy families, it seems, often wrestle mightily with trust funds and estate matters. One of the best-known cases involved Liesel Pritzker, a member of the family behind Hyatt Hotels. She and her brother had to sue to receive trust proceeds that were designated for them.

The Rollins story mirrors the Liesel Pritzker story, with a few extra oddball twists thrown in. In 2000, Gary and Randall set up eligibility requirements that their children had to meet in order to receive trust proceeds. Chief among the requirements was that the children be engaged in "meaningful pursuits."

The patriarchs decided to up the ante in 2010. Writes O'Connor:

IN 2010 GARY AND RANDALL, facing a generation that grew up rudderless, tried to offset any issues in how they were raised with bureaucracy–and policing. Keen to measure how carefully their kids were adhering to the eligibility requirements they’d set up a decade earlier, they constructed yet another formal mechanism, something called the Rollins Perpetual Management Trust. It was intended, say court documents, “to serve as the vehicle through which the governance of the family and its assets is established in perpetuity.”

Critically, it “provided for a ‘monitoring program’ that permitted Gary and Randall … to hire private investigators to follow the plaintiffs around, conduct credit checks and drug tests, and review their medical records.” Gary and Randall sought to install themselves as joint trustees, forcing their kids to agree to the new terms or lose their annual payments. It was viewed as a declaration of war.

What about the sex-addiction component to the story. That's where Gary's son, Glen, enters the picture. He went through a nasty divorce from his socialite wife, Danielle:

But there were other reasons Glen may not have wanted to have private investigators nosing around. While for most of Atlanta business society he was still the golden-boy corporate chieftain with a steady hand on Orkin’s tiller, in truth his personal life was an utter disaster. He was struggling with a sex addiction that included a rehabilitative stint at the same place golfer Tiger Woods was treated. “I got some help for a tremendously stressful period,” says Glen. “I had a lot to heal from.” His marriage was unraveling. Glen and Danielle’s Buckhead estate, Boxwood, appeared in a spread in the August 2010 edition of Town and Country. Photos show the lavish, tasteful interiors, newly revamped by high-profile interior designer Miles Redd. In one shot the five family members smile from inside a black Mercedes convertible.

That was a last glimpse at a life already passing from view. Days later Glen and his siblings filed their suit. His mom, Ruthie, filed for divorce from his father two days later, citing “no hope for reconciliation.” Glen was fired from Orkin soon after and cut off from the trust. Over the past four years the Rollins case moved in and out of Atlanta courtrooms through months of hearings, an overturned judgment by the Georgia Supreme Court and two appeals. One of the at least eight lawyers on the case has already made upwards of $1 million from legal fees, says a relative. The kind of sickening numbers that make an entrepreneur want to give it all away.

“It’s like dominos,” says Glen’s ex-wife, Danielle. “My children have lost grandparents, cousins. Their heritage.”

One lawyer already has made around $1 million on the case? It's not clear who will be the losers in the Rollins controversy. But it looks like lawyers will be the winners.

A Wealthy Republican Family Hangs Out Its Dirty Laundry Down South

Ted W. Rollins

Perhaps the biggest legal story in the South right now involves what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has called the "public disintegration" of the Rollins family.

What is the Rollins family? It is one of America's wealthiest clans, best known as the folks behind Orkin Pest Control. They have cultivated an image as low-key philanthropists, but two lawsuits recently filed in Atlanta pull the mask off Rollins Inc.

It's a story about massive wealth, family dysfunction, and Republican Party politics--with a roundabout connection to the wacky Christine O'Donnell. It's also a story with ties to Alabama, where a member of the Rollins family has played center stage in one of the most grotesque examples of courtroom injustice I've ever encountered.

Regular readers know I would not make that last statement lightly. But I have closely examined the file in a case styled Rollins vs. Rollins. It's a domestic-relations case that Ted W. Rollins filed against his wife,  Sherry Carroll Rollins, who had moved to Shelby County, Alabama, from the couple's home in Greenville, South Carolina.

Sherry Rollins had already filed for divorce in South Carolina, and a judge had issued a warrant for Ted Rollins' arrest for failure to pay child support. But Ted Rollins somehow managed to get the case transferred to Alabama. Anyone who has taken a few days of Law School 101 knows that cannot be done.  But it apparently can be done when you are a member of one of America's wealthiest families, and you have ties to Bradley Arant Boult and Cummings, one of Alabama's largest law firms.

With the help of some dumbfounding decisions by Shelby County Judge Al Crowson, who just happened to retire early as the case was winding down, Ted Rollins received a judgment that was both stunningly favorable and blatantly unlawful.

Public records indicate that, at the time the Rollins case was moved to Alabama, Ted Rollins was such a deadbeat dad that he was a fugitive from justice. But with his ties to massive wealth and the Bradley Arant firm, he was welcomed with open arms in the Heart of Dixie.

The corrupt machinations of Judge Crowson in Shelby County have left Sherry Rollins struggling to survive while she raises the couple's two daughters, Sarah and Emily, who are now teen-agers. Ted Rollins, now remarried, recently put together an initial public offering (IPO) for his latest venture, Campus Crest Communities, which entered the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month. The anticipated value of the IPO is $380 million.

We have written extensively about corruption in Alabama's domestic-relations courts. But Rollins vs. Rollins might be the ugliest civil case, of any kind, that I have ever seen. That is saying something, and we will be writing much more about it.

But what about the larger Rollins family feud, the one that has tongues wagging in Atlanta? First, some background about the Rollinses. Their roots are in Georgia, and the business family tree essentially has two prongs that were established by a couple of industrious brothers--O. Wayne Rollins and John W. Rollins.

After World War II, John W. Rollins moved to Delaware and opened an automobile dealership. His brother soon joined him in the business, and they expanded into broadcasting, outdoor advertising, pest control, truck leasing, and more. They became heavily involved in harness racing and motorsports, and the family has close ties to Dover Downs and Dover International Speedway.

John W. Rollins became a major figure in the Republican Party. He was elected lieutenant governor of Delaware in 1956 and lost in a bid for governor in 1960. John W. Rollins died in 2000, but his third wife, Michele Rollins, is carrying on the political tradition. She ran this year for the Delaware U.S. House seat that was vacated by Mike Castle. Michele Rollins lost in the GOP primary, a result that was overshadowed on the national stage when Christine O'Donnell shocked Castle in the primary for a U.S. Senate seat.

The Atlanta feud involves the O. Wayne Rollins side of the family. Here is how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution describes it:

The battle royale in the family erupted just a year after the death of the family's 98-year-old matriarch, Grace Crum Rollins.

On Aug. 23, Rollins siblings Glen W., Ruth Ellen, Nancy Louise, and O. Wayne II filed suit in Fulton County Superior Court against their father, Gary Rollins, and their uncle, R. Randall Rollins, over two trusts established for them. The suit seeks information on the trusts, the siblings' attorney said.

The lawsuit also names another board member, Henry B. Tippie, who, with Gary and R. Randall oversees those trusts.

On Aug. 25, the children's mother, Ruth M. Rollins, petitioned for divorce from Gary, seeking to dissolve their nearly 45-year marriage.

The "marriage of the parties is irretrievably broken" and "there is no hope for reconciliation," according to the petition, which also was filed in Fulton County Superior Court.

On Tuesday, the Rollins board, led by CEO Gary W. Rollins, 66, and chairman R. Randall Rollins, 78, fired Gary's son Glen, 44, an executive vice president and leader of Rollins' most recognizable brand, Orkin pest control.

That's a lot of unpleasantness. But it's relatively minor league compared to the nastiness, and blatant unlawfulness, that is present in the Rollins v. Rollins case in Alabama.

That case has gone unreported in the mainstream press. But we are preparing to take a serious look at it.

Dispute over trust funds in the Atlanta-based family behind Orkin Pest Control is headed for a jury trial

An illustration of the Rollins family
(From forbes.com)

A dispute about trust funds in one of the South's wealthiest families will go to a jury trial. A trial court in Atlanta had dismissed claims from four adult grandchildren of the late co-founder of Rollins Inc., but a Georgia appellate court found the case presents issues of fact that should be presented to a jury.

Rollins Inc., the parent company of Orkin Pest Control, is headed by billionaire brothers Gary W. and R. Randall Rollins. They are the sons of the late O. Wayne Rollins, who founded the company with his brother, the late John W. Rollins Sr.

The plaintiffs in the court case are Gary Rollins' children. They claim their father and uncle engaged in bad-faith actions that deprived them of access to trust accounts.

Why does the case, which has been litigated for six years, have special interest here at Legal Schnauzer? We explained in a December 2014 post:

The John Rollins side of the family is based mostly in Delaware and the Carolinas, and it includes Ted Rollins, who recently was removed as CEO of Campus Crest Communities. Ted Rollins has been the subject of numerous posts here at Legal Schnauzer, mainly because of his central role in a grossly unlawful divorce case in Shelby County, Alabama, from his second wife, Birmingham resident Sherry Carroll Rollins. Also, Ted Rollins has student-housing developments at four Alabama campuses (South Alabama, Troy, Jacksonville State, and Auburn), even though he has a criminal conviction for assault from the brutal beating of his stepson.

Ted Rollins is not directly involved in the Georgia lawsuit, but the controversy involves billions of dollars and attracted the attention of Forbes magazine, with reporter Clare O'Connor producing a major investigative report. What will be at stake at trial? The Daily Report, of Atlanta, reports:

"This case turns on claims of breach of fiduciary duty and breach of trust," (appellate judge William Ray II wrote). "A jury could find evidence of bad faith." 

Orkin owner Rollins died in 1991, leaving an estate that Forbes magazine estimated to be worth $8 billion. If Forbes was correct, the 11 heirs— two sons and nine grandchildren—stood to inherit more than $700 million each.

In 2010, four of the grandchildren—Glen, Ruth, Nancy and O. Wayne II—sued their father, Orkin CEO Gary Rollins, and their uncle, Chairman R. Randall Rollins. The younger generation accused their father and uncle of manipulating accounting records, making improper investments and setting a subjective conduct-based standard for inheritance. They contended the restrictions violated their grandfather's directions to share equally.

After the trial judge's initial decision in favor of the father and uncle on all but one claim, both sides appealed. This was the third trip to the Georgia Court of Appeals on various issues. The most recent review was ordered by the Georgia Supreme Court, which prescribed a different standard of review for the conduct of the father and uncle.

"Even evaluating Gary and Randall's actions under the more lenient partnership standard (as opposed to the more stringent trustee standard), a jury could find evidence of bad faith," Ray wrote.

The appellate ruling means Rollins family business practices likely will be exposed to the public in a way that never has happened before::

H. Lamar Mixson of Bondurant, Mixson and Elmore, lead counsel for the grandchildren, called the decision an important victory for his clients.

"The bottom line is the court of appeals correctly recognized factual questions that must be decided by a jury," Mixson said. "We look forward to that as soon as possible."

Instead of their full inheritance at age 45—and partnership in the Rollins Investment Fund—as prescribed by their grandfather, Mixson said his clients "got paper and no money" on their birthdays. After they filed their lawsuit, Mixson said they were "cut off entirely" from their trust disbursements. Also, he said, Glen Rollins was fired from his job as president of Orkin.

The case boils down to a battle over an estate estimated at $8 billion. That should make for an interesting jury trial.

The Road from Clarence Thomas to Harlan Crow Runs Close to Home

Harlan Crow

Mounting evidence indicates Justice Clarence Thomas is so ethically compromised that he should be removed from the U.S. Supreme Court. The latest evidence comes from a New York Times piece about Thomas' ties to a Texas real-estate baron named Harlan Crow.

We have discovered that the Thomas/Crow story, in a roundabout way, links to one of our storylines here at Legal Schnauzer. In fact, our story is about judicial chicanery in Alabama, the kind that favors the wealthy over regular citizens. That theme should sound familiar if you have been following the trail of Clarence Thomas' numerous ethical lapses. And it raises this question: How far will some wealthy Americans go to buy justice?

The answer, in the case of Harlan Crow, appears to be "pretty darned far." When you examine the actions of another wealthy titan, a man whose family has ties to Harlan Crow, you get the same answer.

How did we stumble upon what might be called a "side road" to the Thomas/Crow freeway? Mrs. Schnauzer and I have become acquainted with a woman named Sherry Carroll Rollins, who lives not far from us here in Birmingham, Alabama.

Sherry Rollins moved from South Carolina to Alabama eight years ago, in the midst of her divorce from Ted Rollins, the head of Campus Crest Communities and other enterprises. Ted Rollins is the son of the late John W. Rollins, a right-leaning businessman who helped found Orkin Pest Control and a number of other highly profitable companies. The Rollinses, now based mostly in Atlanta, are one of America's wealthiest families.

John Rollins, it turns out, was a friend and business associate of the late Trammell Crow, who was Harlan Crow's father. Here is how The New York Times' describes the Crow businesses--and the family's political leanings:

Mr. Crow, 61, manages the real estate and investment businesses founded by his late father, Trammell Crow, once the largest landlord in the United States. The Crow family portfolio is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and includes investments in hotels, medical facilities, public equities and hedge funds.

A friend of the Bush family, Mr. Crow is a trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation and has donated close to $5 million to Republican campaigns and conservative groups. Among his contributions were $100,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group formed to attack the Vietnam War record of Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, and $500,000 to an organization that ran advertisements urging the confirmation of President George W. Bush’s nominees to the Supreme Court.

The Crow and Rollins empires intersect in several ways. John Rollins built two hotels that were sold to Wyndham Hotels, which is owned by the Trammell Crow company. Both Rollins and Crow were in the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO), American Friends of Jamaica and the Horatio Alger Society.

Michele Rollins, John Rollins' widow, ran as a Republican in 2010 for a Delaware Congressional seat, narrowly losing to Glen Urquhart. Before becoming a corporate attorney and marrying John Rollins, Michele Rollins worked for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Interior.

Michele and Ted Rollins

During her time in D.C., Michele Rollins got to know Clarence Thomas--and the Supreme Court justice served as master of ceremonies at John Rollins' 80th birthday party and roast at the Dupont Circle Hotel.  In his opening remarks, Thomas talked extensively about his friendship with Michele and John Rollins.

How do certain members of the Rollins family view the American justice system? Public documents indicate that Ted Rollins, for one, treats it as his personal plaything.

Mrs. Schnauzer and I got to know Sherry Rollins when she contacted me in spring 2010 after doing a Google search related to injustice in Alabama and stumbled upon my blog. Sherry Rollins told us that she had filed for divorce in Greenville, South Carolina, but was forced to flee to Alabama, with her two daughters, when Ted Rollins ignored a court order to maintain payments on the family home.

After settling in Alabama, where she had family, Sherry Rollins discovered that her husband had sued her for divorce here, in Shelby County Circuit Court. I'm not a lawyer, but that sounded strange to my ears, that a judge in Alabama could snatch a case that already had begun in South Carolina.

It turns out that it can't be done, at least when the law is followed. But Ted Rollins belongs to one of America's wealthiest families, and he has ties to the influential Birmingham firm of Bradley Arant, and that apparently helped supersede the actual law.

Ted Rollins wound up with a judgment in Alabama that was so favorable his ex wife, and his daughters, have been on the verge of homelessness several times--and they have had to file for food stamps.

Since starting this blog four years ago, I've learned about a number of highly irregular court cases. But the Rollins v. Rollins divorce case might rank No. 1 on my "hit parade" of grotesque courtroom abuse--at least on the civil side.

When Sherry Rollins described her experienced to me, I thought it sounded like she had been railroaded. But when I checked the court file, I discovered that her treatment by our "justice system" was even worse than she had described. Consider just two factors from Rollins v. Rollins:


* Mounds of law--procedural, statutory, case, you name it--says that Shelby County Judge D. Al Crowson simply could not take a case where jurisdiction already was established elsewhere. I recently described the jurisdictional shenanigans in the Rollins case to a new law-school graduate, and she almost laughed out loud. "You must be kidding," she said. "That can't be done." But it can be done when a case involves the well-heeled Ted Rollins--and he has ties to one of Alabama's most powerful, conservative law firms.

An Alabama case styled Wesson v. Wesson, 628 So. 2d 953 (1993) does a nice job of summing up the actual law:

Once jurisdiction has attached in one court, that court has the exclusive right to continue its exercise of power until the completion of the case, and is only subject to appellate authority.

Sherry Rollins wound up getting cheated by an Alabama judge who could not possibly hear her case. Curiously, Judge Crowson retired, early and unexpectedly, as the Rollins case was winding down.

* In an Alabama child-support affidavit, called a Form CS-41, Ted Rollins stated under oath that he made $50,000 a year. This is a guy who has the use of multiple personal aircraft. He routinely sends private planes to pick up his daughters--and his Bradley Arant lawyer, Dawn Helms Sharff--in Birmingham. How many guys do you know who make $50,000 a year and have their own airplanes?

We will be the first to acknowledge that there are several degrees of separation between Ted Rollins/Al Crowson and Harlan Crow/Clarence Thomas. But Ted Rollins' father and Harlan Crow's father were close chums--they did business together, belonged to several of the same organizations.

What kind of values did the fathers pass on to the sons? How did they teach them to view the American justice system? We've seen clear evidence here in Alabama that someone taught Ted Rollins that justice is to be manipulated. You can see that in the Form CS-41 below, which Ted Rollins signed under penalty of perjury.

Were similar values instilled in Harlan Crow? Is that why he is so close to Clarence Thomas?


Rollins CS-41 Form

Clarence Thomas' SCOTUS seat might be getting hot, with #MeToo on his tail, plus evidence he helps create culture of corruption in Southeast federal courts

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Anthony Welters, a "dear friend" with a net worth of $80 million, financed a $267,230 recreational vehicle for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas at the wheel of his luxury R.V.

It has been established since early April that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas likes to travel in style, especially when the luxurious accommodations involve aircraft and yachts belonging to Thomas' "dear friend," Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. The New York Times (NYT) now has uncovered evidence that Thomas' taste for "the good life" goes beyond Crow to include another conservative pal who just happens to be mega-wealthy.

In this case, the Thomas saga intersects with a story we've been reporting since 2011. That's because Thomas' latest benefactor, businessman Anthony Welters, is a member of the Horatio Alger Association and has a reported net worth of about $80 million. And that ties the latest Thomas episode to an Alabama divorce case that I long have called the "worst courtroom cheat job" I've encountered (as a litigant or a reporter) in a civil matter. We will take a deeper look at that case in a moment, but first, let's examine the new investigative work of an NYT team that includes Steve Eder, Abbie VanSickle Jo Becker, and Julie Tate and is looking at multiple angles to the Thomas story -- including its connections to Alabama and the ugly secrets tied to one of the Deep South's wealthiest families

As we prepare to dive into the NYT's deeply sourced work, let's consider these questions: (1) Has Clarence Thomas acted as a berobed grifter for so long that he can't help himself when another opportunity comes along; (2) If Clarence Thomas essentially is a con man while sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), which receives by far more media scrutiny than any court in the land, how bad must lower federal judges be, considering they mostly operate in the shadows and receive relatively little media attention? Is the Clarence Thomas story a sign that our courts (both federal and state) are awash in ethically challenged fraudsters?

For now, let's turn to the story of Clarence Thomas and Anthony Welters, the man with deep pockets who just happened to help the justice obtain an uberpricey recreational vehicle (R.V.) From the NYT report:

Justice Clarence Thomas met the recreational vehicle of his dreams in Phoenix, on a November Friday in 1999.

With some time to kill before an event that night, he headed to a dealership just west of the airport. There sat a used Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon, eight years old and 40 feet long, with orange flames licking down the sides. In the words of one of his biographers, “he kicked the tires and climbed aboard,” then quickly negotiated a handshake deal. A few weeks later, Justice Thomas drove his new motor coach off the lot and into his everyman, up-by-the-bootstraps self-mythology.

There he is behind the wheel during a rare 2007 interview with 60 Minutes, talking about how the steel-clad converted bus allows him to escape the “meanness that you see in Washington.” He regularly slips into his speeches his love of driving it through the American heartland — “the part we fly over.” And in a documentary financed by conservative admirers, Justice Thomas, who was born into poverty in Georgia, waxes rhapsodic about the familiarity of spending time with the regular folks he meets along the way in R.V. parks and Walmart parking lots.

“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” he told the filmmakers, adding: “There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer being around that.”

That's where the story is just beginning. The rest of it has stayed mostly in the background -- until now:

There is an untold, and far more complex, back story to Justice Thomas’s R.V. — one that not only undercuts the mythology but also leaves unanswered a host of questions about whether the justice received, and failed to disclose, a lavish gift from a wealthy friend.

His Prevost Marathon cost $267,230, according to title history records obtained by The New York Times. And Justice Thomas, who in the ensuing years would tell friends how he had scrimped and saved to afford the motor coach, did not buy it on his own. In fact, the purchase was underwritten, at least in part, by Anthony Welters, a close friend who made his fortune in the health care industry.

He provided Justice Thomas with financing that experts said a bank would have been unlikely to extend — not only because Justice Thomas was already carrying a lot of debt, but because the Marathon brand’s high level of customization makes its used motor coaches difficult to value.

In an email to The Times, Mr. Welters wrote: “Here is what I can share. Twenty-five years ago, I loaned a friend money, as I have other friends and family. We’ve all been on one side or the other of that equation. He used it to buy a recreational vehicle, which is a passion of his.” Roughly nine years later, “the loan was satisfied,” Mr. Welters added. He subsequently sent The Times a photograph of the original title bearing his signature and a handwritten “lien release” date of Nov. 22, 2008.

But despite repeated requests over nearly two weeks, Mr. Welters did not answer further questions essential to understanding his arrangement with Justice Thomas.

He would not say how much he had lent Justice Thomas, how much the justice had repaid and whether any of the debt had been forgiven or otherwise discharged. He declined to provide The Times with a copy of a loan agreement — or even say if one existed. Nor would he share the basic terms of the loan, such as what, if any, interest rate had been charged or whether Justice Thomas had adhered to an agreed-upon repayment schedule. And when asked to elaborate on what he meant when he said the loan had been “satisfied,” he did not respond.

“‘Satisfied’ doesn’t necessarily mean someone paid the loan back,” said Michael Hamersley, a tax lawyer and expert who has testified before Congress. “‘Satisfied’ could also mean the lender formally forgave the debt, or otherwise just stopped pursuing repayment.”

Justice Thomas, for his part, did not respond to detailed questions about the loan, sent to him through the Supreme Court’s spokeswoman.

Why are Thomas and Welters being tight-lipped about the transaction? The NYT provides background: 

The two men’s silence serves to obscure whether Justice Thomas had an obligation to report the arrangement under a federal ethics law that requires justices to disclose certain gifts, liabilities and other financial dealings that could pose conflicts of interest.

Vehicle loans are generally exempt from those reporting requirements, as long as they are secured by the vehicle and the loan amount doesn’t exceed its purchase price. But private loans like the one between Mr. Welters and Justice Thomas can be deemed gifts or income to the borrower under the federal tax code if they don’t hew to certain criteria: Essentially, experts said, the loan must have well-documented, commercially reasonable terms along the lines of what a bank would offer, and the borrower must adhere to those terms and pay back the principal and interest in full.

Richard W. Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, said that when it comes to questions of disclosure, the ethics treatment of gifts and income often parallels the tax treatment. But those intricacies aside, he said, “justices just should not be accepting private loans from wealthy individuals outside their family.” If they do, he added, “you have to ask, why is a justice going to this private individual and not to a commercial lender, unless the justice is getting something he or she otherwise could not get.”

The Times’s unearthing of the loan arrangement is the latest in a series of revelations showing how wealthy benefactors have bestowed an array of benefits on Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas: helping to pay for his great-nephew’s tuition, steering business to Mrs. Thomas’s consulting firm, buying and renovating the house where his mother lives and inviting the Thomases on trips both domestic and foreign that included travel aboard private jets and a yacht.

Justice Thomas has pointed to interpretations of the disclosure rules to defend his failure to report much of the largess he has received. He has said he was advised that the trips fell under an exemption for gifts involving “personal hospitality” from close friends, for instance, and a lawyer close to the Thomases contended in a statement that the justice did not need to disclose the tuition because it was a gift to his great-nephew, over whom he had legal custody, rather than to him.

The Thomases’ known benefactors include wealthy men like the Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow, the conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo and several members of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, which honors people who succeed despite adversity. Among them: the longtime Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga, who flew the justice around on his jet.

Mr. Welters, while also a Horatio Alger member, stands apart. For one thing, the two men’s friendship predates Justice Thomas’s time on the federal bench. They met around 1980, when both were members of a small, informal club of Black congressional aides to Republican lawmakers — Mr. Welters worked for Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York and Justice Thomas for Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri.

They stayed close after Mr. Thomas joined an appeals court in Washington in 1990 and Mr. Welters left government service to found AmeriChoice, a Medicaid services provider that he sold to UnitedHealthcare for $530 million in stock in 2002 and continued to lead until retiring in 2016. Mr. Welters and his wife, Beatrice, named Justice Thomas the godfather of one of their two boys, according to The Village Voice.

When Justice Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court nomination ran into trouble after a former subordinate, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual harassment, Mr. Welters stood by his friend, providing behind-the-scenes advice, according to a book on the hearings written by Mr. Danforth.

And in 1998, the year before the motor coach purchase, Justice Thomas returned the favor. That is when Mr. Welters and his wife, through their foundation, started the AnBryce scholarship program, which gives underprivileged students a full ride to New York University’s law school, along with networking opportunities and career support. Justice Thomas lent his considerable imprimatur to the program, interviewing applicants in his Supreme Court chambers, mentoring scholars and later hiring one graduate as a clerk.

By that point, the justice had become fixated on owning an R.V., and not just any R.V., but the Rolls-Royce of motor coaches: a custom Prevost Marathon, or as he once put it, a “condo on wheels.”

“It wasn’t exactly fashionable to be a Black person working for a Republican, and it was comforting to meet others in the same boat,” the justice wrote in his autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son.

They had much in common. Like Justice Thomas, Mr. Welters was raised in poverty, sharing a cramped tenement in Harlem with his parents and three brothers and, after his mother’s death when he was 8, shining shoes under an elevated subway to help make ends meet.

How did Thomas become so interested in R.V.s? Like so many elements of this story, it goes back to the Horatio Alger Association. From the NYT: 

Justice Thomas was turned on to the luxury brand by Bernie Little, a fellow Horatio Alger member and the flamboyantly wealthy owner of the Miss Budweiser hydroplane racing boat. Mr. Little had owned 20 to 25 custom motor coaches over the years, Mr. Thomas told C-SPAN in 2001.

Back in those days, a basic Prevost Marathon sold for about a million dollars, and could fetch far more depending on the bells and whistles. It was a rich man’s toy, and the company marketed it that way.

“You drive through a neighborhood in South Florida and you see these $10-million homes,” Bob Phebus, Marathon’s vice president, told The South Florida Business Journal in 2006. “You condense that down, put it on wheels and that’s what we have. It’s the same guy that will have a 100-foot yacht and a private aircraft. They’re accustomed to the finer things in life.”

At the time, the Thomases’ primary source of income was the justice’s salary, then $167,900. He had yet to sell his autobiography, and property and other records show that the couple had significant debt: They had purchased their house in 1992 for $552,000 with 5 percent down, then refinanced it two years later, taking out a 15-year mortgage of $496,000. Plus, they had at least one line of credit of between $15,000 and $50,000.

So, in Justice Thomas’s telling, he began searching for a used Prevost at Mr. Little’s suggestion, one with enough miles on it to depreciate the value. “The depreciation curve — it’s very steep,” he made a point of saying in the 2001 C-SPAN interview.

All these years later, he still hasn’t told some of his closest friends how he was really able to swing the purchase.

“He told me he saved up all his money to buy it,” said Armstrong Williams, a longtime friend who worked closely with Justice Thomas in the Reagan administration.

The title history documents reviewed by The Times show that when the motor coach was sold for $267,230 to the Thomases in 1999, it had only 93,618 miles on it, relatively few for a vehicle that experts say can easily log a million miles in its lifetime. It came equipped with plush leather seating, a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom in the back. In addition to its orange flame motif, it had a large Pegasus painted on the back, according to Jason Mang, the step-grandson of the previous owner, Bonnie Owenby.

“It was superluxury, really bougie,” he recalled.

On Nov. 19, 1999, after spotting the motor coach on the lot of Desert West Coach in Phoenix and putting a hold on it, Justice Thomas attended a dinner at the conservative Goldwater Institute. In a speech that night, he said he had never yearned to be a federal judge. “Pure and simple, I wanted to be rich,” he said.

Wayne Mullis, the owner of the now-defunct Desert West, said in an interview that Justice Thomas never discussed obtaining traditional financing with him, and that “as far as I know, he paid for it.”

Indeed, Justice Thomas would have been hard-pressed to get a loan from a traditional lender. Banks, and even finance companies that specialize in R.V. loans, are particularly reluctant to lend money on used Prevost Marathons because the customized features are hard to value, according to three leading industry executives interviewed by The Times.

“As a rule, the majority of buyers are cash buyers — they don’t finance the Prevost, generally,” said Chad Stevens, owner of an Arizona-based dealership specializing in high-end motor coaches, whose clients include celebrities and politicians. “In 1999, you would need a very strong down payment and a strong financial portfolio to finance one. It is a luxury item.”

While the terms of Mr. Welters’s loan to Justice Thomas are unclear, rules governing loans of more than $10,000 between friends and family are not.

Loans can be reclassified as gifts or income to the borrower, either of which would have to be reported by the justice under court disclosure rules, if any portion of the debt is forgiven or discharged as uncollectable. But even if a lender does not take those steps, a loan can still be considered a reportable gift or income if it doesn’t meet certain standards.

Loan terms should be spelled out in a written agreement, with a clearly defined, regular repayment schedule, tax experts said. Lenders must charge at least the applicable federal interest rate, which was a little over 6 percent in December 1999, when the deal to buy the motor coach closed. And if a borrower is in arrears, lenders must make a good-faith effort to collect, even to the point of going to court.

“Absent that, it’s more of a gift,” said Rich Lahijani, tax director of Edelman Financial Engines, an independent wealth planning and investment advisory firm.

The title history records held by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles do not contain detailed information about the loan itself. What they show is that when the Thomases drove their motor coach back home to Virginia, they registered it in Prince William County, which does not charge personal property tax on R.V.s stored there, unlike Fairfax County, where they live.

As of late last month, when The Times reviewed the records, they still listed Mr. Welters as the lien holder, notwithstanding the signed release he said he gave Justice Thomas in 2008 so he could obtain a new, clear title.

As details about Justice and Mrs. Thomas’s subsidized trips to vacation homes and resorts have become public in recent months, his professed preference for traveling by motor coach has become something of a “yeah, right” punchline.

But by all accounts, he loves the anonymity, the freedom and the community it affords. He has hosted at least one event at the Supreme Court for a Marathon owners’ club.

When Thomas hits the road, he often goes unrecognized, which at times has allowed him to travel without a U.S. Marshals’ security detail. Chris Weaver, who worked at Desert West Coach, said the justice had frequently gotten his motor coach serviced there before it closed. “Nine out of 10 times, he was just wearing sweats and a T-shirt,” he said.

Traveling largely through red-state America has also meant that when he is recognized, more often than not it is by fans. Juan Williams, a Fox News commentator who has known Justice Thomas since the Reagan administration, said the motor coach was both the fulfillment of a boyish fantasy and a metaphorical “womb.”

“He talked about the R.V. a lot,” he said. “It was a warm, safe place where he didn’t have to be attacked by liberals and Blacks on the left. What he liked about it was not being pilloried.”

Over time, Justice Thomas made the motor coach his own. In a photo The Times obtained that appears to date back to the early 2000s, picturing his great-nephew as a child, the motor coach no longer sported the sizzling orange flames and Pegasus logo. Instead, it was painted in an elegant black-and-gold geometric pattern.

But if the custom coach changed, the justice’s friendship with Mr. Welters endured.

While Mr. Welters was an executive at UnitedHealthcare, Justice Thomas twice recused himself from cases involving the company, in 2003 and 2005. As is the general custom of the court, he did not explain why.

In 2010, Justice Thomas traveled to the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain, at the invitation of the Welterses. By then, the couple had become major Democratic fund-raisers and President Obama had named Ms. Welters ambassador to the island nation. Local newspapers captured the justice and Mr. Welters talking to students at a school.

What about that divorce case that connects Clarence Thomas to Alabama's dysfunctional court system? We have reported on the Horatio Alger Association because not only are Thomas and Welters members of the exclusive society, so are members of the Rollins family, who reportedly are the second largest landowners in the Southeast, behind Ted Turner -- with bases in Georgia and Delaware and wide-ranging business interests that include Orkin Pest Control, Rollins Inc. Dover Downs, Rollins Jamaica Resorts, Rollins Ranches LLC, and more.

We have written almost three dozen posts about the Rollins family because they were at the heart of what I have called "the worst courtroom cheat job I've encountered in a civil matter." The case involved an Alabama woman named Sherry Carroll Rollins, who married the late Ted Rollins and filed for divorce in Greenville, S.C., where the couple and their two daughters lived when Ted Rollins failed to make court-ordered mortgage and insurance payments on the marital residence. Sherry Rollins and the girls fled to the Birmingham area (where she had family) to avoid homelessness -- only to discover Ted Rollins somehow got the divorce case moved to Shelby County Circuit Court. Can such a switcheroo lawfully happen? Nope, but Shelby County Judge Al Crowson apparently was not one to take the law too seriously, as we reported in March 2017:

How horrible a judge was Al Crowson? Learning the details of just one case -- the Rollins v. Rollins divorce -- will tell you all you need to know. Here are some of the basics from the Rollins case:

Ted Rollins, the head of Charlotte-based Campus Crest Communities, helped his company complete a $380-million IPO late last year. And a South Carolina divorce-court judge found that Rollins belongs to one of the nation's wealthiest families and has the use of multiple private aircraft. But Rollins managed to get the divorce case unlawfully moved to Alabama, and the resulting judgment means that his ex wife and two daughters qualify for food stamps.

Sherry Carroll Rollins said she and the girls now are on food stamps--and have been for some time. That's because Alabama Circuit Judge D. Al Crowson ordered Ted Rollins to pay only $500 in alimony and $815 in child support--a monthly total of $1,315. Our research indicates that is a shockingly low level of support for a man of Rollins' means, a CEO whose family owns Orkin Pest Control and other highly profitable enterprises.

Yes, Al Crowson caused a woman and her two young daughters -- who were connected to one of the nation's wealthiest families -- to wind up on food stamps. What a prince of a guy! What a responsible use of public resources. . . . 

The case was heard in Shelby County, Alabama, and Mr. Rollins received an extraordinarily favorable judgment, even though Mrs. Rollins had sued him for divorce some three years earlier in Greenville, South Carolina--where the couple had lived and where numerous court orders already had been entered. Simple jurisdictional law--call it Law School 101--shows that such a judicial heist cannot be done. But Alabama Circuit Judge D. Al Crowson did it anyway, violating all sorts of law that perhaps is best explained in a case styled Wesson v. Wesson, 628 So. 2d 953 (Ala., 1993). Here is the key finding:

"Once jurisdiction has attached in one court, that court has the exclusive right to continue its exercise of power until the completion of the case, and is only subject to appellate authority."

Legal doctrine doesn't come much shorter or simpler than that. Based on the clear language in Wesson, Sherry Carroll Rollins and the two daughters she had with Ted Rollins (now teens and living with their mother in Alabama) received a "shaft job" that would make Isaac Hayes blush.

Yes, the case had been litigated for three years in South Carolina, jurisdiction had been established there, and it could not be moved elsewhere -- in South Carolina and certainly not to Alabama. But Al Crowson essentially stole the case and robbed Sherry Rollins of marital assets that lawfully were hers.

The grossness of the Rollins v. Rollins divorce case does not end there. Ted Rollins proved to be a  monstrous deadbeat dad, as we reported in December 2011: 

Documents from the Rollins' divorce case show that he stiffed his own children on support payments over a 33-month period from 2002 to 2005. . . .

Judges in the divorce action found that Ted Rollins owns multiple private jet craft and belongs to one of America's wealthiest families--the folks behind Rollins Inc., the parent company for Orkin Pest Control and other profitable businesses.

Why would a man of such means be a deadbeat dad? Why have support payments that were due more than six years ago still not been paid? We will put those questions, and others, to Ted Rollins in writing--although he has a tendency to not respond to our e-mails.

How ugly did Ted Rollins' actions get? As we reported in April 2012, they included the brutal beating of his stepson, Zac Parrish, who now manages a building company in the Birmingham area. 

Ted Rollins was convicted of assault in the Zac Parrish beating, as we reported in May 2012. But he still received highly favorable treatment in Alabama courts. Rollins family money apparently speaks with serious volume in Shelby County.

Is it possible Clarence Thomas' influence also spoke loudly in the Rollins v. Rollins case and related matters?

As we reported in March 2018, Thomas is assigned to oversee the Eleventh Circuit (covering Alabama, Georgia, and Florida). We also noted Thomas' close ties to the late John Rollins (Ted's father) and Michele Rollins (Ted's stepmother):

Michele Rollins, John Rollins' widow, ran as a Republican in 2010 for a Delaware Congressional seat, narrowly losing to Glen Urquhart. Before becoming a corporate attorney and marrying John Rollins, Michele Rollins worked for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Interior.

During her time in D.C., Michele Rollins got to know Clarence Thomas--and the Supreme Court justice served as master of ceremonies at John Rollins' 80th birthday party and roast at the Dupont Circle Hotel. In his opening remarks, Thomas talked extensively about his friendship with Michele and John Rollins.

After I was beaten by Alabama Sheriff's deputies inside my own home and unlawfully incarcerated for five months -- from October 2013 to March 2014 -- my wife, Carol, and I filed a federal lawsuit alleging violations of the First Amendment and other civil rights. The case originated with a defamation complaint from a lobbyist and Rob Riley, the son of former Gov. Bob Riley and a rumored candidate for Congress at the time. The plaintiffs sued Carol, even though she had nothing to do with my blog at the time of filing, and they sought her arrest, along with mine.

Defendants in our subsequent lawsuit included Michele Rollins, Ted Rollins, Zac Parrish, and other family members. Given that, and the Rollinses' close ties to Clarence Thomas, it was no surprise when the trial court in the Northern District of Alabama repeatedly violated black-letter law to rule against us. And given that the 11th Circuit comes under Thomas' direct purview, it was no surprise when much the same result came on appeal. 

Longtime readers probably remember that I was the only journalist in the western hemisphere to be incarcerated in 2013, putting Alabama in the company of rogue states like Iran, Russia, Egypt, China, and Uganda. That I would be jailed for practicing journalism -- and essentially be the victim of a state-sanctioned kidnapping -- made the case so unusual and wildly unlawful that it received national and international news coverage, in The New York Times, Russia, and the Middle East. As part of the coverage, Rob Riley did prove in an interview with Sara Rafsky that he has a tortured relationship with the truth.

For the record, the series of posts that prompted the Rob Riley lawsuit against me never were found to be false or defamatory by a jury, as required by First Amendment law, and the plaintiffs did not even seek to have the case heard by a jury. (Also, I've never been found liable by a jury in any case of alleged defamation.) Instead, the plaintiffs sought remedies that have been unlawful prior restraints under more than 200 years of First Amendment law. It's almost as if someone knew Clarence Thomas was going to provide cover in a matter that eventually would involve members of the Rollins family, "so why bother with a jury?" Could that really happen in America's "justice system"? 

The more we learn about Clarence Thomas and his utter lack of ethics, the more I'm convinced the answer to that question is "yes."