Thursday, October 25, 2012

Romney Might Prove That Ted And Randall Rollins Aren't The Only Rich Guys Who Lie Under Oath

Gloria Allred and Maureen Stemberg

Mitt Romney might have blown his chance for the presidency by lying under oath in a divorce case some 20 years ago. The ex wife of a former Romney business partner claims that the GOP candidate testified falsely about the value of a company and cost her millions of dollars in the process. Celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred represents Maureen Sullivan Stemberg and is expected to push at a hearing today for release of Romney's testimony from 1991. Some in the press have dubbed the story "Gloria Allred's October Surprise," saying Romney's candidacy could sink if it is shown he committed perjury.

Such an outcome would be ironic because we have been reporting for months about rich men who made false statements under oath in a divorce case, cheating an ex wife and two daughters out of millions in family support. Our story centers around an Alabama divorce case styled Rollins v. Rollins, which is the worst courtroom cheat job we've encountered in the civil arena. It was so grotesque that Birmingham resident Sherry Carroll Rollins and her daughters, Sarah and Emma Rollins, actually wound up on food stamps--even though ex-husband and father Ted Rollins owns multiple private planes, belongs to one of the nation's wealthiest families, and is CEO of a company (Campus Crest Communities) that completed a $380-million Wall Street IPO in 2010.

Could Gloria Allred turn her attention to Ted Rollins after she is finished with Mitt Romney and his pal Thomas Stemberg, the founder of Staples? She might want to consider it. Romney has an estimated net worth of about $250 million, while Stemberg is worth about $300 million. Add those two together and you get an impressive number.

But it pales in comparison to the Rollins family. Ted Rollins' company has received close to $450 million in total investor support, so he is doing OK. But his cousin, R. Randall Rollins, truly is in the financial big leagues. Randall Rollins is chairman of Atlanta-based Rollins Inc., the umbrella firm for Orkin Pest Control and other profitable enterprises. Published reports show that Randall Rollins' net worth is well north of $1 billion.

Randall and Ted Rollins were partners in a business called St. James Capital, which by law should have been equitably divided as a marital asset in Ted Rollins' divorce from Sherry Rollins. Instead, Randall and Ted Rollins lied their corporate fannies off, greatly reducing Ted's child-support payments and ensuring that Sherry Rollins would get nothing out of St. James Capital.

Randall Rollins
If Gloria Allred is paying attention, the wrongdoing in Rollins v. Rollins probably swamps whatever might have happened in the Stemburg case. And Randall Rollins probably is a far worse boogeyman--not to mention a much wealthier boogeyman--than Mitt Romney.

That's not to say Maureen Sullivan Stemburg didn't get the shaft. According to a report at the UK Daily Mail, Romney "pulled a Randall Rollins" on his business partner's first wife:

Mitt Romney allegedly provided testimony in the bitter divorce of his friend and staunch advocate, ex-Staples CEO Tom Stemberg, that meant his ex-wife received a poor divorce settlement. 
Sources told TMZ that Romney, whose hedge fund, Bain Capital, was an investor in Staples before it became a household name, testified in the case that the company was worth virtually nothing and that his friend was a 'dreamer'. 
He testified during the hearings in 1988 that the company's stock was 'overvalued' and that the future did not look good. Later he and Stemberg allegedly went to Goldman Sachs to cash in their stock for a massive payout, according to TMZ. 
His bitter ex-wife Maureen Stemberg claims this testimony effected how much she got from the settlement.

Rich people lying to get off easy--or help a friend or family member get off easy--in a divorce case? That might be a shocker to the general public, but it should be no surprise to folks who have followed our Rollins v. Rollins coverage. Let's review:

*  Ted Rollins stated under oath in an Alabama child-support affidavit, called a Form CS-41, that his annual income was roughly $50,000--and it all came from his work with a mortgage company in Brentwood, Tennessee. Public records show that Rollins was a partner/owner at the time in both St. James Capital and Campus Crest Communities. Rollins also was a major player in the Crescent Center, a development in Greenville, South Carolina, that offers 750,000 square feet of manufacturing, distribution, office, and retail space. He derived no income from the Crescent Center? Slightly hard to believe.

* Randall Rollins, during a deposition at his office in Atlanta, provided documents to Sherry Rollins' lawyers that are so absurd they almost produce guffaws. Randall Rollins stated that Ted Rollins had sold his interest in St. James Capital for roughly $85,000, the total of several loans that Randall had made to his cousin. But Sherry Rollins says she saw documents on Ted Rollins' computer that the company was started with $34 million in capital--$17 million from Randall Rollins and $17 million from John Rollins Sr., Ted's father. When the senior Rollins died in 2000, his shares went back into the company and Ted became half owner.

And that's not all. Sherry Rollins said records showed that St. James Capital owned 28 properties throughout the United States and Canada. An expert witness testified at the divorce trial that Ted Rollins, one month earlier, had made $1.4 million off just one of the properties.

Finally, Randall Rollins provided documents that showed St. James Capital had an interest in two particularly valuable properties--an industrial building in Greenville, South Carolina (appraised value, $9.6 million) and a San Francisco RV park that rests on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean (appraised value, $7.8 million).

If St. James Capital had 26 other properties of similar value, that means it had assets of almost $245 million. But we are to believe that Ted Rollins sold his interest in such a company for $85,000? Even a graduate of the Jethro Bodine College of Business would not make that deal.

What will happen in the Stemberg divorce battle? If Mitt Romney is proven to be a perjurer, will it ensure four more years for Barack Obama in the White House? We should know more when a hearing concludes today in Canton, Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, we are putting out an alert for Gloria Allred: If she is able to ruin Mitt Romney's presidential hopes, she needs to turn her attention toward the South. The Rollins boys might not be as famous as the Romney/Stemberg pairing. But they have more money, and evidence is overwhelming that they lied under oath in an ugly divorce case.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heard about the Romney story yesterday, but didn't connect the dots to what went on in Rollins case. Very similar. Good reporting, LS.

Spasmoda said...

It's so easy to get away with perjury in this country. Hope it comes back to bite Mittens on the butt.

Raymond said...

Sounds like Gloria might have a certain part of Mitt's anatomy in a vice.

Anonymous said...

Maureen Stemberg looks like she needs to go to Hardee's and eat a few steak biscuits. God, she's a skeleton. Eat something, Girlfriend!

Anonymous said...

This is explosive. Where is the mainstream media? MIA...
Good job

Anonymous said...

Looks like all the speculation is in vain. See Drudge Report.

Anonymous said...

Note to Anon: Never would I read anything with the title Drudge Report; sounds very unpleasant.

You however are wrong about Gloria Allred's work being in vain; it is not. When the testimony comes out later today we will see that Romney lied to the Judge about the worth of Staples so that he and Tom Stemberg could cheat his spouse out of millions of dollars. you may agree with judges allowing this to go in their courtrooms; I however, am glad to know that people like Gloria Allred exist. She will shine a light on any court injustice and she has no FEAR. You should thank her.

legalschnauzer said...

My understanding is that Allred's motion to have her client's gag order removed was denied, but the testimony will be unsealed. Seems like a mixed bag, but the main thing is release of the testimony. Maureen Stemberg already has talked a lot about the case, so I'm not sure a gag order on her matters much. The interesting thing will be Romney's testimony and how it compares to the truth.

Anonymous said...


I thought gag orders were issued when someone's life was in danger......this is ridiculous, can you imagine a gag order being in place if this was you, me, or Obama for heaven sakes?

Gag Order, I would open my mouth and speak out every chance I got. This is looks a violation of her right to free speech......


Anonymous said...

"... Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are more of the same on key issues as Glen Ford explains:

.. To any objective observer, the consensus that exists between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on the fundamental issues of war and peace, Wall Street’s dominance of American life, and fiscal austerity, has been made crystal clear in the two “debates.” In the absence of effective popular resistance to the duopoly of money, the economic and social crisis fails to create a corresponding political crisis for the rulers. As a result, there is nothing important for them to debate. (Glen Ford, Obama-Romney:

... The Duopoly Debates Itself)...

Who Will Win the Elections? “The Republicrats” .. Selected Articles, By Julie Lévesque, Global Research, October 24, 2012

legalschnauzer said...

Anon at 2:01--

I agree. Can't imagine what legal authority the judge cited for that one. Of course, judges don't have to cite legal authority. They do as they please.

Anonymous said...

Judges are the undertakers, so to speak, paid very well to do the bidding of the higher criminal class, and there are more than likely, a couple of layers of higher class criminals.

Rich is a word that is used to describe the criminals that are very bad thugs, the 'wealthy' owners of the barbaric cop cult.

Kissinger is one of the top criminals running America.

Then there is David Rockefeller the criminal boss at, used to be the top. But, Warren Buffett said "Got Rocks," that would be David Rockefeller, is not the top crime boss anymore. That was why the crumble of this time began.

Or reshuffling of the criminals.

Adelson is a top crime boss and Romney serves him.

America is run by criminals and the so called courts, almost 100%, are paid well to work for the criminals.

Unbelievable how this country has taken the American Spirit and wrecked any idea of great.

Tragic how the "children" do not have the true spirit to demand their rights' not be stolen by a thuggery of despicable inhuman greed mongering filth.

Wall Street is in control of the elections, so we know what the future is to be once the game of no voting has ended.

Bibi Netanyahu and Mitt Romney, obviously Sheldon Gary Adelson, are the crime bosses with absolutely only one agenda: no boundaries for their insatiable greed. Criminally insane as a lable damns their egos with faint praise, look at Palestine since about 1901, or thereabouts.

Rockefeller and Aldrich were married in about 1907, or therabouts and when money and power united, America's "Swan Song" began to be sung.

The new top criminals are far more ruthless, Ted Rollins is one of the cult of the Rockefeller's, it is about the predatory, pedophile, unconscionable monsters.

Look at David Rockefeller, vampire.

Anonymous said...

"... Breathtaking suspense: who will be chosen to read the Presidential VSS-20 teleprompter, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney? ....

At voltairenet.org/en the best photo of the big mouth cannibals at the dinner table is there, and the name given these criminals that are supposedly running for "President" is "teleprompter readers."

George W. Tush said...

According to news reports, Allred did not file a motion of her own seeking to lift the restriction on the parties from speaking about the case. She appeared to support the motion filed by the Boston Globe which sought the release of Romney's testimony and vacatur of the gag order. When the Boston Globe withdrew its motion to vacate the gag order, Gloria was left with nothing. Sloppy work, Gloria.

Also, according to reporting in the news, the restriction on the parties was agreed to by the parties as part of the divorce settlement agreement, not is an order that was imposed by the court independent of an agreement by the parties. If that is true, then any effort to convince the court to strike that agreement from the settlement is unlikely to succeed.