Linda Thompson
Attorney at Law
Undisclosed
Telephone: Undisclosed               Internet: Undisclosed


                      July 9, 1997



Mr. Joe Shea
Mr. Neil Motenko
Nutter, McClennen & Fish
One International Place
Boston, MA 02110-2699
By Fax: 617-973-9748


In re: FDIC v. Sweeney

Dear Mr. Shea:

        
        I received your daily Federal Express monologue, which at this point has become monotonous. It is clear you have been given explicit marching orders – from someone – that you can only say three things and you continue to say them – over and over – and doubtlessly, to bill the taxpayers for the several hours it takes you to prepare them. Comparing your letters side by side, I see not one iota of intent to negotiate in good faith and very little distinction in content in any of them.

        My faxes to you arrive around 5:00 p.m. each day as a result of your habit of sending your missives to me late in the afternoon, despite the ready availability of both instantaneous telephone communications, email, and A.M. delivery by Federal Express and my request that you use any one of these to facilitate communications. That you persist otherwise is nothing short of childish.

        Thereafter, your reply posts to me are written the same day, after 5:00 p.m., and do not leave your office until approximately 7:30-8:30 p.m. each night. This is doubtlessly prime billing hours for your firm to the U.S. taxpayers you claim to be concerned about, and all to merely repeat the same three things, over and over.
        
        Since your clients publicly claimed on June 30, July 1, July 2, and July 3, in printed releases to the media to be willing to negotiate, and on July 3, you personally demanded a proposal from the Sweeneys, which was provided to you in less than 24 hours, your latest claim that any such proposal was "untimely" merely punctuates the ongoing unreasonable and bad faith posture you, personally, and your client FDIC have taken, while simultaneously telling the media the opposite.

        For you to claim I never asked you to put a proposal in writing from FDIC is a blatant falsehood. Not only was this the primary purpose and content of my first telephone call to you of July 2, it is also stated quite plainly in my letter to you of the same date, page 2, paragraph 3, which you have acknowledged in writing that you received. That entire letter recounts the various proposals which were made to you by me on July 2, which you flatly rejected, out-of-hand, without conferring with your client.
        
        Your tactic of lie and deny won't work, Mr. Shea. What we have proposed has been in writing. What you have refused has been in writing. We'll put all these letters out for the public to see for themselves exactly who is telling the truth. We have nothing to hide, Mr. Shea, unlike your clients who have resorted to underhanded tactics throughout the course of these events and continue in their attempts to deceive the public, aided I no small part by you and your law-firm.

        Even if you click your heels together three times and wish really hard when you proclaim we have not made these offers, when you claim that your client has made offers or is dealing in good-faith, or that your client is concerned about "saving taxpayer money," the very obvious truth to the contrary is in black and white.

        As you know, anything which flows from fraud is a nullity. That the issues of fraud in the manner in which your purported federal court judgment was obtained were not properly raised by a pro se defendant isn't surprising. You then took advantage of a pro se defendant to accomplish what you did, which you know would not have occurred had a lawyer opposed you; however, you have a duty of honesty to opposing parties as well. Regardless, that you may obtain technical and procedurally based rulings because the facts were not in issue, does not change the facts. Merely because a Court of Appeals has not been presented the issues and facts properly is nothing more than a lesson in the elevation of form over substance, however, it does not mean the issues do not and did not exist and it does not change the facts. It also does not change the legal duty you have and that your client has, to deal honestly with the public, including the Sweeneys.

        Your client continues to ignore a binding State Court judgment against ComFed, including ComFed Mortgage who was not part of the removal action and could not have been, and as the Court order concerning this noted. The outright fraud committed to remove the remainder of the action from State Court to federal court is without precedent, to my knowledge.

        Neither RTC nor FDIC was ever substituted as a party, so neither was ever properly before the Court at any time, even if the removal action had been accomplished timely and properly.

        Your clients, with your help, also conducted an "auction" of the property, wholly outside the law, in failing to observe Massachusetts law in any manner. Your clients, by ignoring Massachusetts law, also ignore the plain fact that the Sweeneys have a perfected equitable lien upon the property and statutory exemptions from levy and execution which are not being honored.

        As you also know, you can and will be held accountable for your role in ratifying fraud and for breaching your legal duty to bring the fraud to the Court's attention.

        Further, your client asked the Court to reinstate the jury verdict in the case, which includes a judgment for Mrs. Sweeney, as well as additur by the Court, all of which have been conveniently ignored by your clients.

        As for the "get out or else" posture, how do you square this with FDIC's demand for a proposal on July 2 and with their publicly disseminated proclamations that they are "negotiating in good faith"? I note that you have ignored this question each time it has been posed.
        
        I also note that you ignored my second letter to you yesterday, asking whether you represent any party other than the FDIC, including any private party or any other government agency.

        I have received no response from Neil Motenko, either.

        The Sweeneys await a copy of the offers, in writing, your client has repeatedly claimed it made. As always, the Sweeneys await a meaningful effort at settlement of this matter from your clients.

        It is time that both you and your clients stopped wasting everyone's time and billing the taxpayers thousands upon thousands of dollars to do nothing but posture and bully and act like spoiled two-year-old children in the midst of a tantrum. It is silly for you and your clients to claim that a mediation scheduled a week ago, without the Sweeneys' knowledge or authority, produced such a "delay" (one week) in a case that has a ten-year history that it threw FDIC into histrionics over the expenses to taxpayers occasioned by this "delay" and is therefore the "reason" FDIC now refuses to negotiate unless the Sweeneys get out of their house first. What utter malarkey.

        The Sweeneys have broken no laws and are law-abiding, well-respected members of the local community. They have been defrauded and worse, they have been treated like criminals and wrongdoers, libeled, maligned, and terrorized by a government agency whose purpose is supposedly the protection of the public.
        
        They are peacefully occupying their property. They are unarmed. They have continuously and openly agreed to negotiate settlement and continue to do so. Your response is to threaten to send in armed federal agents to oust them, period.

        We again request that the FDIC come to the negotiation table in good faith, prepared to address these issues with a meaningful and intelligent proposal to resolve this situation.

                  Very truly yours,


                  Linda Thompson