Continuing Damages by State Farm



I took this file down for a while because I thought I was going over the top. Now that the RICO SUIT AGAINST STATE FARM should have been served by certified mail, I'm putting it back up and continuing it after catching up on the further delays and fraudulent tricks that State Farm has been perpetrating.

I've seperated out the overthe top part and put that on a separate page with a disclaimer as to intent of anthing but to indicate my emotional state prior to the start of my Internet research into Federal Law and litigation. You will find a link to that page below.




After the two complaints [complaint 1] and [complaint 2] were filed it became clear that the New Jersey State Department of Insurance was in collusion with State Farm, aided and abetted by the office of the Governor of the State of New Jersey. There was no investigation of anything in my complaints. The reply from both NJDIC and the Department of Insurance simply consisted of "State Farm advises ...", the content of which was nothing. Even intervention by State Senator Byron Baer elicited the same response, which he admitted was an improper one. While this was going on all our income ceased and three businesses were destroyed. Mr. Bellamente, in order to save our lives, collected everything that was left of our lives; we left New Jersey to seek some form of rest and sanity in the remote mountains of North Carolina. While in North Carolina, the house was foreclosed on, and all equity lost.

It was already clear to me back in NJ, before State Farm's illogical denial of medical benefits, from seeing the Cervical MRIs and radiological reports that I should see a neurologist/neurosurgeon. The forced move and State Farm's delay games and intransigence delayed that also. I knew several good neurosurgeons and one brilliant neurologist in NJ, but now had to find through a series of inquiries, their equal in NC. We found an excellent one and contacted him in July of 1996, and consulted with him in August of 1996, at Duke University Medical Center. Decompression laminectomy surgery was recommended for my neck. My surgery was scheduled for September 25, 1996. The hospital staff that dealt with finances was made aware from the very beginning, of State Farm's denial of medical benefits and of the nature of no-fault insurance, which to the State's credit does not exist in NC. These people could not imagine that State Farm would persist under the conditions of imminent surgery and assured me that the seriousness of the situation and the reputation of Duke University Hospital would cause them to understand their mistake.

Wrong! I left for Duke on September 23, 1996, prepared for the presurgical workup on the 24th and surgery on the morning of the 25th. On arriving at the hospital, it turned out that the degree of State Farm's immutable malice was something no one expected. State Farm, refused once again and I had no choice but to make the long trip back from Durham to WNC. A phone call alerting me to State Farm's firm refusal was on my answering machine when I arrived home; it was made shortly after I had already left for Durham. These trips are not cheap and Medicaid has not paid for any of the more than half dozen trips back and forth to Durham.

After submitting medical records to Social Security, it was quickly decided that we were both medically disabled, and destitute. The statutory payments from SSI are enough to permit existence, and the Medicaid that comes with SSI in North Carolina has permitted us to begin to receive the medical attention that has been needed, but not received, for a few years. We have both retained attorneys in New Jersey and continue medical and psychological treatment for prolonged Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and severe anxiety disorders, a large component of which is from the damages deliberately and maliciously caused by State Farm Insurance. The damages caused by lack of necessary medical treatment increase continually. My surgical procedures, finally performed May 13, 1997 and paid for by NC Medicaid, were too late. The delay necessitated, on information and belief, more radical surgery than would have to have been had they been performed when they were found to be necessary.

Originally, the proposed surgical intervention proposed for me was a triple laminectomy; what actually had to be performed was a quintuple laminectomy, C3-C7. This cuts away the backs of the five vertebrae from the base of the skull down to the shoulder, and leaves a seven inch long grand canyon of a scar in the middle of my neck. I have felt it, but I have never seen it. Although it is clear from a subsequent MRI that the surgery has definitely removed the pressure from the spinal cord, it also leaves the neck unstable and my spinal cord extremely vulnerable, as there is now only soft tissue protecting it posteriorly. The delay in the surgery and the continued pressure on my spinal cord in the cervical region has left an atrophy of the cord, that affects all sensory input, from the head down, as well as various muscular derangements and atrophy from partial denervation, with particularly intense pain in both hands, and difficulty walking. Both shoulders have been weakened so that the humeral head no longer remains firmly in the glenoid fossa. The neck and upper trapezius feel as if they are in constant spasm.

All of the neurological, muscular, and bone damages are now medically deemed permanent, and leave us both in unceasing, sleep deranging pain. The damages will leave us both disabled, in pain, and impaired for life. Without each other's aid, neither of us would be able to exist independently.

There is not enough energy to continue with the particulars at the moment. This page will be added to in fits and starts as the tale of deliberate and maliciously contrived torture by State Farm Insurance progresses.

A gruesome and expensive trip to NJ was necessary in order that Alan and I be deposed by State Farm's attorney, on February 25, 1998. Present, in addition to us, were: our two attorneys; Donna T. Miller representing the law firm of Melli & Wright, a sort of in house law firm for State Farm; and Carol Rickelmann, Claims Specialist, State Farm Special Investigative Unit.

Ms. Miller was a perfectly acceptable human being, who did not attempt to harass or intimidate either of us. Unfortunately, she wanted to know a long list of dates and financial figures, which I had precious little memory for then, and have even less memory for now. Any dates supplied anywhere in this documentation had to be pulled either from Alan's memory, or from documents. Ms. Miller asked the questions, and I wouldn't have even noticed Carol Rickelmann were it not for her sudden and brusque movements and rather noisy, seemingly random, flipping of pages in something that looked like a notebook. Her whole demeanor was of one being in high dudgeon. At the time, I knew that "she was from State Farm" and so she was there representing the interested party defendant State Farm. Ms. Rickelmann left with dramatic brusqueness long before my deposition concluded, and was not present at all for Alan's deposition. Despite the fact that the transcript of the deposition of Alan J. Bellamente, sworn to by Dorothy A. Lazan as a "true and accurate transcript of the deposition" shows: "ALSO PRESENT: Carol Rickelmann, Claim Specialist, State Farm Special Investigative Unit".

In the certified "true and accurate transcripts" of both our depositions, there were so many errors of transcription as to cause Alan to question his attorney on the certifiability of Ms. Lazan as a certified "Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public of the State of New Jersey."

It was only later that I learned that Madam Rickelmann was a Claims Specialist from State Farm Special Investigative Unit. And I hope we all know what that is boys and girls! If not, I'll explain in no uncertain terms.

The Special Investigative Unit of State Farm has the alleged purpose of investigating fraudulent claims. It is, in fact, the department of dirty tricks, the "we've paid for all the laws to be in our favor so, fuck you" department, the "if we don't manage to kill you, you'll wish we had" department. The sole purpose for an insurance company's existence is to make money, a purpose with which I have no quarrel. All businesses are supposed to make money. My quarrel is with how they make money, which, in the case of State Farm and insurance companies in general, is, simply put, theft: you pay, and they don't. They can't get away with paying nobody; then, the theft would be so egregious and obvious that even our utterly corrupt Federal and State governments could not ignore it, without imperiling their existences - or could they?

All insurance companies including State Farm, have to do is not pay a small percentage of perfectly valid and legitimate claims, and cheat a small percentage on every claim that they actually do pay, in order to make a bloody fortune. State Farm is clearly the winner in this game: it is the richest insurance company in the world (Check Best's in your library if you don't believe me.), with assets over 70 Billion dollars, in 1977. As far as automobile insurance in the US goes, one out of every five cars is insured with State Farm. Your "Good Neighbor". With a good neighbor like this, expect a borrowed cup of sugar to be laced with strychnine.

Sat Jun 06 20:53:54 EDT 1998
A continuation at slightly more that one year after surgery. It is definite that my spinal cord is atrophied in the cervical area, exactly where the pressure was, and was forced to stay, by State Farm. The delay of about 2 years in surgery caused by State Farm has caused the atrophy, which unfortunately interferes, neurologically, with sensation and musculature everyplace at and below the neck.

The interferences in sensation range over: temperature sensations of coldness; lack of feeling; diminished position sense; burning and stinging sensations, especially in both hands. The only medication that seems to diminish the pain in the hands is neurontin (gabapentin), and that only to about 60%-70% of what the pain is without it. Unfortunately, there are indications that this medication may have the potential to cause tumors of various organs of the body, particularly, the spinal cord. There are no long term studies that I know of, and this arises as a speculative idea. Nevertheless, Neurontin (gabapentin) is the only, with the exception of alcohol or ketamine (a hallucinogenic also called "angel dust") medication, that supreses glutamine production and will reduce the neural pain level from intolerable to barely tolerable.

The atrophied spinal cord has also caused decreased enervation of almost all muscles of the body. While the neck and upper trapezius is in continuous spasm, the other muscles of the body are atrophying. Walking has become difficult; in terms of functioning as a real human being, I've practically become a quadraplegic. Walking is not helped by the increasing failure of abdominal muscles, giving me a new found pot belly and allowing a new exaggerated curvature of the lumbar spine to form. The partial denervation of the shoulder muscles has caused a laxity in the shoulder joints that would allow injury to the joints if they were exercised in any normal way. I need help with bathing, and I cannot cook or prepare nutritious food for myself. Eating is a painful chore, that is no longer done like a civilized human being at a table. I've lost a total of over 30 pounds of muscle mass, and added a very discernible amount of fat. I sit, writing this, not in a chair as a human being would, but, sprawled back on an uncomfortable sofa with the keyboard of an old terminal in my lap, able to write only what is in my head. Research or even simply holding a book is most often so painful that there isn't much point in making the pretense that I am able, any longer, read books.

My attorney continues to pursue litigation against State Farm in the utterly corrupt State of New Jersey. Although I have already, with great financial and physical hardship, given my all too civilized deposition in the matter, travelling almost 1000 miles and forfeiting food to do so, State Farm has yet to reciprocate. The attorney for State Farm handling the case was a pregnant lady, will be on maternity leave and provide yet another little delay. State Farm has canceled its deposition three times so far. While in New Jersey for the deposition my car was gouged down to the metal with what my auto-body man suspects was a screwdriver. I actually now suspect a certain emloyee of State Farm who happened to have left the deposition early.

There is a trial scheduled for late September of this year. I have no intention of providing State Farm with discovery information here to which they would not be entitled; so, there are things I will not say right now. After the litigation, however, I intend to publish absolutely everything to do with the case, with analysis, citations and commentary.

I am still at a loss for words in describing the extent of my rage, anxiety and depression at having my life and physical abilities stolen from me and being reduced to destitution by the wanton calculated and deliberate fraud committed by State Farm, and am still seeking psychological help in dealing with that, and the damages that continue to mount with every passing day. It is that rage which I am channeling and focusing in one specific direction: to wage a continuing and escalating war against State Farm that I will not give up until I die. I fully expect to be fucked by State Farm and the legal system of New Jersey and to refuse the crumbs that would be offered. I will "settle" for nothing less than the annihilation of State Farm, and therefore will not settle. I'm still fighting for my life against would be murderers, as long as I can or as long as it takes. This seems to be the only way to put a stop to what it has done to me, and others, and will continue to do to an increasing number of people, forced by the State to buy insurance. The current laws not only do not stop State Farm, or any other insurance company, from engaging in such criminal activities, but those laws actually encourage State Farm in their fraudulent and murderous pursuits, by shielding them from legal recourse of defrauded policyholders.

The New Jersey Courts have finally had to compel, under threat of contempt, State Farm's deposition, to be held July 15.

The last addition to this file was June 10, 1998 and it is now November 23, 1998. I was not going to add more during the litigation, and have decided now to continue the story for a few reasons: first, I refuse to give up my first amendment rights to a system that is continuing to do damage to me; and second, there are some interesting things that I have to tell along the way regarding the physical damage that State Farm has caused, and just how I'm dealing with it effectively. I'm going to use a separate file devoted to Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) to tell about my own discoveries and experiences, with the hope that it may be useful to others who have damaged cords, and yet are not clearly quadraplegic.

Though the court ordered deposition of State Farm was scheduled for June 17, it was adjourned to June 19, and then, after I don't know how many "adjournments" was finally had on July 15, 1998. During this deposition, of two of the claims people at State Farm, given the facts of the situation, one of them had to admit that the Personal Injury Protection benefits should never have been denied in the first place.

Hello? I wasn't exactly retiring about believing that myself and saying so, often and clearly to State Farm while they were playing "find the right claims handler", "stonewall", and "we can't find your file", "she's away from her desk", and various other games of delay. These are, of course, the well known insurance company games, that are their standard forms of fraud and extortion. The question that remains to be uncovered is just why the claims were denied. Any thoughts I have are mostly guesswork, and I guess we'll all just have to wait to find out.

State Farm has, of course, switched attorneys since the first one was pregnant and is on maternity leave, so there is yet another general delay while the new attorney acquainted himself with case. Since September, my attorney has been trying to take a deposition from one Sandra Romei at State Farm, supervisor of Idiana Murray and Jane Savastano (the previous deponents), while the judge is reluctant to issue another order to compel deposition, saying "work it out". Trial dates come and trial dates go, and State Farm is still playing their delay games and getting away with it, thank you very much judge. Judges have been changed a few times, so I don't know which one is now doing what. Eventually, I intend to publish every document in the case on this site, so all is revealed.

November 30, 1998
A letter from my attorney, November 24, 1998, enclosing a two paragraph letter dated November 19, 1998, from State Farm's attorney, which is now Melli, Guerin & Melli, signed by Michelle Wall. The first paragraph states the anticipated maternity leave of Donna Miller, and the second explains the accompanying documents showing that State Farm has paid "all outstanding bills in the possession of State Farm" for both of us. She requests each attorney to "review your file" and "provide me with settlement demands so that we can begin discussions towards resolving these matters." Sounds too good to me.

But wait - a few days after receiving this good news, I speak with my attorney about an unrelated matter, and I learn that the good news is no longer good. Apparently Michelle Wall thought reasonably, but foolishly forgot to check with State Farm's FUCK YOU Department. Remember Carole Rickelmann? Claims Specialist from State Farm Special Investigative Unit? She apparently still wants to play her sick little power games, and has, according to my sources inside State Farm, undermined State Farm's own attorney. I have a quite few other names for her, and hope that they all resonate in the core of her being for the rest of her sociopathic, sordid existence. Does this give some idea of the power that these slime de la slime have?

December 11, 1998
The past two days have be unadulterated agony, as the legal process drags on and on and on and on and .... Exogenously caused depression doesn't even begin to cover it. I know, intellectually, and have known for four years now that every passing day of State Farm's exacting games of denial and delay is nothing more than carefully calculated murder of person and body. I know that without the necessary tools of physical rehabilitation, (which at this point of calculated destruction is not, and can not be rehabilitation, but merely the staving off of the inevitable and continuing physical degeneration that State Farm has caused) that the degeneration will continue. I know this intellectually, but my mental trick is to avoid the emotional effects of this knowledge; it *is* a learned trick that requires effort. Sometimes I fail, and these past two days have been a failure. When I do fail, I understand perfectly how and why insurance companies have actually driven people to suicide as they see their lives and persons, as well as the lives and persons of their loved ones slowly murdered in calculated cold blood.

While my body is undergoing deliberate destruction, my mind, mental and intellectual faculties are not far behind. I don't know how long I can hold out as my abilities to do the things that I've spent my life being able to do are slowly frustrated, eroded and destroyed by State Farm Insurance. My resolve at this moment is only that my focused rage is the only thing keeping me selfprotective against abuses of State Farm and sometimes even against so called "healthcare givers", some of whom deserve the same fate of which State Farm is deserving.

Free Internet access, by virtue of governmentally certified disability, has invited contact from various people who are active in my fields and who are interested in collaboration and in some of the work that I've done. I've put some of what I have done in web pages. State Farm has stopped me dead, physically and financially, by denying medical treatment, causing destitution and major physical disability, from continuing any of this work. This has been going on for about three years, and I can scarcely even remember where I was or what I was doing three years ago. Work that I have put up in webpages is already many years old, and it's fortunate that I did, by taking old computer files and transforming them to HTML format, because that's the only way I can read them: on a screen. It's become quite impossible to read a book, which also means my large old notebooks that contain all the explicit calculational details - which I can no longer check. In short, about 75% of my former intellectual life has been destroyed and taken away from me by State Farm.

My bowels continue to alternate between diarrhea and constipation, with no discernible reason, making the thought of leaving the apartment something a little short of terrifying. There is no particular appetite for anything; I eat because I am fed. Walking a few hundred feet is exhausting and laborious. With State Farm persisting in its course of physical and psychological torture, holding me in the state of destitution that State Farm itself has created, there is only the expectation of further and yet more permanent damage to body and person.

December 21, 1998
Now I have a "settlement conference" (HA! - give me a break) on January 4, 1999 with a trial date, as yet to be adjourned, of February 2, 1999; AND, Ms. Sandra Romei has still successfully avoided deposition, for about six months. And, then there is Madam Rickelmann of the State Farm Gestapo (GEheimnis STaats POlizei = "Secret State Police" = State Farm Special Investigative Unit) to deal with; she will be dealt with. I have not yet heard from inside sources whether Carol Rickelmann is solely responsible for the damage being done continuously by State Farm in its stonewalling, delays, games and criminal behavior or whether her superiors are also personally involved.

December 25, 1998
Merry Christmas to almost all; I am not so foolishly generous as to wish anything merry or even good to State Farm, Sandra Romei or Carol Rickelmann. Needless to say, there is nothing good to report.

January 2, 1999
Well - Happy New Year to all of good will!
[RANT ALERT!]
To all - but State Farm employees and all associated with this stinking moral rot known as State Farm, for whom I wish: that their children should die in agony in their sight - slowly; that each and every one them be sentenced to an inexorable and eternal hell of unbearable pain and torture, the like of which has not even been known under the Spanish inquisition.

Let them ALL be tortured to death slowly in reparation for their crimes and sins against humanity in aiding and abetting the satanic Mr. Edwin Rust Jr., Chairman and CEO of more State Farm diversionary "companies" than I can, because my physical condition, which they have created, count.

These God damned, Fucking excuses for human beings should not be permitted to propagate, let alone exist, but should, by all that is just, be exterminated, annihilated, like any other disease, pestilence or plague.

Let the each and every one of these evil larcenous State Farm bastards and bitches first have everything they love ripped from them and then live, uncared for, for years in agony, having their physical and mental abilities stripped from them slowly, so that each day in their miserable lives gives them a new pain and a new horror.

Even that would not be enough punishment to satisfy my unbounded rage at these subhuman insects for what they continue to do, with calculated malice and unmitigated evil. There is no excuse for the continued existence of any one of them.
"The most odious and pernicious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the face of the earth." - by the King of Brobdignag, Jonathan Swift -- Gulliver's Travels.




August 13, 1999
Here is a change and continuation Starting August 13, 1999. I've excised an over the top portion of this diary from this file, but decided not to discard it only because it is clearly indicative of my emotional state of Rage and Despair, just prior to the US Supreme Court providing a rational channel, and a rational escape route from what was to be at very least suicide. The escape route though more than difficult was a RICO SUIT AGAINST STATE FARM which should have been served by August 13, 1999.

Now I have to play catchup with what has been going on since then, so I'll be adding to this soon as I collect the violations of State Farm's fiduciary duties which do legally persist even in the process of litigation. Their fidiciary duties only exist, of course, in the litigation for performance that goes on still in NJ. I don't see such duties as necessarily extending into the RICO litigation.

After about four years, State Farm has been persuaded by our attorneys in NJ to "settle" the PIP actions for which we signed releases on June 6, 1999, in that action only. In the releases, State Farm agreed, as consideration, to, among other things, " ...; reimbursement to Releasor of amounts paid by Releasor for medical expenses and for prescibed drugs, medicines, and medical appliances for which Releasor has paid, when neither Medicaid nor Releasee did not pay same; ...".

Needless to say, the Releasors have not seen a cent, except a check to one physician who was already paid out of pocket. That sent back to them by my attorney, they then issued two checks for a "calculated amount" (whatever that means) and a "copay" (Iknow what that means) since we were both well beyond the necessity of copayments under the policy. The sum of the two checks is about $79 short of what I actually paid, which was $275.

Let's see, SF Indemnity, which only operates in NJ, according to Best's collected in 1997 about $815 Million in premiums, and had a %15 market share. The employed population of NJ is approximately 2.3 Million according to Equifax National Data Systems. [I'm giving them a break by not counting unemployed people, so the number of policies is a little greater, but the average per capita premium would then be less.] Now %15 of 2.3 Million is 345000, and 815 million divided by 345000 is approximately 2362. So as a rough calculation, policyholders of State Farm Indemnity paid, on average about $2362 in 1997. If 10% of policiyholders had a claim, and State Farm Indemnity cheated only 10% of those out of $79, that would net SFI a "savings" of $272,550. That may not sound like much, but a few hundred thousand here and a few hundred thousand there; pretty soon you talking about some real money.

Needless to say, those two checks are not being cashed. There remain a number just shy of 20 more such expenses where we will undoubtedly have to put up with same crap. Not only will SFI, since its only a shoot of the poisonous tree, try to litigate us to death, but, the penny pinching thieves are also going to nickel and dime us to death.

PS - The bitch Sandra Romei has *still* not been produced for deposition. Cf. December 21, 1998 above. Should I be surprised?

September 5, 1999
I recently received notice that State Farm in NJ is going to produce as an "expert witness" (apparently not being aware of NJ's Appellate Court's rulings) one Eric L. Fremed MD, a neurologist, who has also written the most biased, venemous and idiotic "review" of my medical records, coming to the conclusion that the MVA of 09/16/94 is not responsible for ANY damages, by deliberate exclusion from the records he supposedly reviewed of any material that might contradict his stupid conclusion. State Farm and Dr. Fremed with his report dated August 13, 1999, exactly one day after the State Farms were served with the RICO suit has just stepped into a pile of truly deep shit. The brazenness and stupidity of this incontroverible act of fraud boggles my mind. Are criminals always this stupid?







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Home Page
Our Federal RICO suit
Insurance Page [Exposure of unmitigated evil and Governmental Corruption
IME Medical Whores
Complaint 1 [Text of submission to NJ DOI]
Complaint 2 [Text of submission to NJ DOI]
Fascism and the Art of Medicine [Essay]

Email me, Bill Hammel at
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Created: 1997
Last Updated: May 28, 2000