Former Chicago business owner, Mrs. Charlotte Harrison-Smith, has filed claims of conspiracy to commit a financial crime against Bank of America and several attorneys in the Circuit Court of cook County under case number 09 CH 21164.  Mrs. Smith is the former president and CEO of Millennium Data Systems, Inc., a small minority woman owned defense contractor that provided a wide range of information technology solutions to the U.S. Military and other federal agencies.  She alleges claims in her complaint that Bank of America engaged in loan fraud, misappropriation of financial institution property, commercial bribery, financial institution fraud, financial institution robbery, conspiracy to commit financial crimes, continuing financial crimes enterprises and organizer of continuing financial crimes. 

Mrs. Smith filed her claims under the Illinois Financial Crimes Law which is patterned after the federal RICO statute.  Mrs. Smith claims that Bank of America foreclosed on her home and destroyed her business through an alleged biased arbitration process in retaliation for her and her husband’s assistance to the FBI in monitoring and providing information related to the activities of Joobin Mansourian, an Iranian foreign national employed by Bank of America as assistant vice president and who served as the loan officer to Millennium Data Systems.  Initially, Mrs. Smith sought the assistance of Senator Durbin who made an inquiry at the Office of the Comptroller of the currency on Mrs. Smith’s behalf.  However, Mrs. Smith alleges that Bank of America omitted material facts in their response to the OCC which deprived Mrs. Smith of a resolution in the matter.  Mrs. Smith’s claims that Mansourian engaged in economic espionage against her firm from September of 2003 through May of 2005 were referred to the U.S. Attorney General’s Office in 2007 by the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

Mrs. Smith has requested an investigation into the matter by Chicago Police who are working with the Cook County State’s attorney’s office in the matter.  Mrs. Smith also claims that she was threatened, harassed and intimidated by Mansourian and Bank of America’s outside counsel.  A scheduling conference has been set in the matter for September 15, 2009.  Bank of America is represented in the matter by Murphy & Hourihane, LLC.  The Chicago Sun Times has previously identified Eugene Murphy, Jr., as a contract attorney at one time for convicted Anthony Rezko.  Mrs. Smith also claims that Mansourian was an associate of Mr. Rezko.

If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Mrs. Smith, please e-mail Charlotte Smith at c.harrison@bmcsite.com .