Jonathan Lee Riches, a 36-year-old man from the United States, calls himself the most litigious person alive. He claims to have filed over 4,000 lawsuits, though records show he’s been involved in more than 3,000 federal cases across the country.
His legal battles are often called “frivolous” or “delusional,” and many courts have dismissed them or even banned him from filing more.
Riches’ love for lawsuits began while he was serving a 125-month prison sentence for wire fraud in Kentucky.
During his time behind bars, he hand-wrote his complaints, sometimes trading nutritional drinks for stamps to cover legal fees.
“I’ve filed so many lawsuits with my pen and right hand that I got arthritis in my fingers,” he once wrote. He even started adding a copyright symbol after his name in 2006 and used aliases like “Gino Romano.”
His lawsuits target just about anyone or anything.
He’s sued celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, and Kanye West, as well as former President George W. Bush.
He once demanded “$63,000,000,000 billion dollars” from NFL quarterback Michael Vick.
Riches didn’t stop there, he sued Mount Rushmore, the Library of Congress, historical figures, and even himself.
He also tried to sue books, not their authors, and claimed the video game Grand Theft Auto IV put him in danger in prison.
His legal claims are often bizarre. For example, he accused Judge Judy of attacking him with her gavel, said Steve Jobs hired O.J. Simpson to start a fire, and claimed a city was hiding President Obama’s birth certificate in a secret underwater bubble in a lake. While his filings are usually nonsensical, some read like strange poetry.
In 2010, a Kentucky court had enough. They issued a permanent order to stop Riches from filing “frivolous, fraudulent, or malicious” documents in federal courts.
Prison officials were told to check his outgoing mail and block anything that didn’t make sense. But even after his release from prison in April 2012, Riches kept filing lawsuits.
One example: when a city in Oregon banned swimming in a public lake, Riches tried to join a legitimate lawsuit about it.
He claimed the city was hiding Jimmy Hoffa’s remains and other secrets underwater.
However, his legal activity slowed down after 2012. In December of that year, he was arrested for breaking the rules of his supervised release by traveling to Newtown, Connecticut, where he pretended to be the uncle of the Sandy Hook shooter.
He also failed to pay restitution from his earlier crimes. In February 2013, he was sentenced to 2½ to 5 years in prison for violating probation on unrelated state charges in Pennsylvania.
Since then, federal court records show no new lawsuits from Riches in 2013. Whether he’s finally slowed down or is just waiting for his next big case, Jonathan Lee Riches remains a one-of-a-kind figure in the world of law.
