Konrath v. State of Indiana et al
Filing
10
MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 11/10/2016. Mailed notice (jh, )
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
GREGORY KONRATH,
Plaintiff,
v.
STATE OF INDIANA,
Defendant.
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Case No. 16 C 9541
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
This Court's October 17, 2016 memorandum opinion and order (the "Opinion") dismissed
both the Complaint and this action brought pro se by Indiana state court prisoner Gregory
Konrath ("Konrath") for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and "raise[d] a serious question as to
Konrath's entitlement to claim IFP status to begin with." In the latter respect the Opinion
concluded with this paragraph:
Accordingly this Court orders Konrath to file a full explanation on or before
November 1, 2016 of his financial situation, including such matters as (1) the
source of the inflow of funds referred to in this opinion, (2) the relationship that
Sheila Konrath bears to him and (3) any other factual information necessary for
this Court to carry out its Section 1915 obligations. This Court will then
determine the course of any further proceedings.
Konrath has responded with a one-page hand-printed filing received in the Clerk's Office
on October 28, which begins with a truly frivolous challenge to this Court's dismissal of this
action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction by voicing his purported entitlement to ignore the
United States Supreme Court's decision in Hans v. Louisiana because he "disagrees that literal
language of the Eleventh Amendment can be simply ignored." Although Konrath touts his
medical credentials as a highly successful orthopedic surgeon before he was criminally
convicted, 1 he obviously never coupled his medical training with obtaining even a modicum of
legal knowhow.
That digression on Konrath's part aside, his brief October 28 response identifies himself
as "indeed indigent" and explains that the deposits to his trust fund account stemmed from his
mother Sheila Konrath, who he says provided those deposits from her own money. 2 Because the
trust fund account printout that accompanied his IFP petition in this case ended with an
August 10, 2016 entry, while the date of "filing" of his Complaint under the "mailbox rule"
prescribed by Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988) was October 3, this Court had its law clerk
request a supplementation of that trust fund account information for the period from August 11
through October 3. When that supplement arrived in this Court's chambers, its final entry was
dated September 2, 3 and the law clerk's request for a further explanation generated the attached
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1
As to the criminal charges against Konrath, see attached Exs. 1.A through 1.C,
comprising three pages that Konrath included as part of his Petition To Proceed In Forma
Pauperis ("IFP") in this case.
2
Konrath provides little insight as to what became of the wealth that he obviously would
have amassed from his lucrative medical practice: In his submissions in this case he speaks of
$579,000 he made in his last year before he became embroiled in his criminal case, while in his
contemporaneous 16 C 9539 lawsuit (referred to later in this opinion as also being assigned to
this Court by random assignment) he asserts he made $1.76 million in 2009. In that other action
he says that his ex-wife Ana (the asserted target of the murder plot charged in his criminal case)
obtained $4 million in assets from their divorce finalized in 2011, while he says nothing about
the source of funds that his mother Sylvia was sending him in prison on a monthly or more
frequent basis, each in the sum of $150 or $300. It might also be noted that the Northern District
of Indiana form of Prisoner Petition To Proceed IFP (Ex. 2) is a single page calling for a much
less detailed response by a prisoner plaintiff than this District's form, so it also casts no light on
the subject dealt with in this footnote.
3
That minimal activity -- followed by total inactivity through November 9 -- was truly
startling, for the originally-provided printout reflected nine Sylvia Konrath deposits of $150 or
$300 each plus four modest payroll deposits (the total aggregating nearly $1750) in the four
months plus one week time frame from April 4 to August 11, 2016.
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e-mail (Ex. 3). That information clearly puts the lie to Konrath's statement in his October 28
filing that "I plan on paying the full $350 filing fee in installments deducted from my prison trust
fund account."
Despite that scofflaw misrepresentation on Konrath's part, this Court has made the
calculation called for by 28 U.S.C. ยง 1915 ("Section 1915") and has determined that the average
monthly deposits to Konrath's account (see Section 1915(b)(1)(A)) during the five months before
he thumbed his nose at the judicial system by emptying out the account came to $348.18, 20% of
which (see Section 1915(b)(2)) is $69.64. Accordingly Konrath is assessed an initial partial
filing fee of $69.64, and the Westville Correctional Facility ("Westville") trust fund officer is
ordered to collect that amount from Konrath's trust fund account there -- if, as and when any new
funds are received, that is -- and to pay it directly to the Clerk of Court ("Clerk"):
Office of the Clerk
United States District Court
219 South Dearborn Street
Chicago IL 60604
Attention: Fiscal Department.
After such payment the trust fund officer at Westville (or at any other correctional facility
where Konrath may hereafter be confined) is authorized to collect monthly payments from his
trust fund account in an amount equal to 20% of any preceding month's income credited to the
account. Monthly payments collected from the trust fund account shall be forwarded to the
Clerk each time the amount in the account exceeds $10 until the full $350 filing fee is paid. Both
the initial payment and all future payments shall clearly identify Konrath's name and the
16 C 9541 case number assigned to this action. To implement these requirements, the Clerk
shall send a copy of this order to the Westville trust fund officer.
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This Court is constrained to add that Konrath's conduct exhibited in this case is
particularly disgraceful, coming as it does from someone who describes himself as "an
orthopedic surgeon who had worked for 20 years, and was making $579,000 a year at the time of
his arrest" and who concludes his Complaint in this action with this request for relief:
The plaintiff is requesting the maximum punitive and compensatory financial
relief available under federal law for the loss of a lucrative career, irreversible
damage to his reputation, and pain and suffering from two years of incarceration;
in total an excess of twenty-three (23) million dollars.
Finally, it is worth noting that two of Konrath's other contemporaneously-filed lawsuits
were legal malpractice actions, one assigned to this Court's colleague Honorable Thomas Durkin
and the other to this Court, in which each of us independently rejected his assigned action as
barred by the specific Illinois statute establishing a two year limitation period for such
malpractice lawsuits. There too Konrath was seeking the maximum possible financial recovery.
Under all the circumstances described here, this Court believes that consideration of
some appropriate sanction against Konrath may be in order. That however is beyond the scope
of this opinion, the ordering portion of which is limited to Section 1915.
__________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: November 10, 2016
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