United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
MEMORANDUM
JOYNER, J.
Plaintiff
James Andrew Blatt, proceeding pro se, has filed
this civil action against the Central Intelligence Agency and
“Unknown Named Agents of the CIA.” He has also
filed a Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis as well
as a Consolidated Motion for Leave to File an Amended
Complaint and for the Appointment of Counsel, to which his
Amended Complaint is attached. For the following reasons, the
Court will grant Mr. Blatt leave to proceed in forma
pauperis, grant his Motion for Leave to File an Amended
Complaint, deny his Motion for the Appointment of Counsel,
and dismiss his Complaint and Amended Complaint as frivolous.
I.
FACTS[1]
Mr.
Blatt alleges that eleven (11) years ago, he was with
“two cohorts” in Ocean City, Maryland. (Am.
Compl. at 2.) One of his cohorts was “flashing a pellet
gun . . . at motorists for amusement.” (Id.)
According to Mr. Blatt, a CIA officer was following him, and
that officer “waved a gun back at [him] and his
cohorts.” (Id.) He contends that
“instead of methodically executing we three criminals
back in ca. 2007, the CIA Officer bolstered his preexisting
ill will and resentment towards [him].” (Id.)
According to Mr. Blatt, he has “been followed the
majority of his life (in excess of 21 years) by this master
spy . . . and his operatives living locally to the Lehigh
Valley, PA.” (Id. at 3.)
On
November 25, 2016, Mr. Blatt was celebrating Thanksgiving
with his family. (Id.) He ate “a ball of
mozzarella cheese with tomato” and “became
profoundly disrupted in his bodily functioning in that [he]
simply could not stop walking on account of chemically
induced overabundant neurological stimulation from the dosed
mozzarella.” (Id.) According to Mr. Blatt, CIA
agents “dosed [his] mozzarella with [a] heinous
stimulant drug which caused [him] to nearly walk headlong
into moving traffic on the street.” (Id.)
Mr.
Blatt further alleges that CIA agents poisoned him by placing
“radioactive/nuclear dust” on his car's
steering wheel. (Id.) They also used his prescribed
medication to poison him and cause him to experience a racing
pulse. (Id. at 4.) According to Mr. Blatt, he would
have “died by nuclear poisoning” if he had not
received intravenous fluids on several occasions.
(Id.) These poisons “caused neuronal changes
in his brain which disrupted his personality on or about
February 20, 2017 and are discerned and/or felt by said
tingling sensations emanating down, and more generally all
around, [his] scalp.” (Id.) His eyesight has
also been disrupted from these nuclear poisons. (Id.
at 5.)
According
to Mr. Blatt, the CIA has also “dupe[d] [his]
pharmacist . . . into using their indistinguishable
counterfeits as the medication dispensed to [him].”
(Id. at 6.) On February 28, 2018, Mr. Blatt took one
of these pills, which caused him “to have, for about 3
hours, a paralyzed, drooping and depressed looking face (like
a stroke patient) and a dull, monotone voice.”
(Id. at 5.) While at Northampton Community College,
Mr. Blatt “perceived the walls as caving in on him and
the ceiling as being mere inches above his head.”
(Id.) His “personality was radically undone
and [he] felt he was in critical need of a hospital.”
(Id.)
Mr.
Blatt alleges that Defendants' actions have violated the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
(“RICO”) and the United Nations' Convention
Against Torture. With respect to his RICO claim, he alleges
that his
concrete financial loss is the $120.00 USD it will take to
replace [his] vintage Levi “forever in blue
jeans” blue jeans, which defendant CIA Agents custom
tailored in repeated burglaries (their trespasses) to
plaintiff's rented property . . . . Defendant's CIA
Agents downsized one pair of [his] vintage Levi's from a
marked size 32” waist to a size 28” waist and
another from a marked size 31” waist to a size
29” waist, neither of which fit [his] 31” waist
(as measured by [him] on or about 3/1/2018).
(Id. at 7.) He also vaguely raises claims of
negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress as
well as harassment. As relief, Mr. Blatt requests $1, 500,
000.00 and “a memorandum of understanding stipulating
use of immunity to solve any homicide of James Andrew
Blatt.” (Id. at 8.)
II.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
The
Court will grant Mr. Blatt leave to proceed in forma
pauperis because it appears that he is incapable of
paying the fees necessary to commence this action.
Accordingly, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) and (ii)
require the Court to dismiss the Complaint and Amended
Complaint if they are frivolous or fail to state a claim. A
complaint is frivolous if it “lacks an arguable basis
either in law or in fact.” Neitzke v.
Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989). It is legally
baseless if “based on an indisputably meritless legal
theory, ” Deutsch v. United States, 67 F.3d
1080, 1085 (3d Cir. 1995), and factually baseless “when
the facts alleged rise to the level of the irrational or the
wholly incredible.” Denton v. Hernandez, 504
U.S. 25, 33 (1992).
Whether
a complaint fails to state a claim under §
1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) is governed by the same standard applicable
to motions to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6), see Tourscher v. McCullough, 184 F.3d 236,
240 (3d Cir. 1999), which requires the Court to determine
whether the complaint contains “sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is
plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quotations omitted). Conclusory
statements and naked assertions will not ...