City Life | 28 June 2008

Life in America’s prisons is famously tough, but at least it allows one inmate, Jonathan Lee Riches, plenty of time to spend filing lawsuits. In his latest legal complaint, Riches — who happens to be a resident of Williamsburg federal correctional institution in West Virginia — has turned his sights on legendary San Francisco-based venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and is attempting to sue him for $43 million. The complaint, in its entirety, reads: ‘Khosla’s fund invests in prison buildings. I’m suffering from no medical treatment. This is a conspiracy. Bhutto was killed on my birthday. I can’t see outside, this is unconstitutional. I seek $43 million.’ One worries that perhaps the ailment for which Riches feels he needs treatment is some sort of writer’s block, since the wording of his latest suit is far simpler than the one he lodged against another Bay Area resident, the former San Francisco Giants outfielder and home-run record- breaker Barry Bonds. In that one, Riches created an entertaining conspiracy theory alleging that Bonds had joined the Colombian revolutionary guerrilla group FARC, used Hank Aaron’s bat to crack the Liberty Bell, bought steroids from the commissioner of Major League Baseball for $22,000 at the insalubrious-sounding Steak-n-Shake on Interstate 70, bench-pressed Riches against his will, and left threatening messages for Riches on his iPhone. Riches asked for a more modest $42 million in the Bonds lawsuit. Unsurprisingly, all of his lawsuits, including the latest one against Khosla, have been dismissed — and Riches has been ordered to pay more than $3,100 in fees associated with Khosla’s case as well as nine others he filed at around the same time.