CDLU Calls on Southern Company to Stop Wasting Millions on Attacking Latinos and Smearing Families
MIAMI, April 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ernesto Pichardo, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the CDLU (Consejo de Latinos Unidos), a national advocacy group and public charity, called on Southern Company to “forever cease and courageously desist the million-dollar waste of attacking Latinos and smearing families that has no corporate purpose whatsoever.”
Pichardo’s comments come on the heels of an investigative report by columnist Rob Holbert in the Lagniappe Mobile who summarizes a smear website allegedly paid for by Southern Company and run by their operatives at Matrix, LLC: “It looks like something a mentally disturbed high school student might do to a crush who rebuffed his advances.”
Southern Company appears to rely heavily on the obscure consulting firm Matrix, founded by Joe Perkins. Secret contracts allegedly paying Perkins and his entities $2.2 million a year without the need to invoice rocked the utility in 2022.
Holbert writes, “The whole thing starts with a guy named K.B. Forbes, CEO of Consejo de Latinos, a consumer affairs organization dedicated primarily to helping Latinos. Forbes started the website banbalch.com in 2017, aimed at … the powerful B-ham law firm Balch & Bingham.”
By 2020, Forbes, who is the son of a Latino immigrant, and his family were targeted with a phony protest in front of his home, paid-for smear news stories, vulgar and racist attacks on social media, and repeated, harassing phone calls.
“Part of that [harassment] includes the creation of a “clap back” website …. This rather sophomoric website uses grainy photos and cheap graphics to imply Forbes is involved in ‘racism,’ ‘deception and ‘secrets,’” writes Holbert.
Holbert adds, “But [the website] also drags Burt Newsome into the fight. Newsome, [an attorney] who had been involved in a lawsuit that involved Balch & Bingham, found himself pilloried on [the website] as an ‘accused rapist.’”
So why did Southern Company allegedly waste millions on these defamatory and insidious efforts?
“Forbes told me it’s simply because they incorrectly believe Newsome is an enemy of the utility industry and also because he fought with [Southern Company’s] favorite law firm, Balch & Bingham, “ Holbert concludes.
“Southern Company has hypocritically praised the importance of racial equity and inclusion, yet at the same time were viciously targeting, smearing and defaming Latinos and families of alleged adversaries,” Pichardo added.
K.B. Forbes kb@cdlu.org
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