Abrahim Fata v. Joshua T. Young, et al.

CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 8, 2026
Docket5:26-cv-00828
StatusUnknown

This text of Abrahim Fata v. Joshua T. Young, et al. (Abrahim Fata v. Joshua T. Young, et al.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Abrahim Fata v. Joshua T. Young, et al., (E.D. Pa. 2026).

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA ABRAHIM FATA, : Plaintiff, : : v. : CIVIL ACTION NO. 26-828 : JOSHUA T. YOUNG, et al., : Defendants. : MEMORANDUM HENRY, J. APRIL 8, 2026 Plaintiff Abrahim Fata commenced this pro se civil action against numerous Defendants, asserting that this case arises under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), and the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1985. (See ECF No. 2 (“Compl.”) at 2.) The Court has previously granted Fata leave to proceed in forma pauperis. (See ECF No. 7.) For the following reasons, the Court will dismiss Fata’s Complaint. I. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS1 Fata’s allegations relate to his numerous requests for records pursuant to Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law (“RTKL”). From June through December 2025, Fata submitted approximately twenty-six RTKL request forms to several agencies in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, including the Counties of Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, and Pike, as well as to various police departments, agencies, and judicial districts within those counties.2 (See Compl. 1 The allegations set forth in this Memorandum are taken from Fata’s Complaint. (ECF No. 2.) The Court adopts the pagination supplied by the CM/ECF docketing system. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors in quotes from Fata’s submissions are cleaned up where necessary. 2 Attached to Fata’s Complaint is a “Comprehensive Analysis of 26 Office of Open Records (OOR) Exhibits” that indicates it was prepared with the assistance of a generative AI program on February 8, 2026. (Compl. at 6-10.) According to the “Executive Summary,” the report “provides a multi-agency synthesis and accuracy recheck of twenty-six primary exhibits” at 6; ECF No. 6 (“Exhibits”).) Fata names as Defendants several employees of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (“OOR”) including: Joshua T. Young (Senior Deputy Chief Counsel); Elizabeth Wagenseller (Executive Director); Kathleen Higgins (Appeals Officer); Jordan Davis (Appeals Officer); Megan Burns (Appeals Officer); Damian DeStefano (Appeals Officer); Blake

Eilers (Appeals Officer); Erika Similo (Appeals Officer); Daneen Miller-Smith (Appeals Officer); Kelly Isenberg (Appeals Officer); and Magdalene Zeppos-Brown (Appeals Officer). (Compl. at 1.) Also named as Defendants are: Michele Burrell (Agency Open Records Officer (“AORO”) for Pike County Children and Youth Services); Christine Rechner (Solicitor for Pike County); Greg Christine (AORO for Monroe County); Sarah Murray (Deputy Solicitor for Lehigh County); Bridget Winter (AORO for the Allentown Police Department (“APD”)); Kyle Pammer (Captain of Administration, APD); William Rozier (AORO for the Pennsylvania State Police “PSP”)); Janiel Rhoden (Deputy AORO for the PSP); and Susan A. Kopp (Open Records Manager for the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department). (Id.) Fata alleges that a RICO enterprise, known as the “Architecture of Record Suppression,”

is comprised of the individual Defendants “for the coordinated purpose of evidence suppression.” (Id. at 2.) He asserts that the Defendants “conducted the enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity to suppress records” involving his minor children. (Id.)

regarding Fata’s efforts to secure public records. (Id.) The Court has reviewed this summary. However, the twenty-six exhibits, which total approximately 686 pages, have also been filed with the Court. (See ECF No. 6.) Rather than relying on an AI summary, the Court has reviewed and considered the actual exhibits. These exhibits include OOR dockets sheets pertaining to each of Fata’s twenty-six requests, his RTKL request forms, and agency responses from Right-to-Know officers. (ECF No. 6.) It appears that Fata appealed every record request to the OOR, and documents prepared in connection with those appeals, as well as the Final Determinations rendered by the OOR, are also included as exhibits. (Id.) Fata maintains that he had limited library access3 and “struggle[d] to respond accurately to the hyper-technical procedural obstacles maintained by Defendants” in connection with his RTKL requests. (Id.) As a pro se litigant, Fata alleges several frustrations with the RTKL process. (Id. at 2-3.)

He claims that Defendants utilized “Clustered Response Traps” to time “extensions and denials . . . exactly at final statutory deadlines” to create “an unmanageable workload” forcing him “to formulate accurate legal responses to dozens of hyper-technical dockets within the brief 15- business-day appeal window.” (Id. at 2, 7.) He asserts that the “Defendants . . . ignored the Prisoner Mailbox Rule in nine simultaneous appeals” by “labelling them ‘untimely’” even though he claims to have delivered the “documents to prison authorities” in a timely fashion. (Id. at 3, 8.) Fata also contends that the OOR applied “inconsistent ‘sufficiency’ standards,” and that the release of requested documents varied between counties.4 (Id.at 3.) He claims that the OOR “bypassed its duty under 65 P.S. § 67503(d)(2) to transfer 75% of local police cases . . . to a District Attorney” and used “procedural defaults to terminate the dockets.” (Id. at 3, 9.)

Finally, he alleges that the “Defendants used ‘undeliverable’ returns from the jail . . . to secure fraudulent ‘mootness’ dismissals.” (Id.) Throughout the Complaint, Fata references docket numbers assigned by the OOR that correspond to some of his RTKL appeals. (See, e.g., Compl. at ¶¶ 7, 9-10.)

3 Since his release from Lehigh County Jail on September 25, 2025, Fata has been residing in an emergency shelter. (Compl. at 2.)

4 Fata avers that Pike County “released CY-47/48 forms, while Northampton and Lehigh Counties claimed identical laws (CPSL) required 100% blanket denials” for records pertaining to his minor children. (Compl. at 3, 8.) Attached to Fata’s Complaint is a handwritten “Statement of Claim” wherein he also alleges the existence of “a conspiracy to coverup a sexual abuse on [his] two kids and to frame [him].” (Id. at 5.) He contends that he’s “been severely oppressed by Pennsylvania, and New Jersey societies/communities, and governments, since 2017 . . . to the extreme of [his] death, by

either manipulating a fatal ‘accident’ or . . . to push [him] to suicide.” (Id.) Fata claims that the conspiracy began with “a Christian religious-based organization” that “invaded” the communities where he and his children resided, and he alleges that this organization “recruited” several relatives and government officials to form an enterprise to “oppress [him] religiously, psychologically, [and] systematically.”5 (Id.) Based on the foregoing allegations, Fata alleges civil RICO claims, asserting that Defendants concealed “investigative records,” impeded “proper administration of the RTKL,” and used mail and electronic databases “to secure fraudulent procedural dismissals.” (Id. at 3, 9.) He also contends that Defendants conspired together to “hinder[] his efforts to seek legal remedies for himself and his minor children” in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985. (Id. at 3.) Fata

seeks monetary damages for “loss of litigation property,” “bad faith denial of public records,” and “non-compliance with the RTKL.” (Id. at 3-4.)

5 The allegations in Fata’s “Statement of Claim” are repetitive to those made in Fata’s prior cases. See Civil Action Nos. 24-2402, 24-4862, 24-6934, 24-6935, and 24-6936.

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