Peeples v. Geraci

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: October 8, 2025
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2025-2107
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

JOE WALLACE PEEPLES, III,

Plaintiff,

v. Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-02107 (UNA)

FRANK P. GERACI, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter is before the Court on its initial review of Plaintiff Joe Wallace Peeples’ pro

se Complaint (“Compl.”), ECF No. 1, his subsequent supplements, see Notices (“Nots.”), ECF

Nos. 4–7, and his Application for Leave to Proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”), ECF No. 2. The

Court grants Plaintiff’s IFP Application and, for the following reasons, dismisses this matter

without prejudice.

Peeples, a federal inmate, sues anyone remotely or ostensibly involved with his criminal

proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, including the

presiding judge, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the United States Attorney’s

Office for the Western District of New York and the attorneys who prosecuted him, the U.S.

Department of Justice, the U.S. Office of Inspector General, the Executive Office of U.S.

Attorneys, and the U.S. Attorney General. See Compl. at 1–4. Plaintiff challenges the

constitutionality of his criminal investigation and resulting conviction and sentence; more

specifically, he alleges that his arrest by the FBI and his current incarceration are tantamount to

kidnapping and torture because there was no “lawful true bill of indictment” or “lawful sworn

1 affidavit of probable cause.” See id. at 5–6. He demands his immediate release and $2 billion in

damages. Compl. at 6.

But Peeples must challenge the fact, length, or conditions of his confinement through a

petition of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475,

499–500 (1973); Brown v. Plaut, 131 F.3d 163, 168–69 (D.C. Cir. 1997). And insofar as he has

collaterally challenged the propriety of his conviction and sentence and their surrounding

circumstances, he must do so pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. See Castro v. United States, 540 U.S.

375, 381–82 (2003). Under either statute, Peeples has filed for relief in the wrong District.

A plaintiff’s “immediate custodian” is the proper defendant in a Section 2241 habeas

corpus action. See Rumsfield v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 434–35 (2004); see also Blair-Bey v. Quick,

151 F.3d 1036, 1039 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (noting that the “appropriate defendant in a habeas action is

the custodian of the prisoner”) (citing Chatman-Bey v. Thornburg, 864 F.2d 804, 810 (D.C. Cir.

1988) (en banc)). Indeed, “a district court may not entertain a habeas petition involving present

physical custody unless the respondent custodian is within its territorial jurisdiction,” Stokes v.

U.S. Parole Comm’n, 374 F.3d 1235, 1239 (D.C. Cir. 2004); see also Day v. Trump, 860 F.3d 686,

691 (D.C. Cir. 2017). And Section 2255 claims must be addressed to the sentencing court. See

28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). 1

Here, Peeples is presently incarcerated at FCI Allenwood, located in White Deer,

Pennsylvania, and he was convicted and sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Western

District of New York. Accordingly, Peeples’s challenges bear no connection to this jurisdiction,

and this Court cannot exercise subject matter jurisdiction over them. See Taylor v. U.S. Bd. of

1 The statute provides that a “prisoner in custody . . . may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a) (emphasis added).

2 Parole, 194 F.2d 882, 883 (D.C. Cir. 1952) (per curiam) (“[H]abeas corpus [does not] lie in the

District of Columbia, for the complainant is not confined within the territorial jurisdiction of its

courts.”).

With respect to Peeples’s demand for damages, the Supreme Court instructs:

[I]n order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid . . . plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.

Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486–87 (1994). Here, a judgment in Peeples’s favor “would

necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction.” Id. at 487. With no indication that his verdict

has been set aside, Peeples cannot recover damages for the actions of those who brought about his

conviction and sentence. See Williams v. Hill, 74 F.3d 1339, 1341 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (per curiam).

Finally, the Court finds no merit in Peeples’s assertions concerning the far-reaching

conspiracy allegedly arrayed against him. Because those allegations are merely “a laundry list of

wrongful acts and conclusory allegations to support h[is] theory of a conspiracy,” they are

“insufficient to allow the case to go forward.” Curran v. Holder, 626 F. Supp. 2d 30, 34 (D.D.C.

2009) (quoting Richards v. Duke Univ., 480 F. Supp. 2d 222, 233 (D.D.C. 2007)).

For the foregoing reasons, this matter is dismissed without prejudice. Peeples’s Motion

for Action, ECF No. 8, is denied. A separate Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.

DATE: October 8, 2025 CARL J. NICHOLS United States District Judge