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3:26-cv-02137 · U.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania
Evidentiary treatment: This summarizes the plaintiff's own allegations as stated in the complaint or docket record cited below. It reflects what was filed, not a court finding, and is not a determination that the allegations are true.
A RICO action naming Carbondale police, Pennsylvania, the United States and Shopify, later amended to add seven financial institutions. The operative pleading is the Amended Complaint docketed August 24, 2026, naming eleven defendants: the Carbondale Police Department, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, Shopify, and the seven added by the amendment — JPMorgan Chase Bank, American Express, Capital One, Citibank NA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank NA and Discover. The docket lists the nature of suit as “Racketeer/Corrupt Organization” with a cause of action under the RICO Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1962, indicating Tufano alleges a coordinated pattern of racketeering activity spanning local police, state government, federal government, a payments platform and seven financial institutions.
No excerpt of the complaint’s specific factual allegations could be independently located. CourtListener/RECAP confirms the original complaint asserts claims under the RICO Act, 18 U.S.C. 1962 (nature of suit 470 Racketeer/Corrupt Organization), invoking federal-question jurisdiction, with a jury demand by the plaintiff. The underlying predicate acts and factual allegations are not readable; no report and recommendation or opinion has issued.
Sourcing limitation (updated 15 Sep 2026): neither the original complaint nor the amended complaint has been read — no document on this docket is available through RECAP, and no published opinion exists for this case on GovInfo. The party list above comes from the docket’s own party block and entry text, not from the pleading; what is alleged against the seven added defendants is not known. The claims description is therefore based on docket coding, not on the complaint’s own text.
This page separates court/ruling records, party filings, research classifications, secondary sources and public statements. Unknown or unresolved fields remain labelled as such.
Research status: Source-backed docket snapshot (PacerMonitor public case page, read 2026-09-15); CourtListener/RECAP still mirrors only the July 29 entries and the original four-party list, so the post-July docket is single-sourced and neither complaint has been read
Research notes: Update 2026-09-15: the operative pleading is the Amended Complaint docketed 2026-08-24 (doc 6), which names eleven defendants. Seven were added to the original four: JPMorgan Chase Bank, American Express, Capital One, Citibank NA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank NA and Discover. The amendment was not caught by the 2026-08-23 research pass because it postdates that pass by one day, and it did not surface later because CourtListener/RECAP has not been refreshed for this docket: queried 2026-09-15, RECAP still returns only the three 2026-07-29 entries, the original four-party list and Susan E. Schwab as the assigned judge. RECAP mirrors only what a PACER user has already fetched, so its silence is not evidence of docket inactivity. The post-July record here is taken from PacerMonitor’s free public case page, archived at court-documents/documents/C083-3-26-cv-02137-tufano-v-carbondale-police-department-et-al/2026-09-15-docket-sheet-pacermonitor-3-26-cv-02137.md. Other entries since the last pass, none of them a ruling on the merits and none read in the original: two orders on 2026-08-03 signed by Magistrate Judge Susan E. Schwab — one directing Tufano to serve the summons and complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4 within 90 days of filing and to file a return of service, the other a standing order re: generative artificial intelligence; a verbal order on 2026-08-31 reassigning the case to Magistrate Judge Phillip J. Caraballo for all further proceedings; and notices of appearance on 2026-09-02 by Andrew W. Norfleet and Coryn D. Hubbert of Marshall Dennehey for the Carbondale Police Department, the first defence counsel to appear on this docket. No court finding is recorded from any of them. An adjacency, recorded rather than asserted: American Express National Bank is the plaintiff in two collection actions against Tufano that were pending when the amendment was filed — C031 (Lackawanna 2026-00650) and C037 (Lackawanna 2026-01586), grouped as DSP019. The amended complaint’s party block names only “American Express” and the complaint itself is unreadable, so whether that defendant is the same entity has not been established; the two are kept as separate canonical parties. From the original pass, still current: nature of suit 470 Racketeer/Corrupt Organization; cause 18 U.S.C. 1962 Racketeering (RICO) Act; federal-question jurisdiction; jury demand by the plaintiff. All seven 2026-07-29 filings (3:26-cv-02132 through 3:26-cv-02138) were fee-paid at $405 under a single shared receipt number 333120943, not filed in forma pauperis, so no 28 U.S.C. 1915(e)(2) screening track applies; they were assigned across five different magistrate judges with no consolidation and no common screening order. The earlier note recorded that one rendering described docket entry 1 as replaced the same day but that this could not be confirmed against the verbatim entry text — it is now confirmed: both the archived CourtListener docket sheet and PacerMonitor’s entry-1 text carry the clause “(Main Document 1 replaced on 7/29/2026)”. No published opinion exists for this case on GovInfo (verified against a working control). Docket record: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73689239/
Sequence does not by itself prove motive or causation.
Tufano filed C083 against the Carbondale Police Department, Shopify, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the United States, pleading a RICO claim under 18 U.S.C. 1962. The $405 filing fee was paid, so the action was not subject to in forma pauperis screening.
Source — courtlistener.com ↗Magistrate Judge Susan E. Schwab entered two orders: one directing Tufano to serve the summons and complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4, or obtain a waiver, within 90 days of filing and to file a return of service; the other a standing order on the use of generative artificial intelligence.
Source — courtlistener.com ↗An amended complaint added seven financial institutions as defendants — JPMorgan Chase Bank, American Express, Capital One, Citibank NA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank NA and Discover — taking the action from four defendants to eleven.
Source — courtlistener.com ↗A verbal order reassigned the case from Magistrate Judge Susan E. Schwab to Magistrate Judge Phillip J. Caraballo for all further proceedings. The docket states no reason for the reassignment.
Source — courtlistener.com ↗Andrew W. Norfleet and Coryn D. Hubbert of Marshall Dennehey entered appearances for the Carbondale Police Department, the first defence counsel to appear on this docket. No responsive pleading accompanied them.
Source — courtlistener.com ↗Tufano filed C106, Tufano v. City of Carbondale et al, in the same district, six days after defence counsel appeared in C083 and 41 days after C083 was filed. It names the city itself and Douglas Calzola; C083 names the city’s police department. The fee was paid and summons issued as to both defendants.
Source — dockets.justia.com ↗Public statements are displayed separately from court findings. Quotations are transcribed from the video’s own YouTube auto-generated captions and timestamped from the caption cues covering the passage quoted. The Strong / Moderate / Context tier is this project’s research classification of how closely a statement bears on the documented filing patterns — it is not a judicial finding. Any second badge names the filing-restriction factor the statement’s own words describe; it records what the speaker said, not that a court found it.
How quotations are marked: An ellipsis (…) inside a quotation marks words left out between two passages of the same video, which can sit some minutes apart. The omitted wording is not reproduced here, and a clip on the statement supercut plays the whole span from the quotation’s first word to its last — so it includes the omitted material. Quotations without an ellipsis are continuous speech.
We've filed multiple lawsuits against Shopify. We've contacted the police department multiple times. The most recent lawsuit we just did, we're suing the police department. We're suing all the banks. Hopefully hopefully naming every single bank kind of puts an end to this and they keep an eye out for it now.
The speaker states in his own words that he has filed more than one action against Shopify on the same chargeback grievance, and then describes the most recent one by its party composition — the police department plus "all the banks." The dataset holds six Shopify actions (C013/C054, C047, C050, C072, C095) on the chargeback/reviews theory, and C083's amended complaint of 2026-08-24 names Carbondale Police Department, Shopify and seven banks. The identification is from the party composition described in the transcript, not from the title.
Watch at 00:15 — youtube.com ↗we might have to do is you know we might have to do personally serve every single one of these people in a separate lawsuit. Right now is easier for me to sue you know Shopify, the banks, the payment providers, every relevant party. It was only like 10 15 people to serve. So, that was a lot more manageable than serving every single individual customer. But, um, yeah, it's going to it's if we do that, these people are going to be in a lot of trouble cuz imagine, you know, you you serve 300 people, every single one of them is going to have to pay at least $3 to $5,000 in attorney fees. So, me spending, you know, me spending a few hours of my time every day for a month is going to cost these people over a million dollars in attorney fees instantly as soon as I mail out those those letters because if they don't respond to the case, they get a default judgment against them and I can garnish their bank account.
The cost-imposing instrument named in the speaker's own words is **service of a lawsuit** and the resulting **attorney fees** — not publicity — which is the side of the 2026-09-03 line where `Cost imposition as stated motive` applies. He quantifies the effect ("over a million dollars in attorney fees") and sets it against his own effort ("a few hours of my time every day for a month"). The same quote names Shopify, the banks and the payment providers as the defendants of the action already on file, which is what supplies the case identification a Strong tier requires.
Watch at 13:56 — youtube.com ↗Yeah, I might have just put myself out of business. I thought it wasn't that bad. I thought it was only 40 orders, but somehow all 300 orders for this week got cancelled. Like, I don't know how that happened. It didn't ask me to cancel confirmation for each of them. It just instantly cancelled all 300 orders.
This is the operational event that the 2026-06-07 → 06-11 Shopify burst is about, and nothing in this research material previously described it. Two features matter for
Why this classification: Revises the count upward — all 300 of the week's orders cancelled without a per-order confirmation.
Watch / source — youtube.com ↗It took me less than five minutes on Excel to prove that Shopify has stolen at least several hundred,000 from me. But they're so wealthy and powerful, the police aren't going to help me. The courts just throw out my case. And they do this through payment processor fraud. It's criminal. It's some type of bank fraud.
States the claim, the amount ("at least several hundred thousand" — the caption's "several hundred,000" is a rendering artifact), and his own legal characterisation ("payment processor fraud… some type of bank fraud"). Note the hedge "some type of" — he does not identify a statute. Relevant that C054's recorded disposition rejected an attempt to use 18 U.S.C. §241 on the ground that it creates no civil cause of action; this is a different criminal-law framing of the same instinct.
Why this classification: Claims a five-minute spreadsheet proves several hundred thousand in losses, and that the courts throw out his case because of the defendant's resources.
Watch at 00:02 — youtube.com ↗And when I filed the lawsuit in the court, the judges threw it out. They don't care. When I had the local police department and sent them documents, they didn't care. You know, no one's going to prosecute Shopify.
The most consequential Shopify statement located in this effort. On 2026-06-08 he states two grievances in one breath: the courts dismissed his Shopify case, and the local police department would not act on documents he submitted about Shopify. On 2026-07-29 — 51 days later — C083 (Tufano v. Carbondale Police Department et al, M.D. Pa.
Why this classification: Reports his filed suit was thrown out and the police took no action, concluding no one will prosecute the platform. No further filing is stated, which is why this is not tiered Strong.
Watch at 02:26 — youtube.com ↗And this is a criminal offense that the police is refusing to help us with.
This is the second statement of the police-refusal grievance, and it materially strengthens the C083 lead first found in the video “Shopify THIEVES”. That video (2026-06-08) said the local police department ignored documents he sent about Shopify; this one (2026-06-29) restates it as a criminal offense the police refuse to act on. C083 (Tufano v. Carbondale Police Department et al, M.D. Pa. 3:26-cv-02137) was filed 2026-07-29 — 30 days after this video — naming Carbondale Police Department; Shopify; The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; The United States of America. Two independent statements of exactly that grievance pairing, 51 and 30 days pre-filing. C083 remains a Research pending stub with no narrative; these two videos are now its only substantive description anywhere.
Why this classification: Characterises the conduct as criminal and says the police declined to act.
Watch at 00:24 — youtube.com ↗Most of you guys know these gangstalkers have been filing chargebacks on my business. Basically ordering product, receiving it, and then filing a chargeback. Criminal chargeback fraud. It's theft.
States the conduct underlying the action - that customers order, receive goods and then charge back - and characterises it as fraud the police declined to prosecute.
Why this classification: States the factual premise of the action; no filing conduct.
Watch / source — youtube.com ↗There's been like five chargebacks, but four of the five they sided with the customer where they pulled the same nonsense.
A dated, quantified snapshot of the continuing loss, and a note that changing payment provider did not alter the outcome.
Why this classification: A count of chargebacks and their outcomes; not court filings.
Watch at 00:12 — youtube.com ↗So, we did file a lawsuit against the local police department that is refusing to prosecute this. And I actually think I'm going to amend that lawsuit to add the FBI, all the different banks, and basically as many defendants as possible because I I don't know what to do at this point.
States an intention to amend a pending action to add further defendants, described as adding as many as possible.
Why this classification: Announces an intention to amend an existing action to add defendants. An amendment within the same case is not a new or repeat filing, so no core factor applies.
Watch at 00:31 — youtube.com ↗we did file another lawsuit and what we changed this time was we added the police department to the lawsuit for failing to prosecute against these thieves. And we also added all the banks. So, maybe those factors will change things. You know, we added every credit card provider. We're suing Amex, Mastercard, Discover, Visa, Chase, all all the credit card companies have been sued.
The densest filing-conduct statement in this video, and the actor throughout is himself ("we did file"), in the past tense. He states that a further action on the chargeback grievance has been filed; that "what we changed this time" was adding the police department "for failing to prosecute against these thieves"; that "all the banks" were also added; and that five card networks - Amex, Mastercard, Discover, Visa, Chase - are being sued, with "all the credit card companies have been sued." The phrase *"what we changed this time"* is the load-bearing one for the repeat-filing factor: it frames the action explicitly as a variant of a previous filing on the same grievance, which is stronger than the bare word "another." Held at Moderate, not Strong, because no case, court, docket or date is named and the four competing readings in Research Notes are unresolved - see "Why this is not Strong."
Watch at 05:51 — youtube.com ↗the reason it's not doxing is because these people are named in a civil lawsuit and they have had police reports filed against them. So their address and this information is now public knowledge. It is public knowledge of a lawsuit we are discussing. So I can now reveal their information. I can say this person stole from me. This is their house. This is the value of their house.
His own on-camera justification for the disclosure the redaction above withholds — that the existence of a civil action is what makes the individuals' addresses and home values publishable. It is preserved because §5 keeps the creator's framing while withholding the data itself. It describes a use of litigation, not a filing decision, so no filing-conduct factor applies; the pressure described is publicity, which under the 2026-09-03 rule takes `No filing-conduct factor` however large the consequence he predicts.
Watch at 02:34 — youtube.com ↗Each video has its own research page with its verified publish date, timestamped statements and case links. A researched link between a video and a docket record is not a finding of causation in either direction.
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Tufano v. Carbondale Police Department et al (3:26-cv-02137)". Research last verified September 15, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/3-26-cv-02137-tufano-v-carbondale-police-department-et-al/