The Problem
Right now, powerful corporations and unions use forced arbitration and secret non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to hide crimes, deceive shareholders, and shield themselves from accountability. These clauses silence women, block class-action lawsuits, and launder systemic misconduct from investors. While CalPERS—the nation’s largest pension fund—advocates to abolish NDAs, the system is not moving fast enough to stop institutional corruption.

How the System Weaponized "#MeToo" to Steal My IP

I experienced this corruption firsthand. I created a television project centered on a powerful, culturally vital premise: a story about a man who needs a woman’s unique “soft power” mediation skills to bring a divided America together. In the narrative, she leverages her value to assume total leadership. Once in power, she guides the man’s “hard power” that caused the divide, away from self-destruction, into a collaborative way to unite the country using both their skills when needed.

When Paramount attempted to steal my pro-woman intellectual property (IP), they tried to reframe me as a MeToo victim to force a payout and hide the theft from shareholders. Instead of protecting my television contract, my union (the WGA) pressured me to give up my IP title and pushed the same false narrative.

The New York Attorney General actually held evidence exposing this corruption. Her investigation revealed that the exact same "small circle" of men who used back channels to hide sexual assault payoffs were using those same back channels to steal my IP and falsely frame me as a MeToo victim. Yet, she entirely excluded this evidence from her final Assurance of Discontinuance—effectively hiding the truth from corporate shareholders and protecting the wrongdoers.

Judicial Misconduct and the Violation of the Sunlight Law

After Paramount pressured my attorneys to walk away, I fought back in court as a pro se litigant. During the very first call, the District Judge sexually harassed me, edited the court transcripts, and tried to force me into an illegal arbitration anyway. The designated arbitrator, JAMS, refused to arbitrate twice due to fraud. The judge ignored this and dismissed my case with prejudice.

This is a direct violation of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA)—the federal "Sunlight Law." Under the Second Circuit's own legal precedent, if sexual harassment occurs at any point during a case, the arbitration clause is completely void. I took my appeal all the way to oral arguments on the permanent audio record, yet the system violated my due process to protect corporate interests, multi-billion-dollar mergers, and secret financial deals.

The system's panic became undeniable when I took my appeal to the Second Circuit. The appellate panel recognized that my legal arguments under the EFAA continuing act doctrine were un-ignorable, so they granted formal Oral Arguments on the permanent audio record. But I caught them in a massive, self-defeating loop: the SDNY court had stripped away my right to a jury trial by forcing me into arbitration, yet JAMS formally refused to arbitrate due to fraud.

Faced with this absolute breakdown of their own machinery, the Second Circuit did something extraordinary: they issued a total dismissal of my case just 48 hours after oral arguments concluded. They didn't take weeks to deliberate; they panicked. They pre-wrote an escape hatch claiming a 'lack of jurisdiction' because they realized that looking at the raw evidence of institutional harassment, altered transcripts, and IP theft would permanently incriminate the court itself. They used a lightning-fast technical dismissal to slam the courtroom door, proving the exact 'Manifest Injustice' I am now taking to the United States Supreme Court.

The Structural Gaps That Fail Regular People

While the federal EFAA and New York's Adult Survivors Act (ASA) both stem from the global momentum of the #MeToo movement, the system left massive structural gaps that fail regular people:

The EFAA Gap (Not Retroactive to #MeToo): The federal EFAA was explicitly made not retroactive, meaning it offered zero protection or relief to the millions of survivors who came forward during the peak of the #MeToo movement before it passed.
The ASA Trap (Selective Political Justice): While New York's ASA briefly opened a lookback window for past survivors, the actual courtroom doors were opened selectively. High-profile cases received full institutional attention and public court dates because they aligned with larger political narratives. Meanwhile, thousands of regular women who filed under the exact same lookback window were ignored, silenced, or pressured into secret settlements because their stories did not serve a broader political agenda.
Why This Matters

Real change does not come easily. The institutional resistance to transparency is immense because the systemic oppression of women is how corporate and patriarchal structures maintain control over the cultural and economic narrative. Despite holding 51% of the population, women have never held the highest office in this country. The system is intentionally designed to collectively apply economic, institutional, and reputational pressure the moment women build authentic momentum.

From the Suffrage movement to the Women’s Rights movement and through #MeToo, the institutional playbook has always been to divide and conquer. The system selectively allows a chosen few to come forward to serve a temporary political agenda, while using forced arbitration, non-retroactive laws, and secret NDAs to suppress the collective power of the rest. In doing this, they purposefully turn the men on us, transforming what should be a shared fight for fair contracts and due process into a gender war. By weaponizing these movements to pit men and women against each other, the system ensures we remain divided while corporate structures retain absolute control.

True justice cannot be restricted by narrow classifications of crime, arbitrary dates, or boilerplate contract clauses designed to protect the wrongdoer. A permanent record of truth spoken through women’s collective voices must always override corporate or institutional shielding.

OUR DEMANDS: We are asking Congress to:

Expand the EFAA Universally Across Corporate and Union Contracts: Prohibit forced arbitration and coercive NDAs in both corporate and union contracts for all claims involving physical abuse, financial fraud, identity misuse, reputational abuse, and whistleblower retaliation across the board.
Make Protections Retroactive: Ensure that past victims who were silenced before, during, or after the height of systemic exposures can have their day in court.
Hold the Courts Accountable: Demand that federal and state courts strictly enforce the expanded EFAA and existing sunlight laws, preventing corporations from using tactical litigation to bypass public trials.
Protect Whistleblower Assets: Enact iron-clad federal safeguards, financial tracking, and asset-clawback protections so that corporate bad actors cannot financially bankrupt or economically strip a whistleblower who brings truth to light.
Close the Arbitral 'Black Hole' Loophole: Mandate that if a court compels an individual into forced arbitration, and the designated arbitration forum (such as JAMS or AAA) subsequently refuses or declines to arbitrate the dispute due to fraud, non-compliance, or structural failures, jurisdiction must immediately and automatically revert back to a public federal court for a trial by jury. Courts must be explicitly barred from dismissing cases with prejudice when the arbitral system fails to function.
6. Strict Prohibition on Pre-Judged Accelerated Dismissals: Enact federal judicial oversight rules that flag and investigate appellate panels that issue sudden, lightning-fast technical dismissals immediately following oral arguments. Courts must not be permitted to use "lack of jurisdiction" as an emergency escape hatch to evade looking at raw evidence of internal judicial misconduct, altered transcripts, and institutional fraud.
Join the Fight for True Legal Transparency

We are told we live in a country governed by the rule of law, yet the moment a regular citizen uses the law to challenge multi-billion-dollar mergers and institutional theft, the doors to the courthouse are slammed shut. The system weaponized social justice movements to divide us, using them as a smoke screen while continuing to strip women of their intellectual property, their economic livelihoods, and their constitutional right to a jury trial.

This petition is for every creator whose work was stolen, every worker betrayed by their own union, and every survivor silenced by a forced arbitration clause.

Sign this petition to demand that Congress expand the EFAA, close the arbitral black hole, and permanently ban the secret clauses that protect corporate and institutional wrongdoers and support my push to the Supreme court via MANIFEST INJUSTICE .https://www.courtlistener.com/audio/104930/costello-v-paramount-global-inc/

Here is the exact verbiage from my FRAP letter 28 on the docket that was filed after oral arguments were set. READ IT NOW 

SUPPLEMENTAL AUTHORITY LETTER PURSUANT TO FRAP 28(j)

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(j), Appellant Sue Costello

respectfully submits the following significant supplemental authority and newly

produced official record that came to her attention after briefing was completed.

The newly obtained NYAG Assurance directly proves fraud in the inducement,

demonstrates fraud on the court, and exposes the coordinated attempt to frame

Appellant into the larger MeToo securities fraud, all of which renders the

arbitration clause unenforceable under the Ending Forced Arbitration Act. The

New York Attorney General produced the complete Assurance of Discontinuance,

Assurance No. 22-071 (dated October 28, 2022), in response to Appellant’s FOIL

request.

This official settlement addresses securities fraud at CBS (now Paramount Global)

but makes no reference whatsoever to Appellant — even though the NYAG

possessed her LAPD “Robbery – Intellectual Property” report, her executed

contract, and their own subpoenaed CBS internal emails that prove the fraud. The

Assurance frames the fraud solely around Gil Schwartz while omitting the email

proof that Leslie Moonves personally approved the identical back-channel

“development deal.” Gil Schwartz was cc’d on the key emails, including Jonathan

Anschell’s instruction to “keep the circle very small on this” (Bates-stamped page

000059). These same executives ran the identical counterintelligence operationdescribed in the Assurance itself to steal Appellant’s IP through her television deal,

leave no record, and frame her into MeToo. This evidence supports Appellant’s

pending unopposed motion to recuse and judicial complaint against the district

judge for bias and continued framing by her former firm Debevoise & Plimpton.

Appellant never made any sex allegations; the NYAG and district court used

MeToo-style framing and sexual harassment in the exact same manner as the

Assurance itself — which focused solely on Leslie Moonves’ MeToo statements,

framed a deceased man (Gil Schwartz), and buried Appellant entirely. This

deliberate MeToo distraction was designed to conceal the IP theft from

shareholders, and the framing was intended to fold Appellant into the concealment

and cover-up of the larger securities fraud.

The Assurance proves that Moonves used the MeToo scandal as cover for the

CBS-Viacom merger while the company stole Appellant’s pro-woman IP to inflate

CBS’s value and create the false appearance of a cleaned-up company — the same

tactic the NYAG employed by framing a deceased man, shielding Moonves, and

burying Appellant to conceal the larger securities fraud. These acts constitute a

continuing violation by both the AG and the court that triggers Appellant’s EFAA

claim, establishes fraud in the inducement, voids the arbitration clause, and

explains why JAMS twice refused to arbitrate due to the underlying crimes. The

Assurance simply proves beyond reasonable doubt what the panel already has in

the record. The district court buried this evidence.