Back when I was running BMIL International, Inc. as President in Lower Manhattan - before merging with Backstabman's BRR Technologies - BMIL stood for Balfour Maclaine International Limited, as a division of this this proud century old diversified company, traded on the American Stock Exchange and owned Kay Jewelers, coffee cocoa trading operations, other commodities and BMIL - the oddball division selling Bally Engineered Structures (Bally, PA) and Bally Refrigerated Boxes (Morehead City, NC) refrigeration equipment and cold storage projects around the world.

In 1991-1992 Balfour Maclaine collapsed under the incompetent leadership of Mr. Anthonie Cornelis van Ekris - CEO - who left with a windfall while shareholders lost their investment. A.C. van Ekris then took a few surviving divisions with him - free of charge of course - to establish a smaller company, Balmac International Inc.  BMIL never ceased operations and was still selling and making money - self sufficient - all at no expense to the new owner Van Ekris.

In spite of two airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center above my head and dodging falling debris from the second impact on 9/11, I still made it to work 2-1/2 blocks away. I played a critical role in keeping Balmac and BMIL running the months after - with 2+ hour commutes each way, overnight stays at the office dealing with the aftermath.

After my colleague and boss, Joseph Gervase passed away of pancreatic cancer I was promoted to president of BMIL International by Mr. van Ekris at a time when the parent company, Balmac International was collapsing with the various divisions collapsing and disappearing. As the last division standing it made sense to merge BMIL with Mr. Backman's company in Morehead City, BRR Technologies - a dying company with losing sales and no sales to speak of after the merger, but with the manpower BMIL needed to thrive. Since Backman became a part owner and I was just an employee - of the larger company (70% to 30%) - Backman became the boss. None of the contracts I signed as part of the merger were honored by this criminal duo. Even the severence document was a fraud - but I never signed it because it was obviously fraudulent and extremely vindictive.

I continued to be the most productive sales person, working the hardest to bring in more profitable sales than most everyone combined while Backman squandered resources like there was no tomorrow instead of getting sales. He wasted so much money - on an empty plot of land and parties at a mansion on the beach, expensive $800.00 lab-grade instrument giveaways, etc. - that BMIL could no longer afford to pay its employees after barely 3 years after the merger. Backman even withheld payment on my earnings for millions in sales I had brought in that originally paid for his waste.

He laid everyone off for six months. However, he insisted we return to work unpaid for those six months. One colleague, Robert J Rumsby, with 20+ years with BMIL that relocated his family from New York, refused to work for no pay. Backman promptly, and illegally fired him as a warning to the rest of us to get to work. Everyone else had to get second jobs to pay their expenses. I decided to continue working full time at MY expense since I was the only one bringing in any significant sales. My goal was to save the earnings I had yet to be paid, save my job for the future and to save Backman's company. After six months of menial unemployment benefits ended, magically BMIL could resume paying its employees. What was my reward for making most of the sales and working full time for six months to save his company? Backman stated he would never pay me what he owed me from before the layoff - at that point in excess of $72,000.00 I had been patiently awaiting for three years. In New York it is called "Wage Theft." In North Carolina - a right to fire state - it is called a "dispute."

Backman owns 30% of BMIL with van Ekris, who lives in Monaco for obvious reasons, owning 70%. Backman was in dire financial straights, maxed out on his loans, even putting his home up as collateral for his share of the partnership in BMIL. In spite of this predicament, and in only a few months after the layoff period, and with minor to moderate sales coming in, he all of a sudden had the resources to plan, start and pay for a new commercial "crap" brewery company in Beaufort - Mill Whistle Brewery (Swill Whistle Brewery?). Where did he get these resources??? BMIL's sales did not suddenly rebound to avoid going out of business and have plenty of cash left over to plan the purchase of his brewery. Instead of paying his employees for all their unpaid work, he scalped them by not paying his ten employees for six months. He even had the cruel audacity to show off his brand new shiny brewery to his employees - those who had worked for no pay for six months for his benefit! They paid for his brewery!!!

I was obviously not happy at having my income or work exploited and stolen by this back stabbing crook. I continued my impeccable work ethic, generating a lot of profit by working hard and selling a lot. This does not come from incompetency, being a bad employee or abusing clients as Backman has falsely accused me of. How do I generate over $10,500,000.00 in sales and more than $2,500,000.00 net profits in less than six years during a recession by "abusing" customers? More than anyone else at BMIL - a small company of a dozen employees - what did Backman do with all that money??? While I was busy working my ass off making money for Backman, he was busy stealing from me, undermining me and stabbing me in the back - his most productive employee!

Unfortunately, I worked too hard and my health deteriorated to an almost deadly blow with a rare and life threatening infection on my spinal cord leaving me in agonizing pain in Carteret General Hospital for a week. At midnight Sunday I was put in an ambulance and sent to Vident Medical Center in Greenville for emergency surgery at 4 AM that Sunday morning to save my life and keep me from becoming a paraplegic. I could not walk at all for another two weeks, but with rehab I can walk now (short distances), though left in permanent pain and some ability to walk with many unpleasant and embarrassing side effects (known as Cauda Equina Syndrome from spinal cord damage). My three weeks were covered by vacation days plus two days Backman claims he was so generous to give me - even though I continued to work and make sales from the hospital bed (complemented by my doctors who correctly wrote in my chart that I continued to work to distract myself from the unbearable pain I was in).

I complained often to my colleagues that Backman had stole my earnings and was not happy about it. after only a month and a half after leaving the hospital, in pain and in physical therapy, Backman retaliated threatening to fire me and began making up outlandish accusations. Like claiming I had abused a long time customer of mine - how? I was at lunch when he had called the office. Backman learned this because the customer called another colleague seeking to talk to me. Backman overheard that call - he did not even talk to the customer! There was NO problem or issue - he was a longtime customer and good friend of 15 years. Next he claimed I "intentionally" lost a huge sale. My earnings are based on sales I make - what a stupid accusation! It was consulting work and I got a flattering e-mail review of my excellent work from this customer. Nevertheless he threatened me again and sent me home as punishment (I still do not know for what) - where I continued to work.

 Backman continued to make my working life miserable - forcing me to go on useless and expensive long overseas flights knowing the painful condition I was in. He continued to steal my earnings, shortchanging me at every opportunity - even retroactively changing my compensation after I had already done the work and brought in desperately needed business. He kept trying to provoke me, threatening me and making ever more bizarre false accusations - he was obviously looking for any pretext to fire me for two years and I never gave him the pretext he wanted.When I returned to work Backman reconsidered his stance on my previous earnings and said he would calculate how much he owed me. He owed me more than $72,000 at that point. Instead of calculating what he owed, he gave me a fraudulently calculated of  $27,000 instead, LESS $10,000 in cash he claims he gave me, which of course he hadn't. He has no evidence or reason for paying me that amount IN CASH or a check made out to CASH. He should have a record of such an amount - maybe it went to his fancy solar water heater for his new brewery. He also deducted $2,000 he paid for a month of nurse's care I did not want after my three week stay in two hospitals. Backman gave me a choice to accept $15,000 instead of $72,000.00 ($53,000.00 LESS) that he actually owed me - or be fired.

Finally, on February 12, 2015, I took an abusive phone call from a "dealer/customer rep" looking to discredit BMIL in order to deal directly with Bally. I took the call from a colleague to save her from his abusive badgering. I did get a bit exasperated while Backman stood behind me listening in. He decided to perversely distort my exasperation into "abuse" and printed a severance contract - while I was still on the phone - that he had all ready to go and handed it to me after hanging up the phone and fired me - after 22 years of long, hard, loyal and very profitable service to BMIL He claims I abused the customer - yet he was standing behind me - who would abuse a customer with the boss standing right there? Gimme a break. He immediately called Mike Coyle, president of Bally, to defame me and destroy me so I would be unable to gain employment there - in spite of 22 years Bally experience. It worked - Backstabman destroyed my career and took away my livelihood along with my health coverage. I am sure my new, very painful disability played a roll in my termination - even though I was still the most productive and profitable employee working as hard as I could through my pain.

The severance agreement was a fraudulent document he never intended to honor - as he proved to the lawyer I had to hire to try and recover what he stole from me. The severance document was simply an effort to have me sign away and surrender ALL of my rights to BMIL and any claims to the earnings they still owed me. With the help of this lawyer and an independent auditor, it was confirmed Backman had cheated me out of OVER $78,000.00 - excluding the $10,000 in cash I never received and that the auditor did not go into, and was deducted from my earnings. I had to continue to endure new and massive lies and cruel accusations by Backman and his slanderous lawyer. In spite of the evidence Backman cheated me, I never got an apology for the so called "mistake" as he has called it - nor did I get interest on the amount, or the lawyers fees I had to pay to recover the stolen earnings. Bottom line, Thomas John Backman is a serial lying thief.

Backstabman claims it was all an mistake. Yea, a systematic, continuous theft over six years of not $100 or $1,000 but over $80,000 - a mistake? He was given repeated opportunities to correct his alleged mistake and instead I got threats in return.

Why do I call him the BACKSTABMAN? Not because of his Back Stabbing name, but because of his back stabbing ways and nature. After I had helped save him from his dire predicament of going out of business - as he surely would have without the merger - I helped and supported the merger with Mr. van Ekris, the owner of BMIL. While I thought Backman was my friend and I had his back, and was working myself into poor health to get the sales to save his company after the merger, he was busy undermining me behind my back to Mr. van Ekris claiming I had mental issues and other false and maliciously cruel accusations. I was certainly sad and very upset at having my earnings stolen by someone I thought to be a friend! That does not make me have mental issues. Mr. van Ekris, for whom I had worked for 22 years, putting in superhuman effort to make money for, keeping his company running through and after 9/11, becoming very profitable the last three years I ran BMIL while all the other divisions around me collapsed, shows the callous depraved indifference and disloyalty of this wealthy 0.01% subhuman parasite. He lives in Monaco - a notorious tax dodge haven, and now uses Balmac International as one of many shell companies he has to hide taxable income from BMIL. Backman uses BRR Technologies as another shell company to hide his taxable profits too - short changing American, North Carolinian and Carteret County tax payers.

The parallels between Trump and Backman are quite amazing - his cruel ways, his lies and exaggeration, and his cheating.

Fortunately, Backman is currently taking advantage of his partner behind his back by using BMIL funds to add a beer cooler to store his Swill Whistle beer and to work at his brewery instead of BMIL during company business hours. I have no sympathy for Anthonie C. van Ekris who betrays and stabs a loyal and PROFITABLE employee of 22 years in the back WITHOUT QUESTION OR HESITATION. He deserves the disloyal and back stabbing partner he has. Van Ekris did not even thank me or my colleagues for working six months for no pay to save his company! That says it all about this human failure and indecent parasite of a man.

Backman has benefited at tax payer's expense from the ten employees he coerced to work unpaid forcing them to take unemployment, and dilutes taxable profits of BMIL with a shell company BRR Technologies. He also bought himself a commercial brewery off the backs of the ten employees he did not pay and the earnings he stole from me. In New York I would have had the right to sue Backman, but North Carolina is a Right to Fire state and I have no legal recourse against this lying thief. An unrepentant sinner three times over:

• He coveted my Job for himself and got it.

• He stole my earnings and six months of unpaid fulltime work for his benefit.

• He bore false witness against me making false accusations and lied about me to others.

Three out of ten Commandments! And he claims to be a Catholic Christian!!! I guess Backman thinks his GOD will not notice his sinful evil ways.

As for Tony van Ekris, he is a serial business failure owner, a liar and a cheat on a global and historic scale. Like Trump, he is not very bright, trusts the wrong people and is disloyal to those who have done right by him. He is as greedy as they come. A trivial example is his yearly complaint and "claim" about the lack of profitability to avoid paying bonuses to dedicated hardworking employees. One year he said in lieu of bonus we would all get a case of wine - from his own vineyard "Château des Mille Anges" in Bordeaux France. We never received anything, of course, and is remembered by many colleagues to this day for that slap in the face. He signed the merger document between BMIL and BRR which stated I would be able to buy in to 5% of the company. He reneged, He doubled the valuation and he still reneged. Not even a signed contract will override his greed. It was for the best - I refuse to be partners with a bunch of crooks who also turned out to be backstabbers, thieves and disloyal, greedy, malicious liars.