Georgia Residents Hit OpenAI With RICO Suit Over $20 Billion Data Center

A 44-page civil racketeering lawsuit filed November 6 in Effingham County State Court accuses OpenAI, its affiliates and local officials of coordinating a secretive $20 billion data center push. The complaint invokes Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. It marks a sharp escalation from earlier zoning and open-meetings challenges to the project, known as Project Camellia.

The plaintiffs are a group of Effingham County residents, including Dr. Michelle Finch-Mincey, Lehman Mincey Jr. and Raymond Carver. It's the third legal action targeting the proposed 4.4-million-square-foot campus on roughly 1,440 acres near Savannah, and the second brought by that trio.

Who's named in the suit?

The defendants include:

• OpenAI OpCo LLC
• Its affiliate Octans GA LLC
• Savannah Industrial Development LLC
• The Effingham County Industrial Development Authority (IDA)
• IDA CEO Brandt Herndon
• County Manager Tim Callanan
• All six county commissioners

At the center of the complaint is a timeline the plaintiffs say shows months of private dealing. The IDA signed a nondisclosure agreement with OpenAI on October 27, 2025 — nearly nine months before any public announcement. Internally, the project carried the code name "Project Gateway."

What happened at the July 21 meeting?

The complaint says the IDA held a meeting on July 21, 2026, with an agenda listing only "Project Gateway." The board entered an executive session that ran more than an hour, then unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding with Octans. Three days later, Savannah Industrial Development LLC conveyed roughly 1,440 acres to Octans for a recited $10 consideration.

That $10 figure doesn't prove the land sold for ten bucks — deeds often recite nominal consideration. But the transaction raises a real question about what payments, incentives and public benefits were attached to the land deal, as USA Herald noted. The lawsuit alleges Herndon stated public funds increased by $350 million following the sale.

The zoning follow-up came fast. Ordinance 2026-352, adopted August 4, 2026, amended the county's Table of Permitted Uses to allow data centers on industrially zoned property without conditional-use permits — and therefore without the public hearings required by Georgia's Zoning Procedures Law. Plaintiffs also allege a steering committee created in December 2024 to handle zoning met without public notice or agendas, despite including county officials, IDA members and private developers.

How big are the tax incentives?

The numbers are large. The MOU outlines a bond-financed sale-leaseback structure with payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, calculated at 50% of the project's appraised value at the 2026 millage rate for 15 years. Earlier reporting pegged that at nearly $900 million in tax abatements. The lawsuit alleges an additional $80 million in community-benefit payments was negotiated before any public input.

The complaint adds a conflict-of-interest claim. Commission Chairman Damon Rahn worked for Georgia Power as an IT infrastructure analyst, but neither disclosed the relationship nor recused himself during data center proceedings. Georgia Power representatives allegedly attended an October 2025 commissioners' retreat where "strategic and economic impacts of data center development in Effingham County" were discussed. The utility's economic development division allegedly facilitated OpenAI's introduction to the IDA.

Can the RICO claims survive?

The plaintiffs allege the defendants participated in a "Project Camellia Enterprise" engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity — false statements, concealment of material facts, and coordinated governmental and private conduct — to secure land, zoning and tax incentives while keeping residents in the dark. Georgia's civil RICO statute allows treble damages for qualifying financial harm tied to such a pattern.

Legal analysts urge caution. Establishing civil racketeering requires more than unpopular decisions or confidential meetings; plaintiffs must prove statutory elements including predicate acts and a sufficient connection to their alleged injuries. The complaint doesn't identify specific sworn testimony behind its perjury allegation, or a particular document it claims was forged.

The plaintiffs' attorneys frame the case as a transparency fight, not an anti-technology crusade. Lead attorney Ben Michaud said the filing is not an attack on artificial intelligence, or "super intelligence" as the U.S. government now officially calls it, but an "attack on the ways these defendants acted." He added: "It is a demand for transparency and accountability."

Partner Greg Gilluly went further: "Government power should come from the consent of the people, not multibillion-dollar corporations having secret meetings with public officials."

What do the plaintiffs want?

Money, not a stop-work order. The plaintiffs claim property values have already been harmed, with prospective buyers withdrawing or reducing offers on nearby homes. They seek compensatory and punitive damages, attorney's fees and treble damages under Georgia RICO. The suit does not seek to halt construction.

The Effingham County Board of Commissioners said it "does not comment on ongoing or pending litigation." OpenAI's CFO previously said Project Camellia "must earn residents' trust."

Why this goes beyond one county

Project Camellia's projected 3.2-gigawatt power demand would require massive grid expansion, likely including new natural-gas generation, and has raised climate concerns. The Georgia cases reflect a broader collision: as AI infrastructure scales to gigawatt-level campuses, the industry's traditional reliance on NDAs and opaque negotiations is running into local democracy, open-government laws and community resistance.

An earlier September lawsuit, also filed by Savage Turner Pinckney Savage Sprouse & Gilluly, challenged the zoning amendment process under open-meetings laws and remains pending. A site-plan vote has been delayed amid disputes over cooling water, environmental buffers and project scale.

Plenty remains unknown: whether OpenAI will move to dismiss or seek removal to federal court, which predicate acts the plaintiffs will lean on, how the $10 deed consideration relates to the full economic terms of the transfer, and whether state or federal authorities will investigate the conflict-of-interest allegations.

The allegations are unproven — a civil complaint contains claims, not court findings. But the arrival of RICO claims shows Project Camellia's opponents treat this as far more than a zoning dispute, and the legal fight over how AI infrastructure gets built in America has entered a harder-edged phase.