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In a recent appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Paul Duffy wrote:
Prenda Law is currently winding down its operations and is in the process of dismissing its remaining cases pursuant to the instructions of its clients [sic]. In some instances, the requests for dismissals are being opposed, resulting in delays and ongoing law and motion proceedings that have precluded Prenda Law from completely ceasing its operations.
Fortunately, everyone, including judges (well, except some either lazy or gullible ones), takes these words with a grain pound of salt. Whom do you want to deceive, Paul/John/Paul? Bullshitting a Court of Appeals is a very good idea. Go on, we are ready for an illustrious show.
So, while a San Diego law firm Klinedist has been doing its best to avoid unavoidable — a total destruction of SS Prenda — in a joke of a court that is located in St. Clair County IL, a brand new shake-down campaign is underway. Unbelievable chutzpah. In this judicial stinking hole, where even the chief judge is seemingly in bed with Prenda (Judge Baricevic signed a carte blanche “agreed order,” the document that no self-respecting judge would even consider signing), a new lawsuit/petition was filed on April 15: Peg Leg Productions v. Charter Communications. Who are the signers? Paul Duffy and Kevin Hoerner. Of course.
I don’t want even try to go into this garbage petition’s details, it is too obvious what’s going on here.
So, what the hell is “Peg Leg Productions”? A painfully familiar name offends our sight once again:
Let’s reiterate the dates (I’ll omit many secondary events: refer to a titanic job by John Henry, who organized all the events in a nice timeline):
April 2: Prenda principals plead the Fifth declining to answer questions about the bogus corporations and their roles in those corporations.
April 15: A new lawsuit/petition Peg Leg Productions v. Charter was conceived in a scandal-rigged St. Clair County court.
May 6: Fleet Admiral Judge Otis Wright slammed his massive hammer on the Prenda player’s heads.
May 28: An entity that managed to file a lawsuit 1.5 months earlier was finally created: Lutz & [unborn] Sons as a CEO.
June 14: In an “emergency” motion, ostensibly Paul Duffy stated that “Prenda is winding down its operations.” And please, John Steele, don’t insult judges’ intelligence once again, bullshitting that Lutz’s funny businesses are independent from Prenda; that you, Hansmeier, Prenda, and Lutz have nothing to do with each other.
I must give a credit to some sense of humor our crooks have shown: referring to a stereotypical pirate attribute is funny, and at the same time is an unambiguous hint to who is the actual pirate.
Update
6/17/2013
Today Morgan Pietz filed his response to Prenda’s “emergency” appeal that incorporates the same findings that are the subject of this post. I’m happy to note that Morgan came to the same conclusions: he illustrated that despite Duffy’s claims (made under oath), the stubborn facts do not corroborate those claims.
Yesterday Bloomberg Businessweek published probably the most thorough (as of today) article about Prenda: Prenda Law, the Porn Copyright Trolls by Clair Suddath. If you never heard the Prenda story, it is a must read to understand all the nuances. If you have been following these trolls for a while, read it anyway: it is worth your time.
Clair started writing this piece back in March. I don’t know how many hours she spent, I assume a lot. I saw many examples of sloppy reporting in so-called “big media”: Clair’s work is the very definition of the opposite of “sloppiness.” The number of people she interviewed (including yours truly) to get 100% understanding of the trolling world is staggering.
Investigating Prenda is like stepping into a swamp. Obviously, the author had much more material than what finally found its way to the feature. Editors enforce limits (it’s not only about the Internet, this article will be featured in the next printed edition of Businessweek). Something should have been sacrificed, so, regrettably, our community was not mentioned. Nonetheless, it is the least of my concerns: the goal of explaining the story of fraud and abuse to readers unfamiliar with the trolling phenomenon was met with an A+.
I will get back to Bloomberg’s article in a moment.
Scandal in St. Clair County
There is an ongoing scandal in the St. Clair County, IL involving two judges and a probation officer, among others:
If you can’t watch the video, here is a recap from another article.
ST. LOUIS — A southwestern Illinois probation worker who an FBI agent says admitted providing cocaine to two judges [Joe Christ and Michael Cook] , including one of died of an overdose at a hunting cabin while with the other jurist, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a federal drug charge.
James Fogarty, 45, of Belleville, entered the plea in East St. Louis to a cocaine distribution and possession count. He remains jailed without bond, pending a detention hearing postponed Tuesday by a magistrate judge after federal prosecutors cast Fogarty as a flight risk unworthy of bail.
[...]
Admitting he repeatedly sold cocaine to the two jurists, Fogarty said Christ used the drug on weekends and that Cook partook of the drug at Fogarty’s house roughly 10 times, Murphy wrote. Fogarty snorted cocaine with the two judges at times on golf trips and at least once at the Cook family’s lodge where Christ later died.
Remember the probation officer’s name — James Fogarty.
As I mentioned above, Lightspeed Media Corporation v. Smith et al lawsuit (initially St. Clair county, removed to ILSD — 12-cv-00889) was covered in this blog previously. There are more recent post-worthy events that I did not write about due to lack of time, maybe I’ll catch up later. One particular event is of our interest: the service of the defendant Smith. Clair Suddath’s article that I started this post with tells us the following story:
Tony Smith had a porn problem. A 27-year-old nursing student in Collinsville, Ill., Smith was listening to music and doing homework one night last August when he heard a knock on his apartment door. He opened it and an imposing-looking man with a flashlight handed him a lawsuit and his business card. A name was written in pen on the back. “Give this guy a call, he can help you get through this,” the man told Smith. “He’s looking out for people like you.” Smith turned it over and read the name: John Steele.
According to the complaint, Smith was accused of conspiring with 6,600 anonymous people to hack into computers owned by Lightspeed Media, an Arizona adult-entertainment company, and steal its porn. Before serving him with the lawsuit, Smith recalled, Chicago’s Prenda Law firm had mailed him threatening letters for three months. “They always said that if I went ahead and wrote a check for $4,000, they’d drop it,” Smith says. Because he didn’t know how to hack into anything and didn’t have any illegally downloaded porn on his computer, he’d thought it was a scam and ignored it.
Assuming Steele was a defense attorney, Smith called him. He says Steele explained the allegations and offered to help. Steele asked about Smith’s job (school made full-time work impossible), his roommates (none), and his computer (an old hand-me-down). The two talked for several minutes before Steele mentioned that he worked with Prenda, helping on a lot of its cases. Smith became suspicious and hung up. After an hour of frantic Googling, he determined that Steele “didn’t just work with Prenda, he ran Prenda,” he says. “That’s when I knew, I’m never talking to this guy again.”
Here is how Anthony Smith describes this event in a sworn affidavit. Scroll down to the photo of the business card in question:
I hope you have already connected the two dots: the probation officer James Fogarty, a charged drug dealer, was the one who served the complaint to Smith — the one who tried to trick Smith into calling John Steele. I bet that Prenda’s local attorney who handles Prenda’s dirty deeds in an even dirtier swarm of vermin was a middleman in this con.
Make your own conclusions.
Update
6/1/2013
There is another link between Prenda and Fogarty: Attorney who will be defending Fogarty, Clyde Kuehn, filed (together with Duffy and Hoerner) some pleadings on behalf of Prenda/Lighspeed Media. Both Kuehn and Hoerner served as St. Clair Bar presidents in the past; Kuehn (like O’Malley) is a former judge. The question why St. Clair Bar looks the other way when Prenda “plunders the citizenry” is rhetorical and does not require an explicit answer.
This post is yet another community contribution, which makes me happy: this blog was never about me or my ego, and I’m always glad when more writers are involved.
Before I pass the pen to JoseDoe, I want to note that the missing exhibits to the bizarre troll Goodhue’s pleading (which is in the center of the ongoing discussion) have been finally filed today (see the docket, entry 59). The most interesting piece is John Steele’s sworn affidavit. In my opinion, John waived his 5th amendment rights by filing it. Someone has immediately noted that the notarized date is 5/28/2013, while Goodhue’s response to OSC was filed on 5/25/2013. Moreover, some quotes purportedly from this affidavit in the motion itself can’t be found in the affidavit (e.g., “cut down significant acreage of wood and unlawfully removed it from Steele’s property”). Indeed, it is hard to quote a document that does not exist yet.
I received a report from Aitken County on the land parcel that contains the former vacation home of John Steele, at 21251 220th St, Mc Grath, MN 56350 (Lat: 46.3329, Long: -93.2880). The parcel number is 25-0-008600, and the file is dated 12/12/2012, before the final sale of the property in February of 2013. The size of the parcel is 44.5 acres, according to Aitken County.
The first thing to note is that John Steele did not own this land. An entity called, variously SRR Properties LLC or Snake River Ranch, LLC owns it. I do not believe that it is the more famous Snake River Ranch in Wyoming that is buying property in Minnesota, either.
A check of the Minnesota Secretary of State shows that Snake River Ranch, LLC is a Limited Liability Corporation owned by… John Steele, with a mailing address to his next door neighbor. Just like Saltmarsh, Mooney, and Cooper, Steele appears to have named one of his shell companies after something else more famous. The LLC was founded two months before the deeding of the property over to it.
But it does get better. See Property Sale below.
How big is the property?
The property was conveyed to SRR in June of 2004, from the Estate of John Steele Sr., our troll’s father, who passed away in July 2003. The property was conveyed to SRR as a “Trade, Gift, or Estate” for $151,827.00. The Aitkin County Detailed Parcel Report (embedded above) states the parcel size at 44.50 acres. I searched various real estate websites, such as Zillow and Trulia. The size given for the property on Zillow is 125 acres. Here is a map of the parcel on Trulia:
The logical question is: who is right? The mix-up can be explained by the fact that the original estate was broken into three parcels (25-0-008600, 25-0-008800 and 25-0-008700): presumably one for each sibling. John got the cabins, Jayme and Elizabeth — only land.
How Clear the Cutting?
One of the more scurrilous allegation is contained on page 8, lines 19-20:
In September 2012 [...] [Alan Cooper] cut down significant acreage of wood and unlawfully removed it from Steele’s property…
There are two ways to refute this allegation: one is to compare before and after pictures, the second is to consider how something like that would be done.
Compare the ait-17-016 shot in 1998 with Google maps. I cannot guarantee that the satellite imagery is after February 2013, but the imagery is “copyright 2013.” Bing Maps shows similar imagery. In each case, there is no readily identifiable deforestation as alleged. The small trail that runs south to the river ford actually runs off the property lines in both the Trulia image as well as those general property lines formed by the tree lines. When John Steele allegedly went four-wheeling with Alan Cooper, he trespassed on his neighbor’s property.
Let us consider from where all these trees would have been cut. The ones lining 220th Street appear to be intact, as well as any other trees north of the river. This leaves south of the river. The trees there appear to be too small to harvest, especially when you look at photos 8 and 9 of the Trulia listing. But, for the sake of argument, let us say they were cut down. How were they removed? The only possible way is via the trail across the river ford. Certainly, dragging “significant acreage of wood” across the ford would have wreaked major destruction with the soft soil around the ford. None of this is evident in the aerial imagery.
I have not inquired as to where the trees would have gone, although if I were so moved, I would call a few of the licensed firewood vendors in the McGrath area and ask them if an Alan Cooper sold them live timber in September of last year.
Property Sale
According to Goodhue (Page 7, line 21), “In mid-2012, Steele listed his vacation property for sale by auction.” Well, this is curious. Because, Steele didn’t own the property, SRR did. But wait. According to the MN Secretary of State, Snake River Ranch, LLC was “Administratively Terminated” on 01/07/2008. It didn’t exist. It couldn’t sell anything. How can a terminated LLC convey good title to a plot of land?
But let’s examine the sale. On 8/19/2012, the property was first offered for sale for one dollar. It was listed under MLS# 4183515. On 10/02/2012, the price was pushed upward to $465,000. The property was sold on 2/28/2013 for $417,000.00. The listing was removed on 3/09/2013 at that same price. (all data from ReMAX Results) The agent appears to be Brent Berry. According to Realtor.com, both the buyer and seller used ReMAX Results as the property brokers. The current Zillow.com estimated price is just under $322,000 — the new owners are already $95,000 underwater, a loss of almost 23% in three months. The seller made out well. $417,000 – 6% realtor commission = 391,980 – 151,827 = $240,153 profit.
Taxes
Here’s where it gets interesting. If the LLC was administratively terminated, could it convey good title? What is the statute of limitations? What if John Steele signed as one of the officers of a defunct LLC, deeded the property over to the new owners, and just pocketed the check? He didn’t sell the property, the LLC did. But the LLC died five years previously. There’s also the wrinkle that this is a vacation home. I’ll have to research this some more, but it is possible that capital gains taxes may be due this year on the $240K profit Steele made on the sale of the property.
What does it all mean? It’s another typical Steele operation. The receipt, ownership, and sale of the property are cloaked in ambiguity. Did Steele own it or not? Who pays taxes on the gain? The Goodhue story of the widespread tree cutting cannot be countenanced, for the trees are too small to be commercially salable and their supposed removal left no traces on the landscape, as seen in images from 1998 and 2013.
But it’s a fair bet their neighbors can’t pick up their WiFi signal.
Another reader, who wished to remain anonymous, made a couple of notes independently. Here are the points that have not been addressed above:
I noticed that the property was sold in February, 2013 for full value. If the property was indeed damaged by a chainsaw there should have been a reduction in price or there would have been repair work done on the property. Another local realtor would know if the property was damaged or the price was reduced.
I would LOVE to know who the buyer was – and if they were told anything about cut timber or chainsaw damage. It’s a log cabin, after all. It would be pretty obvious if a repair had to be done. it’s not as simple as replacing some sheet rock.
Update
5/29/2013
The latest tax documents on the three parcels that were sold in February: all three now have the same owner:
Yesterday we took a look at the newest filing from AF Holding’s v David Harris (AZD 2:12-cv-02144) where Prenda’s lackey Steven Goodhue attempts to dismiss the fact that Cooper’s identity was stolen and downplay the events in Honorable Judge Wright’s courtroom. Hopefully, I was not alone in immediately identifying several “holes” in the story he presented related to Cooper’s now alleged involvement at the outset of this debacle. Here’s a more in depth look at the Response as well as the inconsistencies presented.
Goodhue starts with the same song and dance that we have seen since the start of Coopergate, namely it doesn’t matter who signed the assignment, AF Holdings still has standing to file suit against infringers. This argument didn’t work before, however I’m not surprised that it is still an integral part of their defensive strategy. It will be interesting to see how the Honorable Judge responds to this…
Next, Goodhue embarks on an extensive explanation into Cooper’s involvement in the copyright scheme. He leads through a heartwarming tale of Cooper and Steele being best of friends after they entered into their arrangement with Cooper as live-in caretaker of Steel’s property:
Steele visited his vacation property regularly between 2005 and mid-2011 and became close friends with Cooper. Steele and Cooper spent substantial time together, including, for example, boating on Lake Mille Lacs, riding all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiling, and attending estate auctions. Steele and Cooper would regularly collaborate on various handyman projects, including building a porch addition to and reroofing the guest cabin. Cooper and Steele regularly attended county fairs and other Northern Minnesota social events together, including the White Pine Logging and Thrashing show, Howie’s Mud Bog, the Aitkin County July 4th fair, and the Kanabec County fair. Cooper’s relationship extended to Steele’s family. Conservatively speaking, Cooper joined Steele’s family for dinner over 100 times. On several occasions he babysat Steele’s daughter. The two were such good friends that Cooper remarked on several occasions that Steele was the brother he never had.
But Cooper had a small problem, he was broke. So Mr. Steele, being the charitable man he is, introduced Cooper to Mark Lutz (CEO for AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13) as the answer to his financial woes. Cooper was involved in two copyright assignments as a “corporate representative”, even though he knew nothing about the adult industry, but soon this created too many issues with his second wife, so he soon withdrew from this status. Finally, Goodhue ends this saga with Cooper’s downhill slide, that started with his divorce coupled with Steele putting his property up for sale (which would end Cooper’s “free” residence) and ultimately drove him to a mental state where he was attacking guests, vandalizing Steels property and pilfering everything that wasn’t nailed down:
[...]Cooper used a chainsaw to remove large portions of load-bearing walls in Steele’s guest cabin, tore down nearly every interior wall in the guest cabin, stole 4 rifles, 1 shotgun and 5 pistols Steele stored on his property, threatened prospective buyers of Steele’s property, cut down significant acreage of wood and unlawfully removed it from Steele’s property, and stole hundreds of items, including tools, equipment, lumber, and virtually every item that was not bolted down in Steele’s kitchen. Cooper even stole a large trailer of Steele’s that Cooper used to haul away entire rooms of furniture from Steele’s cabin.
Hungry for revenge, Cooper was conveniently “recruited” through text by Godfread to file a lawsuit against Steele. Of course the EFF was involved, essentially asserting that they along with Cooper and Godfread collaborated together to “launch collateral attacks on Plantiff’s copyright infringements lawsuits.”
“Cooper used a chainsaw to remove large portions of load-bearing walls in Steele’s guest cabin.”
I can’t help but think of one of my favorite lines from Ace Ventura, “well fiction IS fun, but I prefer the story where”… Goodhue must have selective memory. Let’s go back to the very beginning of Coopergate and follow the events leading up to the pivotal ruling in the CACD and the recent Goodhue Response. Way back in November, when Cooper initially retained Godfread, his goal was clearly stated, “My client would like certainty that his identity is not being used without his knowledge and against his will as the would be CEO of AF Holdings, LLC or as a manager of Ingenuity 13, LLC.” It wasn’t until several months later, after Prenda and Duffy dodged their question, including flat out stating that they refused to answer, that Cooper was forced to file suit (January 22nd to be precise).
During this same time, Attorney Morgan Pietz, defending Does in California, engaged in several emails requesting that Prenda’s Brett Gibbs answer two simple questions. First, identify if there was another Alan Cooper that was being held out as the Principal of AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13. There was a mess of childish behavior including the now famous line, “I’m sure there are hundreds of other Alan Coopers in this world”. Secondly, when Gibbs purportedly had to ask his client for the original assignment, Pietz requested to know who “the client” was. As events unfolded, Gibbs threw “tantrum” after “tantrum” to avoid answering these two simple questions. Shortly thereafter, Nick Ranallo and Morgan Pietz asked Judge Wright to allow discovery on these two issues and a few more pointed questions to get to the heart of the Alan Cooper issue. And they got it. Gibbs response? “I think I’ll try to disqualify the Honorable Judge Wright for abhoring Plantiffs who try to protect their pornography copyrights.” When that didn’t work, Gibbs tried the cut and run, dismissing the case. Duffy substituted in for all the Gibbs cases and then stated dismissing them one by one.
All of this history begs the answer to a couple of questions relating back to Goodhue’s response. If Alan Cooper was truly involved in from the beginning as “a Corporate Representative” for AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13 and signed the original copyright assignment, why would Gibbs et al go through such great lengths to avoid answering that Alan Cooper from Minnesota signed it? When asked to provide the identity of his “client”, why would he not simply identify Mark Lutz as the client? Mr. Goodhue, the facts clearly show that Cooper’s intent was not to file suit as was stated, but to clear his name. When this failed, he had no option but to file a lawsuit. Further, Mark Lutz was not identified as the CEO of the off-shore companies until the February Deposition of Paul Hansmeier, which is why Gibbs was unable to identify him before that date. But Goodhue doesn’t bother to mention any of these discrepancies.
Goodhue also attempts to incorrectly reference the transcript of the March 11th hearing to prove that Godfread sent a text message to Cooper to recruit him to his cause. However, Cooper never stated under oath that it was Godfread that sent him the text, simply that someone alerted him to the situation and told him to contact Godfread. He also conveniently skips the part where Cooper, still under oath, states that it was not his signature on the documents in question, that he uses a middle initial in his signature. And let’s not forget that the fairy tale woven by Goodhue comes from the Affidavit of John Steele, who was not under oath. Should we trust the words of a man who “suffers from a form of moral turpitude unbecoming of an officer of the court?” Let’s hope that the Honorable Judge does his research and is able to quickly dismiss Goodhue’s Fable.
Background (which is not really relevant): DieTrollDie wrote in a recent post that on 5/17/2013 Judge Murray Snow stayedAF Holdings LLC v. Harris (AZD 2:12-cv-02144) due to concerns based on the sanctions laid down in Judge Otis Wright’s order:
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff show cause within seven (7) days of the date of this Order why this Court should not dismiss this case. To the extent that Plaintiff asserts a right in the continuation of this case, Plaintiff is ordered to identify: (1) the persons who signed Exhibit B in the names of Raymond Rogers and Alan Cooper; (2) all persons who hold any interest in Plaintiff; and (3) if Exhibit B to the Complaint is in fact not signed by Alan Cooper and/or Raymond Rogers why Plaintiff and/or counsel should not be sanctioned pursuant to the Court’s inherent power and Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 for filing a fraudulent document with this Court. In the interim, this action is stayed until further Order of this Court.
Why did I say that the background is not really relevant? Well, the following story could be injected by Prenda into any lawsuit where a judge questioned Alan Cooper’s signature. When after 6 months of struggling with writer’s block, Steele and Hansmeier came up with a story that “plausibly” connects the dots in what we call Coopergate, the judge’s order directing troll Steven Goodhue to confirm the validity of the copyright assignment signatures was a convenient moment. Emboldened by recent relative victories, the gang is gambling on judge’s gullibility, yet with Aaron Kelly’s firm involvement in this case, I wouldn’t bet a single penny on Prenda’s “red” (herring).
Yes, it took six months of inventive evasion, attempts to remove a judge from a case, lies, invoking the Fifth Amendment to finally come up with a crafty plot that for the first time explicitly accuses Steele’s caretaker Alan Cooper of willfully participating in Prenda’s “business.” Furthermore, the trolls accused Cooper of changing his story with a goal of extorting Steele & Co.!
While this is no more than one in a series of delaying tactics, it is really sad that the crooks continue bringing hell to a simple man’s life. Sad, but inevitable: you cannot expect anything but a blank stare from these heartless creatures when they witness suffering.
Minor congratulations to Nick Ranallo! (I’ll extend my major one when he is able to collect.)
ArsTechnica’s coverage (link below) contains a brief interview with Kurt:
In a brief interview, Opsahl told Ars the judge was “businesslike” during the short hearing, only asking whether the Wright sanctions order had been appealed (it has). Duffy then spent some time arguing the amount of sanctions was too high, as Ranallo could use similar arguments in his other cases.
“For what its worth, $9,400 for the amount of work Ranallo put in was a bargain,” opined Opsahl. “Any major law firm would have charged three or four times that amount, and the court probably wouldn’t have batted an eye.”
Ah, Prenda’s local in Georgia, Jacques Nazaire… The amount of entertainment he provides should get him promoted to a lutz (at least) in Prenda’s ranks. I wrote about Nazaire’s delusional pleading a month ago; Popehat (among others) scoffed at Nazaire’s crazy argument that Wright’s order was irrelevant because Georgia did not endorse gay marriage…
Nazaire met (and somewhat exceeded) expectation this time: in his yet another attempt (in the AF Holdings, LLC v. Patel, GAND 12-cv-00262) to shield the judge from the damning truth — that Prenda, according to Judge Wright, is a bunch of fraudsters, tax evaders and identity thieves.
10. The undersigned does not know the answer to that question. However, it must be noted that defendants (not the one herein) in these types of cases, typically employ various crafty and intimidating schemes against prosecutors and plaintiff’s attorneys. A newspaper article mentioning other types of intimidation is attached hereto as Plaintiff’s Exhibit A.
11. Furthermore the undersigned has been personally harassed by these types of defendants (not the defendant in this instant case nor the individuals listed in Exhibit A) because of THIS case alone. (Please see Plaintiff’s Exhibit B attached hereto).
This is intriguing enough to jump to Pacer and download the exhibits. And what do we find?
Exhibit A: a newspaper article about Anonymous performing a DDoS attack on PayPal in 2010… Wow.
Well, the Prenda gang members are not new to using nasty emails sent to them for the purpose of moving judges to pity. Only this time the email contained a question, which Nazaire has perfectly answered himself by filing the Exhibit A.
Featured comment
Mysterious Anonymous on May 22, 2013 at 5:06 pm:
Let me get this straight.
He’s trying to argue that the fact that the firm he represents has been found to be defrauding the courts, committing ID theft, and has been catastrophically sanctioned for that behavior via monetary sanctions (that they are currently refusing to comply with) and criminal referrals to the USAO and IRS, is totally irrelevant to the case before the Georgia court.
And to support this argument (that the so-called irrelevant documents should not be filed), he files a couple of documents that, by his own admission, are totally irrelevant?
Now we know why this guy has to work for Prenda.
Update
5/24/2013
Defendant, through Blair Chintella, replied to Nazaire’s bizarre pleading. Translation from Legalese:
There is a case lingering in the ILND, Ingenuity 13 v Bradley Hellyer (12-cv-06131). The defendant represents himself, and he answered the complaint, even included some counterclaims. I believe that Prenda would be happy to get rid of this lawsuit, but it can’t do it easily since the complaint has been answered. Just last week the plaintiff managed to get the counterclaims dismissed; dismissing the entire lawsuit is much easier now.
After the March 11 hearing in Judge Wright’s chambers, Prenda filed many “notices of allegations” in AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13 cases. Duffy explained that the reason for these filings was his wide known candor and honesty. Nonetheless, note that no notice was filed in this case. In my opinion, the judge on this case, Judge Joan Lefkof, is lenient to trolls, but I can be wrong, just a gut feeling. The dismissal of counterclaims has nothing to do with this, though: those counterclaims were indeed weak: the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss was well written (if one wouldn’t know the circumstances).
Therefore, in light of the damning Judge Wright’s Order, the likelihood of winning legal fees is rather high, so I believe this is a great opportunity for an Illinois-licensed attorney to chime in and represent Bradley pro bono. Even if collecting potential fee awards is arguably problematic, there is a certain value in having a favorable judgment in a lawyer’s portfolio. This is not only my opinion, an attorney thinks the same way:
To be clear, defendant never contacted me or anyone I know, it was not his initiative.
Many remember that less than 3 years ago an infamous scumbag Steve “Lightspeed” Jones, a pornographer who specializes in “barely legal” genre (i.e. he recruits and films very young girls), articulated the “troll credo” that would become a modus operandi of the sleaziest porno extortionists:
People aren’t embarrassed when their neighbors find out they downloaded a few songs, but illegally trading midget, tranny, facials, and teen porn content? There is some news worth keeping from the wife, kids, parents, and neighbors.
Please feel free to continue to compare this to the RIAA…
Steve Lightspeed
(He said this in the context of hiring John Steele.)
I heard stories about troll harassers/collectors (not only Prenda’s, but Lipscomb’s, for example) threatening to tell relatives, neighbors, and colleagues that the victim is being sued in connection to an illegal download of pornography. Along these lines, Lipscomb’s collectors inflicted more harm upon citizenry than anyone else — see Fantalis’s story.
Paul Duffy: “Pleaded Fifth? So what?!”
(Click to enlarge)
Yet I never saw these threats explicitly written in a demand letter — until yesterday. No one else but Prenda came up with a new sleaze at the time when the entire gang, including the ethically handicapped attorney who signed it (Paul Duffy), pleaded the Fifth and was referred to the authorities for criminal investigation (as a matter of fact, Duffy pleaded the Fifth twice). Last week people started receiving new letters, this time not from involuntarily dissolved Duffy Law Group (like in April), not from fake/shell corporations, but from the “Anti-Piracy Law Group,” the latest Prenda reincarnation. An explicit threat to call one’s neighbors was added to this masterpiece of douchebaggery (emphasis is mine):
[...] The purpose of this step is to gather evidence about who used your Internet account to steal from our client [sjd: never mind that this case is about hacking, not copyright infringement]. The list of possible suspects includes you, members of your household, your neighbors (if you maintain an open wi-fi connection) and anyone who might have visited your house. In the coming days we will contact these individuals to investigate whether they have any knowledge of the acts described in my client’s prior letter. [...]
Anything goes if it helps to scare an uninformed extortion target:
[...] Internet is full of stories of people being brought to court by our firm, incurring significant legal fees and suffering large judgments [...]
I don’t know what part of their bodies these guys use for thinking: to see what kind of stories people will find, try to google “Anti-Piracy Law Group,” or visit antipiracylawgroup.com (copy and paste to make sure that this is real).
If I was not a relatively modest kind, I would tell you what to do with such letter. But you know it without me if you spend an hour surfing the “Internet full of stories.”
By the way: the lopsided second page is not a result of faulty scanning. This is exactly how the original printed letter looks like. Also, we probably have a new definition of “Chutzpah,” since the letters are dated 5/7/2013 — the very next day after Judge Wright’s smackdown.
Good news
I want to finish on a lighter note.
I hope that everyone is familiar with Friday’s surprise interview that John Steele gave to ArsTechnica. It does not make sense to discuss the things this narcissistic megalomaniac said on the record. I keep wondering if this pretentious paltry creature understands the extent of the damage he inflicts upon himself and his buddies when he opens his mendacious mouth in public. Funny enough, Jason Sweet used Steele’s words from this interview to argue against Prenda in the evening of the exact same Friday!
While the entire interview is good news overall, there is more to it: while John struggles with mastering a delicate art of shutting-the-fuck-up, some people are doing their job in silence. And some of them visit this site in the line of their duty:
Steele on Tuesday told XBIZ that he plans on appealing Wright’s order with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Obviously we don’t agree on the ruling,” Steele said. “Judge Wright based his order on an eight-minute hearing where there was no testimony, no evidence introduced. Clearly Judge Wright does not like this type of litigation and he’s no fan of intellectual property law.”
