Prenda
Facing uncomfortable questions, Brett Gibbs throws a temper tantrum
Last week I presented a Notice of related cases that California attorney Morgan Pietz wrote with a couple of goals:
- To make the district aware of blatant forum shopping carried out by Prenda: just a fraction of its carbon-copy cases (filed by two “plaintiffs”) have wasted precious time of 11 judges (instead of one);
- To draw judges’ attention to a very troubling development regarding alleged fraud, which, if proven, would definitely nullify all the AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13 cases at the very least, and possibly warrant a criminal investigation of Prenda;
- To make the district aware of the events in Florida, which were not only highly embarrassing to Prenda, but also very illustrative of its fraudulent foundation.
In addition to that Notice, Morgan Pietz has been communicating with Prenda’s California shakedown envoy and veteran weasel Brett Gibbs for about two weeks, trying to get answers to simple, no-nonsense questions out of him:
- Is there another Alan Cooper, other than the gentleman in Minnesota who was John Steele’s former caretaker, who is or was the principal of AF Holdings, LLC and/or Ingenuity 13, LLC?;
- Will plaintiff’s counsel Brett Gibbs produce the original signature to the verified petition, supposedly executed by hand by “Alan Cooper” and notarized, which Mr. Gibbs stated, under penalty of perjury, that he has a copy of in his own possession and control? See In the Matter of a Petition by Ingenuity 13, LLC, E.D. Cal. Case No. 2:11-mc-JAM-DAD, ECF No. 1, 10/28/11;
- Will Mr. Gibbs identify his client contact at Ingenuity 13 and AF Holdings, given that Mr. Gibbs purported to speak with his “client” at Ingenuity 13 only two weeks ago?
Wasn’t really a surprise that instead of coherent answers, Brett Gibbs has been throwing a tantrum after tantrum, I can’t find a better word either for his response to the Notice, or for the email correspondence with Morgan (embedded below). I reckon that their phone exchange sounded something like a father trying to reason with a four-year-old, who was left without a cake.
Gibbs is not new to this kind of childish behavior. Every time he is cornered, an apoplectic reaction ensues. There are plenty of examples. Among others: an unfortunate (but not unexpected) harassment that prompted a tear-soaked letter to the judge. Also note how Nick Ranallo’s sane motion to secure a bond resulted in a series of insults and predictions of the end of the World, all in a high-pitched voice. Etc., etc.
I had a chuckle reading Gibbs’s reference to fightcopyrighttrolls.com as a “biased misguided website.” Well, I don’t deny that I’m biased, but I’m biased emotionally only. If anyone wants to question the credibility of facts, he is welcome, but such dialog requires guts and honesty. In the absence of these virtues, Gibbs simply embarrassed himself by brushing off one fact (detailed below) that Morgan referred to — not because Gibbs expressed his doubts about the fact per se, but because it was me who published it. But the fact (90/10 fee split in Malibu Media cases, articulated by Malibu’s owner Brigham Field himself) does not care about who brought it to the light of the day: if you are a professional attorney, and not a toddler, deal with facts without tantrums.
Morgan’s supplement to the Notice was, as usual, short and precise. It reiterated the concerns, noting that
So far, Prenda has not only refused to answer these [listed above] specific questions, it has refused to even discuss these matters at all.
In addition, Morgan presented a notarized affidavit of Alan Cooper, and asked to assign all the seven cases to Judge Write.
Oh, and if you still think that Brett Gibbs is a “decent guy” and a “professional,” read the following email correspondence and make your own conclusions
Brain teaser: How many crooks does it take to answer a set of simple, direct questions?
Appendix: Related cases reported by Morgan Pietz
Coverage
- ArsTechnica: Porn trolling firm dogged by identity theft allegations by Timothy Lee.
- TechDirt: Copyright Troll Prenda Law Dances Around The Simple Question: Which Alan Cooper Runs AF Holdings? by Mike Masnick.
Followups
- 12/17/2012: Another day, another tantrum, but this time Brett Gibbs directs judges to this site.
- 12/28/2012: Big news: Judge Wright has granted a discovery aimed at solving the Alan Cooper mystery (and, potentially, uncovering a fraud of epic proportions).
- 12/31/2012: The unbearable shrill of desperation. Brett Gibbs moves to disqualify Judge Otis Wright.
- 1/9/2013: Attorney for a fake plaintiff questions the existence of a defendant he is suing.
- 1/15/2013: Prenda’s motion to disqualify Judge Otis Write has been denied.
Fight © Trolls 
I had to smile when I read the reference to your website as being “misguided.” I’ve been called “misguided” many times by many copyright trolls. As far as the AF Holdings, LLC cases with the Alan Cooper issue — I’m not sure they’re getting out of this one.
All I saw was whining, followed by bitching, followed by more whining, followed by ad hominems and more bitching. Absolutely nothing substantive as far as I’m concerned. I especially enjoyed the multiple references to this site. We’re all just “misguided” because we don’t drink the Kool-Aid and cut Steele a check, with ZERO assurance that Duffy will even sign the release contract. He probably has never signed any of them except when a Doe’s attorney asked for a signed, notarized copy and a W-9. Ohh that would be fun, with that many settlements it’d just add to the laundry list of fraudulent acts. Gibbs has no idea how to deal with this and it’s hilarious. It’s like watching some teenager try to weasel their way out of something by blaming someone else.
While we are waiting on the “other” Alan Cooper to make an appearance, 12-cv-6635 was dismissed for failure to prosecute (I am beginning to detect a pattern here :)) http://ia601207.us.archive.org/10/items/gov.uscourts.cacd.538903/gov.uscourts.cacd.538903.15.0.pdf Great post as always.
Think of how foolish Pietz, this site, and the other Doe defenders who are pursuing this avenue would look if Prenda had the real Alan Cooper file a response to Minnesota Alan Cooper’s accusations. The best way to make a bunch of alleged conspiracy theorists look stupid is to debunk their conspiracy theory.
Prenda, of course, is only trying to evade the question. How many other business owners do you think would be unwilling to simply state their identity as part of a lawsuit that has commenced on their company’s behalf?
It is possible that there is another Alan Cooper and Prenda is stonewalling to draw Pietz, etc. in deeper before pulling the rug out, but given Prenda’s history of buffoonery I don’t believe they have the sophistication and discipline to pull that off. Steele has always telegraphed his moves and been obviously transparent and full of crap. Gibbs sounds too hysterical and is simply using too many words in his response for me to believe this is part of a fortunate, coincidental ruse he is working to exploit. I would not be the least bit surprised if Gibbs had no idea Steele stole Cooper’s identity and is currently in the process of crapping his pants, imagining life behind bars, but he is in way too deep to get any sympathy from me.
“I am sure there are hundreds of Alan Coopers in this world.” Seriously? This is just too good. Watching this POS squirm and knowing I may actually get to see him go to prison, I’m starting to feel glad I got trolled by Prenda just so I can watch their implosion. If I had never heard of them or heard from them, I wouldn’t have the enjoyment and satisfaction of reading this stuff!
I really loved SJD’s idea about setting up an Amazon account where we can order shit for trolls…serious stuff. I’ve got a ton of credit card pts that I can put toward a few Amazon gift cards. And I’m stealing her idea here but I say we all chip in and order one of those “How to Survive in Prison” books for each Prenda attorney and have like a dozen sent to Duffy’s office in Chicago because guaranteed all of those clowns in the office know about it too. Maybe order Duffy’s wife a book about how to deal with her husband being in prison…”You and your spouse are now separated by plexiglass” hahaha
I especially liked the part in the email where Gibbs says, “If your question had been framed more pointedly, and not so vague, maybe I could have provided you with a specific answer.” I mean, asking if there’s “another Alan Cooper (other than the gentleman in Minnesota who filed the letter through counsel) who is/was the principal of AF Holdings of Ingenuity13,” is clearly not specific enough. These are the kind of people who would rob their families blind if it suited their ambitions. A few decades ago, Psychologist would be diagnosing these clowns as Criminal Psychopaths (now it’s called Antisocial because the public had hurt feelers). These people only follow the laws that suit them, only adhere to societal norms to further their own goals. They feel no tie to society, no obligation to obey the laws that society sets. For those familiar with crimal psychology, I want to be clear that I am not saying that the Prenda goons are serial killers. I don’t think they are that evil. However, this is the same psychosis that drives (drove) people like Bundy and Dahmer. SJD, if you find this comment over board, I understand. I will take no offense if you decide to delete this comment. But seeing this trend first in Duffy/Steele/Lutz in the Nguyen case and now this from Gibbs: it scares the crap out of me to think that these men . . . well, hold the cards that they do. To think that they have come this far without everything catching up to them, makes me ill. It’s a good laugh to see Gibbs try to weasel his way out of these questions, but it indicates a deeper pattern, a deeper psychosis that scares me to death. These men have my name and number and address and the mentality of Ted Bundy. As wonderful as this is to see, I’m not sure I’ll sleep tonight.
I slept just fine last night thinking about Gibbs have a breakdown.
It sounds like he is finally having to come to terms with just how deep he is in a criminal enterprise. This kind of fraud isn’t just going to go away when the case is dismissed. Considering how much grief he has caused so many people, I take great pleasure and comfort in thinking about Brett Gibbs lying in bed awake last night, worried about when the Feds are going to come knocking.
There is nothing over board in the healthy emotions and speculations.
I moderate only in two cases: spam and potential damage to the poster (too much info revealed). In any other case Mr. Argument is the best moderator.
“Please quit with the theatrics.” <– best line of the exchange.
To paraphrase, "Brett. Stop being such a fucking drama queen, you piss-pants pansy!"
I refuse to feel sorry for Gibbs, because he's earned every hot-seat he's going to find himself in, but I do NOT envy his position. When Prenda collapses, Gibbs will be the one taking the fall. Steele & Hansmeier are the architects & masterminds, but they've been systematically withdrawing their names from every aspect of Prenda's trolling scheme… except for the check-cashing activity that is. Duffy's a visual name, taking on a bit of activity, but he works pretty quietly comapratively.
But poor, stupid Brett Gibbs is the name signed everywhere, the reply-to email address for every local counsel and the phone number labeled on every document. It's his shrill voice and dramatic indignation that's being pushed around the back channels of every minor little pissing match. He's got to see that he's front and center on the stage with a giant bulls-eye strapped to his chest.
I can't help but think that he has some kind of Breaking Bad/Walter White thing going on. Knowing his days are limited, so he tries to accumulate as much cash as he can, consequences be damned.
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“As you understand, it is hard (if not impossible) to prove a negative”, whines Gibbs.
Utter and thorough bullshit. That’s what copyright enforcement lunatics like him put the average person through every day ever since the misguided lawsuits of the RIAA.
I couldn’t agree more! The thing that blows my mind is “proving a negative” is exactly what they want all the does to do—prove they didn’t do it! I believe if I were a defendant (anymore–fortunately my case seems to be long gone–knock on wood!) I would be quoting this exact line in my motion to quash. “Your honor, as the plaintiff’s attorney states himself, it is hard (if not impossible) to prove a negative.”
This might not be the apropriate place to ask this but, I’ve been having some trouble with public accusations of stealing weird fetish porn. A while back I received an email that didn’t make a lot of sense, seemed to be poorly written, and accused me of having copyright infringed some bizarre fetish porn. A website devoted entirely to making this accusation was created, it’s just one sentence long, the page title and the full body of the page are just the same sentence (google hasn’t/won’t delist this site as spam even though it seems to qualify as spam). I replied to the email, but apparently it’s not possible to do so (the reply bounced as if the original address was spoofed/non-existant).
After some googling it seems like the owner of the site may at some point have possibly been involved in some copyright trolling… although I never got such a letter myself.
I’m not 100% sure that the person trying to harass me here is even the same person who runs that site at all. The domain has whois guard, but using ipneighbor I was able to find a site devoted to doxxing pirates…. but then googling that site referred me to a forum user who was PRO-piracy? so it’s quite hard to say.
anyways I’m wondering if anyone has any advice? is there anything I can really do? I read this article here:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-remove-false-libelous-information-about-yourself-online/
but the hoster for this accusation site has a confusing website without any clear way of finding any terms of service… furthermore, it seems like, it’s entirely possible that I could contact this persons hoster, only to have him counter my claim, knowing that I’m unlikely to ever want to file a motion against him, given that he’s some sort of law-troll, I know nothing about laws, and I’d be too intimidated to ever expose myself.
Am I best off just forgetting about this entirely? moving on? it seems like if I try to take action to fix things, I might only end up making myself a target? I can’t possibly afford to defend myself, if I got a threat I’d probably have to settle? Heck even if I tried to get the site taken down I really don’t have the time or money to file the motion it might require to actually get it taken down?
is this just some random internet harassment totally unrelated to actual copyright trolling?
Sounds like a parasite to me.
Find someones name, associate them with something repulsive, demand money to make it go away.
Like the scammers who uploaded a virus that flashes scary warning about your computer being locked by the FBI for child porn, and to unlock it wend money to them via western union to settle this problem.
The fact they failed to make the email able to be replied to should give you an idea of their “skill” in this matter.
I am assuming there was a paypal or other payment details included in the email or on the webpage?
Take the url of the web page, change the name in it… see if it loads with that name on the page now. I’ve seen code like that before used by companies spamming to get people to buy their product to fix a problem… type in a problem name and the web page inserts that problem name into a basic outline.
Looking at the source code of the page might reveal useful details as well, I suggest doing it via a proxy or at minimum a “private” browsing session…
Also if you still have it look at the headers of the email, in gmail there should be a see full message or similar option. It will have details about where it was sent from… and IP addresses can be traced.
I would not put much faith in this being serious, but its always best to learn all you can.
Thanks for the reply.
This was actually a while back. I’m not sure if I could still find the email, but the only way I even found out what porn it was, was by checking out the part of the email address after the @ symbol, googling that, and it was the url of the website… but… when I tried to email the address itself I just got like a bunch of undeliverable errors, so I don’t really know what that was about, does that mean that the person who tried to shake me down isn’t even affiliated with the site itself?
About the page source. It’s just one sentence, and a couple inches of formating to get the sentence large and centered. the text in the pagesource appears to be plaintext. (so if it’s automatically generated it’s not done in the html). Replacing the name with another name doesn’t make sense really, as the name is the entire url it’s just ..
If it’s some totally random scam, I should definitely write a letter to their webhoster? yes/no? If it’s the real webmaster I should also maybe write a letter to their webhoster?
I’m a bit worried this might be a problem for like future job interviews or something (google based background checking). I’m then worried that if I send a letter to the webhoster, the scammer can counter my claim that he’s doing something wrong, and then the website stays up, and encourages him to keep paying to keep it up as it makes him aware that I even know it exists. Otherwise in theory he’d get tired of it and let it lapse (hopefully?). Really I don’t want to file any formal legal work demanding the site go down. Doing so a) would cost me money and b) give a known scam-artist more personal information about me. c) I know nothing about how to do that, even writing a letter to a hosting company intimidates me.
I was only given the idea to write such a letter by: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-remove-false-libelous-information-about-yourself-online/
When I first saw the site, I assumed there was no way to get it taken down, so I tried to do some seo manipulation (by creating a blank tumblr/twitter/etc) this moved the link off the first couple pages of google, however now as time has passed those blank social media pages aren’t doing as much good and it’s back up a page!
I guess I’m just wondering what’s better? ignoring it entirely, writing a letter to the hosting service? or wasting tons of my personal time trying to fill pages and pages of google results to move it down more?
Still seems like a scam.
Step 1 – Malware/Virus scan your machine. Try a few different programs, several firms offer online scans you can run. Stay with companies that are well known. Spybot Search and Destroy is a good program to download and run.
Step 2 – Stop worrying about it. (I know easy for me to say)
A single page online should not derail your career. As it isn’t from a “reputable” firm it should not be considered seriously. Would you want to work for a company that finds a single 1 page website and decided because its on the internet it must be true?
You have not recieved any legal documents, lending support to the idea this is a parasite just trying for an easy payday via fear. Even the most inept of trolls have working email addresses when trying to extort cash. If you still had/find the original email the names of the parties involved are the most useful things to work with.
Locating any filed cases for the site would let you see if this was serious or not.
If it was sent from an actual lawyer, you could file a complaint with the bar. Without having an actual case and making demands of cash on allegations you can easily prove as false is a nono.
Lawyers don’t demand cash via email, they send actual letters. Other than Steele they don’t put up websites with allegations of people being criminals, and even Steele changed his tone once he figured out people were watching what he was doing.
It merely could be someone who wanted to harass you for some reason. You might want to look over the list of people who dislike you and see if any of them have the “skill” required to pull this stunt.
There are lots of unknowns, but from what you have shared I’d take a deep breath and let it go. Stop worrying and live your life.
Greetings your Honor,
I would like to hope that after the name of this blog was brought up that you would come visit us poor ‘misguided’ souls.
Sadly our character is being assassinated by the lawyers who are extorting cash from senior citizens, so one hopes you will consider the source.
This is one of several blogs/website/et al. where people targeted by copyright trolls can get an education about the scam.
We help Does to stop operating in fear, and understand the legal system and how it is being abused to allow them to be harassed.
I might be crass, foul mouthed, and a litany of bad things… but I don’t extort people by abusing the legal system.
I have little respect for the lawyers who run these scams, and it shows.
I have little respect for some Judges who feel these lawyers are doing nothing wrong, how one can say that when the Federal Courts are being cheated out of millions in filing fees boggles the imagination.
The sheer volume of information presented here, should raise serious concerns in your mind about the case before you. The unanswered questions, the blatant forum shopping, the abuse of the legal system, and the desire to not actually pursue these cases is obvious and clear.
I hope if you have any questions you’ll ask, we have a pretty good research “team” at your disposal. A majority of them are people who survived troll attacks, and now help others avoid falling prey to them. We are even more expert than the expert who signed off on the IP addresses at the heart of this case, we can back up our claims with fact… not sure about their expert being able to do such. But then we aren’t paid from each “settlement” reached like their expert, we have ethics and morals.
Enjoy your stay
I remain…
TAC
dunno if this has been mentioned elsewhere or an update was in the works, but on the docket http://ia601508.us.archive.org/28/items/gov.uscourts.cacd.543744/gov.uscourts.cacd.543744.docket.html
the motion for the defendant to take discovery (re: alan cooper) was granted – http://ia701508.us.archive.org/28/items/gov.uscourts.cacd.543744/gov.uscourts.cacd.543744.32.0.pdf
essentially the defendant was granted leave to take discovery on the questions listed in section B of http://ia701508.us.archive.org/28/items/gov.uscourts.cacd.543744/gov.uscourts.cacd.543744.23.0.pdf
all on 12/26.
Oh my! Thanks for the news.
figured you might be a bit busy to notice it since its technically spread out on 5-6 different cases and a bit hidden.. Judge Wright (earning the Honorable title) merely denied the frivolous sanctions on the other Pietz cases but on this one chose to allow discovery, among other things.
I think the discovery even includes documentation (sub section C of previous linked document) which includes drivers licenses and original signed forms.
This seems to be the straw that broke the camels back, Steele et all are completely fucked (depends how well Steele protected himself, may be just his goons dying but Pietz is absolutely hammering home that Steele is responsible.. we shall see) once all the obvious lies they will tell against the proposed discovery are unraveled.