Prenda
Does “under penalty of perjury” mean anything? Apparently not for Prenda and one of its plaintiffs
As a part of the argument against sanctions, four declarations/affidavits were attached to the KMF’s response (by Daniel Webber, Paul Duffy, Brett Gibbs, and John Steele).
Besides a coordinated attack on Graham Syfert, these exhibits also meant to explain the November blooper in detail, covering possible questions — in order to avoid further scrutiny by the judge.
Not surprisingly, this blog’s readers scrutinized those declarations. Taking the occasion, I want to remind Prenda’s defenders one more time: this is not a run-of-the mill lawsuit with a handful of inattentive spectators, but a happening watched by hundreds of eyes. There is no way any lie, fact twisting, or crookery could be smuggled into the proceedings without us noticing.
So, people did read the declarations. And they did notice two serious flaws in the first one, purportedly filed by the plaintiff, Sunlust Pictures’ owner Daniel Weber:
- His surname was misspelled: an extra “b” appeared in both occasions: “Webber.” The first occasion is at the top of the document, and I can imagine that the undersigned could overlook it, but the second one is right under the signature line. It is doubtful that a person would not notice a misspelling at the very place he is signing (unless, of course, he is under serious influence²).
- In #5 he stated that both he and his generous wife were out of the country, “in the country of India filming a film during extended period of time, including November 27, 2012.” Well, his Twitter feed told quite a different story:
Shot great footage last night of @thedisparrows in the studio recording the 2nd album…
— Daniel Weber (@DanielWeber99) November 28, 2012
It is not a secret that this blog is the first thing trolls read in the morning, so those damning findings were duly noticed³: on 12/26/2012 KMF filed a notice to replace two exhibits, including the one embedded above, correcting those two “mistakes.” The new declaration is notarized this time (why?):
Misspelling alone, while suspicious, is still easy to brush off: we are not robots after all, and our pornographer could possibly overlook an extra letter gatecrashing his surname. However, not to remember in which country you were less than a month ago… Mr. Weber tries to explain why he lied under the penalty of perjury in his previous declaration:
Both my wife and I were in the country of India filming a film during extended periods of time in 2012, traveling back and forth between India and Los Angeles. To clarify my prior declaration submitted in this matter, I was originally scheduled to travel to India on or around November 27. 2012 and arranged for a representative to attend the hearing in my stead because I would be unavailable and because I believed that since I do not have intimate knowledge of the details of this matter, it seemed better for us to request the attendance of a person who has knowledge of the issues raised in the case.
My original travel plans were disrupted due to an emergency surgery performed on my dog. Thus I was unexpectedly In Los Angeles on the date of the hearing. I understood my prior declaration to have focused on my plans for the hearing and I would like to apologize for any confusion.
This is not a “clarification,” Mr. Weber, it is a 180-degree opposite statement. If you initially said that you were in India, and then “In Mumbai, India,” that would be a clarification. Also, analyzing Mr. Weber’s Twitter feed, we see a different story again:
@AdrimeshChatter Dec 4
— Daniel Weber (@DanielWeber99) November 20, 2012
December 4 is not “on or around November 27.” Also note how argumentum ad passions (“appeal to emotion” — sick puppy! what can be more heartbreaking?) was used to distract the judge from a simple, undeniable fact: the initial declaration contained knowingly and deliberately stated falsehood. Under the penalty of perjury.
[Update] Make sure to read the comments below. Some are exceptionally good. This one does a thorough job of reconstructing the sequence of Weber’s life’s events based on his and his wife’s tweets: more proofs of lying under oath. Other comments are worth your time too.
Some people also suggested that Mr. Weber did not sign the initial declaration at all. Indeed, signatures on these two documents look suspiciously different:
TAD commented:
Weber all of the sudden decided to sign using his initials instead of a loopy “D” (the worst looking “D” I’ve ever seen), not to mention the “Ds” do not match. Notice on DE44.1, the “D” in Weber’s signature basically begins with a straight line. On DE40.2, it’s the opposite, loopy all of the way through. Then there’s that stray line next to the “D” on DE40.2, no idea what that is supposed to be.
Two different people signed these two documents, I’m 99.99999% certain. Handwriting doesn’t lie and, although I’m no graphologist, I can tell the difference between two peoples’ writing when it’s blatantly obvious. I could point out more inconsistencies but I’m not really in the mood hehe.
I have a bad feeling that this is indeed likely (especially given that Prenda is not a stranger to accusations of identity fraud), although without a conclusion by a licensed graphologist I would not make an affirmative statement. Courts do not like conspiracy theories, no matter how plausible they are. For example, everyone believes that the plaintiff-defendant collusion exists in Prenda’s Guava cases, but without a strict proof, I cannot call it a fact, only “a most likely way of events.”
Regardless, KMF are now in a peculiar situation: while they started the representation as an honest law firm that “is just doing its job,” things have been moving towards a dangerous line, by crossing which they may find themselves indistinguishable from the crooks they represent. The story with Mr. Weber’s declaration is a huge step in this unfortunate direction.
So, let’s see what people think: I did not throw polls for a while:
Happy New Year!
To finish on the bright note, I wish everyone happiness and peace in the oncoming year. Even to you, Daniel Weber and your generous wife Sunny Leone!
I admit that I underestimated both the trolls’ greed and the judicial system’s inertia, and although “good guys” are clearly winning, the war is not over yet. We will continue to fight “bad guys”: anti-troll lawyers in courts, and we bloggers — on the Internet.
Coincidentally, this is my 200th post! I do not plan to spend much time on these issues until 2013: see you all next year!
Followup
Coverage
- TechDirt: Prenda Law Accused Of Fraud On The Court In Defending Itself Against Claims Of Fraud On The Court by Mike Masnick.
¹ For some reason, Graham Syfert did not explicitly name Mark Lutz in his motion for sanctions.
² Prenda defenders! I hope you appreciate my generosity: I supply you with fine ideas how to weasel out of this situation!
³ 1/3/2013 Update: Apparently Graham Syfert, as he indicated in his second motion for sanctions, notified Plaintiff about the discrepancies in the Weber’s declaration. So, maybe the community’s investigation was not the reason for Weber’s declaration amendment. Nonetheless, it does not contradict the fact that the crooks read this site first thing in the morning. They do (and, thanks to Brett Gibbs’s selfless efforts, some judges visit my humble blog as well). 🙂
Fight © Trolls 
lol i just noticed that under the signatures of each, one says “India” and the other says “los angeles, CA” i love these retards.
I’m not nearly as well versed on criminal law, and I would like to know, if charges end up being filed and we see a trial out of this, would there be any likelihood that a potential prosecutor could try to get Daniel Weber/Webber to flip? If his signature was forged, it would seem to me that a smart way out would be to say that he never even wrote the statement that could land him in hot water for perjury (a la Alan Cooper) whether he wrote it or not. I’m not saying I condone throwing yourself before the court and saying “Look, I just make pornography and I wanted to get paid, I didn’t know about any of this stuff”, but it would seem like the best way to really get somewhere here is to give one of the lesser offenders immunity in exchange for testimony. As great as this looks on paper, if they all clam up and stick to their story Webber/Weber may end up taking the worst of the fall, and I don’t see why he wants to do that for attorneys who are probably going to throw Gibbs under the bus for good measure.
It’s likely Steele has something on Weber. That is the only conceivable reason why any, well, formerly respected attorney would blatantly perjure himself with reckless abandon. Steele has a knack for devious shit and I wouldn’t be surprised if he found some skeletons and is hanging them over Weber’s head.
Hypothetically speaking, if I knew nothing about Prenda and was hired to do an audit, keep the books, whatever, and noticed ANY fraud, I would be required by the AICPA to report the fraud or any other wonky looking financial stuff so, again, he’s either not committing fraud (not likely), Prenda’s financials are never prepared nor is the firm audited by a licensed CPA or CPA firm, or licensed CPAs are concealing fraud. I’m leaning toward option #2 after the failure to file an annual report because, and this is a wild ass guess here, Prenda doesn’t actually have an annual report to file. Gibbs can prepare their taxes, any attorney can as per IRS regs so they don’t need a CPA for that.
Given all that I know about prenda, and this post: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3347377&cid=42419659 from a man who give a behind the scenes look at how Steele operates, I think the picture is becoming pretty clear.
Steele is the one approaching these producers, and probably promises that he’ll save their business, make them millions of dollars, says his methods are 100% and look how much money he’s already made…. basically promising the stars.
This Weber guy seems to have a lot on his plate. He’s making movies in India with his pornstar wife while at the same time is trying to get his band off the ground. Judging by his tweets, he spends most of his time traveling between India, LA, and NY; and playing rock and roll with his friends.
So a guy like this is approached by Steele. Steele says he’ll take care of the lawyering, all the leg work, all the hassle, and he’ll bring in checks for Weber. Weber says great, do it! They sign some paperwork and Weber continues with his rock band, Leone continues doing porn and going to parties, and Steele commences a nationwide extortion racket in their name. They have really no idea what is going on, and they continue with their meaningless lives as people across the country are being hurt in their name.
Then shit starts hitting the fan and the Judge asks for the plaintiff to actually appear in court. Steele says “no problem” and uses Lutz as a stand in. Lutz gets chewed out for being a fake, so Steele says “no problem” and files a document in Weber’s name, but gets some important details wrong.
These are just vain, narcissistic, immature people living in a fantasy world, who are more concerned about themselves and getting paid then they are about consequences, and who were especially susceptible to the line Steele was selling. Problem is all the lies are starting to unravel, and it’s no longer possible to just sit back and let the checks roll in, as Weber was probably sold.
I’m glad you mentioned the comment on slashdot. I saw that too, and it is indeed ripe with information.
You said ……. “It’s likely Steele has something on ”
Lets see. He has no real job. Pimps his wife in porn films and plays with his instruments. (like some of the music though)
I would go out on a limb and say he’s just another kind of troll but much worse.
If he something to hide he’s going about it all wrong
webber…weber … webern ( DKW ENTERTAINMENT, LLC in Ca. )
hard to keep track
Maybe he’s jason bourne in incognito
Happy new year
spear a troll
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Also, I just want to make sure I cover myself and SJD here; this is only alleged perjury, and it is entirely possible that Weber really did have his signature forged and never wrote the perjuring statement that claimed he was out of the country. I don’t want to cast guilt on anybody until the facts are clear (although without testimony from someone on the other side, that may not happen) even though I loath helping out a pornographer. I do hope Mr. Weber and Ms. Leone (or whatever her real name is) consider that had they simply tried to make a living the honest way (as in not filing frivolous lawsuits), they wouldn’t be feeling the heat in the way that so many of the Trolls victims unjustly have. The possibility of someone committing forgery and writing that statement in Weber’s name is also purely speculative and alleged, of course.
Also, Big White Collar Defense Firm, its client having been caught committing perjury, now has to sub out.
Looks like…
All I can say is. I hope the defendant’s lawyers make sure they make liberal use of his twitter. It’s one thing to make a blatant lie in the first place, and try to retract it. It’s another thing all together to make a blatant lie, and then try and retract it with another blatant lie.
Surely someone is going to subpoena Weber’s passport and air travel boarding passes, hotel receipts and credit card charge slips.
I have a hypothetical explanation for the two declarations. Perhaps the first one was a forgery, maybe not a complete forgery like they didn’t even inform Weber, but they called him up and said they needed to file some stuff with his name on it and was he OK with it? Weber’s declaration isn’t really relevant to the facts of the case, it was more of a parental note for Lutz to say he actually represents Sunlust. Since there shouldn’t have been any controversial content maybe he just let one of the Prenda guys or someone else back home sign for him. I may not agree with Weber’s judgment in letting Lutz represent him, and I can certainly understand why the judge was taken aback and insulted by Lutz’ cluelessness, but sound business decision or not, Weber is free to choose who represents his business. That being the case, there wasn’t much reason for anyone to scrutinize the facts of Weber’s declaration, the problem was that Prenda being Prenda, they had to fuck up something as basic as spelling the name of the declarant, which of course begged people to look at the document more closely, which led to correlating Weber’s Twitter feed stating his location vs. the declaration, etc. So the second, notarized, declaration is likely one that Weber actually read and signed himself, now that it really matters.
It will be interesting to see how our group of friends comes apart if the judge turns up the heat. Weber would appear to have the least to lose as he is not part of Prenda’s scam. But if and how Steele and Gibbs turn on each other should be interesting. I don’t think there is any way Steele would go down without trying to throw someone else under the bus, and if Gibbs isn’t quite as dumb as he seems he should realize that.
I agree completely, I should have clarified that I meant that Weber is going to be the one holding the bag on the alleged fraud. My statements were all meant to be specific to this individual accusation and completely independent of Coopergate (all of this Cooper talk is really making me want to rewatch Twin Peaks…), and I didn’t explain that properly. Also, I’m not sure that Gibbs is low enough on the food chain to be worth giving immunity, IMHO. Any prosecutor worth his salt is going to want to make an example of him, if only to send a message to other local counsel who think they can pass blame up the pipeline.
Not a chance in hell will Gibbs be offered immunity. He’s been at this way too long and was was Steele’s California lap dog back when they dragged my ass into this con and has been pulling way too many other attorneys’ strings to be offered immunity. I have a hard time believing that Lutz would be offered immunity since he’s been the “muscle” (by muscle I mean coward on the phone threatening people) for this whole operation from day one, or at least since I started dealing with this bullshit early last year until mid-Summer of this year. Maybe Perea? He’ll almost certainly be suspended no matter what happens, but if criminal charges are filed he can say goodbye to his law license and he was Prenda’s resident Florida troll for quite some time.
I don’t even know which U.S. Attorney would get first crack at these clowns anyway since this crap spans all 50 states plus territories. My guess, USA for ILND since that’s where Prenda is incorporated, but who knows, could defer to a less burdened USA’s office. I’ve got a very strong feeling that this is going to get very very ugly for Prenda and company. Steele compounds his lies with lies, then gets caught in his lies within lies (I feel like I’m in “Inception” heh), so he lies more. Eventually the stories and bullshit are just so unbelievably insane that any rational person would call bullshit immediately. What we’re seeing are the chickens coming home to roost.
This Daniel Weber and Sunny Leone sure post a lot on Twitter. This thing is an absolute gold mine. They post what they’re doing, what their travel plans are, where they’re going, where they’re going to be, what airlines they use…. absolutely astounding how narcissistic these people are.
So what can we glean from this? Well, it does appear they do travel back and forth from USA and Mumbai a lot. Weber has a house in NYC, LA, and Mumbai, and they just bought the Mumbai location recently.
They have a dog named Chopper which had knee surgery on the 11/23: https://twitter.com/SunnyLeone/status/272463153059733505 of November.
On 11/28, Weber tweeted that he would shortly be in NY, then Mumbai: https://twitter.com/DanielWeber99/status/273903219921534977
On 11/28, Leone posted she would be at a party in NY on 11/30: https://twitter.com/SunnyLeone/status/273992202009595905
On 12/7, Leone was in Mumbai, where both she and Weber saw a Guns and Roses concert on the 9th: https://twitter.com/SunnyLeone/status/277235392275689474
On 12/5, Weber tweeted that he has been busy recording since his last tweet on 11/30, and will be leaving for India shortly: https://twitter.com/DanielWeber99/status/276431326649933824
On 12/8, Weber was in Mumbai: https://twitter.com/DanielWeber99/status/277666650524905473
So here is the series of events as Weber wants us to belive. Weber is supposed to be in India for the 11/27 hearing. However, unexpectedly his dog needs emergency knee surgery on 11/23 (I’m no vet, but I’d love to know what kind of condition requires emergency knee surgery), which caused him to push back his plans to travel to Mumbai by 2 weeks. However, just days after this surgery, both Weber and Leone were across the country in NY. Weber was recording with his band. Leone was attending parties. So much for their sad sick dog in LA they supposedly postponed their trip for (supposedly for two weeks as well).
Here’s the more likely chain of events. The trip to Mumbai was booked well beforehand to coincide with the Guns and Roses concert they both tweeted was mindblowing. They were probably told by Gibbs/Steele that there was no need to attend the hearing, as they already planned ahead of time Lutz would be standing in as a corporate representative. This is why Weber and Leone went on their merry way attending parties and playing rock and roll IN AMERICA until two weeks AFTER the hearing, at which time they were in India.
But let’s look at the most damning tweet of them all. Weber tends to tweet his exact travel schedule on Twitter. On 11/15 he tweeted the following: https://twitter.com/DanielWeber99/status/269134163905490944
He would be back in LA, then he planned to travel to NY, then he planned to travel to Mumbai. By 11/23, Weber was still in LA and, his travel plans had been on schedule until his dog needed emergency surgery that day, which disrupted his plans. Given the date his dog had surgery, and that the hearing was scheduled, we are lead to believe he was originally planning to leave for Mumbai between 11/23 and 11/27…. But if he was in LA on 11/23 and he was planning to leave for Mumbai in the next 4 days…. what happened to his NY trip he tweeted about on 11/15?
In fact, the truth is his plans were never disrupted. Weber left for NY on 11/28, and left for Mumbai shortly thereafter. He laid out his travel plans on 11/15, and executed those plans exactly according to his tweets. The unfortunate surgery on his dog is being used as an excuse, and they are hoping the timelines are just close enough that no one will notice. Weber never planned to be in Mumbai on the 27… he planned to be recording his album, playing rock music with his friends. His business partner was busy attending parties. Can’t be bothered to attend hearings on federal lawsuits initiated by their company.
SJD, I just re-noticed the 11/20 date on the twitter post you have above. This, combined with the date of the dog’s surgery, is conclusive proof the surgery did not affect any travel plans:
Here’s the timeline:
11/20 – Weber Tweets he plans to leave for Mumbai on 12/4
11/23 – Dog has surgery
11/28 – Weber tweets he’s leaving for NY
12/5 – Weber tweets he’ll be leaving for Mumbai soon
12/8 – Weber tweets he’s in Mumbai
So, maybe his plans were pushed back…. from 12/4 to 12/5. But by all accounts, through Weber’s very own extensive cataloging of his travel schedule, Weber expected to be in the USA on the date of the hearing.
It’s funny though, all of this is completely tangential to the issue at hand. The judge asked for the plaintiff to be present. Weber sent an agent who he doesn’t even know, who doesn’t know the company, and who has no authority to bind the company. Weber claims piracy is destroying his business, yet according to his twitter feed he is traveling the world and playing rock music with his band half the time, while his wife is out partying.
Mr. Weber: Perhaps the reason your porn business is failing is because you’re living your life as an adolescent child and have no idea how to run a company. When you initiate federal lawsuits and the judge asks for your presence, you put down your guitar and drumsticks, put on a suit, and attend the hearing. Especially, as you claim, the future of your business depends on the outcome of these lawsuits. If Bill Gates had the time to attend federal hearings to save his company in 1999, you can muster enough of your comparatively worthless time to save your own.
This is a great comment, and goes to show what a lack of perspective these guys have when they whine about how hard they have to work to have it all ‘stolen’ out from under them.
Yes, it is quite remarkable that this guy can’t be bothered to show up, much less send someone who even knows his boss’ name, for a federal court case that he claims is pivotal to the survival of his business. He certainly doesn’t behave like he believes his own line of BS.
In the past, people used to work in mines, on farms, in mills, etc. to barely subsist, often dying young of disease or in other horrible ways. Now have it so good that there are some people who think that playing in a rock band and getting blowjobs for a living is something they are entitled to, and if they can’t do it with zero effort they are victims of some terrible criminal conspiracy.
The comment from the semi-insider on Slashdot is also very illuminating concerning Steele’s attitude and the mindset of his dwindling number of clients. To be sure, modern distribution methods create new challenges for creators, but the commenter has the key insight—everybody can have your product instantly all the time. When a product has zero marginal cost, yes that means anyone can make it for free, but it also means you don’t need to spend money on manufacturing, a supply chain, distribution, etc. You can have a global distribution network at zero cost without having to beg anyone for permission, or even better your fans will build it for you and pay for it with their own Internet connections, labor, etc. This is a HUGE DEAL but Steele and his ilk just can’t move away from their fixation with the obsolete, 20th Century idea that each copy has this intrinsic, significant economic value and that each unauthorized copy represents a sale subtracted from some mythical enormous quarterly report that would be achieved if only they could stamp out piracy. It’s encouraging to know that these guys are the minority, and of course history has never been kind to those who choose to stand directly in the path of progress.
Another key bit of insight from the Slashdot commenter is that these guys don’t like attention, don’t like attention, and don’t like attention. We had already basically figured that out after Pilcher got cold feet, but it’s still good to be freshly reminded and encouraged. Stick a light up the ass of any porn company involved in copyright trolling, and before long they won’t be involved in copyright trolling… But of course this is why we now have the offshores like AF and Ingenuity.
Weber/pornstar wife can just say “that’s not me” and he’s protected by the ECPA. He can have pictures of him holding up his driver’s license next to his face and it won’t matter, it’s not evidence until it’s traced back to him and only the government can get that information…a concept that trolls fail to understand or more properly, understand but don’t care about. The only way that Twitter would even consider turning over stored communications and IP addresses used to make a concrete ID would be a subpoena issued by the DoJ, which would most definitely precede criminal charges. Even then, Twitter would put up a helluva fight. That or depose him…doubt he’d even answer whether he made the Tweets though.
That’s true, but the best part is we don’t need twitter to prove any of this. If you make a factual allegation under oath, it’s expected that you’d be able to substantiate your statements. Weber made several statements that can be easily proven if true.
1) His travel plans would put him away on the date of the hearing. Show us the airline reservation and itinerary confirming this. Were they made before or after the judge set the hearing?
2) His dog needed emergency surgery. Show us a statement from the vet confirming the surgery was an emergency.
3) His travel plans changed. Show us the updated reservations and itinerary.
All of this should be easy to provide if he isn’t lying. But even if he isn’t lying, there’s the unfortunate fact that it was still attempted fraud on the courts. The court asked for a principal of Sunlust, of which there are two. If we are to believe their story, both of them scheduled themselves to be away during the hearing, and instead of sending someone knowledgeable of the company they sent someone with no knowledge of the company.
I’m pretty sure Steele just wrote the first four affidavits. That’s his M.O. Then he gets Duffy to sign off because that guy will sign anything, has Gibbs sign his, and he forges Weber’s.
These stupid mistakes are so typical of Steele, he thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, but he’s far from it. If Weber was involved at all in the first affidavit, he could have come up with a hundred more reasonable explanations for missing the court hearing.
I bet when this is all over Sunlust will be going the way of HDP. I think when Steele pitches his scam to these pornographers, it’s a sign here and we send you money. They never think they have to go to court or get involved in any fashion.
Plus, it’s pretty obvious that Steele is getting tired of sharing whatever small percentage he does share with the actual companies and that’s why we have Coopergate. He’s probably tired of dealing with some of these pornographers too, hence he’d rather just forge it then even bother contacting them.
Steele is slowly learning from his mistakes. He’s going to keep buying the rights to pornography and have shell companies, but I think next time he’ll pick a better CEO. He’ll have somebody who is fully aware of the scam and has nothing to lose, and is cool with unfair sharing.
So they’ll all be back in 2013, under the new name Anti-Piracy Group, and there will be new shell companies. This will continue until he actually faces criminal consequences which could be years.
Pure Evil.
Just an addendum to what you said, I’ve been digging into this a bit myself, and there are people on The Pirate Bay claiming they are now being sued allegedly by CEG TEK representing Sunlust/Sunny Leone/Weber. If this is true, does that mean she and Weber are abandoning Steele/Prenda already and making plans to let Ira handle all their dirty work in the future? I’d post a link to the torrent page (for God’s sake don’t accidentally click on the torrent link if you check it out!), but I don’t want a link to copyrighted material on SJD’s blog. You can find it easy enough if you go to TPB and just punch her name in, I found it just by googling her and Weber. I really would like to know if she and Weber are the ones uploading it and if these videos are even copyrighted.
“…claiming they are now being sued allegedly by CEG TEK representing Sunlust/Sunny Leone/Weber.”…
In federal court? Do you have case numbers? I’d like more info on this if you have it. Feel free to e-mail me as well.
See, here is the tricky thing about this: these were posted as comments on torrents on The Pirate Bay. I was searching google results trying to pinpoint when Weber was at such and such place at such and such time to help out with this, and someone else on here beat me to the punch. But, the positive was that by putting “Sunny Leone Daniel Weber” into a couple of search engines and filtering by most hits, I happened upon the comments. I can’t say 100% that it’s true, because they didn’t post case numbers. There were several torrents featuring the litigious Ms. Leone that had comments saying something like “DON’T DOWNLOAD THIS! I’M BEING SUED BY CEG TEK REPRESENTING SUNLUST PICTURES FOR DOWNLOADING THIS FILE!”. No mention whatsoever of Steele, Prenda, Duffy, whatever, only Ira and his firm. I could ask the person commenting for their case number, but I doubt it would do much good, because if they post it they would incriminate themselves for having downloaded it. And if I ask them to email the case no. to me, they may suspect I’m in fact a troll trying to trick them into incriminating themselves. If you’d like I can find the links to the torrents themselves, and send you those, I’m just really stumped as to how to proceed here.
Thanks for the additional info – that’s all I need. No need to do anything further on your part.
Exactly. I can imagine perfectly the series of events. Steele says he’ll take care of everything and Weber doesn’t need to get involved, so he goes ahead and forges the first declaration. Soon he realizes his mistake (pointed out by us) and has to actually confer with Weber regarding the second declaration. They look for any possible excuse and come up with the dog. As proven above, this is again a flat out lie but it’s the best they could come up with.
I agree that John is promising a “sign here and get money, no effort required” kind of deal. Given that, any time John has to approach the client and ask them for an affidavit, he has to face uncomfortable questions like “Why was this case dismissed?” “Why am I facing contempt of court?” “Why am I facing sanctions?” More and more these cases are no going Steele’s way, and the more this happens, the less he’s going to be able to get producers on board. According to one industry insider, most producers avoid him like the plague.
As long as Steele can keep up this fiction that these lawsuits are a no risk, easy cash operation, he can keep clients. As soon as this myth is exposed, Steele is done.
Hopefully his already long list of sins will catch up to him soon enough. We’re witnessing the beginning of the end of Steele right now in real time. Every day some new form of fraud is revealed, and this is just publicly available surface-level stuff. As soon as we dig deeper (and this is already the case with Coopergate) we’ll see things quickly unravel.
Let me clear one other thing up, Mark Lutz was never directly hired or asked by anyone from Sunlust or any of these pornography companies to be a corporate rep. First off, Steele would never allow that. Most employers would not. Steele is a lawyer, I’m sure he has a pretty standard non-compete clause when he hires staff and an NDA. Why would Sunlust need a corporate representative, why would they pay a low life like Mark Lutz 1K/month who has no ties to the industry and is a thousand miles away.
Again, Steele doesn’t want to his clients anywhere near a court room, so he “promotes” Mark Lutz to being his corporate representative. He can afford to pay someone to do the calls a few dollars an hour, and he can trust Lutz. The guy follows him around the country.
Since Steele doesn’t seem to have too many friends to use in these situations aside from Lutz and Duffy, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark Lutz became the new CEO of some shadow companies.
Has anyone looked into the differences in two Gibbs’ declarations? I have a feeling that the sole reason for the Exh. C amendment is to “dilute” the replacement, kind of a red herring: it is not likely they would amend Gibbs’s declaration alone.
I don’t know if anything got changed in the middle, but the new declaration begins with “I. Brett L. Gibbs. under penalty of perjury, declare as follows:” and ends with “I. Brett L. Gibbs. declare under the penalty of perjury that the forgoing is true and correct.” The original declaration appears to have no such statement.
Now you might think that Gibbs, as a lawyer, would know he was required to include such a statement originally and the omission wasn’t so “inadvertent.” Even the statement Gibbs drafted for Torres (which Torres wouldn’t sign) and attached to his first declaration includes such a statement.
Unless, of course, Gibbs was worried something he said might be considered untrue.
In searching Mr Webber (weber)(whatever his name is)
Sunlust Pictures LLC
Using the principle name of DAVID ADELMAN SUNLUST PICTURES, LLC search
i found DKW ENTERTAINMENT, LLC
-Note the name
again his name is spelled wrong. Why? clearly the company is connected to Sunlust through Webber or Webber (whatever his name is)
See the addresses
i am confused on his name and apparently he is too
DKW ENTERTAINMENT, LLC
Data is updated weekly and is current as of Friday, December 28, 2012.
Entity Name: DKW ENTERTAINMENT, LLC
Entity Number: 200829710143
Date Filed: 10/22/2008
Status: CANCELED
Jurisdiction: CALIFORNIA
Entity Address: 7336 SANTA MONICA BLVD #31
Entity City, State, Zip: WEST HOLLYWOOD CA 90046
Agent for Service of Process: DANIEL WEBERN
Agent Address: 7336 SANTA MONICA BLVD #31
Agent City, State, Zip: WEST HOLLYWOOD CA 90046
SunLust Pictures
Entity Name: SUNLUST PICTURES, LLC
Entity Number: 200829710161
Date Filed: 10/22/2008
Status: ACTIVE
Jurisdiction: CALIFORNIA
Entity Address: 7336 SANTA MONICA BLVD STE 31
Entity City, State, Zip: WEST HOLLYWOOD CA 90046
Agent for Service of Process: DAVID ADELMAN
Agent Address: 7336 SANTA MONICA BLVD STE 31
Agent City, State, Zip: WEST HOLLYWOOD CA 90046
Until I get the records from the state of California I will reserve my opinion
Should it all in a few days.
Until then who is DANIEL WEBERN?
Maybe this a typo but based on what I have seen, it make me wonder.
I went through the list of Sunlust cases today and found that almost all of them have been dismissed this month. I counted 34; here is a list:
http://copyrightclerk.com/2012/12/31/sunlust-pictures-llc-dismissed-34-suits-in-december/
Come on, anyone can type false details in Twitter. Did you otherwise verify the person’s travel?
E.g. I am in Tokyo as I type this message. (or am I?)
That’s really a moot point, should criminal charges be filed. Thankfully, post 9-11, there are going to be records of his passport check leaving and entering the country. Had he said that he went to Puerto Rico on a private plane, he might have been okay. There is simply no way he could have made an undocumented trip to India without committing a felony. So to answer your question, can we otherwise verify it? No. But, Homeland Security can easily.
Private aircraft have to file an IFR flight plan and declare how many souls on board (it’s a general rule of thumb unless it was a Cessna under visual flight rules). It would be easy to find out if Weber was on that plane, even though the flight plan only states how many souls on board. Simply depose the flight crew, depose Weber and Leone too. I’m sure Judge Scriven would permit that, seeing as how she’s probably pissed as hell already. Besides, they likely would’ve had to go through pre-flight Customs and Customs on the return to the U.S., not to mention whatever India does. Subpoena that crap too. This is 100% verifiable.