This is the fifth blog post documenting a Washington defense attorney Christopher Lynch’s letters to a local copyright troll David A. Lowe (Guardaley). The previous coverage:

• 11/12/2017: Why the FBI should investigate the Guardaley racket
• 12/26/2017: Copyright troll David Lowe drops three ten defendants after defense attorney threatens to expose fraud
• 4/5/2017: Copyright troll David Lowe dropped eleventh defendant after defense attorney threatened to expose fraud
• 5/24/2017: Copyright troll’s “expert” Daniel Macek declares that he “observed” infringements that didn’t take place yet

Each letter demanded a dismissal of Lynch’s clients and threatened to proceed with discovery otherwise. There is a mountain of evidence suggesting that such discovery would uncover multiple frauds upon the federal courts. For example, Guardaley illegitimately obtained more than 500 subpoenas using fake declarations by a fictitious “expert”; this fact alone is enough to understand why the infringement monetization cartel fears exposure. Not surprisingly, each Lynch’s demand was met: as of today, claims against fourteen of his clients were dropped.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, while all the letters have a lot in common, each explored a unique topic. The letters #13 and #14 are not different in that regard. Both defendants (dismissed on 6/6/2017) were on the same case, ME2 Productions v Doe 1 et al (WAWD 17-cv-00099).

Defendant # 13

The defendant #13, Raymond Crockett is

[…] a retired, disabled veteran of the United States Navy. Mr. Crockett served two tours in the Vietnam War on a Patrol Boat behind enemy lines.

Has your blood started boiling just by reading this? Mine too. Yet I’ll try to constrain my emotions and concentrate on this letter’s payload instead.

The topic of this letter is “who is the real, undeclared party of interest”?

In investigating for Mr. Crockett, we looked into the real party in interest issues that have continually clouded the transparency of your client’s foreign representatives’ invoicing program. Assignment of a bare right to sue for copyright infringement is not enough to confer standing under the Ninth Circuit’s 2013 Righthaven v. Hoehn ruling. But, a true exclusive license coupled with an agency agreement may be enough to confer standing under the Ninth Circuit’s 2015 Minden v. Wiley ruling. But in both cases, the parties need to be identifiable. Here, the real parties in interest are opaque.

In this case, as in many others, “A&T IP Inc.” was declared as a party of interest. However, as Mr. Lynch wrote to Lowe,

[…] our December 13, 2016 letter to your law firm pointed out that “A&T IP, Inc.” of Nevada had a status of “default” with an “expired business license.” Nevertheless, your law firm continues to identify “A&T IP Inc.” as the owner of some of your clients including LHF Productions, Inc., Criminal Productions, Inc., and ME2 Productions, Inc. This includes Dkt. #4 in this case, filed January 24, 2107.

[…]

Although its status in December 2016 was in “default” – now, in May 2017, we can no longer find “A & T IP Inc.” on the Nevada Secretary of State’s roster of corporations (or California’s.) Nevertheless, we see the continued filing of FRCP 7.1 statements identifying A&T IP, Inc. as the owner of ME2 Productions (and Criminal Productions and LHF Productions).

We tried working backward from the A&T IP, Inc. corporate ID number E0609522012-5 and found a record for a “Millennium IP, Inc.” also showing Messrs. Lerner and Short as principals. So, maybe A&T IP Inc is now Millennium IP, Inc.? In any event, the FRCP 7.1 statements being filed by ME2 Productions, Inc. are not only incorrect, they are misleading in a manner consistent with the opacity that your client’s foreign representatives have employed for years while abusing our United States District Court system.

Now you understand why I used “Smoke and Mirrors, Inc.” in the headline.

In my view, the Guardaley shell game (which isn’t new) is not much less illicit than Prenda’s, whose principals were indicted last year in part because they created shell corporations to obscure the real parties of interest.

Read the entire letter, it is worth your time:

In addition, this letter makes us aware of a recently filed lawsuit against both Smoke and Mirrors’ purported owners, Avi Lerner and Trevor Short, among others:

The Complaint in that lawsuit accuses those four defendants of numerous hostile work environment and harassment violations, among other claims. The allegations include that Mr. Lerner made demeaning comments in the workplace about women on a regular basis, including identification of numerous slurs allegedly used by Mr. Lerner (Complaint page 5).

At this moment those accusations are just accusations (albeit plausible). Mr. Lynch appreciates that, yet makes the following point:

My firm understands that a well pleaded Complaint does not necessarily equate to the truth. For example, in this case, Mr. Crockett was not “observed infringing” doing anything unlawful, despite the language of the pleadings to the contrary.

Sounds like your client’s owners also understand that complaints may be used nefariously as weapons of extortion and can be brought without foundation. Erik Pederson of Deadline Hollywood interviewed Mr. Lerner about the allegations of the Los Angeles County Complaint. Mr. Lerner’s quoted response: “It’s all lies. It’s all a joke.”

Maybe so. Maybe the claims brought against Mr. Lerner are “all lies.” Does Mr. Lerner have a unique perspective on that because the claims brought by his companies are procedurally perfect and impeccably investigated? Not really. “It’s all lies. It’s all a joke.”

Except it’s not a joke. Real, innocent people are falsely named and served in federal lawsuits where they have absolutely no connection to the allegations of the Complaint. Real, innocent people have had default judgments taken against them. Real, innocent people have had to pay hard earned money to defense lawyers to clear their names when they never should have been named in the first place.

We could go on, but you get the point.

Defendant #14

Another exercise in emotional restrain:

Mr. Mosso is currently in his 29th year of service to our United States military. Currently, he is a Lieutenant Colonel U.S. Army deputy surgeon responsible for evacuation systems. He is a Medivac pilot by training. He is currently scheduled to be deployed beginning this summer to Australia and then to Korea.

It’s like the trolls deliberately want the public to portray them as comic book villains. Incomprehensible.

In addition to selling US citizens (including those who literally defend/defended this country) to a foreign Mafia, Mr. Lowe appears to be a liar. In the update to one of my previous posts on this topic, I noted that Lowe had claimed the following falsehood in his recent filing (emphasis is mine):

Likewise, references to a “Darrin Griffin” or “Crystal Bay Corporation” are irrelevant to this case. To the best of Plaintiff’s knowledge, the former is a former investigator for the latter, but which has never been before this Court or been relied on by any party in this District.

In that update, I listed forty WAWD cases in which various Guardaley-driven troll plaintiffs relied on forged declarations by Darren Griffin.

Lynch’s letter #14 theme is a detailed description of Lowe’s misinterpretation to the tribunal:

Related

Today KUTV Salt Lake City ran a program “Utahns, accused of illegally downloading a movie, are told to pay up,” and it is worth watching. Innocent older victims were interviewed, as was a defense attorney Byron Ames.

“They are the people who purchased the right to enforce the copyrights for this movie. So it’s not the producer of the movie. It’s somebody who says, ‘Hey, we want to go enforce these copyrights and make some money,’” Ames says.

Coincidentally, the movie the Utah troll attorney Todd E. Zenger used in his shakedown was the same as the one at the center of the lawsuit above: The Mechanic: Resurrection.