Investigation Into Illegal Spying On Kim Doctom Reveals NZ Intelligence Illegally Spied On 85 People

Paul Hansmeier: Who Me? I Did Nothing... Everything You're Accusing Prenda Of Was Done By Someone Else

from the leave-me-out-of-this dept

Tue, Apr 9th 2013 4:14pm — Mike Masnick

Paul Hansmeier has now filed his response in the big Prenda showdown case, and the short version might simply be described as "You've got nothing on me, judge!" Basically, he explains that each of the things the judge has complained about has nothing to do with himself, and more or less throws Brett Gibbs under the bus, saying that Gibbs was the attorney on the case, and thus anything that went wrong was Gibbs' deal.

Respondent Hansmeier was not a party to proceedings outside of the April 2, 2013 proceeding, where no evidence was presented. There is simply no tie between Hansmeier and the issues raised within the court’s order to show case. And the court should limit the inferences that it draws about Hansmeier’s culpability for the actions of a third-party attorney, like Gibbs, who was neither employed nor supervised by Hansmeier in connection with this matter

He further tries to get out of the whole Alan Cooper issue by again noting that he, Paul Hansmeier, had nothing to do with Alan Cooper or in getting Alan Cooper to sign on as a representative of the various shell companies. This is a little bit of throwing Steele under the bus, though not as far as he throws Gibbs. Also, he tiptoes around the question of whether or not the Alan Cooper who showed up in court is "Alan Cooper" who was a corporate representative of the shells. Such tapdancing is unlikely to go over well with an angry judge who already thinks you're bullshitting him.

Basically, Hansmeier tries to present himself as just some random guy whom the court dragged into this case based on nothing. Given how much evidence has been presented suggesting that Hansmeier was deeply involved in these cases, including statements from Gibbs about how he was something of a puppet for Steele and Hansmeier, this isn't likely to go over well. Because Hansmeier insists that he had nothing to do with Gibbs, it might be helpful to go back to Gibbs' testimony from March 11th.

Q And who did you understand were the decision makers of Steele Hansmeier?

A John Steele and Paul Hansmeier.

Q When you were an of counsel to Steele Hansmeier, who supervised you?

A John Steele and Paul Hansmeier.

Q Did you have periodic meetings while at Steele Hansmeier to discuss cases?

A Yes, we did.

Q And were those weekly meetings?

A Yes. Sometimes they would be sending the schedule, but, yes, mostly weekly meetings.

Q Who participated in those meetings?

A John and Paul would call me, and they would hold a weekly meeting.

[....]

Q And were you supervised at Prenda Law?

A Yes, I was.

Q Who were you supervised by?

A Paul Hansmeier and John Steele.

Q Were you supervised by Paul Duffy?

A No.

Q And when you say supervised, could you just describe what you mean by that? How did they supervise you?

A Sure. You know, they essentially were the ones that would initiate cases. By that, I mean, they would tell me they wanted to file certain cases in California, for instance, and they would instruct me to go ahead and file those. And they would give me the authority to do so. I would be told what cases we are looking at and how many cases we are talking about, and then I would file the cases. And they would give me general guidelines on what to do and sometimes the cases would be settled by John as was pointed out earlier, and sometimes they gave me certain parameters which I could settle the case myself.

Q Did you ever talk to anybody that you understood to be the client, AF Holdings?

A No. The communications were solely through Paul Hansmeier and John Steele.

Q Did you ever talk to anybody who said they were affiliated with Ingenuity 13?

A Well, I mean, aside from Mark Lutz who is the CEO of Ingenuity 13, but aside from that, no. All my communications were straight through Paul Hansmeier and John Steele.

[....]

And whose decision was it to dismiss those cases?

A Ultimately, it was John Steele and Paul Hansmeier's decisions. We had talked about it. As counsel of record here, I just kind of broke down like a cost benefit analysis of those cases. And they said, basically, go ahead and dismiss them because -- they said go ahead and dismiss them.

Q When the cases were filed, did you have a discussion with anybody about whether notice of interested parties should be filed?

A I did. Yeah.

Q And who did you have discussions with?

A Mostly Paul Hansmeier. Yes. Mostly Paul Hansmeier but sometimes John Steele, I guess. I don't know. It was a while ago I guess.

Given that, Hansmeier's filing here is less than believable. Either way, it looks clear that Hansmeier is trying to dump all the responsibility on others, mainly Gibbs, when Gibbs has already said that Hansmeier basically was his puppet master. At some point, you'd have to expect that Gibbs is going to realize he gains nothing by protecting Hansmeier and Steele any more.

bb09a05e 8406 48c7 a9f6 e90d2a7f6153 (PDF)bb09a05e 8406 48c7 a9f6 e90d2a7f6153 (Text)

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Filed Under: alan cooper, brett gibbs, john steele, paul hansmeier
Companies: ingenuity 13, prenda, prenda law

34 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 4:14pm

Priceless...
This just keeps getting better and better.

Watching these parasites turn on each other, all attempting to save their own skin by laying the blame on the others, not realizing that their own previous statements are contradicting each other, thereby exposing their lies.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 4:25pm

I'm out of popcorn
This goes from ridiculous to even more ridiculous. What are they trying to do? Confuse the judge into submission?
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 4:25pm

Also, he tiptoes around the question of whether or not the Alan Cooper who showed up in court is "Alan Cooper" who was a corporate representative of the shells. Such tapdancing is unlikely to go over well with an angry judge who already thinks you're bullshitting him.

The mental image of Hansmeier trying to tapdance on tiptoes is a rather amusing one... ;)
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Rabbit80, 9 Apr 2013 @ 4:37pm

Re:
Don't forget the eggshells!
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Anonymous Monkey (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 4:45pm

Epic .. just Epic ...
Facepalm that is ..
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 4:48pm

Umm...
Hansmeier was not a party to proceedings outside of the April 2, 2013 proceeding, where no evidence was presented. There is simply no tie between Hansmeier and the issues raised within the court�s order to show case.

Maybe it's just me, but this sounds suspiciously like issues of fact, rather than issues of law.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought these legal briefs were supposed to be limited to issues of law, and that the Apr2 hearing was supposed to address issues of fact, and that Hansmeier explicitly said he wasn't going to answer any quesions?

Didn't Judge Wright specifically say that's why he wanted these guys on the stand - so they could provide testimony and give their side of the story?

Do you think it's a good idea to tell a Federal Judge that you won't answer any of his questions, that you'll raise procedural issues in a filing, and then use that filing to attempt to provide answers to the questions that you refused to answer?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 5:04pm

Lol desperate attempt to get out of trouble that Judge Otis Wright should not be happy with. I hope Judge Otis Wright throws the book at them very hard.
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anonymouse, 9 Apr 2013 @ 5:23pm

Re: Umm...
Thanks for clearing this up i was actually going to say that he refused to answer any questions regarding the whole case in court, pleading the fifth . Now he wants to answer the questions the court wanted answers to in writing, where he cannot be cross questioned about his answers.

I don't think the Judge is going to like this one bit, and the fact that he is calling Gibbs a liar, even though he is the only one to answer the courts questions is rather brave i think,I suspect he knows what is coming and is doing everything in his power to stop the whirlwind of hell that is coming his way.

Too little , too late , and not the truth.
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Rabbit80, 9 Apr 2013 @ 5:29pm

New comments..
Thanks for the new comment flags Techdirt.. Just what I've wanted for ages, now i can follow conversations in the comments a lot easier!
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 5:34pm

I am shocked, just shocked!

Oh wait nope, not even a little bit.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 6:02pm

Re: Re: Umm...
"Too little , too late , and not the truth." which isn't going to help him much.
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ChronoFish (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 6:24pm

They'll get off
Sadly.

You've got three guys who are witness to each other, each saying the other two were responsible....but only kinda. It's just enough keep doubt about who exactly was responsible for what. If the evidence doesn't point to all three, and each one has a plausible deniability then none of them can be found guilty.

Chess match. They will drag it out as long as humanly possible and admit to nothing. I would hate to be the judge "knowing" all three deserve punishment, and not having the evidence to see that they get it.

-CF
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 6:27pm

Its freaking hilarious when people still pretend theyre innocent even when they got caught red handed.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 6:28pm

It's a real-life Wookie defense!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 6:35pm

Re: New comments..
huh?
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That One Guy (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 6:43pm

Re: They'll get off
If they were coordinating their collective defense you might be right, but they all seem to be working as individuals, trying to prove their 'innocence' on an individual basis, and hopefully that will be their downfall.
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Capitalist Lion Tamer (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 6:58pm

Re: Priceless...
This just keeps getting better and better.

I agree.

This has become the most fucked up iteration of the Prisoner's Dilemma in all of ever.
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Anon, 9 Apr 2013 @ 7:17pm

Unfortunately
That is the problem with being the patsy. You are going to take the fall. Gibbs is pretty much fucked, since he agreed to follow these guys instructions without any documentation. It's unfortunate, Hansmeieir can actually deflect the most serious questions (about abuse/fraud) since Gibbs initiated most of the legal filings.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 7:24pm

The real question to me is what else are they up to that is not known? What are they hiding?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 7:27pm

Re: I'm out of popcorn
> What are they trying to do? Confuse the judge into submission?

Also known as the Chewbacca Defense. TVTropes' index of Courtroom Antics is proving very useful. So far we've seen, that I remember:

* Chewbacca Defense
* A Fool for a Client
* Surprise Witness

There are probably many more.
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Forest_GS (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 7:37pm

Re: Re:
And the land mines!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2013 @ 7:46pm

Re:
My mental image is that of the Prenda Conspiracy getting repeatedly run over by the buses that they're throwing each other under, while simultaneously tapdancing on tiptoes. My mental image also includes sound effects cribbed from Monty Python. By application of the Multiplicative Property of Incongruous Mental Images (With Audio Addition), my mental image (With Audio Addition) is more amusing. By definition.

But really... Given the performances (and it hardly seems fitting to call them anything but) of the principles to date, it would seem that the Hon. Judge Wright need only give each of the members of the Prenda Conspiracy a pencil and a sheet of paper, and sit back and wait a spell while the perps use his gifts to craft nooses for each other.

We're well past the Bang(!) stage of this little production; I, for one, am ready to see some Major Whimpering (With Histrionic Addition)...
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davnel, 9 Apr 2013 @ 8:54pm

Re:
On a very thin Balsa wood floor. Should be fun to watch.
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davnel, 9 Apr 2013 @ 8:54pm

Re:
On a very thin Balsa wood floor. Should be fun to watch.
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Violated (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 9:32pm

To the dogs
I doubt pleading the fifth is going to help any of them when it is now a dog eat dog world. So they have to talk to blame anyone and everyone other than themselves simply because everyone now points fingers at them.

John Steele sure needs to get into this battle when being the head honcho it is only a matter of time before all fingers point at him and stay there.

The next week or two should prove very enjoyable.
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Violated (profile), 9 Apr 2013 @ 9:53pm

Re:
We should recall that the real Alan Cooper appeared in Court and not said that Alan "Prenda" Cooper was not him but he also confirm the Alan "Prenda" Cooper signature on official forms was nothing like his own signature.

So now try to claim that real Alan Cooper is Alan "Prenda" Cooper does indeed mean that someone we know has gone cuckoo off their meds.

I will grant you one guess when you only need one.
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Rabbit80, 9 Apr 2013 @ 11:28pm

Re: Re: New comments..
New comments (ie. new since you last looked at the page) are now highlighted by a green bar on the left.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2013 @ 2:14am

Re: Re: I'm out of popcorn
it should be mentioned that in real life, surprise witnesses don't actualyl work. roughly two seconds aftre the surprise witness is revealed, the lawyer for the other side will either get a continuance to be able to prepare for the witness's testimony or, if the judge thinks the witness was deliberately concealed, get a mistrial. ( basicaly, it hinges on if the judge thinks someone is trying to fool discovery.)
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2013 @ 2:54am

Re: Re:
I was thinking that Judge Wright will be assassinated by a loganberry next. Because loganberries are the best at what they do.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2013 @ 3:02am

Re:
The bodies of their law professors?
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Niall (profile), 10 Apr 2013 @ 5:10am

Re: Re:
Why would they kill homeless guys?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2013 @ 7:12pm

Nice going, copyright heroes.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2013 @ 7:47am

Oh well, Hey! I just can't think of "..if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit" analogy this time. But at least OJ Simpson will have a new member in his club. Pending results, of course.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Apr 2013 @ 2:55am

And I'll just leave this here....

http://imgur.com/7quEWyH
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