Prenda Soap Opera: Steele Contradicts His Own Previous Claims, Lutz Disappears Again... And The Mother-in-Law Surprise
from the again? dept
We already posted Nancy Sims' account of what happened in the latest Prenda hearing in Minnesota, but wanted to follow it up with some analysis, because there was a fair bit of interesting stuff in there. As you may recall, this is the case that was reopened after it had already been closed, because the Court wanted to get to the bottom of whether or not Team Prenda was engaged in fraudulent practices. To that end, Magistrate Franklin Noel started demanding actual answers to very on point questions. So far, Team Prenda has continued to dance around actually answering those questions, and the hearing was no different. The things that stood out to me from Sims' writeup:Mark Lutz's disappearing act:
Mark Lutz has made it something of a habit to not appear where he's required to. He missed a key hearing in San Francisco, as well as a deposition in Georgia. In the California case, it took Team Prenda nearly a week to even acknowledge that Lutz had an excuse, which it then tried to keep shielded from the public. After that was rejected (repeatedly), it was finally admitted that Lutz was apparently "detained" at the airport while trying to board the flight. In this case, they produced a boarding pass, though it's unclear why John Steele would have Lutz's boarding pass, or how he magically found Lutz's friends driving around the streets of Miami early in the morning (the hearing in Minnesota was in the late morning, so it must have been an early flight). It seems unlikely that courts are going to continue to forgive Lutz for his disappearing act when ordered by courts to appear.
It was especially pertinent in this case, given that the whole focus of this particular hearing was on the legitimacy of the copyright assignment to AF Holdings, and the point was to get everyone together in a room to find out who actually signed the document. Lutz not showing up can't make Judge Noel happy -- and he'd already demonstrated an awareness that Team Prenda is up to no good with all of its activities.
John Steele finally takes a stand... though he may wish he hadn't.
This was a bit odd. Seeing as Steele had pleaded the Fifth in the Otis Wright case in California, it seems like a badly miscalculated move to take the stand in Minnesota, where he needed to testify about some of the same issues. His testimony can go back and be used elsewhere, including in Otis Wright's court. You don't get to plead the fifth in one court, pretend that never happened, and then testify in another court.
Furthermore, Steele made a bunch of claims that appear to contradict previous claims. For example, he talks about how he supposedly helped Cooper set up VPR Internationale. Of course, we'd already discussed how the timing on this is wrong. In a previous filing in a case in Arizona, Steele had said, via sworn deposition, that Cooper had expressed interest in setting up a company in early 2011, and then later said that "Cooper ended up not moving forward with the ideas Steele proposed to him." Yet, VPR Internationale was formed in 2010 (i.e.,. before this conversation supposedly happened). And while it had Alan Cooper's name attached to it, it was done with John Steele's email account, and the physical address was of Steele's sister. Also, while Steele had said in the earlier case that Cooper never went forward with this company, now he's claiming he did, which would explain why actual lawsuits were filed under this. It would appear that in either this case or the Arizona case, something Steele said was blatantly false.
Also, the claims about hooking up Lutz and Cooper seem far fetched and unbelievable given a variety of other statements. Cooper directly denied ever talking to Lutz on the stand. But then there's the question of who actually got the signature, and here Steele starts to throw Lutz under the bus, saying that he believed that Cooper had authorized Lutz to sign on his behalf. That's interesting, because in the now infamous deposition of Paul Hansmeier in the case in Northern California, Hansmeier (who is now acting as the lawyer in this case, if you can keep all this straight) specifically said that Lutz had asked Steele about Cooper's signature and if it's legit. From that deposition in February:
Mark Lutz spoke to Mr. Steele and said, Well, I understand that there's an issue with this Alan Cooper and asked Mr. Steele point-blank, Is the signature a forgery. Mr. Steele said the signature is not forgery. And he asked him, Is the -- is this signature authentic. Mr. Steele says, yes, the signature is authentic. Based on Mr. Steele's representation, we have no reason to believe from what Mr. Steele said, at least, that the signature is a forgery or there's some sort fraud going on with respect to the signature.So... to get this straight: in different cases, Steele, Hansmeier and Lutz have argued that Cooper actually signed the document, that Steele got Cooper to sign the document, that Lutz asked Steele if the signature was legit... and that Steele overheard Cooper and Lutz talking, believed that Cooper gave Lutz permission to sign his name, and that it's likely Lutz who signed for Cooper (something Cooper fully denies).
Of course, if, as they're claiming now, Lutz signed for Cooper, then why would Lutz have called Steele to confirm the signature is legit, as Hansmeier himself said while being deposed? Hansmeier and Steele simply can't keep their story straight -- and telling different courts wholly conflicting answers is generally not a smart thing to do (leaving aside the move to plead the Fifth elsewhere and then testify on the same issues later). I've said it before and I'll say it again: Steele reminds me of people I've known who think they're the smartest person in the world, when they're really not. They seem to think they can talk themselves out of any situation at all. But they generally end up making things worse and worse for themselves.
Thanksgiving in the Steele household may be chilly this year
The wacky issue to come out of the hearing is the involvement of John Steele's mother-in-law, Kim Eckenrode (Steele's wife's maiden name is Kerry Eckenrode). There had been earlier reports that Alan Cooper had received "a text message" telling him to call Paul Godfread, which is how Cooper first found out about his name being used in these cases, leading to his filings claiming forgeries. Team Prenda had long implied that this magic "text" had come from the EFF, which Team Prenda has sought to paint as some crazy group of radicals. But, it turns out that the text message, now entered into evidence, came directly from Steele's own mother-in-law, telling Cooper he should call a lawyer.
Steele tried to play this off by arguing (1) his mother-in-law was religious and disapproved of Steele working with porn companies and (2) she frequented blogs like DieTrollDie and FightCopyrightTrolls. Still, it's quite a leap from those two points to recognizing that Cooper's signature may have been used on filings in various cases without his approval. The fact that the elder Eckenrode understood enough about what was going on to alert Cooper that it appeared her own son-in-law was up to no good with his name just adds an interesting element to all of this. I'm almost surprised Steele didn't claim that Eckenrode was a dues-paying member of EFF.
Either way, I can't imagine that's good for family gatherings in the near future.
Get to the damn point
As is frequently the case, Team Prenda seems to want to do everything possible to avoid actually zeroing in on what judges are asking. In this case, the hearing was solely about whether or not the copyright assignment was legit, and Hansmeier tried to put a bunch of totally irrelevant people on the stand to smear Cooper, and then tried to get Cooper to talk about totally unrelated issues as well. I'm not sure why Hansmeier, Steele and Duffy seem to think this "baffle them with bullshit" strategy will be effective, because the deeper you look, it just makes them look more and more like they're not being straight with the court -- and, while they may think they're smarter than everyone else, I have faith that more and more judges clearly understand what Team Prenda has been up to.
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Filed Under: alan cooper, brent berry, forgery, franklin noel, john steele, mark lutz, paul godfread, paul hansmeier
Companies: af holdings, prenda, prenda law
Reader Comments
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Neither of which I would put past the insanity that is Team Prenda.
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You can adopt adults...
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Hang 'Em
.
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Re: Hang 'Em
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Re: Re: Hang 'Em
Mind you this limit is much higher than 'regular' people get, and the penalties are often much less.
Given the media coverage of this, they might end up having to make an example of Pretenda, the problem being the 'harsh' sentence will most likely only equal what a regular person would get.
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Re: Hang 'Em
Steele really needs to be called in with Lutz and if they do not want to answer the questions they should be jailed until they do.
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Re: Re: Hang 'Em
The only thing your comment did for you was show everyone else what a partisan hack you are. If you can't be outraged about something as outrageous as Prenda without invoking your hatred of your political team's "enemy", you have some serious problems and epitomize everything that is wrong with our country. You are part of the reason why asinine legislation that allows for the John Steel's of the world to exist in the first place. Pull your head out of your ass.
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Judges: Take all the rope you need Mr. Steele.
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Must not be a very big deal if he went and worked with porn companies anyway.
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They're fighting extortionists, Christians are all about stopping abuse.
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If you wanted a patsy, wouldn't you just feed his habit to the point where he blacks out before events where he needs to be?
Then you can tell the courts 1 thing, tell him another thing (he'll believe you, your his buddy you got him out of that Mexican jail.) while whistling happily thinking your going to walk away scott free.
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You know, after their lawyering business goes down in flames they could think of starting a circus or some stand up comedy. Natural talent I tell you ;)
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Their talent is lying and extortion. The comedy of getting caught in such a web of lies is completely unintentional on Team Prenda's part.
I think they subscribe to the basic belief that the best way to extricate oneself from getting caught in a lie is to tell a bigger lie. Hey, it has worked a number of times before. Once you find something that works, stick with it.
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McAffe has the answer...
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Worst. Sex move. Ever.
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While they may think they are smarter than most people, all they really seem better at is bullshitting, and good bullshitting requires a fairly limited number of "victims" at any given time.
Their problem is that the number of eyeballs on their little shell game is no longer limited, and with more people watching the more likely that someone notices what shell the pea is under (or more likely that they've palmed it).
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Paul Hansmeier's deposition was an all-day interview, filled with tedious evasive answers. It was unexpected that it happened at all -- a single all-day deposition costs more than the Prenda settlement offer. The resulting transcript would normally not be easily available, and probably wouldn't be deemed worth reading by someone in a future suit. Even if a paralegal did read it, they probably wouldn't take notes on the critical statements that were superficially hearsay ("Steele told Lutz that Cooper told ...")
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Paul Responds
Too bad the "This Declaration is submitted pursuant to 28 U.S.C. � 1746. I declare under penalty of
perjury that the foregoing is true and correct." at the bottom of the declaration doesn't actually mean anything...
http://ia601203.us.archive.org/34/items/gov.uscourts.mnd.126519/gov.uscourts.mnd.1265 19.52.0.pdf
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Only reason to file early...
Such as always delaying filing until the last day of the last extension, unless you need to hide something. Then you file the next morning to have a colorable claim of not knowing anything factual, such as "I'm sure there is a good faith reason..."
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PH Cherry Picks for the court
Which I read as "Please ignore Lutz' history of failure to appear in recent Prenda legal matters." Which I think is like saying "my client has driven sober on many occasions" to try to gloss over a history of drunk driving...
Speaking of which, I wonder why nobody brought up the apparently outstanding arrest warrants for Lutz to the Judge's attention. Seems like those could be related...
http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2013/07/18/wanted-a-fugitive-named-mark-lutz/
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He might not like his mother-in-law, but my guess is her stock has gone up with people on the internet. She sounds like someone who sees right from wrong, and acts on it.
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"Yes! This is the oldest, Edward, my pride and joy. He's a used-car salesman in Chicago."
"Successful?"
"Not particularly. But ... as honest as--"
"As a Chicago used-car salesman?"
"Yes! And that's Edwin. He's a bit actor in several unsuccessful gay porn movies."
"Uh, most mothers wouldn't mention that..."
"Oh, we forgive him because he's good-looking ... and stupid. And this is Edwick. He peddles crack to schoolchildren."
"And you forgive him?"
"For what? He gives them a discount! And that's ... well, I really would rather not talk about John. I'm afraid he went to Law School and ... didn't turn out at all well."
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Mike Mike Mike... the world is not black and white.
The correct answer is C. BOTH.
Now we know I'm not a nice person and I've been accused of horrible things but...well....
Has anyone checked the Miami papers this morning for reports a body found on the street/beach/ocean?
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First Gibbs, now Lutz, next up: Duffy.
Their new story that Lutz was authorized to sign Alan Cooper's name makes no fucking sense. In Hansmeier's depo he said that Lutz needed Cooper because "there are only so many hours in the day" and he's just too busy to sign his own damn name. If Cooper wasn't even signing his own name, what the hell DID he do there? And why would the company's CEO and sole official employee ever need to sign the name of someone else when he could obviously just use his own?
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Re: Hang 'Em
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Perfect Defense
A few ques from the Clinton era. Clinton got himself into trouble for testifying at a deposition (and playing - loosely speaking) with the truth. The then made that direct comment about "that woman".
What he should have done was refuse any and all attempts to force him to respond at all. He should have not gone to the deposition. What would they have done? Throw the President in jail?
Here, the conclusion left to the court after one side has not provided competent evidence establishing a fact is to rule that the fact has not been established. Thus, no assignment and judgment for the other side.
In this case the court itself re-opened the case to investigate the settlement/dismissal. The most the court can do is declare the settlement/dismissal void and enter judgment for the defense (claimed infringers). The court can recommend that other authorities investigate further.
The court could, though not likely, issue a bench warrant. However, this would take some doing and judges are not all that keen on being advocates/investigators. And, should he appear he can always take the 5th.
I think this entire issue should be turned over to a DA to investigate a RICO charge. Either that or the NSA might......
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