Patrick Zarrelli Claims He's Filing Criminal Charges Against Us Because He Doesn't Like Our Post About Him
from the dude:-do-you-even-first-amendment? dept
So... a week and a half ago, we published an article, written by Tim Cushing, discussing the rather poor decisions of a self-proclaimed "reputation management" guy named Patrick Zarrelli. Zarrelli, it appeared, had been hired by Florida attorney Gary Ostrow, to improve his reputation, but instead, Zarrelli proceeded on a course that seemed more likely to destroy his own reputation, and potentially drag Ostrow further down with him.The background: Ostrow, back in 2012, put out a ridiculous press release, claiming that he was "taking on all celebrity criminal cases in Florida." The press release was so ridiculous and silly that it resulted in mocking and scorn from lawyers online, including Scott Greenfield and Mark Bennett. Apparently, three years later, Ostrow decided he wanted those posts to disappear from the internet. As we've seen, trying to make things disappear from the internet is generally a bad idea that has a history of backfiring spectacularly, often generating renewed interest in that which you wish to delete.
It tends to be even worse when you attempt to delete the content in the most ham-fisted manner possible, which appears to have been Zarrelli's strategy. He called up Greenfield and Bennett, and did a weird passive-aggressive combination of threatening them with totally baseless legal threats, and a weird sort of "hey we're all buddies, let's just take this content down" ridiculousness. If you haven't, you really need to listen to the voicemail that Zarrelli left Greenfield. I could describe it, but no description could do that voicemail justice. It includes a bunch of nonsense legal terms ("hot news exemption"?), a bizarre attempt to "trade" website design if Greenfield will take down the article ("let us improve your blog for you"), threats ("it's not going to be fun for you") and a bizarre listing of his family tree of "high-end lawyers."
All this resulted in more blog posts from Bennett and Greenfield. Another attorney, Brian Tannebaum, apparently also was on the receiving end of ridiculous threats from Zarrelli.
Throughout it all, Zarrelli kept publicly (on Facebook and Twitter) putting up a show of bravado, and a few times suggested that the reason that everyone was pissed at him was because of some sort of "lawyerly bravado" that he felt they believed they needed to show before capitulating -- rather than the truth: which is that these lawyers know Zarrelli has no legal basis for his claims, and they have little time for censorious jerks who are threatening them with bogus legal threats.
Now we get to the rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging.
We had thought that, as with many such cases, Zarrelli might calm down, get a little perspective and move on with his life -- possibly in a different business than "reputation management." But, apparently, he (unwisely) chose plan B.
Yesterday afternoon a large envelope stuffed with hundreds of pages of paper showed up at my office, which appears to be a hilariously stupid threat that he's suing basically everyone who made fun of him.
Dear Tech Dirt [sic] Team,And, as you can see, there are large packets for the lawyers mentioned above -- Scott Greenfield, Mark Bennett and Brian Tannebaum, as well as one for Tim Cushing, who is listed together with Sam Glover (I have no idea why). Each "cover page" lists a "criminal case #": "Criminal Case #15-172076FLPD." I can't wait to see what criminal law it violates to "rank better than my Facebook page in search results," but I get the feeling that the Florida police won't be doing much with this.
A writer of yours named Tim Cushings [sic] is using your website to harass, stalk, libel, and cyber bully me online. We have filed criminal charges and bar complaints in seven states. We are now in the process of filling [sic] a federal lawsuit in Florida. Due to your companies [sic] high page rank, there [sic] attack articles about me dominate the search results. They are even above my own Facebook page.
Thank you,
Patrick Zarrelli
Beyond the misspellings, the cover letter is just ridiculous. It doesn't actually make any request to us. It doesn't say that anything has actually been filed against us, or Tim directly, despite the clear attempt to imply as much. There is no effort to (as you're kinda required to do) name what actual statements constitute violations of the law (he can keep looking, 'cause he's not going to find any). Also, "harass, stalk, libel, and cyber bully." Dude, he wrote an article about you fucking up. That's not harassing, stalking, libeling or cyber bullying. That's called reporting, and it's damn well protected by the First Amendment. Whatever "criminal charges" he thinks he's filed are not what he seems to think they are. Individuals don't file "criminal charges." That's law enforcement's job. It sounds like he may have just whined to some law enforcement folks in Florida who probably filed it in the garbage file where it belongs. Obviously, he's not filing "bar complaints" against us or Cushing, since Cushing isn't a lawyer. He very well may have against the lawyers listed, but those will all go nowhere fast.
If he's seriously contemplating "filling [sic] a federal lawsuit in Florida" -- well, then he should have had his lawyer contact us, rather than himself -- and he might want to acquaint himself carefully with Florida's brand new anti-SLAPP law, which we would almost certainly make use of in seeking legal fees for filing a bogus lawsuit whose sole purpose was an attempt to stifle Constitutionally protected speech.
Oh, and you might wonder what's in all the pages in those packets. It is not -- as you might think from the cover pages -- any actual lawsuit or bar complaint or anything of the sort. It is not any actual demands or explanation of what laws he thinks we broke. Rather, each packet is just pages upon pages of screenshot printouts of the articles that we wrote, the comments on those articles, and comments found on Twitter and Facebook where people were mocking Zarrelli.
Dude: let it go. You messed up and people made fun of you for it. There's nothing illegal about that (in either the criminal or the civil sense).
Update: After a bunch of requests, we've scanned in the full packets. You can see them below:
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: anti-slapp, brian tannebaum, criminal charges, defamation, free speech, gary ostrow, mark bennett, patrick zarrelli, reputation management, sam glover, scott greenfield, threats
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Dude...
You can tell that Mike is fully gobsmacked by the stupidity of a circumstance when he uses "Dude" as a pronoun more than once in a story.Subscribe: RSS
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He's probably filing bar complaints to his local bartender as he cries in his drink of choice.
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For the Record...
You know, in case he wants to file a lawsuit through the World Court.
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I've missed Prenda...
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Something something dick in a hornets nest.
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FOI Request
Can you FOI a police report? It might be worth a laugh. :)
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What is it with certain lawyer types?
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Techdirt rank?
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Re: Techdirt rank?
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Oh Zarrelli...
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Re: What is it with certain lawyer types?
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Right to be forgotten
That worked so well for other people. I believe in one case that an Court ruled that while the original information must be removed, there is nothing that stops you from publishing about the request to be removed.
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Re: Re: What is it with certain lawyer types?
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Do you have any idea who? Sam Glover isn't mentioned anywhere in the article except here. He was added to the tags for the story, but the only article under his tag is this one. Who is this mysterious person?
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Reading Between the Lines
I am a pathetic little person.
Love,
Patrick Zarrelli
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Re: What is it with certain lawyer types?
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Dude...
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I'd like 12 pairs, please...
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Re:
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(Think that will make it into the next packet?)
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"Zarrelli Reputation" - Search this on Google
Actually, this could mean that there is going to be more fun reading here. That's about 40 to 60 lawsuits against various blogs and publications that are (what did he say):
Come on, I'm already starting to salivate at all the articles on TechDirt about this little "Zarelli Circus of Legal Entertainment".
Strangely enough, in working some Google magic, I could not find an article with a "positive" reference to Zarelli. Only articles about how badly he has messed up. I guess with everybody talking about his clown act, maybe he is hoping that no one will remember his client's activities. He's created the "Zarelli Google Trick". It's heavily patterned after the Jedi mind trick but is not a story of fiction and doesn't actually work. It is however entertaining.
I hope George Lucas doesn't sue him though; for creating a derivative work without paying for a license.
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Re: Re: Re: What is it with certain lawyer types?
I tell my clients: For gawdsakes, don't name-drop me or even CC me without first giving me a heads-up of what you want to say.
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Teacups and snowflakes are certainly delicate
Second, with that comment about Techdirt showing up higher than his own Facebook page tells us an awful lot about his skillz as a reputation management expert extraordinaire. Makes one wonder how one might go about retraining (not a typo) his services.
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Obvioushly? No, actually quite reashonable to file bar complaints against you ... guysh. Where better than a bar? (hic) Barkeep! Another round for my friends here! And uh, ya know howta makea Zombie? Great! I'll have oneadem!
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Re:
Come at me, bro.
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That cover letter is a computer print out. That means he used some sort of editor. Why didn't he run the spell and grammar check before hitting "Print"? At least he would't appear to be a 8 year old turning in his first English assignment.
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Joe Garelli fights Patrick Zarelli after school
Purple-monkey-dishwasher
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Re:
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Re: Techdirt rank?
GJ Zarelli
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"I am special because everyone tells me I am and anyone who doesn't agree is bullying me, and I am going to throw a fit until they are punished for saying bad things about me"
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Re: For the Record...
I've just received a large envelope stuffed with documents, each listing what's claimed to be "Canada's IP address" and containing a list of laws for the United Federation of Planets.
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Re: "Zarrelli Reputation" - Search this on Google
Because you just anchored all those other search results :D
You even threw in a few things that will likely now show up in the suggested search terms when someone types in "Zarrelli" in Google.
I wonder if this cascades over to Bing, Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo? I've been out of the optimization game for a while now, so I'm unsure.
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Re:
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Florida Man
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Sam Glover
Includes an amusing screenshot of Zarrelli's Facebook page - when he's riled up his spelling improves slightly.
Sam Glover has written an article on lawyerist.com:
https://lawyerist.com/92408/lawyer-hires-internet-tough-guy-to-silence-internet-tough- guys/
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Re: Teacups and snowflakes are certainly delicate
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Re: Re: For the Record...
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Also, do you think you should redact his phone number shown on the first page of his legal manifesto?
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Re: Re:
Charles Carreon School of Hole Digging
But I think it still falls under the Prendambrella of Entertaining Antics
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Re: Re: Re: What is it with certain lawyer types?
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Search results
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Re:
Properly used, however, is another story.
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Sue me baby!
Patrick Zarrelli, Patrick Zarrelli, Patrick Zarrelli...say that 3 times fast and get page ranking and criminal charges filed against you by Patrick Zarrelli.
Just in case Patrick Zarrelli didn't notice. I'm using his name alot for page rankings. I'm looking out for you Patrick Zarrelli.
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Re:
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How much would it cost?
In them, we can etch an image of Barbara Streisand.
It would officially be the Techdirt Award for Publicity Failure (or something)
Unofficially, we can call them the "Babs" awards.
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Re:
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Please - its "filling" NOT filing. Get you're spiling write!
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Re: How much would it cost?
Patrick Zarrelli should take some time out of his busy schedule of googling himself and instead google the "Streisand Effect".
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Patrick Zarrelli PRINTS THIS
so called reputation expert my @ss
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I think you're on to something...
First, he associates his name with his client. THEN
He ruins his reputation SO BADLY that THEN
When you try to Google his client all you can see id articles about how stupid Patrick Zarrelli is.
Viola! The client's reputation is improved.
See? It works!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What is it with certain lawyer types?
teeming with
infected with
blighted with
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Re: I think you're on to something...
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Re: FOI Request
Records available via snail mail or in person.
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Re:
A complaint? Sure. "Criminal charges"? Hells no. I have no doubt that he filed a complaint form, just as I have no doubt that the FLPD gave it the due respect it deserves (ie. "none"), meaning I doubt that anyone listed need have any fear of travelling to Ft. Lauderdale any time soon.
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Re: No need for a DA
Naw, ya could be a ham sandwich and be true billed from a Grand Jury.
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Positive spin
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Re:
Yes. In fact the cop who creates the complaint the DA signs off on is doing it not as a cop but as a citizen. Because then you'd have an executive branch person (the DA) and an executive brancher - the cop - in collusion.
Now I, as a citizen, have tried to bypass the DA and get a Judge to sign off on a criminal complaint. Its like I just walked in with Plutonium.
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Re: Re: Techdirt rank?
I would love it if techdirt uploaded a copy of the pages he sent. I would love to see my comment in a legal filling.
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Re: Joe Garelli fights Patrick Zarelli after school
I think you are on to something. I think this whole thing may actually be a ploy by PETA where we find out that Patrick Zarelli is actually a certain monkey that likes to take selfies.
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Wha??
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Re: Wha??
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Attn: Leigh
Let's not forget that while Zarrelli's own submission may have arrived by post, it was still a Reader's Comment to Techdirt. Please do not deny him the Funniest Comment of the Week honors.
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FSU
Go Noles!
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Re: Joe Garelli fights Patrick Zarelli after school
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Re: Wha??
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What strange priorities...
Time is precious, but come on, if you're going to threaten someone, at least check to see how well that's worked out for those that tried before you.
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Holy shit!
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This guy deserves whatever negative attention he receives for that voicemail alone. Keep up the fight Techdirt!
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The first words that came to mind after reading his letter were "you're welcome."
He was just saying thank-you
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Re: Attn: Leigh
It's the first time I spend part of the article and most of the comment section laughing like that. People are looking at me strangely here at work.
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Inattention
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I figured it out
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Re: What is it with certain lawyer types?
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Given the size of Zarrelli's ego, how about blasphemy?
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SJ is crap
Maybe you should think twice about doing advertising for some piss ant website, I had never heard of until yesterday morning, before making posts. Quid pro quo...
I'm just saying...
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Re: SJ is crap
It is his sandbox, so he gets to set the rules.
It isn't that piss ant in some circles.
He isn't known for the warm fuzzys, I've run afoul of him before and chose not to repeat that experience.
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L
Is it wrong for me to hope he continues to double down on stupid so I can be entertained?
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Re: Re: Re: For the Record...
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Re: How much would it cost?
I seen to get my share of spam from rthurman@smallbusinesscommunity.org, who will happily sell you an award for a little under a hundred dollars. If Mr. Zarrelli needs an award, I'd probably want him to pay for it himself. You can pay more for a fancier award, depending on how much support your ego needs.
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Re: For the Record...
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