Texas Attorney General Issues Complaint Against Reputation Management Company For Bogus Lawsuits

from the dominoes dept

Still more evidence continues to be uncovered linking shady reputation management companies to fraudulent defamation lawsuits. This tactic has only recently been exposed, thanks mainly to the efforts of Eugene Volokh and Paul Alan Levy. (Pissed Consumer spotted some questionable lawsuit activity as well, shortly before the Volokh/Levy deluge.)

So far, one victim of this fraudulent behavior has obtained a settlement from one of these reputation management firms. It's likely more such judgments are on the way as more details linking firms to bogus lawsuits are dug up. One judge has already passed on info to the US Attorney's office. Now, Eugene Volokh is reporting the Texas attorney general's office has filed a civil complaint against a company called Solvera that, up until recently, performed illegitimate Google takedown services for customers paying upwards of $10,000, using nothing more than bogus libel lawsuits filed by nonexistent companies against fake defendants.

The civil complaint [PDF] details the bogus inner workings of the lawsuits filed by shell companies set up by Solvera. (Also, shell defendants.)

Solvera Defendants next contract with attorneys, including in Harris County, Texas, to file defamation lawsuits on behalf of their customers. At this point, both the consumer and the attorney are misled. Specifically, Solvera Defendants fail to obtain authorization from, or even notify, its customers before contracting with attorneys to file lawsuits as part of their services. Businesses are surprised to learn, after the fact, that a company with a very similar name to their legal name has been named as the plaintiff in a lawsuit.

Second, the attorney has been told by Solvera Defendants that they have already identified and contacted the alleged defamation defendant, the individual who purportedly posted the negative information on the Internet, and the parties have already reached a settlement. Solvera Defendants have already drafted the lawsuit, and send it along with the URL De-Index Agreement to the attorney. Local attorneys are thereby misled, because Solvera Defendants misrepresent that their customer has in fact authorized a lawsuit, when in actuality it is a fictitious business entity. This entity has then granted power of attorney to the local lawyer.

Solvera Defendants make this misrepresentation by sending those attorneys a different version of the URL De-Index Agreement than the one that was signed by the customer. This version of the De-Index Agreement includes provisions stating that the consumer has agreed to be represented by the local attorney by granting a power of attorney, provisions that are not present in the original De-Index Agreement.

Moreover, these local attorneys are further misled because Solvera Defendants fail to actually identify and contact the original poster of the content the consumer had believed was defamatory. Instead, a California blogger has made an additional posting to the original purportedly defamatory content, and has agreed to be "defendant" in the defamation lawsuit.

Identifying the person consumers believe originally posted negative information would be nearly impossible to accomplish from the often anonymous complaints posted on the internet. So, Solvera Defendants have a local California associate sign an affidavit, in which he/she falsely states that he/she is a resident of the Court's jurisdiction, including Harris County, and further falsely states that he/she engaged in all of the conduct alleged in the lawsuit, which extends to more than just the comment that they had additionally provided. This is evidenced by the fact that invariably the affidavit is notarized in California despite the alleged defamation defendant's supposed local residence, in Harris County.

A bogus lawsuit is filed in a Texas court, purportedly from a company located outside of the state, featuring a defendant allegedly located in Texas but willing to take a road trip to California to get their confession notarized by a lawyer there. A judgment is secured against the defendant, which is passed along to Google for delisting as supposedly defamatory content. This all goes on without Solvera's customers knowing this is happening. Not only that, but the lawyers contracted to file the legal paperwork apparently have no idea they're participating in Solvera's fraud on the court.

If this complaint sticks, Solvera will be blocked from filing more bogus lawsuits and (importantly) from attempting to deep-six any still pending in Texas courts. If the court finds for the state, Solvera will also be required to repay every customer they defrauded, along with $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Hopefully, most of this will stick and serve as a pricey deterrent to others hoping to turn a profit by lying to the courts.

Filed Under: bogus lawsuits, censorship, defamation, fake lawsuits, reputation management, texas
Companies: solvera

Convicted Fraudster Uses DDoS Attack To Clean Up Search Results, Fails Spectacularly

from the engage-self-destruct dept

A Seattle man has found a surefire way to clean up negative search engine results: get arrested for threatening (and apparently executing) a denial-of-service attack against a legal web site for refusing to take down an unflattering link.

Federal prosecutors announced the arrest of Kamyar Jahanrakhshan, 32, on a criminal charge of extortion by threats to cause damage to Leagle.com. If convicted, he faces up to 5 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

A man named Andrew Rakhshan allegedly contacted the website in December 2014 and asked that a link to the offending court decision be taking down.

Then Rakhshan was done asking.

“On January 24, 2015 Rakhshan again sent an e-mail claiming that he met a group of hackers online who were willing to launch a massive cyber-attack on Leagle.com,” prosecutors said in a statement. “Rakhshan claimed that he had no other options to resolve the matter. He threatened to use these hackers to conduct a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack to force Leagle.com to comply with his demands. On January 25, 2015, a large amount of traffic targeted the IP address for Leagle.com.”

The website was unable to mitigate the attack traffic, which subsided when it removed the link.

Nice work, Andrew. Generating a federal indictment is a surefire way to ensure your vanity search results remain unmarred by "offending court decisions." But this DDoS wasn't Rakhshan's only attempt to scrub the web of negative info. Searching through the Lumen (formerly Chilling Effects) database reveals post-alleged attack efforts Rakhshan made to clean up unflattering search results.

Several takedown notices sent to Google reference a court order obtained by Rakhshan targeting three URLs set up by someone who wanted the world to know about Rakhshan's fraudulent Canadian escapades.

Rakhshan's requests demand the removal of the following URLs by Google.

http://jahanrakhshan-credit-card-embosser.blogspot.com/

http://jahanrakhshan-impersonated-police.blogspot.com/

http://jahanrakhshan-rakhshan-fraud-trial.blogspot.com/

http://rakhshan-vs-whatcom-county-washington.blogspot.com/

http://whistleblower-legislation-canada.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

However, the court order [PDF] he cites (in increasingly angry tones) only specifies the removal of three URLs.

http://rakhshan-vs-whatcom-county-washington.blogspot.com/

http://jahanrakhshan-rakhshan-fraud-trial.blogspot.com/

The third URL refers to a Google Drive document.

The court's order says the person posting these must remove them, not Google. In fact, a handwritten note appended to the end of the approved order makes it clear Google is not responsible for the removal of the URLs.

(In case you can't see it, the handwritten note reads "Google is not a party to this lawsuit.")

The three other URLs listed in Rakhshan's takedown notices were struck from the court order before approval. That's because there was nothing even possibly libelous about the posts. All they contained were Canadian court documents pertaining to Andrew Rakhshan/Kamyar Jahanrakhshan which, no matter how unflattering, cannot possibly be considered defamatory.

Not that it seems to matter to Rakhshan. This note is appended to his September 2016 takedown request:

Next month is ONE-YEAR anniversary of when I first submitted this Complaint. I am attaching BOTH my Court Orders once again. TELL ME what is the problem or issue. I will then PRINT your comments, attach them to my sworn affidavit, and take it before the SAME Judge and wont leave his courtroom until he gives me a THIRD Order which is to your standards. Once again, the first 2 URLs above are explicitly stated in both orders. That means the Judge has found them to be unlawful, not once, but TWICE - No further explanation is therefore required. The 3rd, 4th and 5th URLs above are an exact replicate of what you removed between December to April. I could elaborate extensively if you wish, but in sum, the Defendant either accuses me of DDoS, or else being a same person as a convicted fraudster from Canada. Last week Google Security called me and asked that I stop contacting Google. I will NEVER do that until these 5 URLs are removed, even if it takes 10 ...

Strange that it mentions a DDoS. But by this point, he'd probably been hearing about the accusations for at least a year. According to the indictment, the attack took place in January 2015. Also stranger that it says the URLs claim he's the same person as a convicted fraudster from Canada. The URLs that remain live don't connect the two names. But the multiple takedown notices -- coupled with the recent indictment of Andrew Rakhshan -- seem to indicate these are both the same person.

However, both a 2011 Canadian news article about Rakhshan…

Westpac, St George Bank and Bankwest were just three banks and card issuers from around the world that gave evidence this year against Kamyar ''Andy'' Jahanrakhshan of North Vancouver.

In spending almost $C500,000 of other people's money, Jahanrakhshan used forged credit cards that carried his real name and supplied the various car dealers with his driver's licence.

He was found guilty last month of multiple counts of fraud by the Supreme Court in British Columbia.

And the DOJ's indictment…

Kamyar Jahanrakhshan, aka “Kamyar Jahan Rakhshan,” “Andy or Andrew Rakhshan,” “Andy or Andrew Kamyar,” and “Kamiar or Kamier Rakhshan,” 32, of Seattle, Washington, was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging him with extortion by threats to cause damage to the Dallas, Texas hosting company for Leagle.com, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

...make it explicit this is the same person, despite Rakhshan's protests to the contrary.

And it could be Rakhshan is impersonating the Canadian Broadcast Corporation as well. There are three notices purportedly from the CBC demanding takedowns of archived versions of the CBC's original story about Rakhshan's Canadian legal troubles.

So, it appears Rakhshan is -- or at least was -- engaging in a lot of questionable behavior attempting to scrub the web of mentions of his Canadian criminal past. Adding bogus DMCA takedown notices to an alleged DDoS isn't the ideal course of action one should pursue if they feel their search results are already a bit sketchy.

Filed Under: andrew rakhshan, ddos, kamyar jahanrakhshan, reputation management, search engine optimization, seo
Companies: leagle

Cheerleader Fraudulently Obtains Court Order To Scrub Web Of Her Boyfriend-Beating Past

from the stupid-web-tricks dept

Paul Levy has tracked down yet another abuse of the court system to illegitimately erase factual news articles from the internet. The person behind the bogusly-obtained court order is Megan Welter, who achieved national fame and national infamy within the space of a few days back in 2013.

The case that we just entered involves Megan Welter, a young woman who achieved a degree of publicity success in the summer of 2013 with the story of how an Iraq war veteran had become a cheerleader for the Arizona Cardinals football team. A few days later, she learned how fickle the media can be: it got its hands on a less flattering situation: in a fit of jealous rage at her boyfriend’s communication with one of his exes, Welter called the police claiming that he was abusing her physically. But when the police arrived, the boyfriend persuaded them, through cellphone video as well as Welter’s own on-the-scene admissions, that it was Welter herself who was the assailant. The upshot was that Welter was arrested and charged, and that story, based in part on the boyfriend’s statements to the police, received national coverage in the print and broadcast media, as well as on various sports-related blogs and web sites. Many of these sites carried bodycam video from the responding police, plus the cell phone video that the boyfriend provided to the police; a few even linked to a detailed police report describing Welter’s own self-incriminating statements.

Despite it being almost two years past the statute of limitations, Welter engaged the services of Kelly/Warner LLC to file a defamation lawsuit. The complaint [PDF] contains nothing but conclusory claims about the supposed libel. (Basically, "false statements were made and were false.") The complaint was accompanied by a proposed injunction, which included a list [PDF] of 107 URLs --including YouTube videos and a variety of other websites -- Welter wanted delisted. But Welter still needed somebody to trigger this judicially-abusive chain of events. She, along with her lawyer, leaned on the ex-boyfriend.

The proposed stipulation included a signature line for Ryan McMahon, Welter’s boyfriend on the day of the controversial incident, and a paragraph in which McMahon purported to “admit” that the statements about Welter attributed to him in the various news stories were false.

McMahon signed the form, possibly after being misled by Welter's lawyer. (Levy notes her legal rep said he had an email chain showing McMahon's voluntary and knowing participation in the lawsuit, but refused to turn it over to Levy.) Welter's lawyer used this single signature to attempt to nuke 107 pieces of content not created by McMahon. Obviously, as Levy points out, the lawsuit wasn't filed to get her ex-boyfriend to shut up. It was filed to whitewash the unpleasant parts of her recent history.

The way to accomplish this was through a tricky manipulation of the well-established principle that injunctive relief extends to the “agents” of an enjoined defendant and, indeed, to others who connive with the defendant to propagate his wrongdoing. The stipulated injunction included several prohibitions of publication by “defendant’s” agents — in context, the “defendant” was plainly McMahon – but it defined the term “agents” as including anybody whose publication was “enabling” the publication of the 98 online articles based in part on McMahon's contemporaneous statements, as well as nine YouTube videos (most of which were copies of TV stories) identified in the complaint. Moreover, McMahon’s admission included the proposition that “all or substantially all of the statements made in URL’s are false and defamatory.” And on that basis, all of the defendants responsible for those online articles, as well as the “agents” as broadly defined, were commanded to take them down. [...] And, just in case they did not comply with these orders, the order called for Google and other search engines to take the URL’s identified in the order out of its database so that the content would not be searchable (here, again, the basic element of the fraudulent Richart Ruddie orders).

Even though numerous websites (including ABC News, CBS News, Sports Illustrated, and USA Today) were claimed to have published defamatory material, not a single one was listed directly as a defendant. The filing insisted all of these well-known sites -- most of them carrying writer bylines -- are only referred to as "unidentifiable" Does.

This internet-nuking order [PDF] should never have made it past a judge. But it did. Now Levy has filed a motion to vacate [PDF] on behalf of Avvo, one of the 98 sites listed in the attachment to the proposed order. It points out several flaws in the complaint and injunction, the first of which is the obvious statute of limitations violation. Beyond that, the complaint has numerous fatal flaws, including its failure to show how statements made by her ex-boyfriend to the police are somehow false now that she wants them scrubbed from the internet.

It appears Judge Patricia Starr isn't bothered by the plaintiff's questionable legal tactics. The only thing she finds irritating is this case's potential to add to her workload.

Since we filed the papers late yesterday, I received a recording of the telephonic hearing. That recording makes Judge Starr look even worse. The only reason she called the hearing, she said, was that she was worried that the terms of the stipulation could keep the case on her docket longer than it had to be; she wanted to know whether that problem could be fixed. And she wanted assurance that entry of the order would be the end of the case. She evinced no concern about the free speech rights of the absent defendants.

Worse, this free speech-ignoring injunction-granting came after hearing from the single named defendant, who contradicted the claims made in the lawsuit.

McMahon was on the telephone, and he said, toward the end of the very short hearing, “Even though she did these things, I really believe that everybody deserves a fresh start. And if it ever happened to me, I would want someone to do this for myself. So I am okay with that. I guess that I hope she learns her lesson, and she takes care of it and doesn't do it again.” So this state court judge had no compunction about issuing a sweeping injunction against nearly a hundred absent defendants even though the individual defendant, appearing without counsel before her, contradicted the “admission” in the stipulation that the URL’s were entirely or mostly false by saying, “she did these things.”

The court system can be abused by disingenuous plaintiffs seeking to erase their web pasts, but it shouldn't be encouraged by judges who suspect something is off, but are more interested in clearing their dockets.

Filed Under: censorship, defamation, megan welter, reputation management, ryan mcmahon, statute of limitations, takedowns

Fake Libel Court Order Used In (Failed) Attempt To Vanish Sexual Battery Conviction

from the nonsexual-fanatasies dept

People who do not have a legal reason to have content delisted are still trying to trick Google into compliance with various illegal actions. So far, we've seen bogus lawsuits filed by fake plaintiffs against fake defendants, slid by inattentive judges to secure takedown orders. We've seen people trying to limit negative search engine results by forging judge's signatures on fake orders. We've seen people assemble fake news sites to post copies of negative content solely for the purpose of targeting the original posts with fraudulent takedown orders.

Eugene Volokh has dug up another interesting libel takedown order, supposedly issued by a Michigan federal court. It awards the plaintiff, Abraham Motamedi, $5,720 in legal fees and the delisting of sex offender registry-related URLs (only one of which isn't a top-level domain). From the order [PDF]:

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED: that to prevent further or future harm to Plaintiff’s reputation in the community and protect his employment from the dangers of labeling him as a “sex offender”, Plaintiff is awarded a permanent injunction against Defendants … compelling these Defendants to immediately remove any and all sex offender postings of Plaintiff caused by these Defendants, including but not limited to the sex offender postings presently on the following websites:

The plaintiff also is granted a permanent injunction against further posts linking him to sexual offenses.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED: that to prevent further or future harm to Plaintiff’s reputation in the community and protect his employment from the dangers of labeling him as a “sex offender”, Plaintiff is awarded a permanent injunction against Defendants CHARLES RODERICK II, a/k/a Chuck Roderick, an individual, WEB EXPRESS, L.L.C., d/b/a “Online Detective”, an Arizona limited liability company; and, ONLINEDETECTIVE.COM, L.L.C., an Arizona Limited Liability Company compelling these Defendants to refrain from ever posting any similar sex offender posting concerning 5 Plaintiff or otherwise posting defamatory statements concerning Plaintiff on the internet.

Volokh says this was submitted to Google, despite the order naming only the sites listed above. The order doesn't discuss Section 230 once, even though it skips a set of intermediaries in its haste to get to the delisting. But that's really no surprise, considering no judge ever saw a complaint, much less signed their name to this judgment.

There is no Motamedi v. Oesterblad in the Eastern District of Michigan. The case number 2:13-cv-14541 (the number listed in the order) in that district corresponds to a completely different order. There is no Daniel Ro. Markus, the lawyer who, according to the order, was responsible for the case. The order submitted to Google was a forgery, like the ones discussed here (Lichterman and Aukerman), here (Arnstein), and here (Haas).

Nevertheless, Abraham Motamedi insists it's a real court order. Volokh spoke to Motamedi, who claimed the order was legit (despite the case being nonexistent). This isn't necessarily an indication Motamedi crafted the completely-fake court order. It could mean some shady reputation management company did it on his behalf. But considering Motamedi never expressed any hesitance about his assertions, it's safe to assume he's well aware this isn't legitimate.

Additional weirdness: the criminal conviction Motamedi is trying to make vanish was handed down in Idaho and he now apparently lives in Nevada. Where Michigan factors into all of this is a mystery, although I suppose completely fake court documents don't have to adhere to any sort of jurisdictional limits.

As more evidence of forged/fake court documents is uncovered, it's crucial that that intermediaries pay close attention to any supposed court order they receive. Failing to give these documents additional scrutiny will only encourage further abuse.

Filed Under: abraham matamedi, censorship, defamation, fake court order, free speech, reputation management, seo

Failure As A Service: Reputation Defenders Batting .000 Against Google's DMCA Team

from the 'well,-at-first-sucking-at-stuff-was-just-a-hobby...' dept

Yet another person is trying to abuse the DMCA takedown system to bury criticism. "Trying" is the key word here. So is "failing," because that's all "Reputation Defenders" has done so far. Since December 2015, Reputation Defenders has issued at least 38 DMCA notices. And to date (its latest request was May 23, 2017), it has yet to see Google delist a single URL.

There's no information to help track down this inept defender of reputations. It could be the one promoted in this YouTube video. Or it could be this former trucker turned reputation management guru. Ultimately, it probably doesn't matter.

The attempted takedowns -- with few exceptions -- target Ripoff Report. The first few efforts start with a very basic assertion of very questionable "facts."

We own the copyrighted names of "Barewire" and "www.http://www.barewire.us" and "Barewire Ltd"

Unlikely. This would be a trademark issue, not a copyright one. And even if it were a copyright issue (and it isn't), someone using a company name to complain about said company isn't, and never has been, copyright (or trademark) infringement.

After a few failures, Reputation Defender changed tactics. Maybe the problem was too few bogus assertions.

We own the copyrighted names anjd phrases: Gino Parker Gino Parker Houston Gino Parker Texas Gino John Industrial Surplus Gino Parker Oil City Surplus shawn Parker Oil City Surplus Rocky Mitchell Oil City Surplus Jimmy John Oil City Surplus Steve John Oil City Surplus Mark John Oil City Surplus shawn Parker Industrial Surplus Rocky Mitchell Industrial Surplus Jimmy John Industrial Surplus Steve John Industrial Surplus Mark John Industrial Surplus Gino John United Surplus Buyers Gino Parker United Surplus Buyers shawn Parker United Surplus Buyers Rocky Mitchell United Surplus Buyers Jimmy John United Surplus Buyers Steve John United Surplus Buyers Mark John United Surplus Buyers This page is using my personal name, company name and personal details without my permission or consent and they are breaking the law under the 1998 European Data protection act. Specifically the clause " not use the data in ways that have unjustified adverse effects on the individuals concerned" this is having an "unjustified adverse effects" on me and my business. The claims made on the page are also completely false.

Again, at best a trademark issue, and even so, no infringement occurred when any Gino Parker variation was used to criticize Geno Parker and his business(es). That includes the UK Data Protection Act Gino Parker/Reputation Defenders quote directly (but somehow fail to correctly name), which has nothing to do with online reviews, but rather the handling of personal information gathered by private companies. Ripoff Report isn't British and the personal data it gathers would be that of reviewers on its site, not those reviewed.

Some time after that, Reputation Defenders apparently viewed the Facebook "take back your copyright" hoax and decided it was what this... um... business model was missing.

We own the copyrighted name of Keith Cleversley. The www.ripoffreport.com page is using my company name and details without my permission or consent and they are breaking the 1988 Berne convention copyright law that USA and Canada signed up for in 1988. Specifically the clause" not use the data in ways that have unjustified adverse effects on the individuals concerned" this is having an "unjustified adverse effects" on me and my business. The claims made on the page are also completely false.

The infamous Berne Convention, which is continually quoted by people who know nothing about intellectual property law but are pretty sure it must forbid stuff they don't like. This DMCA notice is twice as stupid because it cites the Berne Convention but quotes the UK Data Protection Act.

Shortly thereafter, Reputation Defenders' notices drop the Data Protection Act wording but retain the moronic Berne Convention claims, presumably in hopes that it might luck into some wholly-unearned wins in the delisting column.

We own the copyright of Clear Flow Water Solutions. The www.ripoffreport.com page is using my company name and details without our permission or consent and they are breaking the 1988 Berne convention copyright law that USA and Canada signed up for in 1988.

To be sure, this is abuse of the system. But it can probably be chalked up to stupidity, rather than malice. We can only hope that those who've retained Reputation Defenders' "services" are only obligated to pay for results.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, reputation management, takedowns
Companies: reputation defender

Paul Levy Hoping To Wake Up Maryland Courts To The Numerous Fraudulent Libel Lawsuits Filed There

from the so-far,-very-little-interest-in-performing-actual-judge-work dept

Something's rotten in Maryland. Not conspiracy-level rotten, but rotten nonetheless. As we've discussed recently, Paul Alan Levy (along with Eugene Volokh) have done a ton of legwork to flush out the perpetrator of several bogus libel lawsuits filed in Baltimore courts, designed for the purpose of "reputation management" (i.e., convincing Google to stop linking to posts someone doesn't like). The man behind many of these appears to be Richart Ruddie, who runs a reputation management company called Profile Defenders.

As we discussed earlier this week, one of the judges in Baltimore handling one of those cases has refused to fix things and overturn his rubber-stamped order. But there are other, similar cases in front of other judges there as well, and they seem equally unwilling to make proactive efforts to deter this sort of abuse. Because of this, Levy has worked with Myvesta (a company indirectly affected by a bogus libel lawsuit, thanks to bogus delisting orders targeting one of its websites) to file an amicus brief detailing Ruddie's fraudulent reputation management efforts.

We had several reasons for filing an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs’ motion to vacate. First, it seemed to us that the motion to vacate understated the extent of the fraud that had been perpetrated on the court — it did not frankly admit that Bryan Levin was an invented name created for the purpose of justifying the consent order, and it did not admit that the consent order sought the plaintiffs’ objective — suppression of critical articles — by the device of suing over allegedly defamatory comments. The motion did not admit that in additional to victimizing the court by the fraud, the person who arranged for the case to be filed was actually victimizing a speaker whose rights are protected by the First Amendment, and the motion did not call the consent order by its proper name — a prior restraint of protected speech.

But the problem goes much deeper than the case Myvesta's involved in. Ruddie had a lot of extremely sketchy irons in the court's fire. Levy wants to ensure this case isn't seen as a one-and-done.

A second reason for submitting the amicus brief was to ensure that the judge not hear this motion to vacate judgment in isolation – we know of a raft of other cases like Smith v. Levin that were filed in the Maryland courts and, in particular, in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Some of these other cases also sought relief suppressing other articles on the Get Out of Debt Guy blog, in the apparent interest of other debt relief companies that the blog had criticized. Our brief identifies several other such cases, and Professor Volokh’s research has identified several more.

The filing [PDF] reveals many more details about Ruddie's scamtastic lawsuits, as well as lawyer Bennett Wills' apparent participation in the fraudulent filings. (Wills, who works for Ruddie client Rescue One, has claimed he never knowingly engaged in fraudulent behavior.)

[I]t has come to Myvesta’s attention that Bennett Wills has filed two additional “fake lawsuits” in Maryland circuit courts that are comparable to this case. Visionstar, Inc. v. Perez, No. 24C15005743 (Cir. Ct. Balt. City); Cohen v. Wilkerson, No. 06C15070022 (Cir. Ct. Carroll Cy). (Copies of these two complaints are attached). The papers use very similar language, and an investigation conducted by a private detective retained by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh to assist in his investigation of the phenomenon of fake litigation established that, as in this case, neither of the two individuals who were named as defendants and whose signatures appear on the consent orders live at the addresses shown for them. See attached Declaration of Giles Miller. Moreover, both cases show obvious signs of being fake: the signatures of defendants “Mark Wilkerson” and “Daniel Perez” appear to have been written by the same hand; and the very carefully handwritten signature of “Mark Wilkerson” spells his name as “Wilerkson.”

And in the Visionstar case, the allegation in paragraph 13 about the IP address from which the supposedly defamatory reviews were posted to the Ripoff Report website is a highly implausible. Generally speaking, a subpoena can be issued in connection with a case seeking to identify the poster of an anonymous comment, but that is something that happens after the complaint is filed, not something that can be listed in the complaint. Undersigned counsel has contacted inside counsel for Xcentric Ventures, the company that operates Ripoff Report, and ascertained that his client has never received any subpoena to identify the anonymous author of the reports cited in the Visionstar complaint; that attorney also represented that he checked the IP addresses for the reports cited in the complaint, and that none of them was associated with the address 12.4.33.71 as the complaint alleges.

Levy points out Ruddie's preferred legal venue is likely due to the fact that his business (what's left of it) is located in that area. It would be very unlikely for so many defendants to be located in the Baltimore area, given the worldwide nature of the internet, but somehow these plaintiffs keep finding anonymous commenters right in Ruddie's backyard. (And with record speed, too. In Ruddie's faux lawsuits, commenters are usually unmasked within a few days of a lawsuit's filing, all without subpoenas or court orders demanding the identifying info behind IP addresses and pseudonyms.)

Ruddie's probably not filing any more bogus lawsuits -- at least not while he's under investigation by the US Attorney's office. But there are likely more fraudulently-obtained court orders out there still needing to be vacated. And, as long as the court appears inattentive, there's an open invitation for similarly-minded reputation managers to see if they can sneak a few bogus injunction requests past Baltimore judges.

Filed Under: baltimore, defamation, judges, paul levy, reputation management, richart ruddie
Companies: myvesta

Judge Refuses To Fix His Rubber-Stamping Of A Fraudulently-Requested Court Order

from the it's-just-a-little-prior-restraint dept

Over the past year or so, we've seen reputation management efforts slide into even shadier territory. Apparently frustrated by Google's unwillingness to humor bogus DMCA notices, rep management con artists began fraudulently obtaining court orders to get content delisted. The process involved fake defendants, fake plaintiffs, and, occasionally, fake lawyers. In one particular case, it involved forged judges signatures.

Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen, along with Eugene Volokh (of The Conspiracy), have performed some masterful detective work to uncover at least one of the people behind this new wave of fraudulent delistings. Richart Ruddie, who has already been hit with a $70,000 settlement in one of his bogus libel lawsuits, appears to be reluctant to live up to the terms of the deal he struck with Levy. According to that, Ruddie -- who is under investigation by the US Attorney's office -- was to start withdrawing his bogus lawsuits.

As Levy points out in a recent blog post, Ruddie still has open cases in the Baltimore court system. A libel lawsuit featuring irked dentist Mitul Patel and supposed defamer Matthew Chan has yet to be dumped by Ruddie. Unfortunately, the presiding judge -- despite being provided with considerable evidence of fraudulent behavior -- doesn't appear to be interested in correcting his rubber-stamping of Patel's bogus injunction request.

In Patel v. Chan, the very first case in which Ruddie's involvement in phony consent litigation was discovered, Matthew Chan moved pro se to lift the consent order entered to try to suppress his reviews. That motion was filed on September 1, 2016, and as of the time last month when I began work on our amicus brief, Judge Philip Senan Jackson, who had been hoodwinked into signing the phony consent order, had not yet ruled on the motion — a patently invalid prior restraint was left sitting on the books for nearly eight months after the judge who issued it was informed that there was no basis for his order.

Hey, it's only a Constitutional violation. I guess it can wait. But it gets worse than simply ignoring the problem. Levy and Chan produced plenty of evidence of fraudulent behavior by Ruddie in this bogus lawsuit -- including the use of a bogus defendant, a bogus affidavit signed by the bogus defendant, and a nonexistent physical address (which I guess makes sense, what with the defendant being nonexistent). The other side has produced nothing because it has nothing.

Rather than undo his unconstitutional oversight, the judge has denied Chan's motion to vacate the judgment, apparently over some filing technicality that appears to be also nonexistent. (Here's a link to the rule cited by the judge in his denial of the motion.)

Late last week, that situation took a turn for the worse: a one-page order from Judge Jackson denied the motion to vacate on the ground that the affidavit supporting Chan’s motion was not attested in the manner required by the Maryland rules. This ruling is inexplicable – the affidavit was sworn before a notary (see the last page here). I contacted several Maryland lawyers who practice in state court and asked them about this attestation; each told me told me that, as far as they could tell, this was a proper verification of the affidavit. And even if the judge found some defect in the order, there were plenty of exhibits attached to the motion, not to speak of a separate filing by an attorney for Mitul Patel, agreeing that the complaint filed in his name had been submitted to the court without his authorization, and bore a forged signature. Several Maryland lawyers to whom I provided the affidavit shared my reaction – what could Judge Jackson possibly be thinking?

Lots of things come to mind, none of which make Judge Jackson appear qualified to hold this position of power. Maybe the judge doesn't like hearing he made mistakes. Maybe he's hoping this will all blow over and he can continue to make the same mistakes in the future. One thing is clear: Jackson's refusal to address fraud on his own court will ensure his court will be the venue of choice for like-minded fraudsters.

Filed Under: defamation, matthew chan, philip senan jackson, reputation management, richart ruddie

More Shady Libel Lawsuits Resulting In Dubious Delisting Court Orders Uncovered

from the self-serve-RTBF dept

Now that Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy has dipped into bogus lawsuits and DMCA notices targeting supposedly-libelous reviews and comments, he's apparently stepped up his detective work. Volokh and Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen managed to expose the person behind a series of bogus lawsuits aimed at cleaning up clients' search engine reputations. (Pissed Consumer has also uncovered some of the same tactics.)

Volokh has uncovered more questionable lawsuits, which have led to more questionable court orders being sent to Google to delist content. As Volokh points out, these lawsuits may be slightly more legitimate, but they still bypass a great deal of the adversarial process.

Here’s another twist, which some people have used to try to deindex mainstream news articles (though without any success, to my knowledge, because Google seems skeptical of these particular requests) — they (a) sue the people quoted in the articles, (b) get stipulations from the people recanting their allegations, (c) get court orders based on those recantations and then (d) try to use those court orders to deindex an entire article.

Even if it's granted that the stipulations are genuine (a possibility, but not a probability), there's still the problem of who's being cut out of the loop. While it's true the correct target for a libel lawsuit is the person making the defamatory statements, filing lawsuits in such a way that the publications themselves remain unaware of the legal proceedings can harm these new entities indirectly. When content starts vanishing from Google, news sources are left with unlisted stories based on questionable assertions. Their integrity suffers damage when they're not made aware a story's source may have lied to them.

When a plaintiff sues the source, though, gets a stipulation and submits the order to Google with a deindexing request, the plaintiff is trying to short-circuit the news organization’s review of the matter. Instead, the plaintiff wants to just get the original story hidden, with no independent evaluation of whether the story was and continues to be correct.

There's no review option and the continued publication of the story could possibly see the new organization facing a defamation lawsuit of its own. (Probably not a successful one, but one it would still be compelled to defend itself against.) Not only that, but individuals may be more susceptible to legal bullying than new agencies. This is perhaps what these plaintiffs are counting on.

Volokh covers two different cases following the same M.O. in his post. Both plaintiffs managed to obtain a stipulation from the alleged defamers and obtained court orders to delist content, despite there never being an examination as to whether the statements were truly actionable. To its credit, Google has refused to delist content based on court orders obtained this way, most likely due to the recent increase in bogus libel lawsuit activity.

As I mentioned, fortunately today Google (and other search engines to which these orders are submitted) can decline to implement such deindexing requests, taking the view that a stipulated judgment based on a source’s recanting (under legal pressure) is no reason to vanish a news story that relied on the source.

Unfortunately, Google's "opt out" may not last for long. As Volokh points out, the California Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case that could, if the lower court's decision is upheld, force Google to comply with these orders, whether or not they were obtained legitimately.

Filed Under: defamation, libel, reputation management, search listings, seo

If You're Going To Forge A Fake Court Order To Delete Search Results, Maybe Don't Choose A Prenda Case

from the just-a-tip dept

Eugene Volokh, just recently teamed up with Paul Levy to track down who was behind a scam abusing the court system with forged or fraudulent court documents to get questionable or fake court orders to force Google to takedown links. It's a sketchy (and illegal) "reputation management" trick and it appears that at least a few folks are doing it. Volokh has just spotted another one and it comes with a Prenda Law twist. Volokh nicely sums up the background info leading up to this:

Ken Haas is a member of a New Britain (Conn.) city commission, the Commission on Conservation, appointed by Mayor Erin Stewart. Several months ago, he got into a public controversy with local activist Robert Berriault — allegedly, when someone got in a Facebook political spat with Haas, he responded by writing, “You do know I have access to ALL city records, including criminal and civil, right???” Berriault took that to be a threat that Haas would misuse that access for political purposes and wrote about this on the New Britain Independent site, as well as in a not-much-noticed change.org petition calling for Haas’s removal. (Since then, Berriault has announced his candidacy for the New Britain city council.)

And then, things get interesting. First, someone sent Google a notice asking it to take that Berriault story out of Google, and sent with it a "court order" in a supposed case between Haas and Berriault. You can see that "Haas v. Berriault" court order, but you may notice some oddities. The case claims to be in the "Sate" (not State) of Connecticut Superior Court:

It's also in front of a Judge John W. Darrah. And the case number is 1:13-cv-01569. So there are some problems here. The "Sate" typo is a give away, but there is no Judge Darrah on the Connecticut court. There is one in US federal court in Illinois. And if you look on PACER in the federal court records, and look at 1:13-cv-01569 in the Norther District of Illinois, it happens to be... a case that we covered. It was the infamous Paul Duffy defamation case. Duffy, the "third wheel" to John Steele and Paul Hansmeier in the Prenda Law scheme, had sued a bunch of online critics for defamation, but the case focused on Alan Cooper (John Steele's former house caretaker, whose signature Steele is accused of forging) and Cooper's lawyer, Paul Godfried. Either way, it looks like the document that someone used as the "template" (including the Judge Darrah signature) came from the Duffy v. Godfried case.

That was a crazy case for a whole bunch of reasons, but it also got a ton of public attention. If you're going to fake a court document, maybe don't take one that is on a widely known case that got a lot of attention and is partly about forging legal documents? It's like trying to pick a disguise to be inconspicuous in committing a crime, and dressing up like Hitler. People are going to notice, and they're going to remember.

As Volokh notes, it's not clear if Haas himself forged the document. It's entirely possible he hired a reputation management firm who did something along those lines. Or, maybe there's another explanation... but there really are only a small number of people who might benefit from this kind of thing:

Who submitted the forged order to Google? Commissioner Haas seems the likeliest intended beneficiary of the forgery and the takedown request, and his name (spelled as Ken Hass) was used on the takedown request. But it is of course possible that this was done by someone else, whether someone hired by Haas (with or without knowledge of what would be done) or someone else. I called Haas to ask about what happened here, but he told me he had no comment.

Anyway, forging a court order using a federal judge's signature from another case is, well, a bad idea. I'd imagine it's kind of worse than having someone publicly expose your threat to go through someone else's city records. In an update, Volokh also notes that Haas also went to the police about Berriault over his posts, only to have the cops explain that it's not a criminal act to state your opinion:

If you can't read that, the report is from the police explaining Haas' complaint about Berriault's internet posts and how he "just wants Berriault to lighten up" as well as a conversation with Berriault, followed by this:

I advised Haas that this was not a criminal act and that Berriault had every right to voice his opinion. I advised Haas that when you choose a career in politics that harsh criticism comes with the territory. Haas stated that he understood.

Of course, forging a court order with a federal judge's signature does seem a lot more like a criminal act. And someone appears to have done that.

Filed Under: connecticut, court order, eugene volokh, forgery, john darrah, ken haas, reputation management, robert berriault
Companies: prenda, prenda law

Filing Bogus Lawsuits As Part Of A 'Reputation Management' Strategy Costs Firm $71,000

from the making-the-internet-worse-by-making-the-judicial-system-worse dept

Because abusing the DMCA process only goes so far, some reputation management entities have begun exploiting an inattentive legal system to push lawsuits past judges. In some cases, these suits have featured fake plaintiffs filing bogus libel lawsuits against fake defendants and using a fake affidavit to fraudulently obtain court orders requiring Google to delist URLs.

Those engaged in this fraudulent behavior aren't likely to get away with it for much longer. Paul Alan Levy and Eugene Volokh managed to track down the person behind one set of bogus lawsuits and get the presiding judge to take a closer look at the bogus documents he was being handed. Pissed Consumer has also been reporting on others using the same MO, and has headed to court to get these suits examined and tossed.

The end of line for supposed reputation manager Richart Ruddie came at the hands of Volokh and Levy, with the judge granting discovery to the defendant after being apprised of the apparently fraudulent filings. Now that Richart Ruddie of Profile Defenders has been exposed, it looks as though he's given up the fight. Levy reports Ruddie has settled anti-SLAPP claims brought against him and is paying restitution for his reputation mismanagement.

The deal has now been signed, the $71,000 settlement sum has been paid in full, and the settlement agreement filed with the court along with a proposed order under which the Judge Smith would retain jurisdiction to enforce Ruddie’s obligation to move to get the fraudulent state court orders lifted, as well as to ensure that the former customers (that is to say, Smith, Rescue One Financial, and Financial Rescue) cooperate in Ruddie’s efforts in that regard. Their cooperation will likely be needed because they, not Ruddie, were the plaintiffs in the state-court litigation and hence the motions to lift the orders will have to be made in the names of those parties companies. It appears at the moment that the threat of being dragged back into the Rhode Island anti-SLAPP litigation has been sufficient to induce the companies and Smith to allow counsel retained by Ruddie to proceed in their names to get the fraudulent order lifted.

While that helps the defendant and partially takes care of Ruddie's liability (not to mention acts as a deterrent against future efforts of this sort), it doesn't do much to deter the other parties listed, who apparently knew Ruddie's courtroom efforts were shady and may have been fully complicit in the fraud. This settlement leaves them pretty much unscathed. There's still the possibility more fees are on their way from others involved in Ruddie's black hat SEO BS. But for now, it's all in Ruddie's name.

Levy's post provides a ton of background info behind the settlement he just collected, including this wonderful paragraph, in which an opposing lawyer claims Levy has an "ethical" obligation to put the opposition's interests ahead of his own.

Apparently, Hirschhorn [attorney for Richart Ruddie representing him for a criminal investigation brought by the state at the request of Judge Smith] was sharing some of the details of our negotiations, because when Rescue One [Ruddie's SEO client] lawyer Michael Mallow learned that I was still pursuing his client’s liability for an anti-SLAPP violation, he hit the roof. He demanded that I call him and, when I did, he began yelling into the telephone that it was my ethical responsibility to reach a complete settlement with Ruddie so that his client would not have to produce any documents. He brought Hirschhorn into the call and demanded that I give Hirschhorn a settlement number that included claims against his clients as well as Ruddie. When I explained that I did not have any basis to set a proposed compensatory damages figure because I had not completed a sufficient analysis to specify a number that I felt I could defend in litigation, Mallow said that this didn’t matter and that I should just make up a number so that there could be a settlement. Hirschhorn indicated that he would take a specific number with that disclaimer; when I articulated a number that was considerably higher than what Hirschhorn said he could get from his client, Mallow told me that it was possible that his own client might contribute to the settlement, but “if that happens you will never know.” That is, the deal would be structured to give his client deniability of any responsibility for the fraud.

The whole post by Levy is amazing and should be read in its entirety to get a better grasp on the cast of characters in this courtroom charade. It initially appeared as though Ruddie's reputation management scheme consisted of filing bogus lawsuits without his SEO clients' knowledge. That no longer appears to be the case. At least a couple of his clients appear to have known exactly how this was being handled and had zero problem with participating in Ruddie's fraudulent filings. The settlement may be an attempt to staunch Ruddie's bleeding, but it's pretty difficult to pitch reputation management services when yours is swirling the drain.

Filed Under: defamation, fake lawsuits, reputation management, richart ruddie
Companies: profile defenders