Guy Who Forged A Court Order To Delist Content Issues More Bogus Takedown Notices To Remove Posts Discussing His Forgery

from the when-your-logic-is-a-flat-circle dept

The wholly-expected has occurred as a result of Eugene Volokh's exposure of bogus takedown demands targeting unflattering content -- like criminal complaints and factual news articles detailing criminal acts. The Volokh Conspiracy has been targeted by two bogus takedown requests by the same party who engaged in the bogus takedown requests Volokh previously wrote about.

The first one received targeted a post of Volokh's hosted at the Washington Post. Hilariously, it claims Volokh is the real troll here.

A group of trolls/rivals are continually targeting us and creating copied content to bully, defame, and threaten our business and staff. Also, there is same content has been posted on different sites. The respective links of the copied content are mentioned below.

That's not what DMCA notices are for, even if any of these assertions were true. But none of it is true, starting from word one. The publication of a criminal complaint cannot be defamatory, and in no way did Volokh "bully" or "threaten" Don Lichterman, who previously forged a court order to try to remove content detailing him being sued for copyright infringement. Volokh covered this case, as he has several others where the same tactics (forged court documents) have been used.

The DMCA notice doesn't even claim there's been any copyright infringement. I guess that's a good thing, considering one of the URLs targeted links to the criminal complaint filed against Lichterman for forging a court order.

The second notice is a bit more on point, even though it's no more honest than the first one. This one is a delisting request tied to a court order, so there's no abuse of the DMCA process. That being said, the court order doesn't say what Lichterman wants it to say. Here's Volokh's summation of the second bogus takedown attempt.

As best I can tell, the theory behind the deindexing request is that this order somehow requires that Mr. Lichterman's name be redacted from the Criminal Complaint, and that therefore my post, which links to a copy of the complaint, should be deindexed. But of course nothing in this order so requires: It appears that the court ordered that the presentence report remain sealed (as is normal with such reports), and required the removal of information from certain "sentencing submissions" -- but it says nothing about the Criminal Complaint, which is a public document. (The Complaint was originally filed under seal, but was unsealed a few weeks later, as the prosecution began.)

The Lumen Database's post of the takedown request sums up the problem with this request a little more succinctly (although it's unclear whether Google added this or Lumen did):

This Judgment does not apply to search engine providers, including Google Inc.

Not only is Lichterman wrong about the contents of the court order (perhaps deliberately wrong), but he's wrong about who it actually affects. Lichterman is unclear about a lot of things and seems to assume just forwarding a court order referencing sealed documents should be enough to push Google into action.

But these tactics have been used too often to be effective anymore. Multiple sites have covered fraudulent takedown notices -- some including forged court documents and others involving entirely falsified lawsuits snuck past inattentive judges. A rogue strain of "reputation management" emerged over the last few years -- one that operates using nothing but disreputable tactics. Google is paying more attention to claims targeting press coverage of criminal actions or other unflattering content and, for the most part, has refused to humor these bogus requests.

All Don Lichterman has succeeded in doing here is draw more attention to his prosecution for forging court documents. He's only bullying himself.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, defamation, dmca, don lichterman, eugene volokh, fake lawsuits, takedowns
Companies: google

Bar Complaint Filed Against Lawyers Who Participated In Bogus Lawsuits Targeting Fake Defendants

from the more-water-on-the-grease-fire-that-is-the-reputation-management-business dept

The reputation management tactic of filing bogus defamation lawsuits may be slowly coming to an end, but there will be a whole lot of reputational damage to be spread among those involved by the time all is said and done.

Richart Ruddie, proprietor of Profile Defenders, filed several lawsuits in multiple states fraudulently seeking court orders for URL delistings. The lawsuits featured fake plaintiffs, fake defendants, and fake admissions of guilt from the fake defendants. Some judges issued judgments without a second thought. Others had second thoughts but they were identical to their first one. And some found enough evidence of fraud to pass everything on to the US Attorney's office.

But Ruddie couldn't do all of this himself. He needed lawyers. And now those lawyers are facing a bar complaint for assisting Ruddie (and possibly others) in fraudulent behavior. Eugene Volokh has more details at the relocated (and paywall-free!) Volokh Conspiracy.

The Arizona lawsuits... were filed by lawyers Aaron Kelly and Daniel Warner of Kelly / Warner Law, a prominent Internet libel law firm (though some were also linked to Richart Ruddie, Profile Defenders, and a company connected to Profile Defenders).

These two attorneys are now facing a bar complaint because of their actions in the Chinnock v. Ivanski case, another lawsuit with fraudulent legal documents. These were delivered to the court by Kelly and Warner, with their apparent approval of the fraudulent contents. The bar complaint [PDF] details the many falsifications in the lawsuit documents, including the faking of notary public signatures.

[40.] The complaint states Ivanski resides in Turkey and Chinnock resides in Colorado. The complaint states, "[t]he parties purposefully availed themselves of the benefits of Arizona law," but does not explain how the state courts in Arizona have jurisdiction to hear the matter....

[42.] Respondent Warner knew that Krista Ivanski is not a real person. Krista Ivanski was fabricated to serve as defendant in the matter.

[43.] Respondent Warner knew that Krista Ivanski did not post the 38 allegedly defamatory statements.

[44.] Respondent Warner knew that the 38 allegedly defamatory statements were not posted by the same person.

[45.] Respondent Warner knew that legal action regarding many of the allegedly defamatory statements was barred by the [Arizona one-year] statute of limitations ....

[46.] Alternatively, if Respondent Warner did not know the information in paragraphs 42-45, Respondent Warner failed to investigate the matter prior to filing the complaint.

[...]

[50.] The proposed order is signed by Ivanski and notarized by Amanda Sparks, a notary from Fulton County, Georgia. The Plaintiff's Verification attached to the original complaint and signed by Chinnock was also notarized in Fulton County, Georgia. According to the complaint, neither Ivanski nor Chinnock reside in Georgia.

[51.] There is no notary in Fulton County named Amanda Sparks. A search performed via the Georgia Superior Court Clerk's Cooperative Authority notary search shows no notary in Fulton County named Amanda Sparks. The notarization by Amanda Sparks is a forgery.

[52.] Respondent Warner knew that the notarization by "Amanda Sparks" from Fulton County, Georgia, was a forgery or failed to investigate the matter prior to filing the document.

And that's just the first of two forgeries included in documents in this case. The second forgery also pertains to a fake notary public in yet another state.

54.] The proposed Amended Order For Permanent Injunction is signed by Ivanski and notarized by "Samantha Pierce," a notary from Colorado. According to the complaint, Chinnock resides in Colorado while Ivanski resides in Turkey.

[55.] There is no notary in Colorado named Samantha Pierce. A notary search performed via the Colorado Secretary of State's website returns "no records found" for notary Samantha Pierce. The notarization by Samantha Pierce is a forgery.

[56.] The notary ID used by Samantha Pierce is 20121234567. The sample notary seal displayed on the Colorado Secretary of State's general notary information page uses notary ID 20121234567.

This is not the end of the complaint's allegations. It also alleges Aaron Kelly's case (Lynd v. Hood) involved fake notarization and fake defendants. The same goes for Gottuso v. Marks, which was handled by Aaron Kelly and involved a fictitious defendant. And so it continues for several more cases handled by Kelly and Warner. It also details a case handled by this law firm involving Richart Ruddie directly. The connection between Ruddie and the law firm goes beyond falsified documents. In this case, Ruddie was targeting posts critical of the Kelly / Warner law firm hosted at Ripoff Report but pretended the posts targeted Ruddie himself.

The lawsuit filed by Ruddie was fraudulent. Jake Kirschner did not post the allegedly defamatory statements. At least one of the statements was posted by an individual named Charles Roderick.

The allegedly defamatory statements are about Respondent Warner, not about Ruddie as alleged in the complaint.

Ruddie filed a fraudulent lawsuit to remove online criticism of his business associate Respondent Daniel Warner.

Respondent Warner knew that Ruddie filed the fraudulent lawsuit to achieve Respondent Warner's goal of removing the online criticism without having to prove the elements of defamation.

Multiple violations of attorney rules of conduct are alleged. So far, it's nothing more than a complaint and is still in need of review by a disciplinary judge. Questions will be raised about Kelly and Warner's complicity in these fraudulent lawsuit schemes. Kelly / Warner have already released a statement claiming the named lawyers knew nothing about the fraudulent claims contained in the documents they served to the court, nor are they required to. (Emphasis in the original.)

Internet defamation attorneys cannot and will not be held to a higher standard of care than normal attorneys. After a quick reading of the ethical rules, the comments thereto, and a case filed by the Texas Attorney General against a reputation management company, it should be evident to any reasonable person that the old saying, “where there is smoke, there is fire” is not necessarily true in the digital age today.

“An advocate is responsible for pleadings and other documents prepared for litigation, but is usually not required to have personal knowledge of matters asserted therein, for litigation documents ordinarily present assertions by the client, or by someone on the client’s behalf, and not assertions by the lawyer.” ER 3.3 cmt 3 (emphasis added).

“The prohibition against offering false evidence only applies if the lawyer knows that the evidence is false. [And] [a] lawyer’s reasonable belief that evidence is false does not preclude its presentation to the trier of fact.” See ER 3.3 cmt 8. “[A] lawyer should resolve doubts about the veracity of testimony or other evidence in favor of the client . . . .” Id. Although the firm practices far within and from “the line,” the comments to the ethical rules indicate that “the line” extends rather far.

So, the law firm is claiming to be another victim of a shady reputation management firm engaged in fraudulent lawsuits for the purposes of removing critical posts from the internet. This defensive statement may let readers know just how far attorneys can wander from due diligence without being slapped with sanctions, but doesn't do much to assure readers the law firm won't turn a blind eye to sketchy legal paperwork if the price is right. The post also throws some shade at Eugene Volokh and Paul Alan Levy with its final sentence, asking clients to let the law firm know if they are contacted by "alleged 'reporters.'"

While this plays out, we can expect the flow of bogus lawsuits to continue to slow. These tactics flew under the radar for a few years, but there are multiple private entities actively engaged in tracking down perpetrators. In addition, the issue has gone federal thanks to a Connecticut judge's decision to forward allegations to the US Attorney's office. I get that people are often disappointed Section 230 immunity doesn't allow them to demand delisting of content they personally find objectionable. The problem isn't with disappointed people, but rather the sketchy reputation management firms that promise (and bill for) stuff they can't legally deliver.

Filed Under: aaron kelly, daniel warner, defamation, fake lawsuits, libel, reputation management, richart ruddie, takedowns
Companies: kelly / warner law, profile defenders

Company CEO Pleads Guilty After Forging Judge's Signatures On Bogus Court Orders Sent To Google

from the SEO-suicide dept

Earlier this spring, a jewelry company CEO earned himself a federal indictment for his bespoke reputation management efforts. Realizing it was extremely difficult to erase negative reviews from the net, National Sapphire Company boss Michael Arnstein took one such reviewer to court. He was awarded an injunction after the defendant no-showed, resulting in the delisting of 54 URLs.

But the negative reviews kept coming. Rather than hire a lawyer and bring more defamation suits, Arnstein opted for the initially less-costly option: mocking up delisting orders and forging a judge's signature. This apparently worked well enough Arnstein felt comfortable sharing his fraudulent tactics with others. This swaggering, inculpatory statement was included in the federal complaint.

"No bullshit: if I could do it all over again I would have found another court order injunction for removal of links (probably something that can be found online pretty easily) made changes in photoshop to show the links that I wanted removed and then sent to 'removals@google.com' as a pdf — showing the court order docket number, the judges [sic] signature — but with the new links put in," Arnstein wrote in a July 2014 email, according to his criminal complaint. "Google isn't checking this stuff; that's the bottom line b/c I spent $30,000 fuckin thousand dollars and nearly 2 fuckin years to do what legit could have been done for about 6 hours of searching and photoshop by a guy for $200., all in ONE DAY".

The DOJ -- aided greatly by Arnstein generating plenty of evidence against himself -- pulled the trigger on a federal indictment. And, thanks to several other cases of rep management firms defrauding courts, Google is indeed "checking this stuff," limiting the effectiveness of impersonating judges and/or sliding bogus paperwork past them.

Arnstein has now pled guilty to a conspiracy charge, the DOJ reports.

ARNSTEIN, 40, of Kailua, Hawaii, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to forge a judicial signature, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The maximum potential sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.

And one more bit of schadenfreude:

Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said: "As he admitted today, Michael Arnstein exploited the authority of the federal judiciary in a blatantly criminal scheme. By forging court orders and the signature of a U.S. District Judge, Arnstein was able to effectively erase websites critical of Arnstein's business from its search results. Now Arnstein awaits sentencing in the same court he impersonated."

Some sympathy is warranted for those hoping to battle negative reviews. Even illegitimate negative reviews can be close to impossible to remove from the web. But if the system seems unfair, it has to be. Making it easier to remove bogus reviews would just make it easier for companies/individuals who've earned every acidic word in their negative reviews to scrub the web of bad things.

The internet may be a well-oiled hate machine, but it's also a handy source of reference for customers who want to emerge unscathed from interactions with providers of goods and services. Easy delistings would turn the web into a cheery place where every company appears to exceed expectations, even as they screw their customers over.

Filed Under: doj, fake court orders, fake lawsuits, michael arnstein, reputation management, seo
Companies: national sapphire company

Bogus Lawsuit-Slinging Rep Management Firm Sued By Pissed Consumer

from the if-you-can't-do-it-right,-why-not-do-it-fraudulently? dept

Solvera -- a reputation management firm allegedly engaging in legal fraud to delist criticism -- is facing multiple legal problems as a result of its highly-questionable services. In late August, the Texas Attorney General filed a complaint against the company, alleging it defrauded courts by filing bogus defamation lawsuits on behalf of possibly-unaware clients, utilizing duped lawyers with bogus statements from fake defendants.

This sort of behavior has been uncovered in recent months through investigations by Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen and lawprof/blogger Eugene Volokh. It has also been revealed through independent research by Pissed Consumer, an obvious target of these unsavory (and illegal) reputation management tactics.

Pissed Consumer is also going against Solvera. It has sued the company in Contra Costa County, California -- Solvera's backyard -- along with a number of other firms in the reputation management business and the companies they've created to act as plaintiffs in bogus defamation lawsuits.

It's pretty much identical to the lawsuit Pissed Consumer filed last year against a number of defendants, including the lawyers whose name appeared on the bogus paperwork: Mark Lapham and Owen Mascott. The previous lawsuit referenced Nevada Corporate Headquarters -- the apparent origin point of some of these bogus lawsuits -- but the latest adds Solvera as a defendant.

It also places much of the alleged blame on the embattled rep management firm. From the filing [PDF]:

Plaintiff is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that Defendant Solvera Group, Inc. (“Solvera”) is a California corporation incorporated under the laws of California, and orchestrated some or all of these schemes of fake litigation to remove consumer reviews.

The allegations are repeated numerous times, thanks to the long list of defendants. But here's one rundown of the rep management scam, apparently involving Solvera and the two California lawyers.

Plaintiff is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that Defendant Solvera or Doe Corporation, operating as a reputation management company, conceived of the plan and organized the cooperation of Hair Solutions, Radonich, and Owen T. Mascott to bring the plan to fruition.

Since September 2010, at least 949 individuals have posted complaints about Keranique on PissedConsumer.com. Additionally, numerous comments have been posted by third parties in response to those complaints. The majority of the comments have been negative.

Plaintiff is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that at the bequest of Defendant Solvera or Doe Corporation and with the full cooperation of Defendant Radonich, Mr. Mascott filed a complaint on behalf of Hair Solutions against Radonich for defamation.

In the underlying action the conspirators sought only injunctive relief. Specifically, the complaint requested an injunction that Radonich be “ordered to take all action, including but not limited to, requesting removal from the Internet search engines including Google, Yahoo!, and Bing of all defamatory, disparaging, libelous, and false statements about Plaintiff that Defendant has posted on the Internet.”

Mr. Mascott filed the Complaint on January 7, 2016. On information and belief, at all relevant times Mascott knew that Radonich was not the author of the statements at issue in the Radonich Case, and thus was not a proper defendant in that case.

Shortly thereafter, on January 13, 2016, Mascott filed a Stipulation for Final Judgment and Permanent Injunction with the Superior Court, containing a jurat from Radonich dated January 9, 2016. (See Exhibit 5.) On information and belief, Mascott coordinated with Radonich as Radonich’s attorney in acquiring this stipulation, such that he simultaneously represented both parties in the Radonich Case.

Having obtained a stipulated injunction from the Court, the conspirators then approached various search engines including, on information and belief, Google, Yahoo!, and Bing and requested that those search engines deindex the pages of Pissed Consumer. Instead of limiting the deindexing to the pages that contained statements Radonich claimed to have posted, the request to deindex included all web pages with entries about Keranique.

By engaging in this scheme, Defendant Conspirators obtained a court order under false pretenses and used the court order to persuade popular search engines to deindex every statement about Keranique, including the First Amendment protected statements of opinion and true fact posted by other individuals who were not a party to the underlying action.

And on it goes for several pages, detailing reputation management companies creating sham companies and bogus defendants -- with the apparent assistance of cooperative lawyers -- to delist content for paying clients. Whether or not clients actually knew this was happening remains to be seen, but the Texas AG's complaint claims Solvera lied to both its customers and the lawyers it used about the lawsuits it was filing. However, the two lawyers named here appear to have been complicit in the scheme, although they may never have been used directly by Solvera.

Needless to say, Google has stepped up its rejections of questionable court orders targeting protected speech. The increased scrutiny makes this fraudulent scheme less of a sure thing for shady reputation management companies. In Solvera's case, nuking criticism with fraudulently-obtained court orders was apparently big business, with its owner claiming to charge $50,000-$100,000 for this delisting service. (He's also a fan of Right to Be Forgotten, which makes cosmic sense but not business sense.) Hopefully, Solvera socked some of that cash away. It's got a lot of people to answer to.

Filed Under: defamation, fake lawsuits, reputation management
Companies: pissed consumer, solvera

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

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

Paul Levy Discovers Head Of Reputation Management Company Signed Off On Forged/Fraudulent Court Docs

from the how-the-terrible-have-fallen...-lower...-I-guess... dept

As a result of a federal judge in Rhode Island taking a second look at an order he hastily granted earlier, Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen has been able to confirm Richart Ruddie -- the head of an extremely-sketchy reputation management company -- signed off on the forged and fraudulent documents delivered to the court. The documents -- a bogus lawsuit featuring the forged signatures of both the plaintiff and the defendant -- are apparently just part of Profile Defenders' reputation management work.

Nice work if you can get [away with] it. File a bogus lawsuit. "Locate" a bogus defendant. Produce a signed admission of guilt and ask the judge to order search engines to delist the offending content. Cash checks. Repeat until caught.

Richart Ruddie has been caught.

While I was at the courthouse in Providence, I had the chance to talk to the clerk’s office and learned the identity of the process service that brought the forged litigation papers to court. The process server, in turn, when informed that he had filed forged papers, had no compunction about identifying the company which in turn had provided those papers and the company on whose account the check to pay the filing fee had been written. The check was from RIR1984 LLC, the very company with which Rescue One Financial had contracted for services to get Steve Rhode’s critical web pages removed from search engine indexes. The individual signer for RIR1984 on the contract is Richart Ruddie, who, as Eugene Volokh and I reported last month, is apparently responsible for dozens of fake lawsuits around the country. And the go-between was “Annuity Sold,” a company with which Richart Ruddie himself has self-identified.

Levy has now moved to vacate the court order and dismiss the complaint. He's also pursuing legal fees, but something about Ruddie's character (along with his cast of nonexistent libel lawsuit defendants) suggests this attempt may be fruitless. In any event, Ruddie will likely stop filing bogus lawsuits. But he may also find himself facing a federal investigation for his past misdeeds. From the hearing transcript [PDF]:

THE COURT: [...] I am going to have a transcript of this proceeding prepared, and I'm going to order the Clerk to send a copy of the file, all of your filings, as well as the transcript of this proceeding this afternoon to the United States Attorney's office for them to review because it does appear to me, as I said earlier, just at first blush, that there's potentially multiple crimes that have been committed, both fraud and potentially forgery. And various kinds of fraud, I think, are in play here, and so I think it is something that law enforcement should become aware of and investigate.

I'm embarrassed that this order, this consent order, was signed, but it shows you just how, you know, in a busy court, how something like this can happen. But I'm, frankly, if everything that's in here is true, which it appears to be, I'm pretty outraged about it.

That noise you hear in the background is popcorn producers stepping up production. There may be some very interesting developments in the near future. Not only that, but it appears Richart Ruddie isn't the only one engaging in this sort of fraudulent behavior. Pissed Consumer is also asking courts to take a closer look at some suspicious libel lawsuits that have resulted in delisting of its content -- lawsuits that follow the same M.O. as the ones spotted by Levy.

Filed Under: defamation, fake lawsuits, fraud, paul levy, reputation management, rhode island, richart ruddie
Companies: profile defenders

Pissed Consumer Sues Reputation Management Firms Over Their Bogus Lawsuit/Fake Defendant/Takedown Scams

from the well,-here-we-go... dept

In the last few weeks, we've written a few posts about Richart Ruddie's company, Profile Defenders, which appears to be "improving reputations" online by filing bogus defamation lawsuits, finding a bogus made-up "defendant" to "admit" to posting defamatory information, reaching a "settlement" and getting a court order. The whole scheme is about getting that court order, which is then sent on to Google and others (mainly Google). The whole point: if Google sees a court order saying that some content is defamatory, it will de-index that page. That the whole process to get that court order is a total sham is basically ignored. That may be changing. We were just noting that some of Profile Defenders' cases are in trouble, and at least one has had the court order vacated.

Of course, it appears that Ruddie and Profile Defenders are not the only ones playing this game of judicial fraud. We wrote about a bunch of similar cases back in March that were targeting the online review site Pissed Consumer and some other review sites. At the time, Pissed Consumer had found 11 such lawsuits. In that article, we noted some of the lawyers and firms that appeared to be either involved or benefiting from these cases. And it appears that Pissed Consumer has had enough -- and has sued (represented by Marc Randazaa).

You can read the full complaint, which is an interesting read. It goes into great detail on each of the different cases that it's suing over, but the introduction to the complaint lays out the basics. I'm reposting it in full (minus some citations) here because it's a good summary:

This case involves a creative solution to a common frustration for many businesses, who do not like negative reviews that are published about them on the Internet. However, removing consumer reviews from the Internet is a difficult process given that they are protected by the First Amendment.

Nevada Corporate Headquarters, has gone to great lengths to attempt to suppress consumer reviews in the past. It has filed at least one SLAPP suit in Nevada seeking injunctive relief to censor those negative reviews. In that case, Nevada Corporate Headquarters suffered a resounding loss when they were hit with an anti-SLAPP order.... They also lost at summary judgment in a SLAPP-back suit. That action resulted in a significant judgment for attorney fees and costs....

Undaunted by these set-backs, Nevada Corporate Headquarters has now conspired with other companies and individuals to create a scam whereby they suppress negative reviews from the Internet, while evading any First Amendment or due process considerations. This scam also allows them to avoid the risk of another anti-SLAPP attorney fee award.

Several other businesses and professionals who have been the subject of negative reviews online have also employed the same fraudulent machinery as Nevada Corporate Headquarters, as a means of removing this content while evading detection and liability.

The scam is not all that complicated. Google will remove search engine results from its well-known search engine if it is provided with a court order determining that the information is indeed defamatory.

However, when Nevada Corporate Headquarters sued consumer review websites in the past, it was severely disappointed. (See Exhibits 1 & 2.) Therefore, they needed to concoct a new censorship scam. So they used a stooge plaintiff, ZCS Inc. ("ZCS"), to sue a stooge defendant, Collins Mattos ("Mattos").

Defendant Doe Corporations, so called “reputation management companies,” conceived and organized the scam as an alternative way to remove negative posts in lieu of undergoing an adversarial proceeding. Several other businesses and professionals have contacted these “reputation management companies,” which have used similar schemes to remove negative consumer reviews about them.

The other conspirators engaged attorneys Mark W. Lapham ("Lapham") and Owen T. Mascott (“Mascott”) to file sham lawsuits either by the subjects of the negative reviews or by corporations that had no interest in the allegedly defamatory statements, against a defendant who most certainly was not the party that published the allegedly defamatory statements, and the parties immediately stipulated to a judgment of injunctive relief, so the conspirators could provide the order to Google and other search engines, thus achieving the goal of deindexing all pages containing negative reviews.

At first blush, Defendants’ scam appears rather brilliant but incredibly unethical. Now that Plaintiff has uncovered and exposed Defendants’ unlawful deeds, Consumer Opinion LLC respectfully requests that this Court discipline them for those misdeeds.

The rest of the filing goes into a lot more details about these court orders, obtained under false pretenses.

The actual claims in the case are for unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices, abuse of process and civil conspiracy. As we've seen in other cases, actually getting lawyers disciplined for such bad behavior is actually fairly rare. But Randazza has a history of being a bulldog about these kinds of things (remember Righthaven?). This should be an interesting case to follow.

Filed Under: court orders, defamation, fake lawsuits, mark lapham, owen mascott, reputation management, richart ruddie, takedowns
Companies: nevada corporate headquarters, pissed consumer

Reputation Management Company Linked To Bogus Libel Lawsuits Now Hyping Its Anti-Cyberbullying Skills

from the loutish-abuse-of-the-legal-system-notwithstanding dept

Fake lawsuits featuring fake plaintiffs filed against fake defendants and hustled past judges to secure court orders demanding delisting by search engines: that's the new face of reputation management, apparently.

Paul Alan Levy, along with newly-acquired partner Eugene Volokh, have managed to track down the possible perpetrator behind a couple dozen bogus lawsuits filed in recent months. Richart Ruddie and his company, Profile Defenders, appear to be engaging in some illegal activity in order to provide clients with the services they've promised them.

Ruddie has refused to comment on the lawsuits or answer questions posed by Levy and Volokh. Instead, he has opted to fight speech with more speech [lol] by issuing a very self-serving press release.

Here's what Profile Defenders has to say about itself -- not in response to any questions, but rather to buff some of the tarnish off its dented armor. It's not just about "protecting the rich." [No. Really.] It's about saving clients from cyberbullying. (h/t Paul Alan Levy)

Reputation management companies like Profile Defenders protect the innocent from the action of cyberbullies who prey on people.

[...]

Fortunately, reputation management companies like Profile Defenders have arrived, and in the war between reputation companies vs cyber bullies they give the innocent a chance to tell their story on the Internet. Co-founder of Profile Defenders, Richart Ruddie, is glad that people are given a second chance after being defamed by cyber bullies that act like new age mobsters trying to destroy good people through cyber bullying.

I assume Levy, Volokh, and others who have covered this slowly-unravelling debacle are the "new age monsters" attempting to destroy "good people" --"good people" who apparently have no problem filing bogus lawsuits and forging signatures, all the while charging thousands of dollars to drag down their clients' reputations along with their own.

Then there's this, helpfully pointed out by a commenter (and victim of one of PD's bogus lawsuits) on Levy's post. Ruddie's personal blog contains a post with some enlightening thoughts about journalism.

Writers and journalists typically use their powers for evil and to hurt good people.

And what sort of people are the "good people" hurt by "evil" journalists? Richart Ruddie is, according to Richart Ruddie.

Had one of the nicest compliments this past weekend. A new friend said "Chart do you know why I like you?"

"At the end of the day you're just a genuine person Richart Ruddie"

You're not looking for anything from anybody, you are just here to be happy and have a good time and if you can facilitate others to be happy as well then you do your part to ensure all others around you are happy.

Yep. Genuine as fuck. More from Levy:

[I] expect that Ruddie will prove a slippery character – the home page of his “Profile Defenders” web site provides a New York City street address that appears to be phony (a letter I sent him at that address demanding that he preserve relevant documents came back undeliverable), and both the Linked In and Google profiles of Profile Defenders show a Washington, D.C. address that does not exist. Moreover, Florida’s records reveal that Ruddie maintains a stable of many different LLC’s. It may take the investigative resources of a federal or state grand jury or of the Federal Trade Commission to track him and his assets down, and bring him to justice.

Volokh and Levy have uncovered plenty of damning evidence strongly suggesting Ruddie's company is now in the business of filing bogus lawsuits simply because (a) there's very little chance any judge will examine these cases closely (and when a judge does, the suit is refiled in another court) and (b) it's one of the only methods proven to result in delistings of negative reviews hosted by non-parties to the lawsuits. As Levy notes, it may be almost impossible to blow this wide open, much less get Ruddie to answer any questions about these lawsuits on the record. But the reputational damage his company is now causing indirectly to its clients may result in lawsuits Ruddie can't ignore, filed by aggrieved customers who paid thousands of dollars just to see themselves swept into Profile Defender's destructive vortex.

Filed Under: eugene volokh, fake lawsuits, paul levy, reputation management, richart ruddie, takedowns
Companies: profile defenders