There are two categories of people you might find awake at South Beach early on Sunday morning. Surfers and serious drinkers.
You wouldn't tell your surfer buddies that you were going home early in order to catch a morning flight. So that leaves your partying buddies. Who have to be seriously committed to the activity to be found awake at 4 or 5am.
They would have Raymond Rogers on the stand, except that it would blow holes in other parts of their story.
It's pretty much undisputed that Rogers signed the assignment. Normally they would put him on the stand to at least get in a few minutes of truthful, supported testimony.
But that would open Rogers up to the question of how the copyright was acquired and paid for. If AF paid, it raises the question of where the money came from and who authorized it. (And would directly contradict Hansmeier's deposition statement.) If the movies were nearly worthless (as seems likely), what was the motivation for the transfer and where the claimed damages for each instance so high?
My guess is that Steele provided legal services and forgave the bill in exchange for the copyright to a few worthless movies. (Apparently targeted movies like this make their money in the first few weeks after release, as fans of the specific actress buy copies. There are almost no subsequent sales.) If it came out in testimony that Steele and Hansmeier did such a deal, the courts would be competing with the IRS for a pound of flesh.
There must be a Bastard Lawyer Handbook of tricks they don't teach in law school.
Such as always delaying filing until the last day of the last extension, unless you need to hide something. Then you file the next morning to have a colorable claim of not knowing anything factual, such as "I'm sure there is a good faith reason..."
Contrary to belief above, telling different courts different things almost always works. It just takes too much time to research previous cases and review all of the testimony. And once a case is settled or has a final ruling, there is almost nothing that can be done about misleading or false testimony.
Paul Hansmeier's deposition was an all-day interview, filled with tedious evasive answers. It was unexpected that it happened at all -- a single all-day deposition costs more than the Prenda settlement offer. The resulting transcript would normally not be easily available, and probably wouldn't be deemed worth reading by someone in a future suit. Even if a paralegal did read it, they probably wouldn't take notes on the critical statements that were superficially hearsay ("Steele told Lutz that Cooper told ...")
Actually, to have a new record for "most wrong" you have to assert that you also can't use his name because it's trademarked, throw in a statement about a "right not to be offended", and toss something new and big on top of the heap.
BTW, his god is *way* more of an asshalo than my God. And my God used to turn people into pillars of salt just for looking in the wrong direction."
If you read carefully, they are blaming Google for not giving their distributors free advertising. Actually they want better than free advertising -- they want Google to present authorized retailers as an "organic" search result, something you can't pay Google to do.
I'm reminded of the reason IBM put so much money into building the world's most powerful supercomputer: you can't buy advertising 'above the fold' of the New York Times. If you could, it would cost millions. Getting a headline listing that isn't obviously advertising is worth $$$$$.
That's what they want, at not cost.
A trust account held by a law firm is client funds. It can't be co-mingled or borrowed from for general expenditures. So Prenda might have funds in client accounts but still have no money.
The interesting question is the accounting for the AF trust account. Did all settlement money go directly into the account? Who was paid from the account? Who authorized the distributions? Were the payouts payment for specific, itemized bills that reflect work done?
Those are basic questions that are trivial for legitimate operations to answer.
It's possible that Prenda didn't deposit settlement money into a trust account. If so, that is a huge ethical, tax and legal screw-up. A trust account needs to be a separate account in a third-party financial institution. Not an internal bookkeeping fiction. And, since matching records are kept by the bank, it's tough to paper over later.
I guessing that the payouts were also a problem. It's likely that Steele and Hansmeier were paid a share, in their name, as settlements came in. And that the checks were signed or transfers authorized by Duffy himself. Not a payment tied to billing for services rendered, or hours spent. You might be able to cook up a set of bills and books later, but money paid out immediately is a red flag, especially when other suppliers and providers (e.g. local attorneys) are paid on the last day possible.
One thing to keep in mind is that Lutz wasn't really the CEO of AF Holdings/Films. He was just a phone bill collector for Prenda that was once sent to Florida as a know-nothing 'corporate representative'. After the Cooper Issue and Hansmeier's deposition they decided that he was retroactively in charge of AF.
It's very likely that Lutz's story would fall apart on cross-examination. He can memorize dates, but questions that would be simple for the real principles would cause problems:
"How did you come up with the name 'AF'?"
"What's the telephone country code for Nevis?"
"What kind of accent do they have in Nevis?"
"Would you recognize Alisha's voice? Did you deal with her frequently? Did she direct your actions?"
"Did you FedEx your documents to Nevis?"
"Who signed and deposited the checks? Did you monitor the account? How and when?"
Lutz claimed that he arrived at the airport at 5:30am, for an 8am flight. Which, BTW, was to arrive in San Francisco (presumably SFO) at 11am (irresponsibly late given SFO's notorious and unpredictable fog, normal flight delays, traffic, etc.)
Duffy writes that Lutz was detained by a pair of "federal authorities" and was required to go with them to their office. That's singular 'office', which means it wasn't two agencies, rather two representatives.
We don't have any reason to believe that Lutz is such a high priority federal fugitive that actual federal agents would lie in wait for him at the airport. If that were the case, it would be to put him under arrest, not question him.
Who does that leave? The TSA. Specifically TSA screeners. That would explain the wording: the people that grope you aren't actually 'officers' or 'agents' (words that have specific meaning). They could be described as "federal authorities", although only a non-native speaker or someone bent on obscuring the truth would use a description as a designation.
So the only thing that fits the facts is that the TSA stopped Lutz.
I can think of two reasons for that.
The first is that Lutz wanted to be stopped. He wanted an airtight excuse, nominally beyond his control, for missing the hearing. It would be easy to get the TSA to be that excuse. TSA screeners are notorious for their 'DYWTFT' attitude (Do You Want To Fly Today?) It wouldn't take much to let them flex their power to make you miss a flight.
The second reason is showing up at the security checkpoint drunk. Not 'had a drink because I fear flying', but sloshing drunk. Lutz has a known history of DUIs and alcohol problem, so this would be a natural. An obnoxious drunk would be put aside for a few hours to sober up before further questioning.
I'm guessing it was a combination of the two. Lutz didn't want to go to the hearing. Duffy, Steele and Hansmeier really feared what might come out, and put a lot of pressure on him. So he showed up at the airport 'tired and emotional' and found it easiest to get the TSA to be his excuse.
I suspect that Duffy didn't plan this. If he had, he would have over-acted in court.
At least the cost of defending this is spread across 'the people' rather than unfairly borne by those civic-minded enough to resist extortion.
Is there precedent on the reasonableness of an attorney filing a claim based on a corporation's "first amendment rights" to commit fraud? It's 'commercial speech', which doesn't have the protections of a natural person's speech. It hardly seems like a 'novel legal theory'.
No, we don't need to starve ourselves to feed the world.
Every place there is a widespread lack of food, it's caused by politics or war preventing the food from reaching the people.
Sub-Sahara Africa? Relief food rots at the dock, while tribes are starved for control in 'civil wars' that look more like genocide. North Korea? The wealthy, productive South is well fed just a few miles away.
When I've tried to track down the claims that most of the food produced is 'wasted', it's usually repeating someone that misinterprets or deliberately misreads the numbers, or uses a definition of 'wasted' that isn't what you expect.
As an example, most of the food you eat is 'wasted'. If you reduced your food intake to the point of almost starving, your body will use the food it has more efficiently. You'll be miserable, ineffective, and you'll be obsessed with food. Do you want to use that definition of 'wasted' to justify putting most of humanity in that condition? If so, there was extensive research on the subject in Axis concentration camps during WWII. 600 calories per day will keep most people alive, but over 900 calories is needed for them to do labor that isn't physically intensive.
There seems to be an assumption that Lutz will be filing a declaration about what happened, and that there will be a future hearing that Lutz must attend.
I don't see that in the record.
Prenda applied for leave to file a sealed statement/excuse about why Lutz didn't show, and a sealed affidavit. The court said neither wouldn't be sealed, and an affidavit wouldn't substitute because cross examination couldn't be conducted.
Prenda isn't going to file an excuse (e.g. "week long bender, but now staying at my sponsor's house") if it doesn't get an uncontested affidavit on the record.
A added note: Notice that the only natural person originally associated with AF Holdings was a mystery 'Alan Cooper' with an Arizona address associated with Steele. That started falling apart at the beginning of 2013. Prenda couldn't very well have the real Minnesota Cooper deposed, so they threw attorney Hansmeier up as the corporate representative.
Using Hansmeier was _great_ idea. He wasted 8 hours with non-answers, making it obvious that further efforts would be an expensive dead end. It was so effective that it left no doubt as to where the bodies were. But even saying nothing risks revealing info. With no time to construct a back-story, Hansmeier used Lutz's name in the deposition. That may have been a spur-of-the-moment decision, or forced by circumstances -- they simply didn't have any other person to use.
From that point on Lutz was doomed to be the front man, not just the "1099" corporate representative that didn't know where his own poorly-signed check was from.
Lutz is more of a bill collector for Duffy's law firm rather than a paralegal or corporate executive. Pretty much "telephone muscle". Evidence suggests that Duffy hired him during a rough period where Lutz was fighting DUIs and arrests for driving with a suspended license -- some of those warrants are still outstanding.
Lutz continued his telephone role when Duffy (AKA Prenda Law) bought into Steele and Hansmeier's shake-down scheme. For the cases Prenda pursued directly (which meant that didn't have to split proceeds with local attorneys), Lutz was often the one on the phone making threats to cost the targets 'everything they owned' in legal fees if they didn't settle.
Lutz was only presented as a corporate figurehead when the Prenda lawyers had to pretend there was an actual client. They couldn't put up a lawyer, as that would be quickly found out. But even then Prenda couldn't rely on Lutz and always had to have support sitting behind him, whispering answers in his ear. (Quite literally in the Florida case.)
It should have been predictable that Lutz wouldn't show in San Francisco. Or voluntarily in any case or deposition. Prenda can't allow him to be questioned without limiting the questions and rehearsing the answers.
"you are completely wrong. 99.999999% of the population"
Apparently we have a really weird sample of world population. Because most people here think *you* are wrong.
The only sensible way to calculate "1/4 the temperature" is converting to a zero-based scale, and then converting back. You don't need to use Kelvin, but pretty much everyone with a science education would use it.
One detail that I didn't understand was the comment about perishable good having stronger or different trademark protection.
Is there a cite to this?
If 'Trader Joes' can exist in the same region as 'Farmer Joes', I don't see how 'Pirate Joe' can create any confusion. The standard is 'reasonable person', not 'easily confused (it's my job) lawyer'.
That phone transcript just showed that real criminals can and do easily evade stop-n-frisk.
Even ones that are so dumb they post their criminal enterprise online.
It also helps me understand why the program is so offensive. If you can afford a car, you can pretty much avoid being subjected to 'random' searches.
The press stories were written for a non-technical audience. The congressional briefings were probably at the same level.
It's likely that searches were done through a designated application, which produced the logs and audit trail. If you didn't use that application, no logs were produced.
This approach is pretty much required with massive databases. Imagine a 1TB database is on a network file system, and the whole database needs to be scanned to get possible matches. You can record the query, which is probably a single line of text, you can record the results, which could be millions of records with an unexpectedly loose search, or you can record ever block read, which would be a very large list of every block in the file.
So it may be that the possible set of compromised files is every one that his machine had access to.
On the post: Asked To Explain The Disappearance Of Mark Lutz, Team Prenda Says They're Sure He Has A Good Reason
You wouldn't tell your surfer buddies that you were going home early in order to catch a morning flight. So that leaves your partying buddies. Who have to be seriously committed to the activity to be found awake at 4 or 5am.
On the post: Report From The Court Room On Latest Prenda Hearing In Minnesota: Another Hearing, Another Mess
It's pretty much undisputed that Rogers signed the assignment. Normally they would put him on the stand to at least get in a few minutes of truthful, supported testimony.
But that would open Rogers up to the question of how the copyright was acquired and paid for. If AF paid, it raises the question of where the money came from and who authorized it. (And would directly contradict Hansmeier's deposition statement.) If the movies were nearly worthless (as seems likely), what was the motivation for the transfer and where the claimed damages for each instance so high?
My guess is that Steele provided legal services and forgave the bill in exchange for the copyright to a few worthless movies. (Apparently targeted movies like this make their money in the first few weeks after release, as fans of the specific actress buy copies. There are almost no subsequent sales.) If it came out in testimony that Steele and Hansmeier did such a deal, the courts would be competing with the IRS for a pound of flesh.
On the post: Prenda Soap Opera: Steele Contradicts His Own Previous Claims, Lutz Disappears Again... And The Mother-in-Law Surprise
Only reason to file early...
Such as always delaying filing until the last day of the last extension, unless you need to hide something. Then you file the next morning to have a colorable claim of not knowing anything factual, such as "I'm sure there is a good faith reason..."
On the post: Prenda Soap Opera: Steele Contradicts His Own Previous Claims, Lutz Disappears Again... And The Mother-in-Law Surprise
Paul Hansmeier's deposition was an all-day interview, filled with tedious evasive answers. It was unexpected that it happened at all -- a single all-day deposition costs more than the Prenda settlement offer. The resulting transcript would normally not be easily available, and probably wouldn't be deemed worth reading by someone in a future suit. Even if a paralegal did read it, they probably wouldn't take notes on the critical statements that were superficially hearsay ("Steele told Lutz that Cooper told ...")
On the post: Pat Roberston Claims Gays Intentionally Spreading AIDS; Abuses DMCA To Stifle Criticism
BTW, his god is *way* more of an asshalo than my God. And my God used to turn people into pillars of salt just for looking in the wrong direction."
On the post: MPAA & RIAA Return To Blaming Google For Their Own Inability To Innovate
I'm reminded of the reason IBM put so much money into building the world's most powerful supercomputer: you can't buy advertising 'above the fold' of the New York Times. If you could, it would cost millions. Getting a headline listing that isn't obviously advertising is worth $$$$$.
That's what they want, at not cost.
On the post: Judge Decides The Prenda Buck Should Stop With John Steele And Paul Hansmeier
The interesting question is the accounting for the AF trust account. Did all settlement money go directly into the account? Who was paid from the account? Who authorized the distributions? Were the payouts payment for specific, itemized bills that reflect work done?
Those are basic questions that are trivial for legitimate operations to answer.
It's possible that Prenda didn't deposit settlement money into a trust account. If so, that is a huge ethical, tax and legal screw-up. A trust account needs to be a separate account in a third-party financial institution. Not an internal bookkeeping fiction. And, since matching records are kept by the bank, it's tough to paper over later.
I guessing that the payouts were also a problem. It's likely that Steele and Hansmeier were paid a share, in their name, as settlements came in. And that the checks were signed or transfers authorized by Duffy himself. Not a payment tied to billing for services rendered, or hours spent. You might be able to cook up a set of bills and books later, but money paid out immediately is a red flag, especially when other suppliers and providers (e.g. local attorneys) are paid on the last day possible.
On the post: Judge Decides The Prenda Buck Should Stop With John Steele And Paul Hansmeier
What does Lutz know?
It's very likely that Lutz's story would fall apart on cross-examination. He can memorize dates, but questions that would be simple for the real principles would cause problems:
"How did you come up with the name 'AF'?"
"What's the telephone country code for Nevis?"
"What kind of accent do they have in Nevis?"
"Would you recognize Alisha's voice? Did you deal with her frequently? Did she direct your actions?"
"Did you FedEx your documents to Nevis?"
"Who signed and deposited the checks? Did you monitor the account? How and when?"
On the post: Judge Decides The Prenda Buck Should Stop With John Steele And Paul Hansmeier
I believe the phrase used was "federal authories"
Duffy writes that Lutz was detained by a pair of "federal authorities" and was required to go with them to their office. That's singular 'office', which means it wasn't two agencies, rather two representatives.
We don't have any reason to believe that Lutz is such a high priority federal fugitive that actual federal agents would lie in wait for him at the airport. If that were the case, it would be to put him under arrest, not question him.
Who does that leave? The TSA. Specifically TSA screeners. That would explain the wording: the people that grope you aren't actually 'officers' or 'agents' (words that have specific meaning). They could be described as "federal authorities", although only a non-native speaker or someone bent on obscuring the truth would use a description as a designation.
So the only thing that fits the facts is that the TSA stopped Lutz.
I can think of two reasons for that.
The first is that Lutz wanted to be stopped. He wanted an airtight excuse, nominally beyond his control, for missing the hearing. It would be easy to get the TSA to be that excuse. TSA screeners are notorious for their 'DYWTFT' attitude (Do You Want To Fly Today?) It wouldn't take much to let them flex their power to make you miss a flight.
The second reason is showing up at the security checkpoint drunk. Not 'had a drink because I fear flying', but sloshing drunk. Lutz has a known history of DUIs and alcohol problem, so this would be a natural. An obnoxious drunk would be put aside for a few hours to sober up before further questioning.
I'm guessing it was a combination of the two. Lutz didn't want to go to the hearing. Duffy, Steele and Hansmeier really feared what might come out, and put a lot of pressure on him. So he showed up at the airport 'tired and emotional' and found it easiest to get the TSA to be his excuse.
I suspect that Duffy didn't plan this. If he had, he would have over-acted in court.
On the post: Nebraska Attorney General Sued For Trying To Stop Patent Troll
Is there precedent on the reasonableness of an attorney filing a claim based on a corporation's "first amendment rights" to commit fraud? It's 'commercial speech', which doesn't have the protections of a natural person's speech. It hardly seems like a 'novel legal theory'.
On the post: DailyDirt: Food Shortages
No, we don't need to starve ourselves to feed the world.
Every place there is a widespread lack of food, it's caused by politics or war preventing the food from reaching the people.
Sub-Sahara Africa? Relief food rots at the dock, while tribes are starved for control in 'civil wars' that look more like genocide. North Korea? The wealthy, productive South is well fed just a few miles away.
When I've tried to track down the claims that most of the food produced is 'wasted', it's usually repeating someone that misinterprets or deliberately misreads the numbers, or uses a definition of 'wasted' that isn't what you expect.
As an example, most of the food you eat is 'wasted'. If you reduced your food intake to the point of almost starving, your body will use the food it has more efficiently. You'll be miserable, ineffective, and you'll be obsessed with food. Do you want to use that definition of 'wasted' to justify putting most of humanity in that condition? If so, there was extensive research on the subject in Axis concentration camps during WWII. 600 calories per day will keep most people alive, but over 900 calories is needed for them to do labor that isn't physically intensive.
On the post: Prenda's Mark Lutz Doesn't Show Up In Two Key Cases, Has A Reason But Won't Share Because People Might Discuss It
I don't see that in the record.
Prenda applied for leave to file a sealed statement/excuse about why Lutz didn't show, and a sealed affidavit. The court said neither wouldn't be sealed, and an affidavit wouldn't substitute because cross examination couldn't be conducted.
Prenda isn't going to file an excuse (e.g. "week long bender, but now staying at my sponsor's house") if it doesn't get an uncontested affidavit on the record.
On the post: Prenda's Mark Lutz Doesn't Show Up In Two Key Cases, Has A Reason But Won't Share Because People Might Discuss It
On the post: Prenda's Mark Lutz Doesn't Show Up In Two Key Cases, Has A Reason But Won't Share Because People Might Discuss It
Using Hansmeier was _great_ idea. He wasted 8 hours with non-answers, making it obvious that further efforts would be an expensive dead end. It was so effective that it left no doubt as to where the bodies were. But even saying nothing risks revealing info. With no time to construct a back-story, Hansmeier used Lutz's name in the deposition. That may have been a spur-of-the-moment decision, or forced by circumstances -- they simply didn't have any other person to use.
From that point on Lutz was doomed to be the front man, not just the "1099" corporate representative that didn't know where his own poorly-signed check was from.
On the post: Prenda's Mark Lutz Doesn't Show Up In Two Key Cases, Has A Reason But Won't Share Because People Might Discuss It
Lutz continued his telephone role when Duffy (AKA Prenda Law) bought into Steele and Hansmeier's shake-down scheme. For the cases Prenda pursued directly (which meant that didn't have to split proceeds with local attorneys), Lutz was often the one on the phone making threats to cost the targets 'everything they owned' in legal fees if they didn't settle.
Lutz was only presented as a corporate figurehead when the Prenda lawyers had to pretend there was an actual client. They couldn't put up a lawyer, as that would be quickly found out. But even then Prenda couldn't rely on Lutz and always had to have support sitting behind him, whispering answers in his ear. (Quite literally in the Florida case.)
It should have been predictable that Lutz wouldn't show in San Francisco. Or voluntarily in any case or deposition. Prenda can't allow him to be questioned without limiting the questions and rehearsing the answers.
On the post: Texas Deputy Sues 911 Caller For Not 'Adequately Warning' Him Of Potential Danger Or 'Making The Premises Safe'
Apparently we have a really weird sample of world population. Because most people here think *you* are wrong.
The only sensible way to calculate "1/4 the temperature" is converting to a zero-based scale, and then converting back. You don't need to use Kelvin, but pretty much everyone with a science education would use it.
On the post: What NSA Transparency Looks Like: [Redacted]
Don't you mean "have shared the complete list of abuses with us"?
On the post: Why Trader Joe's Suing Pirate Joe's May Be Bad News For Ownership
Is there a cite to this?
If 'Trader Joes' can exist in the same region as 'Farmer Joes', I don't see how 'Pirate Joe' can create any confusion. The standard is 'reasonable person', not 'easily confused (it's my job) lawyer'.
On the post: Gun Runner Uses Instagram Account To Sabotage Own Criminal Enterprise, And Bloomberg Still Thinks It's A Win For Stop And Frisk
Errrmmm, didn't that quote prove S-n-F fails?
Even ones that are so dumb they post their criminal enterprise online.
It also helps me understand why the program is so offensive. If you can afford a car, you can pretty much avoid being subjected to 'random' searches.
On the post: Ed Snowden Covered His Tracks Well; How Many Other NSA Staffers Did The Same?
It's likely that searches were done through a designated application, which produced the logs and audit trail. If you didn't use that application, no logs were produced.
This approach is pretty much required with massive databases. Imagine a 1TB database is on a network file system, and the whole database needs to be scanned to get possible matches. You can record the query, which is probably a single line of text, you can record the results, which could be millions of records with an unexpectedly loose search, or you can record ever block read, which would be a very large list of every block in the file.
So it may be that the possible set of compromised files is every one that his machine had access to.
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