The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

They cut off the ending where it rolls into Chekhov.

BrianBoitano posted:

I want to know I appreciated this post.

Also, gently caress you.

ewe2 posted:

I love the physics of this. This guy is a professional too.

quote:

More than three and a half years ago I started covering a copyright-troll firm called Prenda Law, which came to my attention because it was filing defamation suits against critics accusing it of wrongdoing. Rarely does the Streisand Effect so utterly annihilate a group of censorious miscreants.

Over the last three years, Prenda Law and its principals John Steele and Paul Hansmeier have met with ruin at the hands of federal courts across the country. Their scheme — to upload porn, track people downloading it from torrent sites, then engage in fraudulent and extortionate litigation against the downloaders — has been exposed. The story has involved spectacles like lawyers taking the Fifth rather than answer a judge's questions about their lawsuits, devastating sanctions orders quoting Star Trek and referring lawyers for federal criminal investigation, withering fire from federal appellate courts, and generally every bad thing that can happen to a lawyer happening to the bad men behind this case.

When people have asked me why these lawyers aren't in jail, I've answered that the wheels turn slowly.

But they turn.

Today federal agents arrested John Steele and Paul Hansmeier, the two lawyers most responsible for this nationwide debacle.

...

The story, as the indictment tells it, is this: Steele and Hansmeier used various entities, including Prenda Law, to commit fraud. The indictment mentions many entities familiar to followers of this story — AF Holdings, Ingenuity 13, Guava LLC, and so forth. These entities would appear in copyright cases as the nominal plaintiffs, but the indictment alleges they were actually owned and controlled entirely by Steele and Hansmeier to conduct their fraudulent scheme. According to the feds, Steele and Hansmeier uploaded their "clients'" pornographic movies to file-sharing websites intending to lure people into downloading them, then sued the people who downloaded for copyright infringement, concealing their role in uploading the movies. They used what the feds describe as "extortionate tactics" to coerce quick settlements, and dismissed cases when defendants fought back rather than risk discovery. When federal courts began limiting the number of people they could sue at once for porn copyright infringement, they changed tactics and began to file suits falsely asserting that their clients had been "hacked" and then using those allegations as a basis to subpoena ISPs for subscriber information. Eventually Steele and Hansmeier filmed their own porn to upload to support this scheme. When courts began suspicious, the indictment alleges that Steele and Hansmeier sent underlings to lie to courts, or even lied to courts themselves, to conceal the scheme. The indictment specifies 14 separate instances of perjury or lying to courts. This scheme, the feds claim, netted more than $6,000,000 in copyright settlements, of which $3,000,000 went to Steele and Hansmeier and only $1,000,000 went to sham "clients," with the rest consumed for expenses.

Phanatic posted:

Oh, this is so loving good.

http://www.startribune.com/feds-charge-porn-troll-lawyers-in-major-fraud-extortion-case-in-minneapolis/407095106/

The background on this is years long, Popehat's been covering it exclusively so here's his summary:

https://popehat.com/2016/12/16/the-prenda-saga-goes-criminal-steele-and-hansmeier-indicted-on-federal-charges/


This is a long rabbit hole to go down so it's cool if you don't, but trust me: this is *wonderful*.

VanSandman posted:

God the level of dedication and shittery that went into a pretty loving basic extortion/blackmail scheme is amazing.

Phanatic posted:

Oh, this is so loving good.

http://www.startribune.com/feds-charge-porn-troll-lawyers-in-major-fraud-extortion-case-in-minneapolis/407095106/

The background on this is years long, Popehat's been covering it exclusively so here's his summary:

https://popehat.com/2016/12/16/the-prenda-saga-goes-criminal-steele-and-hansmeier-indicted-on-federal-charges/


This is a long rabbit hole to go down so it's cool if you don't, but trust me: this is *wonderful*.

Krispy Kareem posted:

I love it when lawyers get caught doing poo poo like this because it immediately makes all their years of education and training worthless. There's nothing more schadenfruedistic than a disbarred lawyer whose education is now about as valuable as a 4 year liberal arts degree.

Phanatic posted:

Oh, this is so loving good.

http://www.startribune.com/feds-charge-porn-troll-lawyers-in-major-fraud-extortion-case-in-minneapolis/407095106/

The background on this is years long, Popehat's been covering it exclusively so here's his summary:

https://popehat.com/2016/12/16/the-prenda-saga-goes-criminal-steele-and-hansmeier-indicted-on-federal-charges/


This is a long rabbit hole to go down so it's cool if you don't, but trust me: this is *wonderful*.

Mark Lutz, "representative" of Sunlust" posted:

THE COURT: Mr. Lutz, you're under oath, you have to give truthful answers or you face penalties of perjury. Do you understand that?
MR. LUTZ: Yes.
THE COURT: What is your position with Sunlust?
MR. LUTZ: I'm a representative of them.
THE COURT: What does that mean?
MR. LUTZ: Corporate representative.
THE COURT: What does that mean?
MR. LUTZ: They asked me to appear on various matters throughout the country.
THE COURT: Are you an officer of the company?
MR. LUTZ: I'm not, no.
THE COURT: Are you authorized to bind the company to any legal contracts?
MR. LUTZ: I am not.
THE COURT: Are you salaried?
MR. LUTZ: No, 1099.
THE COURT: So you are a 1099 contracted entity and you just go around and sit in a Court and represent yourself to be the corporate representative of the company?
MR. LUTZ: Yes.
THE COURT: Mr. Torres, did you know this was Mr. Lutz's position, a paid corporate representative?
MR. TORRES: No, Your Honor, I did not.
THE COURT: Who is the president of Sunlust?
MR. LUTZ: I'm unaware.
THE COURT: Who is the vice president?
MR. LUTZ: I'm unaware
THE COURT: Who is the secretary?
MR. LUTZ: I have no idea.
THE COURT: Who owns Sunlust?
MR. LUTZ: I do not know.
THE COURT: Who signs your checks?
MR. LUTZ: I believe somebody in the accounting department.
THE COURT: What is their name?
MR. LUTZ: To be honest with you, I can't read the signature.
THE COURT: Where is the accounting department located?
MR. LUTZ: I'm sorry?
THE COURT: Where is the accounting department located?
MR. LUTZ: I've received checks from California.
THE COURT: How much are you paid monthly to be the corporate representative?
MR. LUTZ: Again, it depends on my appearances, the number of appearances that I do.
THE COURT: How much were you paid last month?
MR. LUTZ: Approximately $1,000.

Prokhor Zakharov posted:

Thanks for posting this because wow

Data Graham posted:

See also those twats in Irvine who tried to ruin some poor mom's life for not giving their son the respect due Orange County Royalty.

Takes No Damage posted:

That was basically a Steven King novella of delicious schadenfreude, if anyone missed it earlier in the thread this is a great way to kill an evening:
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-framed/

Ariong posted:

For those who don't want to do a deep dive, here's a highlight.

Say Nothing posted:

Serephina posted:

That link's amazing, thank you! But where did you find it? That drat popehat website does nothing but circular link to its own drat blog posts, nothing original.

DryGoods posted:

Outrail posted:

Is this in the USA? I hope it is. You guys need more people who can work those things.

Met posted:

A lot of these kinds of gifs are of people who haven't been shown that their body isn't the strongest most unbreakable thing ever. They're too used to being in control.

Mak0rz posted:

I dunno how to embed Facebook videos and I can't find it on YouTube but here:

https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/2490471950975849/

Takes No Damage posted:

It's like reverse Hungry Hungry Hippos. I don't think I would have had very many friends if this had been around back in the 80s.

DryGoods posted:

http://i.imgur.com/FzwuR65.mp4

DryGoods posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQAauVu2sTg

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Textbook example of mom-cooking. "I didn't have half the ingredients, or know how to make it, so I just threw a bunch of poo poo in there".

My two favorite examples from my own mom are first, when she was making fried chicken, and she needed a crunchy coating. Didn't have corn flakes, bread crumbs, even rice crispies could've worked in a pinch. But no, she used Froot Loops cereal. I asked why the chicken was so colorful, and she said "Ohhh, uhhh.... it's the spices." Everyone loves Sugar-Chicken, rite!

Second was when she was making coconut shrimp. Except she didn't have fresh raw coconut, or even standard coconut shavings. So she used sweetened coconut, meant for desserts. Again, everyone loves Sugar-Shrimp, yes?

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Textbook example of mom-cooking. "I didn't have half the ingredients, or know how to make it, so I just threw a bunch of poo poo in there".

My two favorite examples from my own mom are first, when she was making fried chicken, and she needed a crunchy coating. Didn't have corn flakes, bread crumbs, even rice crispies could've worked in a pinch. But no, she used Froot Loops cereal. I asked why the chicken was so colorful, and she said "Ohhh, uhhh.... it's the spices." Everyone loves Sugar-Chicken, rite!

Second was when she was making coconut shrimp. Except she didn't have fresh raw coconut, or even standard coconut shavings. So she used sweetened coconut, meant for desserts. Again, everyone loves Sugar-Shrimp, yes?

Railing Kill posted:

I love the timing of the punchline to that video. She waits two minutes and feeds them some of the dip, and only then does she finally say, "Oh yeah. I didn't have any lemon so I used orange, and I didn't know what spices to use so I just used celery salt and oregano." Oh, sure. Just throw some random poo poo in there. Oranges look similar to lemons, and all herbs are basically green, white, or red, right? Just throw a green one and a white one in there. Everyone knows that sight and taste are closely linked senses.

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Textbook example of mom-cooking. "I didn't have half the ingredients, or know how to make it, so I just threw a bunch of poo poo in there".

My two favorite examples from my own mom are first, when she was making fried chicken, and she needed a crunchy coating. Didn't have corn flakes, bread crumbs, even rice crispies could've worked in a pinch. But no, she used Froot Loops cereal. I asked why the chicken was so colorful, and she said "Ohhh, uhhh.... it's the spices." Everyone loves Sugar-Chicken, rite!

Second was when she was making coconut shrimp. Except she didn't have fresh raw coconut, or even standard coconut shavings. So she used sweetened coconut, meant for desserts. Again, everyone loves Sugar-Shrimp, yes?

Solice Kirsk posted:

I thought it was Froot Loops.