First... Kill All the Lawyers - Niedermeyer's Dead Horse

This piece was forwarded to me by lawebber215 at Twitter. It's a case I've never heard of, which is surprising, given the salacious nature of the case.

Here's a joke. Tell me if you've heard this one before.

As the lawyer awoke from surgery, he asked, "Why are all the blinds drawn?" The nurse answered, "There's a fire across the street, and we didn't want you to think you had died."

Three scumbag lawyers; John Steel, Paul Hansmeier, and Paul Duffy, come together to extort money from individuals guilty of nothing more than watching porn on their computer. The dirtbags planted porn vids online, waited for them to be downloaded, then threatened to sue the viewers in court for the charge of copyright infringement, exposing to shame and humiliation the porn-watching sucker. The process is called "Copyright Trolling". Because most people couldn't abide a public trial, they settled out of court (but of course they did). The average settlement was around $4,000.

They made a business of running this scam. Often, the videos about which the viewers were being sued for copyright infringement weren't even those belonging to the lawyers. Sometimes the lawyers just took a guess that the vid was copyright protected.

Well, they finally got bear-caught and the courts were non-too-pleased. They pushed their luck further by trying to have the ruling tossed, which did not go well for them.

Look at these scumbags.

Unfortunately, only two of them will face disbarment and, hopefully, the poor house and prison, because the fellow on the right, Duffy, died last year from alcoholism. One might hope his conscience was the driving force.

Oh! Did I mention that this is but one of their schemes? Hansmeier (center) was also fond of seeking out minor violations to the ADA laws and threatening to sue small business owners. Again, most settled out of court and some who could not afford it were driven out of business. Steele (left) has also been accused of identity theft.

These people are the lowest of the low, abusing the court system to frighten, humiliate, and bankrupt their fellow citizens.

The Madison-St Clair Record appears to have been following these bastards for a while now.

Q: What happens to a lawyer when you give him Viagra?

A: He gets taller.

Okay, okay. Here's another.

Q: What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 100?
A: Your Honor
Q: What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50?
A: Senator

Ba DA bum! *cymbal*

Wiki has a pretty extensive write-up on the Prenda Law firm if you'd like to read more.

I think what leaves me scratching my head the most, besides the soullessness it takes to commit these rotten deeds, is that they committed them repeatedly, and challenged the law to catch up with them. They were utterly shameless and considered themselves untouchable. Greed will always get you in the end.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:50 AM

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