Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/17/five-years-and-millions-of-dol.html
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Well there are some small silver linings to the dark could of 2016…
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And they grind oh so finely
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To be exact
Gottes Mühlen mahlen langsam, mahlen aber trefflich klein,
Ob aus Langmut er sich säumet, bringt mit Schärf er alles ein.
It is very appropriate in this case.
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What do you mean!? It’s right there between Right Livelihood and Right Action; Right Machiavellian Scheming.
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So, uhm, why hasn’t Trump been indicted for fraud for his phony Trump University? A civil settlement for a fine of less than the fraud took in is all most white collar crime gets, if that. I disagree with Ken White that the wheels necessarily turn at all for large swaths of crime committed by white and/or rich people.
Still, this is wonderful news to celebrate on Saturnalia 
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Any mention of Roman holidays gets a like from me.
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Yule get no argument from me.
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Question for any legal eagles here. IIRC, some of the honeypot was gay porn. Could these lowlifes be sued for harassment or cyber-bullying if they effectively threatened to out people and endanger their livelihood or even safety? Also, are they being sued for extortion or just lying to the court?
Also, it looks like they operated in Illinois. I was under the impression that only California state laws were friendly to pornographers. Could they be hit with solicitation or distributing obscene content since they made some of it themselves?
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I feel like there’s some kind of “finally got what was coming” joke to be made, but can’t quite land it.
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Justice delayed is justice denied.
If the Prendaists weren’t hyper-privileged 1%ers they would’ve been shut down years ago.
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Yup. An aphorism that is especially apt because Prenda continued to victimize additional people every day that they were allowed to continue their greedy, ruinous fraud. So justice delayed means additional victims.
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That raises the question, how could this have happened? They have money, right? So how did they get arrested?
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I feel like they had to practically beg the courts and the Feds to come after them. They got away with so much perjury and fraud for so long. The allegations in the indictments pretty much all come from research by defense attorneys and their expert witnesses who went above and beyond to find discrepancies that weren’t revealed in discovery - all either pro bono or paid for by defendants who risked big money on fighting these fast talking scum in civil court. And, in most instances, the courts were all too willing to aid and abet Hansmeier and Steele, giving them wide latitude as fellow lawyers rather than the Rule 11 sanctions they deserved.
The Fed pretty were pretty much handed the case on a platter when Ottis Wright finally called Hansmeier and Steele on their fraud and forwarded the info to Federal prosecutors. All the prosecutors had to do was flip Mark Lutz and the other underlings who were stupid enough to actually do much of the actual public facing dirty work and would go down if they didn’t turn on their masters.
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In an unrelated story, a copyright trolling law firm named “Frenda Law” opened the next day two blocks down the street.
Check back in 5 more years.
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Hansmeier, who built a new legal practice suing small businesses over violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, filed for bankruptcy last year.
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“Our courts are halls of justice where fairness and the rule of law triumph”
Ha ha ha, that’s a good one! So funny these U.S. attorneys.
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And he added that magic Prenda touch: fake clients. Instead of having real clients who come to him and say “I want to sue someone,” Hansmeier recruited “clients” including visually impaired people he told which local business websites to visit to claim were in violation of ADA rules for the blind. Hansmeier couldn’t even be bothered to tell his “clients” that he’d filed suit in their name.
Hansmeier is shady down to the bone.
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