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LOS ANGELES, CA — from www.arstechnica.com – In a Los Angeles federal courtroom on a blindingly sunny Monday afternoon, US District Judge Otis Wright [pictured] expressed incredulity at the sheer gall of the Prenda porn trolling firm.

Judge Wright had ordered six other Prenda affiliates (or alleged affiliates) to show up in response to his order regarding possible sanctions for their behavior.

None of those named parties showed up to the hearing in person, apart from Alan Cooper of Minnesota.

(Cooper has alleged that Prenda attorney John Steele used Cooper’s name improperly as the CEO of copyright licensing firm AF Holdings.)

Lawyers Steele, Paul Hansmeier, Paul Duffy, and Prenda paralegal Angela Van Den Hemel had filed a notice on Friday saying that travel to the Central District Court of California was impossible for the out-of-state parties. Monday, they were represented by another attorney who identified herself as Heather Rosing.

The strange hearing produced such a mix-up of roles that even the lawyers had lawyers—and people didn’t know where to sit. Prenda’s erstwhile attorney Brett Gibbs cut ties with Prenda Law after the firm found itself in a messy bind regarding the practices it used to serve lawsuits to hundreds of Does suspected of illegally downloading porn; he hired his own attorneys to represent him at the hearing.

“I’m not sure what side we’re supposed to be on,” said one of them as he tried to decide whether he belonged at the defense or plaintiff table.

In the quiet second-floor courtroom, Wright sat down and began. “This is an OSC [Order to Show Cause] set by the court as to why sanctions should not be imposed,” Wright growled. Holding up a stack of papers at least five inches high, he said, “I spent the weekend reading a depo [deposition] which is perhaps the most revealing document thus far, as far as what they [Prenda] didn’t want revealed.”

That was a reference to the seven-hour deposition given by Hansmeier to defense attorney Morgan Pietz, who led most of the questioning. Judge Wright also angrily questioned Rosing about her clients’ failure to show up. When Rosing tried to speak on behalf of her clients, Wright told her that if they weren’t present, he wasn’t interested in hearing her talk about them.

Gibbs’ attorney, Andrew Waxler, noted that Steele, Hansmeier, Duffy, and Van Den Hemel had made themselves available for questioning by phone. “I may take you up on that,” responded the judge. However, Wright didn’t ultimately have anyone phone them, possibly because no statements could have been made under oath.

“The court will be drawing its own inferences with the information it actually has,” Wright told the lawyers. “It is obvious that someone has an awful lot to hide.”

Monday, Verizon filed a brief saying it was never told that a judge had shut down Prenda’s discovery efforts—information it should have been given. Rather, Verizon said it found out about the judge’s order only after it had delivered the information to Prenda.

It was Gibb’s responsibility to notify the company after Prenda dropped the lawsuit that was miring it in so much grief from the courts. But this didn’t happen. Gibbs then testified, as he has before, that Hansmeier told him the ISPs did get the documents.

An AT&T lawyer also took the stand to say it too was never notified of the canceled subpoeanas, but AT&T didn’t serve the names to Prenda (unlike Verizon) because it found the order to vacate while an employee was looking through documents on the federal court’s PACER system.

“Mr. Gibbs was very surprised because he understood, as he does today, that the order has been served,” Waxler said. He then suggested that perhaps the orders had been lost in Verizon and AT&T’s mailing labyrinth.
Wright turns to Gibbs

Gibbs wore a very solemn face through the testimony, and his lawyers (Waxler along with a second attorney) did their best to present an ignorant man to the court. In some respects “I was their secretary esentially,” Gibbs said.

The judge pointedly asked Waxler if his client had a “hold harmless” agreement. Waxler said that Gibbs did not.

Gibbs was also taken to task by Wright about his failure to disclose a notice of related cases each time he filed a complaint against several Does. “Why is it that in every single one of these cases, there’s no notice of related cases?” the judge fired off.

Waxler responded, “The downloads are done by separate infringers and while the plaintiffs are largely the same… perhaps it was in error, Your Honor.” Wright pressed, saying that a lawsuit over a porn title called Popular Demand looked exactly like another filed around the same time.

Waxler answered, “Well obviously they are relat—“

“That’s what I thought, too,” Wright quipped as he cut the attorney off coolly.

Only one Alan Cooper showed up, and he took the stand to assert that he had no connection with AF Holdings or to any Prenda lawyers besides Steele. Cooper was essentially Steele’s housesitter, he said, living in one of two houses Steele owned on a piece of property in Minnesota. Cooper, a tall man with white hair, stood in contrast to the rest of the suited courtroom—he wore jeans and a t-shirt.

When questioned on the interactions he had with Steele, Cooper said he tried not to talk to Steele too much. But what Steele did tell him was revealing. “His goal was $10,000 a day from mailing all the letters,” said Cooper.

“What letters?” the judge asked.

“I’m not very Internet savvy myself,” Cooper said. “But, he would ask for a check or make it public to these families what they were looking at.”

When he thought Steele was using his identity, Cooper sought legal counsel; Steele eventually sued him for defamation (the suit was later withdrawn). The court then played four voicemail messages Steele left for Cooper, apparently in the aftermath of the defamation claims.

“I want to remind you that you have an obligation [to return calls], otherwise it gets very ugly from here,” Steele said in the voicemail. “I would like to try to work this out at a convenient time for everyone.”

“I can assure you that ignoring legal matters won’t make them go away,” Steele said to Cooper in another voicemail. He was still willing to address “any settlement discussions you’d like to address.”

Wright was clearly displeased with Gibbs and other Prenda affiliates. But the hearing lasted far longer than expected, nearly three hours in total. Wright eventually adjourned, saying he had heard enough. It’s impossible to tell what the court will do, but Wright seemed most angered by the obfuscation of Steele and Hansmeier, rather than the work of Gibbs.

“The client has been running everything here,” Wright said pointedly. “And I know who the client is,” he added, implying it was John Steele. Wright then dismissed Gibbs from the stand.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Gibbs said as he stepped down.

“Good luck to you,” Wright responded.