This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly
call The Kimberlin Saga®. If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not
everyone reads my blog. The short
version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over two years, his worst
conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime. I recognize that this might sound like an
incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in
other words, you don’t have to believe my word.
You only have to believe your eyes.
So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.
Okay, first a
confession. When I was writing yesterday’s
Brett Kimberlin post, I was suffering under a migraine or similarly awful
headache and I managed to forget that this was for Thursday not Friday. So when I said that this was it until Monday,
well... that is because I thought the
next day was Saturday. Oy.
And normally,
dear reader, I would still give you one of the lesser documents on a Friday and
only one or two at that at that. Well,
dear reader, that is what I would normally
do but we are going to give you four different documents, and they are going to
be fun reading.
You see, dear
reader, I am feeling better and perhaps it was because I had gorged myself on
popcorn on Thursday. Yes, and I strongly
suggest you get out the popcorn, too, or some kind of snack food because this
is going to be fun. First, in the mail I
got a pair of deliciously butthurt filings from Brett Kimberlin...
And then later
the same day I got one of the responses.
But, first, a
little background (although it won’t take long to get to any of these documents). As you might recall, last week Paul Levy
filed this
document on behalf of Ace of Spades seeking to stop discovery aimed at
identifying Ace of Spades. If you haven’t
read it already go read it now. It’s
very good. I’ll wait.
One piece that
is missing from that document is the slightly mistitled “Affidavit of Paul
Levy,” which you can read here:
(Technically
it is a Declaration, not an Affidavit, but that is a difference of no
relevance, here.)
There are two
things of note here that draws a little additional blood. First, notice that Brett has claimed it was
fraud for me to claim that he had anything to do with my getting fired, which
is undermined by the fact that he sent an email to Ace threatening Ace with the
same fate if he is outted. It kind of
undermines his whole theory. But the
bully forgets not to be a bully.
And of course
other factual claims about my termination are utterly false. He was not there, he did not see what
happened, and indeed much of what he described was wholly made up. For instance, I didn’t have a single image
from my Everyone Draw Mohammed website in my office, because the entire project
was entirely digital. That is, a person
would send me a picture by email and then I would post it on the site straight
from there. So why would I even bother
to print it out?
And if you
were there, dear reader, on the day I was fired there would be no question in
your mind that I was fired because of Brett.
The other
thing that draws a little extra blood is that Levy disclosed that he previously
represented Brett on a freedom of speech issue.
The subtext is “your honor, I don’t represent anything but the First
Amendment. And this time that means I have
to oppose Mr. Kimberlin.”
Also, please
note that I did cut one of the exhibits out of the “affidavit.” All that was, was part of the transcript of
the Kimberlin v. Allen hearing. You can read the whole thing, here. Levy focused primarily on Brett denying that
he was a suspect in the Scyphers murder.
So Levy dealt
a pretty serious body blow to Brett with his motion and that brings me to the
amusement of yesterday.
Now, to
review, Judge Grimm put out an
order forbidding any kind of filing except Brett’s soon to be forthcoming
amended complaint, any answer to said complaint, any motions to dismiss or
responses to them. All other filings had
to be made by seeking leave of court and in a special format. But rules are for other people in Brett’s
world, so he filed a something other than the above, and without seeking leave
of court: he filed a motion to disqualify Levy.
Which we all knew was coming. I mean
it’s
not like he hasn’t done this kind of crap before.
So he filed a motion
to disqualify Levy as counsel based on him previously representing him. This is even though in that last link, I explained
to Brett what the rules were for conflicts of interest. And we know he read that because the next day
he wrote a pissy email to my attorney saying “I asked you not to send the email
I sent you about your potential conflict to him because he would post it on the
Internet, and he did.” and then he linked to the very same post.
But that didn’t
stop him from filing this dumb thing, in a vain attempt to get Mr. Levy
disqualified. You can read it for
yourself, here:
Of course,
what this is really about is revealed toward the end of his “Declaration of
Plaintiff Brett Kimberlin Re Attorney Parul [sic]* Levy”:
8. Mr. Levy's
conduct has embarrassed me, been detrimental to me, and has the very real
possibility of disadvantaging me in the instant case.
Ah, you know, John Hoge has
suggested Preparation H for this condition, but myself, I would have to go
with this product on the right...
(That’s a real
product folks, which you can buy, here. No idea if it is good, but several mothers I know
swear by it.)
Normally, I would
wait for Levy to have a response, so you could see the rebuttal at the same
time as the accusation by Brett, but really this needs no rebuttal, it is so
feeble. And I will add that it makes
Brett look simply awful in front of the judge.
Really, all things being equal, he should hope and pray that the judge
strikes the motion without even looking at it, because the more the judge reads
in it, the more he will realize he is dealing with a true nutball and seek to
flush this case at their earliest opportunity.
And while I will
mostly let its ineptitude speak for itself, a few notes. First, the rules on “publicity in general”
deal largely with firm advertisements and hasn’t been adopted in Maryland,
anyway. Seriously, have you turned on a
TV recently? Have you seen attorneys
avoiding being “self-lauditory” very much?
Also the part on “Recommendation of Professional Employment” is about
referral fees, which is not on the table.
And as far as being compensated by someone other than his client... Brett idiotically quoted the part of the rule
that allows a person to do so with the
consent of the client. So more than
likely Public Citizen pays Levy’s salary, Ace is paying him nothing, and Ace
knows about this arrangement and happily consents to it. Big whoop.
And as far as using
confidential information, yes, if Brett told Levy something in confidence, he can’t
disclose it to Ace or anyone else. But
noticeably missing is any confidential information actually disclosed, just
Brett’s conclusory allegation on the subject.
And as for the section on extra-judicial publicity, I already crushed
the issue above. The rule he cites hasn’t actually been adopted
in Maryland and the Maryland rule is actually far more respectful of Levy’s
freedom of expression. The fact is Levy
said these things with no expectation that the judge would even know he said
it. And the only reason why the judge is
finding out now is because Brett is telling him. Which qualifies as a smart move.
And as for the
rules on conflicts of interest, yeah, the problem is the duty is only owed to
current clients. Brett is not, and
presumably neither is Breitbart Unmasked (who was identified by Bill
Schmalfeldt as Brett, anyway), or it has to be a substantially related matter, and it isn't.. So
basically he has nothing.
Anyway, Brett
was so certain he had a winner with his motion to disqualify, that he even
decided that this was a reason to give him another extension of time, with this
additional motion, which he did not seek leave to file before filing in
violation of the judge’s letter order, again (that would be strike two):
So I was
enjoying that as I made my way to the Montgomery County Circuit Courthouse to
get certified copies of a specific document, but then just as I was sitting
down to eat, we get to see Levy’s reply to that motion for extension. It’s short, sweet and brutal:
Didn’t I tell
you that you would need popcorn this morning?
Or at least some kind of snack food of the variety you eat during a
movie?
Now, first,
what John
observed about all the funny business going on in terms of when this was
filed matches my experience. Brett apparently
backdated it to February 21, to give the honorable Judge Grimm the impression
that he had not knowingly violated the court’s order. (Of course Brett also claimed to sign his
Declaration on February 24, so apparently time travel is a thing.) But PACER knows when it was filed, and it was
several days after the order was handed down and after Brett was surely informed
of it. And the consequences of violating
it when the ink was barely dry could be Grimm indeed.
Second, the
fact is Levy is correct that he is not the only person who filed that motion,
and Brett is not even arguing that the ACLU lawyer should be disqualified, so
there is no way that it would cause anything to be struck, even pretending that
the motion was not laughably frivolous.
No, what this
is really about, is this: Brett is getting crushed under the workload
again. As you might remember he filed in
the state case a motion to cause all my, Stacy McCain’s and John Hoge’s posts about
him to be taken down. We each filed a different
opposition and then he has to reply to each.
Meanwhile he has until March 7 to amend his complaint and boy it better
be a good one, and he has all those special rules about redlining the document
to comply with. And finally, he has that
whole show cause thing and bluntly, if I was him, I would be seeking an
attorney right now to represent him on that issue, which will take up even more
time. Plus there is the press of duties
that just comes with being a single father.
So he is once
again finding his pro se skills are not quite up to the task. And the amazing thing is he is thinking of adding parties. You know, because what he really needs is for
more lawyers to be filing against him.
The mind boggles. A wise attorney
might be telling him right about now that the smartest thing for him would be
to voluntarily dismiss the case and hope to get away without having to pay
monetary sanctions after being caught red-handed forging documents. But even if any attorney gave him such
advice, would he be liable to listen?
So that is our
installment for today, and an uncharacteristically meaty one at that. Tune in again Monday for more fun. Maybe I can even share with you what I have
been teasing. We’ll see.
And always
remain happy warriors, folks.
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* “Sic” is latin for “thus.” For instance, here’s the Virginia flag:
Yep, that is a
guy straight up murdering a king (indicated by the fallen crown) with the state
motto “sic semper tyrannis” written
underneath, which translates to “thus always to tyrants.” I.e. we do this to all tyrants so if you plan
to be one, watch the heck out (kind of puts that whole Second Amendment into
perspective, doesn’t it?). A more
mundane use you often see in legal writing is when you quote someone making a
typo and then you insert in brackets, “[sic]” to indicate that this was how the
original was. I.e., yes, I know this is
bad spelling or grammer, but that is how the guy wrote it.
---------------------------------------
My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted
terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame
me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years. I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you
read starting here,
you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.
If you would like to help in the fight
to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the donation link on the right. And thank you.
Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing,
mostly for snark and site updates. And
you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel:
A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.
And you can read a little more about my
novel, here.
---------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
I have accused
some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice
I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice
system. I do not want to see vigilante
violence against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the
particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed
communication. I say this in part
because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want
that to happen to him.
And for that
matter, don’t go on his property. Don’t
sneak around and try to photograph him.
Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision. Your behavior could quickly cross the line
into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not
contact his organizations, either. And
most of all, leave his family alone.
The only
exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course
nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any
stories you might report. And even then
if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request. That this is a key element in making out a
harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you
refuse.
And let me say
something else. In my heart of hearts, I
don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.
Single father?
ReplyDeleteHis wife is divorcing him. He's got the kids right now. Things are messy, and I seem to recall that he had her arrested at the courthouse in front of their children after one of the hearings claiming that she was crazy and needed a psych hold. The judge released her immediately.
DeleteAaron, to the IANAL crowd, that e-mail to Ace sounds a LOT like a threat; pay me or else.
ReplyDeleteExtortion, delusion and lies, oh my!
ReplyDeleteMight I suggest Ruffles potato chips and bacon horseradish dip as a snack while following the misadventures of the midget wannabe mastermind?
What I find most amusing about Kimberlin's Motion to Disqualify is that the statement that he alleges near the top of page 5 was made by Mr, Levy--which starts, "Released from prison in 2000,..."--and that seems to be the basis for much of Kimberlin's blathering on subsequent pages was actually made by Ace of Spades. In fact, Kimberlin's own attachments to his motion show that that statement was not in the post made by Mr. Levy. Heh.
ReplyDeleteAs ridiculous as this guy is, as a practicing attorney there is NO WAY I would put myself in Levy's shoes. If a new client asked me to take a position adverse to a former client, I would not be comfortable taking on the new client.
ReplyDeleteLevy's actions are wholly consistent with ethical practice, but it is far too close for me.
I saw it done all the time. You represent Walmart in case A, and then you represent Target in the next case.
Deletei think Levy's view is, "i represent the 1st A, not any particular person." Yes, within the bounds of the rules of professional conduct, but still... it was something like 25 years ago that he helped Brett out. There needs to be a statute of limitations on his ability to block other people from getting help.
There is a great ambiguity in play here. If Levy last represented Kimberlin decades ago in a completely unrelated matter, there is no possible conflict. If, however, Levy represented Kimberlin or an affiliate fairly recently, then that would have to have been Breitbart Unmasked, and Levy is articulating the exact same position in both cases. In other words, Levy is not arguing anything averse to his representation of Breitbart Unmasked. It would be richly ironic if Levy protected Kimberlin's right to remain anonymous, and then Kimberlin objected to Levy protecting anonymity for others. Moreover, the only way that Kimberlin can assert that Levy is conflicted in that case is by admitting that he is Breitbart Unmasked.
DeleteJeffM
Like I said, I don't disagree that Levy is behaving ethically. There's no question there.
DeleteJust personally, as an attorney, I would not represent someone adverse to a previous client. But my practice is very different from Levy's, and I don't really have that problem.
Trying to get MORE lawyers to file things to which he has to respond?
ReplyDeleteIt's like he's trying to emulate the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, but without as good a plan.