Stephanie Adams Update

You guys rock! You have Stephanie Adams, Martin Siegel and the esteemed law firm of Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels running scared from your reactions! The money we raised to force a deposition scared them enough to actually get a protective order against us.
What this means for the short term as far as I understand it is that we cannot deposition her now but she still has to answer our interrogatories. Whether or not we will be allowed to publish them immediately is yet to be seen. What is certain is that they are adamantly opposed to keeping these proceedings open and honest.
You can download the PDF's that were filed by Martin Siegel here: download download

Martin Siegel and Stephanie Adams are Trying to Let Their Frivolous Lawsuit "Whither and Die"

We got this letter today from our lawyer, Neal (Truth Ninja) Johnston. Basically he's worried that Stephanie Adams' attorney, Martin Siegel, has been so thoroughly embarrassed by this ordeal that he plans to let the case just linger and die. Neither Neal, nor myself wants to see that happen, and we presume that the people following along do not want that either. Neal wants to bring bear the fruit of this case and hold Martin Siegel accountable for his distasteful actions. The problem being, they continue to refuse to answer any of Neal's interrogatories.

You can read Neal's letter to me after the jump, but basically to sum it up, we need to raise $1,090 to make sure that Stephanie Adams and Martin Siegel are brought to account for their actions. In order to do that we need to file a Request for Judicial Intervention ($90) and do a deposition on Stephanie Adams, which will cost around $1,000 for the court reporter to transcribe the meeting.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who kicked in towards this cause, now Stephanie and her lawyer wont' be able to avoid our questions anymore. I spoke with Neal and he's going to keep the money in a trust and use it as needed. He also said we will probably need more down the line so feel free to keep kicking and know that it's going to a good cause. It will all be accounted for by the Neal (Truth Ninja) Johnston.

Also, here's a list of those questions that Stephanie and her lawyer are dodging.

Interrogatories 1
Interrogatories 2
Interrogatories 3

Dear James:

I finally got a letter from Martin Siegel, a copy of which I enclose. As usual, it says nothing. First, he is working on a motion for a protective order; he's been doing that for weeks. Second, he thinks it would be inappropriate to indicate which interrogatories he will answer or which documents he will produce until he knows whether we will keep all the answers a secret. This makes no sense and is really nothing more than legal noise.

This aside, I have heard nothing substantive from Mr. Siegel. I have no expectation that I ever will, unless something is forced from him. Which means that unless we do something, Stephanie Adams' preposterous lawsuit against you will simply languish until it dies an eventual death by attrition.

There are a number of reasons for this.

When I spoke to Mr. Siegel - for the only time - over a month ago -- he said a number of remarkable things.

First, he indicated that he would not be writing to me again unless I would promise him that you would never again post any of his letters. He does not share your interest in having a transparent litigation. I would not give him that promise, so he has kept his promise. Silence, save the short, contentless letter of October 6.

Second, in what I take to be an effort to force me into a quiet settlement mode, he told me that he could not afford to walk away from the lawsuit. It would be dreadful news to his other clients to hear that he had abandoned Ms. Adams. The purpose of his 'warning', I think, was to warn me that if I didn't force a settlement upon you, I would have to be prepared for a long and expensive litigation. He did not seem to anticipate that I was actually looking forward to this adventure. (It is so rarely that one actually gets to take candy away from truly undeserving children.) While Siegel cannot afford to be seen walking away from Stephanie Adams, allowing the lawsuit to die on the vine is another matter entirely.

Third, I have to assume that the litigation is a real embarrassment to his law firm, Brown Rudnick. That firm is not one of the top-tier, or even second tier law firms. But it is a national law firm with a decent reputation. Right now, if you Google Brown Rudnick, you have to get to the second page to find a link to Stephanie Adams (or the stale story of the NY partner charged with stock fraud), but that is quite too close entirely to the top to be the least bit pleasant to a firm with aspirations. This silly suit has to be a serious embarrassment to the firm.

As you tell me the story, a few months back, Siegel called you to tell you that you couldn't afford to defend a lawsuit, and so should roll over and play dead, being careful before you did to delete all of the references to Ms. Adams which displeased her. Unless he had a good faith belief that there was something defamatory in the quite innocuous passages you posted, that was a despicable thing for him to do. When you called his bluff, he went ahead a served a complaint seeking $100,000 in damages. He should be ashamed of himself. In all probability, he is.

There may also be some concern that if his complaint is ever actually adjudicated, he may be liable to you for sanctions for the hopeless frivolity of his complaint, or, perhaps, more serious, that he may have to answer for his conduct here to the grievance committee. None of that will happen if the whole shoddy affair just continues to lie a-moldering.

He has simply refused to respond to the interrogatories and document demands we have served. He may well have arguable grounds to object to a very few of the interrogatories, but no more than a very few. For the most part, he simply dreads having to put himself and his client on the line by answering the rest. And so, he will answer none unless forced to.

He continues to threaten to move for a protective order against this discovery, and also seeking to censor you from publishing any of Ms. Adams' answers to any of the questions. Other than threaten, he has done nothing of the sort. He won't until after the cows come home, and you know how rare it is to see a homeward bound cow even in downtown Manhattan.

Nothing will happen unless and until we cause something to happen. That will take a little time and a little money, but since I'm sure you don't want this strange saga to dry up and blow away, I think we have no choice.

Therefore, I shall do two things.

First, I shall notice the deposition of Ms. Adams for November. She will not show up on that date. Siegel will take the position that she won't appear unless you agree that the transcript of her testimony will not be posted on your web site, that her sworn oral testimony concerning her claims against you and her allegations that your pretty straight forward reporting has or will cost her $100,000. Until we notice her deposition, a Court cannot order her to give it; meanwhile, it cannot hurt for her to contemplate a full and painful day of answering under oath the probing and hostile questions we will put to her.

Second, I shall file what is called a Request for Judicial Intervention, an "RJI". This will cause a judge to be assigned to the case who will, fairly promptly, schedule a conference at which a discovery schedule will be set. If Siegel has serious objections to answering our standard discovery demands, he will have to make his case to a judge and will not be able to sit back on a unilateral refusal to comply with the rules.

It costs $90 to file an RJI. It costs nothing to notice a deposition, but when we actually get to have one, I will have to hire a court reporter to take and then transcribe Ms. Adams testimony. That cost will come close to $1,000, depending in part upon how much she talks, and how much her lawyer attempts to intervene. (In this connection, the rules have recently changed and lawyers have recently been told by the judges to behave themselves and not attempt to disrupt a deposition with intrusive and instructional interruptions.)

If you can raise the money to pay for these costs, I will be pleased. If you can't, I will simply have to pay for them myself. What has been attempted here, by Stephanie Adams and her attorney simply cannot be allow to succeed. Success for them would be bad for journalism and bad for the law - and I have a pretty high opinion of each.

Sincerely yours,


Neal Johnston

NJ:ig

Stephanie Adams Stinks Up the Learning Annex, Speaks at a "How to Be a Gold-Digger" Seminar

Stephanie Adams is the guest speaker at a Learning Annex course called "How to Marry Rich: The Rich Are Going to Marry... Why Not to You?"

To be shortly followed up with wildy successful "Sue Your Way to Wealth 101".

The only problem is A. J. Daulerio, a reporter who sat in on the course says that Adams sucked so bad that he had to demand his money back from the Learning Annex.

As stunning as Adams may be to look at, it was apparent that her public-speaking skills were gleaned from middle school. She spoke softly and read from a script that was surely in outline form, most likely with big Roman numerals and possibly written in crayon. She made minimal eye contact and had all the charm and charisma of an extremely attractive woman with absolutely nothing to say. Although she was a former pinup model, she had the sex appeal of a colostomy bag.

Adams then suggested stores for classy yet inexpensive clothing (consignment shops) and offered ideas for tracking down the rich men (charity events and art galleries). Nightclubs, she opined, were not the places to go a'hunting. Most people at clubs are looking for one-night stands, not long-term, wallet-padding relationships from which one can eventually drain their bank accounts.

Daulerio says, "A few days after the seminar, the Learning Annex basically admitted the class sucked and credited me $25."

Gold-Digging 101 [NY Press]
How to Marry Rich: The Rich Are Going to Marry... Why Not to You? with Stephanie Adams [Learning Annex]

Neal (Iron Horse) Johnston Spells Out What Siegel's Frivolous Refusal to Answer is Costing Him

Re: Adams v. Poling

Dear Mr. Siegel:

A week back I received your letter and court papers telling me, in essence, that you would respond to my interrogatories and document requests to the extent that they were not objectionable for one reason or another provided I agree to keep your answers a deep dark secret.

You do not indicate which of the questions nor which of the documents you do intend to produce eventually. It would be greatly helpful if you could indicate what it is that you are talking about. Without such a statement, your Responses are really utterly useless formalities.

You also say that as of September 20, you were working on a motion for a protective order.

I think you know that in August, my wife and I were on a cruise up the Danube from Bucharest to Budapest. Sadly, she was in increasing discomfort as the trip progressed and immediately upon our return I took her to the doctor, where, within hours, she was found to have developed a pancreatic cancer. She is of the very lucky and very small minority of people with such a tumor where it is operable, and a week ago she underwent what seems to be successful surgery.

I mention this because my time is, for the foreseeable future, less my own than is usually the case. It would be very useful for me to know when to expect your motion so that I can plan my time around it.

Of course it may also be, given your client's participation last Friday in a very successful press conference concerning the very matters defendant here had the bad luck to write about, that you may wish to rethink your argument that your client is a quiet, private person who should not be subjected to having her name, face and affairs made public by journalism.

Sincerely yours,

Neal Johnston

NJ:ig

cc. James Poling

On another note, our thoughts are with Neal and his wife and we wish them all the best through this time in their lives.

Neal (Freedom Fighter) Johnston's Letter to the Daily News

News Desk

Daily News

Re: Stephanie Adams

Dear I Should Probably Look it Up:

This weekend you ran a story emerging from a news conference held last Friday where Stephanie Adams, former Playmate turned out Lesbian, announced the filing of her $5,000,000 law suit against the City and others.

You missed the good part.

Last June, Ms. Adams held a news conference announcing her intention to serve such a suit. You picked up that story too, as did the Post. So did a blogger named James Poling. His coverage was less than really respectful and Ms. Adams didn't like it a bit. She got an attorney at a sizeable enough mid-level national law firm to write to Poling threatening to sue him if he didn't take down the blog.

When Poling held on to principle, Ms. Adams kept to her word and started a $100,000 suit against him. At the request of my first-amendment-y son, I took on the case pro bono.

Ms. Adams has refused to answer any of my interrogatories there unless I agree that everything she might say in her law suit will be held in the strictest confidence. She is, she argues, a private, not a public, person.

You can get a much richer sense of Ms. Adams by checking out her web page at either myspace.com or at her commercial link, goddessy.com.

You could read about her extraordinary encounters with a West Coast blogger who had the temerity to criticize her remarkable web page at richardsramblings.com. (Search for Stephanie Adams.)

You could see what some of the other bloggers have printed about this weird matter by checking out gothamist.com or huffingtonpost.com.

Or better still, you could take a look at the Poling blog which started this round of not quite free-wheeling litigation: metadish.com.

If I can be of any assistance, please call.

Sincerely yours,

Neal Johnston

NJ:ig

cc. James Poling

Neal (Mad Dog) Johnston Shows Up Martin (Sad Clown) Siegel

Re: Adams v. Poling

Dear Mr. Siegel:

Sometimes the left hand just doesn't know what the right one is doing!

Last Friday, you were no doubt working away at the papers you have promised to serve pretty shortly where you argue that Stephanie Adams is a very private young lady who deserves to have her privacy protected by a judicial order preventing my client and presumably other news agencies from printing any of her answers to any of the interrogatories put to her concerning her threatened law suit against the City of New York. It was my clients coverage of this event which triggered your demand that he take down his postings concerning your client, and which prompted your $100,000 law suit when he ignored your heavy handed attempt at coerced censorship.

Last Friday, your client, in the company of another of her lawyers, was holding a press conference in Brooklyn announcing her $5,000,000 law suit against the City.

The conference received very extensive news coverage over the weekend. Google shows the story picked up by 150 or so newspapers, tv stations, etc. You may be unaware that Ms. Adams has for sometime maintained a web page containing press clips of her many forays into the public arena. She just added a couple dozen news electronic clips to this sizeable page since Friday.

I attach a second set of interrogatories relating to this press conference.

Since they concern a press conference attended by your client relating to the very events discussed in my client's news story involving her, I cannot imagine that there can be any objection on your side to the relevance or appropriateness of any of these inquiries. Since they all relate to your client's news conference, I cannot imagine that you could seriously contend that you client is entitled to ensure that the details of her participation in this event are obscured from the public eye.

I can appreciate the stressful choice Ms. Adams had to make. However deeply she loves her privacy, her retirement from the hurly burly of the world, her ability to shut herself off from the sturm und drang of the modern world, she also clearly loves the glitter, the tinsel, the limelight.

I'm sure you wanted her to lay low, at least until your motion was heard. Alas, she marched to a different drummer. Or, at least, another lawyer. As Robert Burns famously said, The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft a-gley."

Sincerely yours,

Neal Johnston

NJ:ig

Enclosure

cc. James Poling

Stephanie Adams Sues More People, Attempts to Stay Relevent

The supposedly "private" Stephanie Adams held another press conference to announce her lawsuit against an NYC Cabbie, the NYPD and the City of New York. If there's someone out there screaming louder for attention than Ms. Adams, I haven't seen evidence of it.

If anyone from the media would like to do some actual research about the overly litigious Stephanie Adams' harrassment of us and her baseless lawsuit to try and stomp on our rights feel free to contact us or our kickass lawyer, Neal (Freedom Warrior) Johnston (we don't want him to get spammed so contact us for his email if you'd like to speak with him).

Let's look at what some commenters over at HuffPo are saying about Ms. Adams:

By: TastyBanana on September 23, 2006 at 05:10pm: Oh God, not this idiot again. She's nothing but a washed up, haggered old playmate. For God's sake, she posed nude 14 years ago! Her time in the limelight should have long passed.

By: Steamboater on September 23, 2006 at 05:38pm: I read those posts TastyBanana and you're right. My first reaction was to support this woman's accusations but she's obviously someone who flies off the handle very easily and her anti-semitic rants at those posts aside, is easily offended if something doesn't go her way e.g., "Look driver, I said 66th Street., not 67th Street. Don't you speak english fuckhead! Now hurry before I report your dumb ass to your boss ... fuckin Jew-shit!) " Also, knowing 14 years after she first spread her legs for the camera she's still at it shows she demands a lot of public attention or has a very good plastic surgeon. In either case, the woman's a case without a case.

When was the last time Stephanie Adams was in the spotlight of a ligitimate news agency for something other than taking off her clothes or suing someone?

Metadish and Neal Johnston Respond to Martin Siegel's Sudden Attack of Cold Feet

In case you don't know, Martin Siegel of Brown Rudnick is the attorney representing Stephanie Adams, a former Playboy Playmate (way former), in her frivolous lawsuit against us in an attempt to garner publicity for herself.

Last week our lawyer, Neal "Free Speech" Johnston, spoke with Martin Siegel who was practically begging us to agree to a confidentiality agreement to protect his client from "embarrassing" facts that may come to light.

This from the lawyer who initially told us that we didn't have enough money to fight the case so we should just take down everything we had written and be done with it. What happened Mr. Siegel? Does the idea of actually taking this case to court cause your manhood to retreat somewhere deep inside of you?

If that is indeed the case, strap on a set and let's get this case moving. Stop being such a waffler and answer the interrogetories that are due before you piss off Neal "Fight the Power" Johnston and he makes you look like more of a fool than you already do for taking on this case in the first place. Let's get to it man!

You and your client are the ones who drug us into this lawsuit, not the other way around. For you to suddenly take the position of propriety is a bit too late. If you do indeed want to settle the case, as it seems you were hinting at the other day, all it would take would be written and sincere apologies from both you and your client, but Neal handles the specifics of that in his letter.

You can also see Neal's response to Mr. Siegel after the fold, it's another classic.

September 12, 2006

Via Telecopier (212) 209 4801

Martin S. Siegel, Esq.
Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP
7 Times Square
New York, NY 10036

Re: Adams v. Poling

Dear Mr. Siegel:

When we spoke on Friday, you indicated that you did not intend to answer any of the interrogatories I have put to your client unless and until I agree to promise that my client will not post any of her answers on his blog. I took this case on as a First Amendment matter; were my client to agree to the kind of request you make, I suspect I would gently withdraw.

According to Ms. Adams' own press release, she was a millionaire before she was 30 through her Fortune 500 investments. My client makes all of his investments in news research, and can't afford to pay me any thing at all. Clearly, unless somebody steps to the plate to defend his right to comment on Ms. Adams, her career and her taste, she can litigate him into silence, whatever the merits of the matter. That is not going to happen. Stephanie Adams las long wanted to bask in the public eye; now she will again.

Stephanie Adams appears to have been avidly pursuing self-promotion since at least about the day she became a Playboy Playmate. The litigation between our parties has its origin in a minor taxi incident covered in substantial photographed detail in the New York Post and other journals, followed by another Post story with another lovely photograph of Ms. Adams, this concerning a news conference in another of her attorney's offices trumpeting news of her multi-million dollar law suit against the City.

You chose to file and serve a public complaint charging James Poling with printing defamatory statements about a supposedly 'private' person, Ms. Adams. The interrogatories you don't want to answer in public seek to pin you down as to just what statements you think were defamatory, just how Ms. Adams was monetarily damaged by any of Poling's statements, and just why the self-promoting "spokesmodel in the gay community. . . author of 16 books . . . and renowned international psychic/astrologist. . ." thinks she can seriously contend that she is not a public person. If she is not a public person, it ain't for want of rather desperate trying.

Ms. Adams clearly wants all the publicity she can get, as long as it is doting. The lawsuit she has started will be covered as a news event in Poling's and other blogs, and I dare say it will be more daunting than doting.

If you think there is something improper about my interrogatories, if you believe you have some right under the Civil Practice Law and Rules to cherry pick the questions, or if you believe that my client's right to obtain the information he wants to defend against your action can be conditioned upon his abandoning his right to comment on your client's conduct, then you may move for a protective order. Until you do so, things will be on hold.

However, I rather fear that this is the goal: having started the case, you can no longer abandon it, but you could hope to watch it wither. However, if you do not move against my questions within a professionally reasonable time, I will pick up your burden and move to compel answers.

In our Friday conversation, you several times indicated that it was a conversation in search of settlement. Lawyers sometimes so speak because settlement conferences are generally treated as confidential, and the shadow of settlement is sometimes used to screen exchanges which would otherwise be public. Therefore, let me state that the only way this case can possibly be settled is through the issuance of unqualified and sincere apologies not only from Ms. Adams, but also from you. Any document purporting to be a settlement proposal which does not comply with these terms will be deemed a fraud and will be treated as perfectly public.

Under the circumstances, I think that our future communications should be by letter. If nothing else, it will give our heirs something of interest to read.

Sincerely yours,

Neal Johnston

NJ:ig
cc. James Poling
5311A9BA.066

Stephanie Adams and Her Hack Attorney Are Scared to Answer our Discovery Questions

If you'll remember a couple of months ago we asked for your help in coming up with questions you wanted us to ask Stephanie Adams during the discovery phase of her lawsuit against us. It seems like Stephanie doesn't like some of the questions very much, her attorney is trying to get us to agree to a joint confidentiality agreement.

Martin S. Siegel, Esq.

Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP

7 Times Square

New York, NY 10036

Re: Adams v. Polins

Dear Mr. Siegel:

I have just returned from Eastern Europe and am writing in response to your proposed confidentiality stipulation.

You want an agreement that either party may designate as confidential any "information that: (i) may not be obtained from other sources, (ii) could injure such party's personal, trade or business interests should be disclosed."

First, while you have set this up as a joint stipulation, I can advise you that there is no relevant information which we will seek to treat as confidential, therefore what you seek really is a favor for your side, not a joint protection.

Second, I am unclear whether the comma in the quoted passage is intended to be an "and" or and "or".

Either way, however, it seems that you want to be able to shield any information which Ms. Adams might think to be embarrassing. I am familiar with confidentiality agreements which protect trade secrets or propriety information. I have never known of an agreement which threw a blanket of secrecy over information simply because it could injury a party's personal interests.

Such an agreement would be particular strange in a situation where the party seeking to protect her privacy is suing for alleged injury to her reputation. Your client has put her reputation on the line.

However, it may be that I am reacting to your choice of words and not your real request. The answers to my seventy or so interrogatories are either due or all but due, and by now you must have your responses pretty much prepared. You know, as I do not, which specific interrogatories give you concern.

Why don't you let me know what it is that you are concerned about by reference to specific interrogatories?

And, why don't you now give me answers to those interrogatories you do not seek to keep secret.

Sincerely yours,

Neal Johnston

NJ:ig

cc. James Poling

What are you scared of Stephanie? You sued us? Answer the fucking questions already!

BREAKING: Playboy Playmate is Suing BlogNYC for $100,000

Wait, we're being sued by Martin Siegel of Brown Rudnick? The same guy that defended Ken Lay in his bankruptcy proceedings? Rock! We really are the good guys! We also may be the first website in history to officially be sued for saying that we "owned" someone. Pwned!

I know some of you have been asking about what's going on in the Stephanie Adams case, sorry for the delay but we were waiting to hear back from Stephanie and her Lawyer Martin Siegel. Well we finally heard from them, and to the sound of jaws dropping all over NYC, nay the world, Martin Siegel has signed his name to a laughable complaint alleging that we have libel and defamed and ruined Stephanie Adams.

Possibly the most ludicrous part of the lawsuit is their claim that she is not a public figure, presumably because it's much harder to prove libel and slander against a public figure. They're making this claim despite everything she has posted on her THREE FUCKING WEBSITES ABOUT HERSELF boldly declaring that she is a "Playboy Playmate", a "spokesmodel", a "celebrity author" as well as prominently displaying news clips about herself and providing a media and press inquiries link. Also, in the initial letter we received from her lawyer one of the complaints was that we claimed to have "communicated with Stephanie herself" rather than her PR DEPARTMENT. How many "private individuals" do you know that have a fucking PR DEPARTMENT?

Please everyone, Stephanie Adams is merely a simple, private person, can't we all just let her be? Are we in the fucking Twilight Zone?

Now here comes the fun part. Since Stephanie Adams and Martin Siegel chose to go forward with this lawsuit, we get to do a fun little thing called discovery.

"Discovery? That sounds like fun, how can I get involved," you say. Easy. We have to think of anything and everything we want to know about Stephanie Adams' life that even remotely relates to our case. Her book sales, how much money she makes, etc. So if you have any questions that you think would help us defend ourselves against this baseless lawsuit please send them to defend.freespeech@gmail.com.

Also, and this could be important, one of the claims that Martin Siegel makes in the complaint is that Stephanie Adams never put up on her MySpace account for people to come here and "bash" us regarding our original article about her. She has since taken it down, I copy/pasted it word for word, but didn't take a screencap of it so if anyone remembers seeing her MySpace post and are willing to testify or sign an affidavit please let us know at defend.freespeech@gmail.com.

More Fun with Stephanie Adams, Martin Siegel and Brown Rudnick

Martin Siegel is taking his ball and going home, he doesn't want to play with us anymore because we are open and public about our correspondence. Click here to read Martin Siegel's response to our initial request that he specify exactly why he is suing us. It basically says that he doesn't want to because we keep publishing all of their "correspondence".

Siegel says, "Your client persists in publishing communications by you and me on his blog". Communications between "you and me"? Other than the original threatening letter and the initial summons we've heard nothing but crickets since we retained an attorney. That does not communication make Mr. Siegel.

Maybe we'd just like to know why the fuck we're being sued. Does Martin Siegel and Brown Rudnick have something against free speech? You want to keep something secret on Tuesday that must be made public on Thursday? Fine, we'll wait, but what we will not do and what we have refused to do since the beginning is give up our right to free speech even in the face of intimidation and bullying!

So stay tuned, we should have something fantastic to print on Thursday considering we actually get a complaint from them, which I have my doubts about.

That was our response to the letter. You can see the official response from our lawyer, Neal (champion of free speech) Johnston after the jump. For the complete backstory of check out our Stephanie Adams archives.

Martin S. Siegel, Esq. Brown[ Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP 7 Times Square New York, NY 10036

Re: Adams v. Poling

Dear Mr. Siegel:

I have a statement from Mr. Poling indicating that prior to my becoming involved here, indeed, prior to the service of the summons, you and he had a telephone conversation where he pressed you to identify what was wrong with his June 7 posting, and you responded by telling him that it was clear to you that he could not afford to litigate, and
that if he didn't take down the posting about Ms. Adams as she wanted, he would be sued. He was so served.

The summons bore your name and the name of your firm, Brown Rudnick, a sizeable institution which has to be taken seriously.

It was at this point that my son asked me to step in. I did.

I imagine you would be delighted to see this matter melt away. In May, a similar threat to Richard LeCour worked: he removed all reference to your client from his blog, Richard's Ramblings. However, this time it didn't work, and it's not going to work again.

Now that it has gone this far, James Poling is not going to be satisfied until he gets an apology from you, a general release from Ms. Adams, or a complaint. Any complaint, of course, must satisfy the provisions of 22 NYCRR 130: you must sign the complaint, and by doing so certify that the paper is not frivolous.

It will not be so easy to get out of this mess except with an apology and a general release.

If litigated, your claim is going to be litigated in what the French still call en pleine air. I have asked what it is in Poling's posting that your client objects to. If you serve a complaint, you are required to be quite specific about that. CPLR R 3016(a). The complaint is a public document. It is due on Thursday. I simply cannot imagine that you would want to be secretive now about information you must disclose this week.

You object that my client "continue[s] to joke about what [you and your client] regard as a serious matter." Though he tried to do so with good humor, Mr. Poling regards the First Amendment issues you have raised as very important. Me too. It is for this serious reason that Mr. Poling insists that the discussion be public.

Sincerely yours,

Neal Johnston
NJ:ig

cc. James Poling

Martin Siegel, Brown Rudnick and BS oh my!

Just to keep you all up to date on the latest happenings, here is the newest letter from my lawyer to Martin Siegel of Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP fame. Mr. Martin Siegel was the one who told us, after we received the initial letter threatening to sue us, that "it looks like you don't have enough money to fight this, so just go ahead and take everything down."

It seems that perhaps their tune has changed slightly because since Neal Johnston took on the case as our attorney and we personally served Martin Siegel with papers, we haven't heard a peep out of him or Stephanie Adams. They do realize that filing a summons does not a lawsuit make don't they? You actually have to file a complaint and let us know what the hell you're suing us for!

Martin S. Siegel, Esq. Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP 7 Times Square New York, NY 10001

Re: Adams v. Poling

Dear Mr. Siegel:

I wrote to you last week asking that you identify the defamatory material in the Defendant s postings, even before you serve your Complaint. You have neither answered nor acknowledged my letter.

A key element of defamation is injury to the plaintiff. By going even this far in a litigation, the claim is made that the defendant published something which caused an economic injury to the plaintiff.

Publication here was on the internet. If the material was injurious last week, it will be injurious next week too - and it will still be there, unless and until something is done about it.

But, we don t know what it is.

If my client defamed yours, he wants to eliminate that defamation immediately. If he published a falsehood, he wants to correct the error. He would want to right the wrong, whether or not he were sued. But we can do nothing without knowing what the problem is.

Please, for my client s sake and your client s sake: what is the problem?

Sincerely yours,
NJ:ig
cc. James Poling

Along the same lines, a generous reader has offered to send us over a free copy of Stephanie Adams' book, Empress, which we are excitedly waiting to review.

Even the books description of itself almost makes you giddy with anticipation:

"Never before has a book been written that depicts the life in ancient Rome from an intensely sapphic perspective. Never before has a book been written that tells the story of a woman's journey to the highest rank of nobility in ancient Rome along with the love and devotion of another woman."

Never has a book been so down the stack at Amazon that you can't even find it by typing in the title, you have to look for the author instead. Try that with any other book you can think of.

Also, in case you're ever interested in publishing a book of your own, try Stephane Adams' publisher. All you have to do is completely format the book in MS Word yourself according to their rigid guidelines then send them a check or money order for a deposit and voila', you've got yourself a published book (or 16 published books).

I'm so naive. I always thought publishers paid you to publish your book, not the other way around.

Is Stephanie Adams a Lying, Bullying Bigot?

We are by no means setting out to give a definitive answer to that question, but we do intend to provide some compelling evidence that would seem to suggest that the above statement may be true.

One of the truly wonderful things about being sued is that if Martin Siegel ever actually comes up with anything more than a summons, we get to do a fun little thing called "discovery". That's where we get to find answers to these and many more questions about Ms. Adams. She has to provide all the documents we need to defend ourselves against this baseless lawsuit. And we plan on defending ourselves diligently even if it means keeping Martin Siegel and the law clerks at Brown Rudnick very busy.

One thing we know is true, Ms. Adams was a Playboy Playmate...14 years ago. Although you might think it was last month if you went to her website as much as she mentions it. In fact it's the first thing she lists to describe herself, "Playboy Centerfold - Spokesmodel - Celebrity Author". I graduated high school in 1992, maybe I should plaster that on the front page of all my websites.

Playboy does maintain the philosophy of "once a playmate always a playmate" so I wonder if Playboy would condone their playmate behaving in such a despicable manner.

As you all know Stephanie Adams is suing BlogNYC for defamation, libel, slander and false statements among other things. All of which is intended to scare us away. Although suing someone for all three of those things is sort of like suing someone for walking fast, jogging and running slowly.

The lawsuit came about when we did a write up about Stephanie Adams suing the NYPD for $5 million for use of excessive force after she allegedly lost her temper and threatened a cab driver (keep that in mind it will come in handy later).

While we were at first excited that Stephanie Adams broke our cherry and decided to sue us, we were a little let down that this wasn't her first go around with madness. It all started with this letter from Martin Siegel of the highly esteemed Brown Rudnick law firm in Manhattan. Then it seemed to just spiral out of control.

First off, we have already shown that either Stephanie Adams or someone using the goddessy mailing system and the same IP address as well as claiming to be her PR department is the same person who also posted in our comments section, under at least four different names. One of the comments being, "Get your hands out of your pants and use it to scroll down her web site for a change," (that too will come in handy later).

Second of all, the e-mails and the fake comments all took place right around the time Stephanie Adams herself was posting on her MySpace site calling me an "amateur" and asking for people to come and "bash us" and saying that "good always defeats evil".

On her website goddessy.com Ms. Adams sells advertisements. $300 (for three months) or $100 (one month special offer). We're still not quite sure how that's a special offer, but anyway...we clicked through nearly every page we could find on her site and didn't find one advertisement. The only reason why that's particularly odd is because on the site, Stephanie claims that goddessy has "millions of visitors from all over the world who come to our web site and our community is growing rapidly."

Who wouldn't want to advertise on a site with millions of visitors? I guess there seems to be some discrepancy between what she considers millions of visitors and what Alexa Traffic rankings considers millions of visitors. According to Alexa rankings (which ranks websites according to their traffic) goddessy.com is ranked 3,723,582. By comparison, our "amateur" site is ranked 36,173. That's about 3,687,400 higher than Ms. Adams' goddessy site which claims to have "millions of visitors" or if you're better with graphs you can take a look at the one below. BlogNYC is in red, and goddessy, where you can find it, is represented in blue. We aren't pulling in millions of visitors a month and we're still completely kicking the shit out of her website so you can only imagine how long it would take her site to get "millions of visits".

Way back in 2002 a certain website, which for now will remain nameless but can also be backed up by witnesses and documents, innocuously criticized Stephanie for using "blue text on a black background" making her website difficult to read. What followed was three years of torment and threats from Ms. Adams. Along with posting the persons personal information all over the internet, they were subjected to e-mails with gems like these:

“You need glasses. The background is navy and the text is blue. You are no one but the old, ugly little Jew I met in Italy with Mario (who wishes you were Italian). Get a life and stop wishing you could be with me (or communicate with me) because not only are you are a troll, but you have too much time on your hands (when your small shriveled up dïck is not in them jerking off thinking about me).

Btw, neither the person who wrote the blog entry nor the person who e-mailed her were Jewish and to this day are clueless as to where that term came from.

"You are Mario’s jew friend. Why don’t you stop jerking off to me and buy a hooker!?"

GODDESSY makes over 70 million dollars a year and surely does not need the help of an amateur.

"Apparently, you have been looking up information on several of my web sites and are a deranged, ässhölë who came from a mother who was probably a hooker and a father who was probably an alcoholic. You sound like the type and any if you send any further e-mails, they will be forwarded to my security department, who by the way, WILL find out who you are, where you live and more. BEWARE!!!”

"By the way, you and your Jew friend are both old, poor, ugly, short, jealous, demented, lonely trolls who are still wishing you could be with a woman like me. You are so unworthy, you’re not even good enough for me to shït in your mouth. Try to be happy, if you can, because you will soon have to answer to my Uncle. It might not be directly, but from what he told me today, you will be getting the message soon… You will soon have your hands cut off for it.”

“Your daughter is going to grow up and become a crack whörë for men to fück her up her äss at $1 a pop. That’s what you taught her, Dïck!”

“You sound like a jealous fäg! Why don’t you get a sex change, Dicko?”

That's just a small sampling of what this person was put through for nearly three years.

Then there's the case of Stephanie Adams vs. Wikipedia. Apparently Stephanie was all in a frenzy because the Wikipedia entry about her mentioned that she offered Tarot card and love readings. She became so outraged that the moderators had to ban her for "personal attacks"

User GODDESSY is via her own admittance the person of who this Wikipedia article is about (Stephanie Adams). User Goddessy has been blocked and banned by several moderators and administrators. User Goddessy has made several severe Personal Attacks and been warned and kept attacking.

Also, if you do a DMOZ search for goddessy.com the result you get is, "Tarot Card Readings By Sorceress".

Does anyone else see a pattern here? In every instance we could find, and there are quite possibly many others, Stephanie Adams is the one who seems to have serious anger management issues. A blogger, Wikipedia, a cab driver, the NYPD, BlogNYC...there is one constant in all of these stories.

All rather odd behavior for someone who claims, on a poster of herself that she is trying to pawn off for twenty bucks on her website, "love = pride". Strange, because after reading all of this it would seem that Ms. Adams has very little of either.

You Got Served: BlogNYC Retains Legal Counsel to Defend Its Right to Free Speech and Squash the Frivolous Lawsuit Filed by Stephanie Adams

It's both a sad and happy day here at BlogNYC. My official reign of pretending to be my own lawyer has officially come to an end. My parents were so proud of my time as my own fake attorney. Alas, I have passed on the baton to a real attorney, One Mr. Neal Johnston of Johnston & Johnston LLP.

Here is the official BlogNYC response to Martin Siegel from the official attorney of BlogNYC (btw, that picture above is of me personally serving Martin Siegel with our response):

Martin S. Siegel, Esq.
Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP
7 Times Square
New York, NY 10036

RE: Adams V. Poling

Dear Mr. Siegel:

I enclose a Notice of Appearance in connection with the above litigation. Please get me the Complaint as soon as you can.

In your letter to Mr. Poling you state that if he should fail to accept receipt of your email "summons" you "would have no choice but to ask [your] process server to serve [him] personally."

That statement is not exactly true. You have a number of other choices. You could serve him by mail, CPLR §312-a. You could whistle Dixie. Or you could swallow the $210 cost of the Index Number and turn your attention to something of slightly greater relevance to some issue of substantive justice.

I'm quite serious about the latter point. If you actually do come up with a complaint, I suspect it will be the most embarrasing single document to come out of Brown Rudnick this year - and the year is no longer young. I am reasonably confident that your firm will wind up looking considerably more foolish than does your client, and, unlike your client, you will not have the excuse of not knowing any better.

Sincerely yours,

Neal Johnston

Mr Johnston has taken pity on us and taken on our case pro bono and has been very supportive. There are however certain costs that we will have to come up with so don't be afraid to throw a few bucks in the defense fund to help us defend our right to free speech. And just in case Mr. Johnston needs any help, which I doubt, there are a few lawyers chomping at the bits to take on this case for free who have all said they more than willing to out in any way they can.

Stephanie Adams Sues BlogNYC, It's Official

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE "OFFICIAL DOCUMENTATION" THAT SAYS SHE IS SUING IS FOR $100,000

Just got this via e-mail (note it was sent to james.the.lawyer@gmail.com) You can click here to see the backstory and why this Playmate who's already suing the NYPD is now suing us Also, a note that Dave pointed out in the comments, her lawyer is Martin Siegel the guy who represented Ken Lay in the Enron bankruptcy:

Dear Mr. Poling: Please be advised that, on June 20, 2006, Ms. Stephanie Adams started a law suit against you by the filing of a Summons with Notice in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Under the Court's procedure and statute, we are required to serve that summons upon you. Your last e-mail requested that we communicate with you at this e-mail address. However, I can only serve you with the summons by e-mail, as requested by you, instead of personal service, if you acknowledge in writing that "I acknowledge that, on June 22, 2006, I personally received the Summons with Notice, dated June 19,2006, in the case of Stephanie Adams v. James Poling, Index No. 108616/06, signed James Poling (manual signature required). In order to acknowledge service, you must return the signed acknowledgement to me by U. S. Mail, with your actual manual signature. An electronic signature is not sufficient under the rules- it must be a handwritten manual signature. If I do not receive an e-mail from you by 9:00 a.m., Friday, June 23, 2006, stating that you received the Summons and that you have sent a manually signed acknowledgement back to me by U. S. mail, I will have no choice but to ask our process server to serve you personally. Martin S. Siegel.

So yeah, anyone know any good free speech lawyers? Also, if you'd like to kick in a few bucks to our legal defense fund feel free, we can use all the help we can get.

BlogNYC's Official Reply to Stephanie Adams' Attorney Martin Siegel

Check out the Stephanie Adams archives for the full backstory leading up to this letter.

VIA EMAIL ONLY AS WE ARE TOO LAZY TO ACTUALLY MAIL THIS
Mr. Martin Siegel
Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP
7 Times Square
New York, New York 10036

RE: Stephanie Adams vs. BlogNYC

Dear Mr. Siegel,

I am not an attorney but I will be acting as one on my own behalf until I find one I can pay in hugs and karma. While this is James Poling, the blogger, I am acting as James Poling the lawyer and ask that you refrain from any further correspondence with my client, James Poling the blogger. As you can see by new e-mail address, james.the.lawyer@gmail.com, I will now only accept any correspondence from you through that e-mail address. It really helps us keep things straight around here. Any correspondence to any other email address will not be acknowledged.

You claim that we claim to "own" Ms. Adams and we in turn claim that that claim is utterly preposterous. Not only is it illegal to own people, we find even the suggestion morally reprehensible, and even if you could own people, which thank God you cannot, we would never, ever own Ms. Adams.

You furthermore claim that we claim that Ms. Adams communicated with us personally, again, we claim that your claim is absolutely without merit. Although we may have unknowingly communicated with her and just not known it, you may be on to something there. According to Amazon.com her Book GODDESSY: 2007 Psychic Reading Predictions for Every Astrological Birth Sign claims that "Unlike most horoscopes or readings, these predictions apply to every individual, regardless of religion, race, sex or sexual preference. You know your past. You know your present. Allow me to tell you your future. GODDESSY is the first ever to bring you Yearly Psychic Reading Predictions in a book format." If she could do that, it is quite possible that we have unknowingly communicated with her on a level which we can not yet comprehend.

You say that Ms. Adams has authorized you to commence legal action against my client, James Poling the blogger. That makes us laugh as we will demonstrate here...lol...lol...lol. My client is a very busy and very important blogger and does not have the time to be pretending to be his own lawyer.

If you feel from what you have said that you actually have a case against my client (which is actually me the blogger) then not only do I fear for the well being of your law firm, I say bring it on. My client is a good and decent citizen, for the most part, and will not be intimidated into giving up his right to free speech by a woman who claims to be a "Sorceress" and uses bullying lawyers to try and intimidate people with her baseless lawsuits.

Good day to you Sir.

I said Good day to you Sir!

Very Truly Yours,

James Poling (the lawyer)

*DISCLAIMER: I am not in any way a lawyer, but for the context of this letter I play one since I am technically still representing myself.

Anyone Know a Good Attorney?

We do admit that we do not "own" Stephanie Adams, it's a phrase that's popular on the internets with the kids, it's all tounge and cheek. If we did own her however we would sell her off at a very discounted price, to anyone willing to take her, but we don't. Own her.

Stephanie Adams Gets Owned by BlogNYC

So if you've been following the titillating coverage of Stephanie Adams and her vendetta against BlogNYC you may have seen some of the comments left by a few of her "supporters".

One of the other commenters, Hammer, asked the valid question, "How many comments above did she write herself?" So we decided to do a little research.

This is just a quick search through the comments on these two posts.

First off, let's take a look at the full header on the emails from Ms. Adams' so-called "PR department".

Received: from 68.161.213.86 ([68.161.213.86]) by www.goddessy.com (Horde MIME library) with HTTP; Sat, 10 Jun 2006 09:36:24 -0400 Message-ID: <20060610093624.gopdvowbmuw0k0w0@www.goddessy.com> Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 09:36:24 -0400

Now let's look at the IP's of at least four of her "supporters" one of which left three seperate comments.

JUSTICIA
JUSTICIA@SERAPHIM.COM
68.161.213.86

A REAL STEPHANIE FAN
SapphicSph@aol.com
68.161.213.86

Gabriel (3 comments)
GAB76767@aol.com
68.161.213.86

Michael
M776@aol.com
68.161.213.86

Ironically, one of the comments from "Gabriel" said, "Miss Adams does not have to respond to you because so many others speak for her." I guess all these "others" just happen to be hanging around using Stephanie Adams' IP address. Interesting. Just think about how creepy that would be if in fact it came from Stephanie herself. See if you can pick out the other comments that are all by the same person. Hint: they're the ones that make no fucking sense.

I'm sure it's completely normal to pretend to be a PR departent and a fanbase. Cuckoo!

We are NOT saying that the e-mails and comments are definitely from Stephanie herself. What is apparent however, is that whoever sent the original e-mail from her "PR Department" is the same person (or at the very least using the same IP address) as the person leaving most of the comments from her "supporters". All this happening simultaneously while Stephanie herself is posting on her MySpace site for people to come and bash us. So, again we're not saying it was Stephanie sending the e-mails and posting the comments, we're just putting up the evidence. Draw your own conclusions.

Former Playboy Playmate Stephanie Adams vs. BlogNYC

A few days ago we commented on a story about a former Playboy Playmate, Stephanie Adams, and her lawsuit against the NYPD for excessive force. Stephanie who is a self-proclaimed seer of sorts and claims to have made the "transition from the superficial to the supernatural" has a strange way of handling her new found enlightenment. With so many books and proclamations about being a "Sorceress" and being enlightened one could hardly imagine her going apeshit on a cab driver.

Today we got an e-mail about using images that she claims she owns the copyright to, one of which was taken off of her MySpace page. We immediately took down the pictures, but here's small example of how Ms. Adams deals with her anger. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't her cab driver.

This is from her MySpace bulletin board:

If enough of you send comments bashing this amateur writer's article about me, maybe he will get a clue and take it down altogether:

http://blognyc.net/news/stephanie-adams/former-playboy-playmate-is-suing-the-nypd-for-use-of-excessive-force.php

Playboy has already been notified about his illegal use of the photos, clearly copyright infringement.

I'm a firm believer that good always defeats evil...so go get him!

Blessings,
~S

She immediately starts out encouraging people to come here and "bash us" and calling us "amateur", but then ends the post with "Blessings". I love how self-righteous people can justify retaliation and anger and encourage others to "bash" people and sum it all up with blessings.

There's also a nice little e-mail exchange between me, and someone who claims not to be Stephanie Adams, because Stephanie Adams personal PR people do that (on Saturdays) even though Stephanie is writing about it on her MySpace site. What is most bothersome is that if all this was strictly about the pictures I would completely understand, but it's clearly about someone who has an impossible time taking any sort of criticism about any aspect of her life, especially if it's saying her MySpace site looks like shit and is hard to read.

Check out the e-mails below.

From Stephanie Adams:
BESIDES THE FACT THAT YOUR ARTICLE IS CRASS AND IGNORANT, THE PHOTOS
YOU HAVE STOLEN AND ADDED ON YOUR WEB SITE
(http://blognyc.net/news/stephanie-adams/former-playboy-playmate-is-suing-the-nypd-for-use-of-excessive-force.php) ARE COPYRIGHT MATERIAL FROM PLAYBOY AS WELL AS GODDESSY AND MUST BE REMOVED
IMMEDIATELY.

YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO REMOVE THESE PHOTOS OR WE WILL TAKE THE
APPROPRIATE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST YOU.

PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT

---

From BlogNYC:
Dear Public Relations person (or Stephanie if this is you...hi Stephanie!),

While we appreciate your extremely non-emotional review of our article we are unsure of exactly which photos you would like to have removed. We can of course tell that you are very serious because of the fact that you used all capital letters in your correspondence. We could definitely tell that you were talking very e-sternly.

There is however the issue of the article being a parody/commentary on a current event issue, and the one image used from your personal and public MySpace page is credited and linked.

While we are unsure of many things in this crazy, mixed up world of ours, like why some people are lactose intolerant (I mean come on, they'll never get to drink chocolate milk! Personally I'm allergic to chocolate so while I can't drink chocolate milk it's for very different reasons) we are sure of one thing and that is that Playboy can easily handle their own infringement cases.

While we appreciate the fact that you have written 16 books, some of which are 63 pages long! We also truly admire the fact that you are an outspoken advocate for the LGBT community. We have absolutely zero tolerance for bigotry and hatred, and believe that it's absurd that in 2006 in the United States an adult cannot choose who they want to marry. As with racism, ignorance and fear predicate people's opinions on the LGBT community. We're sure you're a very positive member and spokesperson for the LGBT community, and that can't be an easy thing, especially with people like Ryan Seacrest not pulling their weight at all in that area.

Sorry, we got a little sidetracked there. As for the images, could you be more specific as to which images are copyright material from Goddessy?

Sincerely,
Public Relations Guy (Just kidding it's me James!)

---

From Stephanie Adams:
WHILE 16 BOOKS RANGING FROM UNDER 100 PAGES (ONE BOOK) TO OVER 300
PAGES IS A GREAT DEAL MORE THAN SOME UNKNOWN WRITING ABOUT NOTEWORTHY
CELEBRITIES ON AN AMATEUR WEB SITE, THAT IS BESIDE THE CASE.

YOU DO NOT OWN THE COPYRIGHTS TO ANY OF THE PHOTOS AND THEY ALL HAVE
TO BE TAKEN DOWN.

THE PREVIOUS E-MAIL WAS COPIED TO PLAYBOY'S LEGAL DEPARTMENT IN
CHICAGO AND PLAYMATE PROMOTIONS IN CALIFORNIA REGARDING THE FOLLOWING:

http://blognyc.net/images/stephanie_adams_04.php
http://blognyc.net/images/stephanie_adams_05.php
http://blognyc.net/images/stephanie_adams_13.php
http://blognyc.net/images/stephanie_adams_14.php

AND GODDESSY OWNS THE COPYRIGHT TO THE FOLLOWING:

http://blognyc.net/images/stephanie-handcuffs.php
http://blognyc.net/images/stephanie_adams_08.php
http://blognyc.net/images/stephanie_adams_11.php

IF THE PHOTOS FROM GODDESSY ARE NOT TAKEN DOWN TODAY, WE WILL BE
CONTACTING OUR LEGAL DEPARTMENT TOMORROW.

IF THE PHOTOS FROM PLAYBOY ARE NOT TAKEN DOWN BY MONDAY, WE WILL SPEAK
WITH PLAYBOY'S LEGAL DEPARTMENT IN CHICAGO AND THEY WILL CONTACT YOU
DIRECTLY.

---

From BlogNYC:
Dear Stephanie,

I really thought we were making progress, but again with the all capitals. I get it, you're very e-stern about this matter and you don't like having someone say that your MySpace site is crappy looking.

I will take down the pictures at some point today when I get around to it. I have nothing to gain or lose by doing either and I'm afraid that my fragile ego cannot take any more all e-yelling. Actually, I should be more specific, I will take down the pictures you claim to have copyrighted, I think I'll wait for a note from Playboy to take down the rest.

Good luck with your "supernatural" life. Maybe that's the next step to enlightenment that I'm missing, writing in all capital letters.

Sincerely,

---

From Stephanie Adams:
LEGAL NOTICE:

THIS IS THE GODDESSY PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT. MISS ADAMS DOES NOT
CORRESPOND WITH PEOPLE PERSONALLY UNLESS THEY KNOW HER PERSONALLY AND
SEND E-MAIL TO HER PERSONAL E-MAIL ADDRESS. ALL CORRESPONDENCE SENT
REGARDING STEPHANIE ADAMS IS AND WILL BE DONE SO VIA THE PUBLIC
RELATIONS DEPARTMENT FOR GODDESSY AS WELL AS THE LEGAL DEPARTMENT FOR
PLAYBOY.

Former Playboy Playmate is Suing the NYPD for Use of Excessive Force

I guess when pretty much the only thing you're known for is taking off your clothes 14 years ago, suing anyone for $5 million is a pretty big windfall.

Stephanie Adams, Miss November 1992 and open lesbian, is suing the NYPD for "forcing her to the ground, pushing her face into the pavement and pressuring her back." Oh, and "leering at her".

The photo of Stephanie with the handcuffs is directly from her MySpace site which also, ironically enough says, "AGAIN, DO NOT ASK TO BE ADDED AS A "FRIEND" UNLESS YOU'RE A FEMALE OR YOU WORK FOR THE MILITARY OR NYPD." The entire site is covered with background of police in full riot gear not only making it one of the shittiest looking sites on MySpace but also making it one of the hardest ones to read.

Playboy Playmate Suing NYC Over Injuries Allegedly Sustained in Rough Arrest [FOX Life]