Friday, July 14, 2006

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.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

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

Thursday, July 6, 2006

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.