A Letter from Attorney Jones

by Mike on 10/6/2006

in First We Kill All the Lawyers, Mob Rule, Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity

Wild Bill at the Passionate America blog got an email from attorney Stephen Jones, on behalf of former Congressional Page and infamous prankster Jordan Edmund. While this may be an “Oh, crap!” moment for Bill and his family, it’s a chance for me to engage in a little translation of lawyer-speak to ordinary English:

Dear William Kerr and Passionate America:

I found your real full name. Ph33r my web-fu skilz.

Please be advised that I represent Jordan Edmund. It is our understanding that you and Passionate American are identifying Mr. Edmund with certain Instant Messages (“IMs”). You have indicated that ABC News mistakenly published these alleged Ims and that you should not have been able to obtain this information.

You can write blog posts, and years of formal training and legal experience endow me with the power to read them.

Whether this is true or not is beside the point.

It’s true. Otherwise, I’d be threatening to sue you for defmation. But I’m not.

Without any foundation or legal permission, you are stating that our client is the person associated with the Ims.

No foundation other than the well-documented trail of evidence you republish on your weblog, and no legal permission other than the First Amendment. But ignore those for now.

Neither ABC News nor Brian Ross have been error free in their reporting in the past. You should not assume that they are correct now. Like all individuals and institutions, they occasionally make mistakes.

Please disregard the facts that you went and found several alternative sources for information other than ABC News, that Jordan Edmund has not denied the story, and even I won’t tell you it’s not true.

Therefore, I respectfully demand that you cease any further efforts to identify our client with these alleged Ims and cease publishing such information on Passionate America. Neither you nor Passionate American is authorized to use any photograph of him, his name or his personal information.

I have no basis for claiming that you need authority to publish any of this, which is why I don’t cite it here.

You should consult with an attorney who is experienced in civil and criminal liability regarding the internet.

He just might come up with some way you might be in trouble – because the Good Lord knows I can’t, or I would mention it in this letter.

If you are correct that ABC News should not have released the alleged AOL screen name and that ABC News has risked civil and criminal liability because of the unauthorized release, then your republication of the unauthorized release likewise exposes you to possible liability.

What possible liability that might be, I won’t put in this letter because I’ve wracked my brain for hours trying to think of a way to get you to take this stuff off the web.

Sincerely,

Stephen Jones
JONES, OTJEN, DAVIS, NIXON & JUHL
114 E. Broadway, Suite 1100
P.O. Box 472
Enid, Oklahoma 73702
(580) 242-5500
(580) 242-4556 (fax)
sjones@stephenjoneslaw.com

Please post my contact information on the Internet so that readers around the world can call and tell me what a weak case I have.

Um, yeah, Mr. Jones. We’ll get right on that.

  • http://www.kennethelamb.com/ Kenneth E. Lamb

    I sent this to Mr. Kerr; feel free to publish it:

    I read the email from the attorney.

    His client is now what is known under the law as a “semi-public” personality, if in fact not a “public personality,” given the scope of the story, the breadth of its dissemination, and the fact that his client is employed as a political operative in an active campaign for the governorship.

    Unless the subject’s attorney can demonstrate that you published “with a reckless disregard for the truth” in a “malicious manner,” he can go pound sand. If the IM scammer thinks this is the best legal representation he can get, he’s cooked.

    I thought the most foolish part of his email had to do with premising you must have someone’s “authorization” to run his client’s name or photograph. The guy is a campaign staffer, and this is legitimate news affecting the campaign with which he is associated.

    He appears publicly in connection with the campaign as a matter of his employment; does this attorney think news organizations around the world have to either get his client’s permission to have his image in a photo, or else brush stroke the guy out if they don’t? What a maroon.

    Well, I guess you have to give the attorney 2 points for trying to bluff you into submission. While he is suggesting you seek an attorney familiar with civil and criminal liability, he may want to contact an attorney himself to stop having a “fool for a client” when considering exactly what you will be able to subpoena and depose if a civil suit is filed – multiplied infinitely if a criminal investigation began. There are no Fifth Amendment claims in a civil suit. Ask OJ Simpson.

    To sum up what I would tell the attorney threatening me with civil and criminal liability: “Oh Br’er Fox – please don’t throw me into that briar patch . . .”

    All the remarks I’ve made are my personal opinion, and in no way should be constructed to reflect the opinion of the publications for which I write. Feel free to publish this if it will get the attorney to stop making a national fool of himself.

    Kenneth E. Lamb

    Program Host for
    “CyberSmart! Saturday” ™
    “Your Turn”
    “Link to Life” ™ hurricane expert

  • http://www.kennethelamb.com Kenneth E. Lamb

    I sent this to Mr. Kerr; feel free to publish it:

    I read the email from the attorney.

    His client is now what is known under the law as a “semi-public” personality, if in fact not a “public personality,” given the scope of the story, the breadth of its dissemination, and the fact that his client is employed as a political operative in an active campaign for the governorship.

    Unless the subject’s attorney can demonstrate that you published “with a reckless disregard for the truth” in a “malicious manner,” he can go pound sand. If the IM scammer thinks this is the best legal representation he can get, he’s cooked.

    I thought the most foolish part of his email had to do with premising you must have someone’s “authorization” to run his client’s name or photograph. The guy is a campaign staffer, and this is legitimate news affecting the campaign with which he is associated.

    He appears publicly in connection with the campaign as a matter of his employment; does this attorney think news organizations around the world have to either get his client’s permission to have his image in a photo, or else brush stroke the guy out if they don’t? What a maroon.

    Well, I guess you have to give the attorney 2 points for trying to bluff you into submission. While he is suggesting you seek an attorney familiar with civil and criminal liability, he may want to contact an attorney himself to stop having a “fool for a client” when considering exactly what you will be able to subpoena and depose if a civil suit is filed – multiplied infinitely if a criminal investigation began. There are no Fifth Amendment claims in a civil suit. Ask OJ Simpson.

    To sum up what I would tell the attorney threatening me with civil and criminal liability: “Oh Br’er Fox – please don’t throw me into that briar patch . . .”

    All the remarks I’ve made are my personal opinion, and in no way should be constructed to reflect the opinion of the publications for which I write. Feel free to publish this if it will get the attorney to stop making a national fool of himself.

    Kenneth E. Lamb

    Program Host for
    “CyberSmart! Saturday” ™
    “Your Turn”
    “Link to Life” ™ hurricane expert

  • Mike

    Mr. Lamb raises some good points.

    There are essentially two types of claims that might be
    raised here: defamation and invasion of privacy.

    In my opinion – and while I’m a lawyer, I’m not licensed in Oklahoma so the law may be different there – Bill Kerr would have several excelent defenses to either one of these claims.

    First, everything Kerr said is apparently true, and even if not, he went to great lengths to show where he got the information from. Any defamation lawsuit would quickly beomce an inquiry into whether Edmund sat at his computer descrbiing his masturbation techniques and his plaster cast fetishes – not the ideal topic of disucssion in front of a jury.

    Second, Edmund’s status as a deputy campaign manager for a major gubernatorial race makes his interactions with Congressman Foley fair game for public inquiry. Frankly, the fact that it was an interaction with Foley would probably bring it into that sphere regardless of Edmund’s status.

    Third, the fact that Edmund apparently saved the IM logs and shared them with his friends as part of a prank would seriously damage any claim he would have to privacy. If he hadn’t saved those chat logs, if he had deleted them and a snooping computer tech recovered them during a repair, or soemthing like that, he might. This way, I doubt such a claim could be maintained.

  • Mike

    Mr. Lamb raises some good points.

    There are essentially two types of claims that might be
    raised here: defamation and invasion of privacy.

    In my opinion – and while I’m a lawyer, I’m not licensed in Oklahoma so the law may be different there – Bill Kerr would have several excelent defenses to either one of these claims.

    First, everything Kerr said is apparently true, and even if not, he went to great lengths to show where he got the information from. Any defamation lawsuit would quickly beomce an inquiry into whether Edmund sat at his computer descrbiing his masturbation techniques and his plaster cast fetishes – not the ideal topic of disucssion in front of a jury.

    Second, Edmund’s status as a deputy campaign manager for a major gubernatorial race makes his interactions with Congressman Foley fair game for public inquiry. Frankly, the fact that it was an interaction with Foley would probably bring it into that sphere regardless of Edmund’s status.

    Third, the fact that Edmund apparently saved the IM logs and shared them with his friends as part of a prank would seriously damage any claim he would have to privacy. If he hadn’t saved those chat logs, if he had deleted them and a snooping computer tech recovered them during a repair, or soemthing like that, he might. This way, I doubt such a claim could be maintained.

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