The surviving Prenda Law copyright trolls, Paul Hansmeier and John Steele, are finally in line to receive their just due. They have been arrested for running a multi-million dollar extortion scheme.
Ars reports:
The two lawyers were charged Wednesday with an 18-count indictment (PDF), describing allegations of fraud, perjury, and money laundering perpetrated between 2011 and 2014. The charges were unsealed and announced today and first reported by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Both Hansmeier, 35, and Steele, 45, were arrested earlier today before the indictment was made public.
"The defendants in this case are charged with devising a scheme that casts doubt on the integrity of our profession," said US Attorney Andrew Luger in a statement. "The conduct of these defendants was outrageous—they used deceptive lawsuits and unsuspecting judges to extort millions from vulnerable defendants. Our courts are halls of justice where fairness and the rule of law triumph, and my office will use every available resource to stop corrupt lawyers from abusing our system of justice."
The indictment explains how the defendants "used sham entities to obtain copyrights to pornographic movies—some of which they filmed themselves—and then uploaded those movies to file-sharing websites in order to lure people to download the movies."
I'm still laughing at the oxymoron "integrity of our profession" quoted in the article, but on the whole this is very good news. Two very crooked lawyers are likely headed to prison.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday December 19 2016, @02:41AM
Some good replies, but no one admits to the unfair characterization of millions of professionals. I'm willing to concede that the practice of arguing a specific side of a case, even when you may disagree, tends to make lawyers morally flexible compared to the average person. Also, every profession has its share of thieves/cheats so anecdotes are a bad way to view an entire industry. We all contribute to the destruction of the earth just by existing as humans right now, so at some point we have to separate out intent from action.
~Tilting at windmills~