Ah, Jacques Nazaire. You may recall some of our previous posts about Nazaire, a local lawyer in Georgia who was handling some Prenda/AF Holdings cases in that neck of the woods. He's the lawyer who advertises his willingness to appear in court for you via Craigslist, and also argued that Judge Otis Wright's order out in California exposing Prenda's scam was inapplicable in Georgia because California recognizes gay marriage. He also tried to argue that it shouldn't be used because... something totally incomprehensible about hackers having nothing to do with the case at all.
That case has continued and there was a hearing back in January that didn't go particularly well for Nazaire. Andrew Norton attended and wrote about it. Anyway, the latest in the case is that Nazaire is asking the court to seal all future filings in the case, mainly because the comments here on Techdirt, along with a few other blogs, have been really really mean about Nazaire. The main purpose of the filing is to try to stop the discovery efforts opened up by the defendant in the case, Rajesh Patel, represented by Blair Chintella, as they're seeking attorneys' fees from Nazaire and Prenda -- and, as part of that, are trying to do detailed discovery to reveal more about the Prenda scam. Nazaire throws a bunch of excuses at the wall for why this shouldn't be allowed. But the request to seal the records is much more interesting to us:
Additionally, the Plaintiff is respectfully requesting that any future filings in this case may be filed under seal. This case has generated much unneeded attention on the internet. Please see Exhibits N-S. While the writers listed in exhibits N-S have the right to post these articles, unfortunately, these articles and blogs have created an embarrassment, misleading characterizations and perhaps an unsafe environment for plaintiff's counsel and third parties. As such, plaintiff is respectfully requesting that all future filings be permitted to be made under seal.
Plaintiff 1) understands that the articles attached hereto have not been authenticated and apologizes to this Court for the same. In such a short notice of time, it is difficult to authenticate these press releases and postings; however, a search on any search engine will prove these articles and postings to be real; and 2) Plaintiff is not criticizing the authors of the press releases and postings and realizes that the attached postings were meant to be humorous and not spiteful; nevertheless, those not familiar with this case may misinterpret said postings. This may lead to anger by those not quite familiar with the case but yet familiar with the captions. As such, it may be best for the court to allow sealing further filings (which may include addresses and personal information of the parties and counsels herein).
So what are exhibits N-S? They're just printouts of the comments pages (not the actual posts) from posts on Techdirt, Popehat and FightCopyrightTrolls. It also includes a press release from the opposing attorney Chintella, as well as Norton's writeup of the July 2nd hearing. In other words, just the kind of public participation that should be had around legal issues happening in a court of law. But because some of you folks here were a bit snarky, Nazaire wants to hide significant parts of the rest of the case from you.
For what it's worth, there's currently a
crowdfunding campaign that's ongoing, where Norton and Chintella are trying to raise funds so that they can afford to depose Mark Lutz, and possibly John Steele, Paul Hansmeier and other members of Team Prenda. Since the likelihood of actually getting money out of Team Prenda after all this is over, even if they win fees in court, is pretty slim, they'd rather not have to pay the full deposition costs out of pocket, only to see it go nowhere. You can
read more about the campaign if you're interested.
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