Rauhauser Fails To Show In Court. Plays On Twitter Instead
What a disappointment. I was so hoping that Neal Rauhauser would be in court today to answer questions. Neal was subpoenaed to appear but didn't show up. Shortly before the hearing started he was on Twitter trying to get a reporter to cover his story.
Neal's attorney, Jeffrey Dorrell, filed a motion stating that the subpoena was improperly served. Once again Neal escapes taking responsibility for his actions.
In any case, the documents filed by ViaView lawyer, Evan Stone, assert that Dorrell charged for services far in excess of what he should have in terms of hourly rate and duration.
Dorrell's bill for legal services begins on February 25th, Rauhauser didn't sign a client agreement until March 14th.
Dorrell also charged contingency rates for his services but claims Rauhauser was not a contingency client. The supporting documents clearly show that Dorrell and Rauhauser agreed to a contingency arrangement. And Dorrell states that $550 an hour is his firm's rate for contingency clients, $200 more per hour than his usual fee. There has been no evidence submitted that shows Rauhauser was anything other than a contingency client, there is no evidence shown that an alleged retainer of $2,500 was paid. (Neal would surely have had a GoFundMe)
Perhaps the best argument submitted by Stone is that much of the legal fees incurred by Rauhauser were not spent for his defense from the alleged SLAPP suit. The suit against Rauhauser was dropped March 20th, 2014 because Rauhauser couldn't be found to be served with a subpoena. As Stone states
and
When plaintiffs stop throwing punches and announce that they give up, a defendant cannot keep kicking them over and over and over and claim that he is still "defending" himself.
Only fees incurred in defending against the suit can be shifted to Plaintiffs and even then, those fees must be reasonable and must be required by justice and equity
Rauhauser has a years long history of waging online war against those he perceives as his enemies. Whether he's responsible for the SWATtings of 2012 remains to be seen but nevertheless he was there and feuding with those SWATted. Rauhauser was involved with the silly Protector scam of 2012, Rauhauser was involved in Weinergate and that conspiracy. He was involved with promoting Josh Garza and GAW and encouraging retaliation against CoinfireBlog for announcing the SEC investigation.
Rauhauser promotes himself as an investigator but more accurately he is an instigator. As Evan Stone said:
Rewarding this troll for his behavior is against the public's interest and the interests of justice
^ed
No comments:
Post a Comment