by ersatz_cats
Greetings, all! If you thought the Mighty Mr. Tash was going to fold after September’s setback, you thought wrong. Manning & Kass – the firm representing video game conman Billy Mitchell – are now going after Tash personally, seeking to have him disqualified from further representation of Twin Galaxies. We’ll go over all the details, but let me tell you now, this motion is one of the most desperate things you have ever seen. Meanwhile, Tash has placed a new motion for sanctions against Billy on the table, and this time, he’s not seeking a monetary penalty. Billy Mitchell’s ever-unfolding fraud has been laid bare once again, and this time, Manning & Kass may not have another technicality up their sleeve to stave off the obvious truth.
Some of this update is going to feel like déjà vu. That’s because Team Billy are back arguing some of the exact same points that Judge Chang has already rejected. Oh well, we’ll dunk on Billy’s lawyers some more, if that’s what they really want. Also, fair warning, you will see a little cringe from both sides today. Hey, I’ve gotta call it like I see it. Plus, at the end, we’ll even discuss some… *gasp*… politics!!
PLAQUE AGAIN
I always like to include a recap, but we’ll make this one quick.
If somehow, you’re reading this and you don’t yet know about Billy’s fake Pac-Man plaques, you can read the origin of that story here, and you can read follow-up revelations here. In short, TG asked Billy in deposition about his old Pac-Man plaque, and his dubious stories about the award. Billy claimed it disappeared after he donated it to “The International Video Game Hall of Fame”. The people who Billy claimed to have knowledge of this donation were called to testify, and they knew nothing about any of it. Then, during his deposition, Walter Day inadvertently disclosed the existence of a recent photo showing two Pac-Man plaques. TG was able to acquire a very low-resolution copy of that photo, and lo and behold, both of the plaques were blatant knock-offs, with one likely being tailored to match untrue stories Billy has told over the years. Also, Billy’s attorneys kept changing their minds regarding who found the plaques and who took that photo. Again, read the links if you want more details, but it seems pretty cut-and-dry that Billy and his colleagues colluded to secrete away these bogus trophies, given that they will inevitably prove Billy’s fraud.
In September, David Tashroudian (TG’s lawyer) filed a motion to compel, requesting the court either terminate Billy’s lawsuit outright based on this chicanery, or at least order Billy to sit for a new deposition at his own expense to answer for his now-demonstrated lies. Judge Wendy Chang ultimately ruled against these motions on the basis of a filing technicality. (This ruling was “without prejudice”, which means the ruling was not final.) But lest you think this was some strict repudiation of TG by Judge Chang, she also ruled against a motion from Manning & Kass, who wanted Tash to be found in contempt of court for the distribution of Billy Mitchell’s deposition video, which Billy absolutely does not want you to see. In other words, Judge Chang didn’t really come down on either side for anything, which unfortunately allows Billy Mitchell’s vindictive perjury circus to continue through the court, at least for now.
Oh yeah, and during Billy’s deposition in January, he testified that he didn’t receive any of the money from the sale of Twin Galaxies. However, during Walter Day’s deposition in June, he testified that he did give Billy $33,000 of that money, and that Billy asked him to keep that a secret! That’ll be important later.
MORE HOT AIR
Okay, so Billy has lied, produced fake evidence, then lied some more, rinse and repeat. And while his attorneys may have at one point trusted their client and bought into his stories of a grand conspiracy to frame him, by now they must realize they were taken advantage of as much as anyone. (Although they probably should have done their research before taking this case in the first place.)
I would totally understand if Anthony Ellrod begged the court “Please allow us to withdraw from this case, as we’ve now observed our client lying several times to us and to the court under oath, and we can no longer represent him in good faith”. It would be a hard pill, but sometimes you just have to rip off that band-aid. Alas though, his firm is instead doubling down yet again:
In this case counsel for Defendant has become so emotionally invested that he is willing to ignore his ethical obligations and indeed the law in his obsessive pursuit of the “truth”. It has become increasingly clear that he can no longer function as counsel in this case, and he must be disqualified in the interests of judicial integrity and justice. While some of the individual acts discussed below might justify disqualification, all of the acts discussed below combined make it crystal clear that Mr. Tashroudian cannot remain as counsel in this case.
Yes, you read that correctly. They’re now reduced to accusing Tash of conduct so improper, so egregious, that (in their words) the only remedy is to disqualify him from the case altogether – in other words, to forbid him from further representation of TG. They try to paint Tash as too emotionally invested in the case to be trusted as an officer of the court.
Worse yet, he brazenly continues to do so. He apparently believes “the law be damned, I’m on a quest for the truth and the law doesn’t apply to me”. Well it does. An attorney who believes that the ends justify the means cannot function in our system of justice. Knowingly and continually violating California law clearly shows that Mr. Tashroudian is unfit to defend this action. Hopefully this blind fury is limited to this case because he seems to have an unusual obsession with this case and the Plaintiff. Hopefully he is abiding by the law and protective orders in his other matters. Either way, he cannot continue to act as defense counsel in this case.
This is a classic bully tactic. First, the bully behaves so objectionably, so repugnantly, that they elicit an emotional reaction from their victims and from reasonable bystanders. Then, the bully points to that reaction, and uses it to discredit their victims and critics. “Look! These people are totally emotional and irrational. They’re on a blind, obsessed crusade, and they won’t listen to reason. These are the sorts of jealous haters I’m always having to deal with.” I can see why Billy, the unrepentant narcissist, chose these jokers as his advocates.
Getting back to the matter at hand, TG is allowed to have representation of their choice, as Kristina Ross (the signatory of this motion) is forced to acknowledge. She’s also forced to note that an attorney is expected to deliver “zealous advocacy”, and thus the bar for something like disqualification is set very high. Over the course of 30 pages, along with a nearly 300-page evidence compendium, Ross attempts to clear that high bar through a series of increasingly desperate nitpicks, while citing a bunch of case law to establish the court’s authority to execute such a bold reprimand.
We’ll tackle the meatier quibbles in a bit, but first, let’s go over some quick hits.
I’m sure one day we’ll hear more about the mandatory, closed-door mediation conducted earlier this year. I can’t imagine a neutral party being forced to listen to the evidence from both positions in this case and coming away with any impression other than that Billy Mitchell will lie about anything. For now, it seems that old man Walter Day was financially unable to participate in that required arbitration. At that time, Tash offered to drop Walter from the case if he agreed to testify that Billy was not named “Player of the Century” by Namco. This claim is buttressed by a brief declaration from Walter’s attorney, Rob Cohen, found on page 41 of Billy’s evidence compendium. (FWIW, Cohen’s declaration references an “Exhibit 1” that seems to be missing from the filing.)
However, as Tash points out in his response, there’s just one tiny problem with this allegation: There was literally nothing wrong with what Tash did!
C’mon, Mr. Cohen. That was a standard settlement offer. Everybody knows that.
In the end, it was revealed (as noted in Cohen’s declaration) that Walter Day was not actually in attendance during the Namco presentation in Japan – a subtle, unreported fact this website had previously been unable to uncover despite extensive research into the subject. Okay, so Walter couldn’t testify to whether or not Namco named Billy “Player of the Century”, but Tash didn’t know that at the time. Also, given how much Walter Day has repeated the contrary as fact over the years, one would have reasonably believed he was present for those events. But shockingly enough, no, he didn’t see any of it; he’s just been getting his info directly from Billy the whole time.
Speaking of Walter Day, Ellrod was upset at how aggressively Tash asked him about the fake plaque photo Billy had sent him:
But you have to remember, Tash had asked for a photo of Billy’s old Pac-Man plaque for months, and only in that moment discovered there apparently existed a photo of two such plaques, which they were refusing to share. And both Billy’s and Walter’s lawyers jumped in to frustrate and obstruct any questioning into the nature of this newly discovered evidence, on the basis that the photo was sent from Billy to fellow cross-defendant Walter Day, and thus (so they argued) any question about the photo was then necessarily a question about privileged communication.
Tash noted all of this in his filing opposing Billy’s motion to disqualify, which came accompanied with a declaration of his own:
So Team Billy are upset that Tash is good at his job? And that they can’t just lie and conceal evidence without getting called out for it?
If you’re asking if the rest of this filing gets any less desperate, I regret to inform you, it only gets worse.
Starting on page 12 of their filing, Ross describes a rather spicy and heretofore unrevealed moment from the deposition of IVGHOF president, Jerry Byrum:
Basically, everything was going fine, until an email notification popped up on Kristina’s screen, which was being shared on the Zoom call at that moment. It just so happens that this email, from a “Billy Mitchell”, demonstrated a contradiction in Jerry’s testimony. Jerry was claiming that he hadn’t shared the messages between himself and Tash with Billy, and yet, this “Billy Mitchell” seemed to know details of these private conversations. Naturally, Tash asked Jerry to reiterate his testimony, on the basis of this new discovery, and all hell broke loose. Ross and Ellrod both immediately flipped out, with Ellrod in that moment threatening Tash’s law license over his line of questioning. And in the new filing, Ross is here to take their tears to Judge Chang’s bench:
What this illustrates is that Mr. Tashroudian is no longer fit to handle this case. It is inconceivable that Mr. Tashroudian, an experienced attorney practicing law for almost 15 years, would believe it is appropriate to question a witness on an inadvertently disclosed attorney-client communication. Indeed, when confronted his response was “Well, the witness is lying to me” as though that justified his inappropriate conduct. He is so emotionally invested in this case that he willing to ignore his ethical obligations. Despite the fact that he knew such questioning was improper, he pursued it because he felt the witness was lying to him. He clearly believes that in this case the ends justify the means. Whether that was a conscious disregard of his ethical obligations or not, he is not fit to represent the Defendant going forward. Indeed, if he is willing to acknowledge such inappropriate actions on the record, what is he doing in private? The only way to know is for new, unattached counsel to review the discovery responses to assure that there has been full disclosure.
I appreciate how she has to dance around the apparent fact that Byrum was indeed lying. Let’s be clear about one thing here: The disclosure of this email notification was certainly inadvertent. On that note, I would recommend Manning & Kass get their shit together and stop handing out free incriminating evidence like it’s Halloween candy. But hey, you know, these things happen sometimes.
What is up for discussion, however, is whether this message was actually protected by attorney-client privilege, and whether Tash should have known that in the moment. As Tash noted in his filing, the opposing attorneys often invite a “Billy Mitchell” into their Zoom depositions, while refusing to disclose on the record whether this “Billy Mitchell” is the plaintiff or his son:
So which “Billy Mitchell” is it? The plaintiff? The son? The plaintiff’s elderly father? The dead Air Force guy? The actor from EastEnders? Some rando off the street?
Mind you, TG paid for Jerry Byrum’s deposition! This was their event. Billy had previously invoked Byrum’s name when he had to conjure a story of where his Pac-Man plaque disappeared to, so TG had to track Byrum down and subpoena him, obliging him to participate. And M&K think they have the right to invite anyone they want in to spectate? Are they selling tickets? Or giving them out as favors? It is utterly preposterous that Ross and Ellrod can act like they don’t have to identify who is actually on the call with them, and even more outrageous that they then turn around and act like the aggrieved party on the basis of their own failure to identify.
If it was Mr. Mullet behind the message, then it would indeed be a privileged communication, and the rules around inadvertent disclosure would apply. However, if it’s Junior, things get a bit murky. Manning & Kass have asserted that Junior is their “law clerk”. We’ve discussed previously how this designation shields Junior from otherwise-required disclosure. However, as far as what’s reflected in the public filings, the firm has offered nothing to justify this designation (such as proof of employment). It’s just a privilege they assert. And while Judge Chang later ruled against TG’s motion to compel Junior’s communications, that wasn’t a fact at the time of this Zoom blunder. (Also, that ruling was “without prejudice”, and was on the basis of a technicality rather than the merits of Tash’s arguments.)
For what it’s worth, Tash (who properly refers to himself in the third person in his main filing) does believe the “Billy Mitchell” sending the message was Junior, on the basis that Mr. Mullet was in his car, and on the basis of a very well-earned dig:
Hey, if you leave a man to make an educated guess, he will make an educated guess.
The next Super Important Area of Genuine Concern raised by Ms. Ross relates to remarks Tash has made during inter-attorney communications. Provided examples include the following passages:
My concern is that your guy is just going to make another fake plaque to fix the issues that I have identified with the current fake plaque. Moreover, I am also worried that the plaque will be secreted away somewhere by one of Plaintiff’s associates.
It is like a movie. And you know what, I think Billy believes this is a movie and thinks he can make the script up as he goes and he is not going to be caught. But I will catch him and everyone of his lies. He should know that.
What I mean is that if Mr. Mitchell did not insist on using the legal system to try to legitimize his obviously fabricated scores, none of us would be in this situation. I would not be in a position to uncover every one of the lies that he has propagated over the last 20+ years and Walter Day would likely not have been sued for fraud. You’re obviously very smart and savvy and should be able to smell his bullshit from a mile away. I would hope that you would have a come to Jesus moment with him and convince him to stop lying (especially under oath) and drop it.
Ross claims these passages display Tash’s “extreme and inappropriate emotional involvement in the case”, adding that, in her opinion, Tash “has clearly digressed from an officer of the court zealously advocating for his client to some sort of crusader with an inability to be objective or behave appropriately.” Again, refer back to bully tactics. Truthfully, I’m not sure there are actually rules against a lawyer being irrationally invested in their client’s case. The case law Ross cites focuses more on actionable behavior, such as “misconduct” and “lawlessness”. You can’t just kick an attorney off a case because they sincerely believe they’re fighting for the truth. Insofar as there’s a point to the inclusion of these passages, it would seem to be Ross’ attempt to paint Tash’s other actions in a negative light, i.e. “This man is [allegedly] breaking the rules not by accident but because he’s lost objectivity”.
However, when I read these passages, my first thought was “Why on Earth would you want the judge to read this?” I’m sure any attorney opposing Billy would love to sit the magistrate down and make them listen to a rant about all of Billy’s objectionable conduct. And Ross is just doing that work herself?
The best part was, Tash didn’t even respond to this argument in his filings at all. I guess he’s in agreement that Ross’ complaints about decorum are just another nothing-burger.
Let’s see… Team Billy are still upset about Tash’s messages to Jerry Byrum, which Ross characterized as “harassing” and “inappropriate”. We’ve briefly discussed these messages before, but what we didn’t cover was Tash’s inclusion of passages from the California Penal Code. These screenshots came bracketed by the following two messages from Tash:
Submitting false evidence and concealing evidence is a crime in California.
I am an ethical person and am not threatening you with prosecution. I just hope that knowing this will compel you to do the right thing and comply with the subpoena in the interests of Justice.
In Ross’ words:
This can only be viewed as a threat of criminal action to get a civil advantage, conduct strictly and expressly prohibited by California Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.10.
In his response, Tash points out that no threat was expressed, while adding:
Plaintiff’s characterization is unfair and meant to incite this Court’s ire so that his foe’s attorney can be disqualified. This Court should, hopefully, see through Plaintiff’s gamesmanship.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that telling someone “What you’re doing is a crime” is the same as threatening criminal charges, and that adding “I’m not threatening you with prosecution” does not meaningfully change the implication. Otherwise, this matter would indeed be open-and-shut.
To this end, I tracked down those California Rules of Professional Conduct cited by Ross:
https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/rules/Rule_3.10-Exec_Summary-Redline.pdf
Rule 3.10 forbids the use of threats of “criminal, administrative, or disciplinary charges” to gain an advantage in a civil dispute. (Hmmm, sounds a bit like Ellrod threatening Tash’s law license over some deposition questioning, but hey, what do I know?) However, while it is never specified, Rule 3.10 reads as though it applies to threats made to parties directly involved in said civil action. For example, it refers to the hypothetical individual being threatened as “the opposing party”. In other words, you’re not supposed to tell someone who you’re suing “Settle with me, or else I’ll file criminal charges for what you did”. You can either take someone to money-court, or you can file criminal charges, but you’re not supposed to use the threat of one as an advantage in the other. Reading the text, it seems a rather strained interpretation to believe one couldn’t tell an independent party “The law forbids you from concealing evidence” simply because, somewhere in the world, there exists a civil action against a totally different party in which this evidence would happen to be advantageous.
Tash’s messages to Byrum aren’t the only ones under scrutiny. Billy’s close friend “Triforce” has now entered the chat, by way of a declaration included as “Exhibit C” in the evidence compendium. As Triforce puts it:
In this correspondence, Tashroudian made several unsolicited, questionable comments on my culture’s religion, Rastafarianism, which is a religion in Jamaica that focuses attention on the African diaspora and believes it to be oppressed by Western society, or “Babylon.” On July 27, 2023, at 9:11PM PST, Mr. Tashroudian said, “Emancipate my mind from mental slavery.”
Triforce included an email conversation he had with Tash, wherein Tash invokes values of Triforce’s stated religion:
As you can see, Tash appeals to the names Haile Selassie, the former Emperor of Ethiopia and a central figure of Rastafarianism, and Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican pan-Africanist and key figure of the “Back to Africa” movement of the early 20th Century. (For what it’s worth, Selassie and Garvey happen to be the first two individual names found on the Wikipedia page for Rastafari, if one sets aside references to God and Jesus. Make of that what you will.) Also, while it pains me to say this, Tash’s claim that Garvey would not support fraud must be put in the context that he was indeed convicted of mail fraud in 1923 for selling stock in a ship he did not own, although Garvey was a political target of a young J. Edgar Hoover and there is reason to believe both the prosecution and sentencing were politically motivated. Throw in some references to “the rasta way”, “Billy’s Babylon throne”, and a “Praise be to the most high” right before that page break, and you have… siiiiigh… whatever it is you would call that.
I love Tash. He’s a hero fighting the good fight. But I’m just gonna be real with y’all on this one. That reads cringy as hell. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that David Tashroudian is not himself a practicing Rastafarian, and if somehow he genuinely is, I hereby offer my most heartfelt of apologies. But holy shit!
That said, in any battle of cringe, Triforce is always ready to hold his own:
I have a ton of things waiting in the light. When the time comes, I will reveal all, and those who are against Billy will, unfortunately, suffer the wrath of the truth.
More importantly, I don’t see anything in the California Penal Code or Rules of Professional Conduct prohibiting the posting of cringe. Calling someone to the values of their stated religion might, in some contexts, be considered tasteless, but that’s hardly grounds for anything more than an eyeroll and an admonishment.
We’ll be hearing more from Byrum and Triforce a bit later. But for now, let’s get to the good stuff.
FULL DISCLOSURE
Ross also included a series of grievances against Tash related to alleged abuse of the discovery process. For those who are cutting in in the middle of this saga, when someone gets sued, neither party is allowed to say “Well, this evidence hurts me, so I’m gonna pretend it doesn’t exist or destroy it.” Court rules are written such that both sides can hopefully be brought to an understanding of which side will prevail, so the parties can be encouraged to reach a settlement precluding the use of court resources for a full jury trial. To that end, you have to make the evidence available to the other party, pursuant to specific “discovery” requests. (That last part will be important in a moment.) The other side isn’t forced to hand over everything they own. You have to ask for what you want, and you must be prepared to justify why your request is relevant to the case (and why it doesn’t fall under exemptions such as attorney-client privilege).
So Billy’s side previously requested all of Tash’s communications with various witnesses. And Ross is now telling the court that none of these communications were provided, even though Mr. Tash surely did communicate with these people:
I went ahead and highlighted an important passage you should probably remember. “Mr. Tashroudian […] never produced a single communication between himself and these witnesses.” Sounds serious! Of course, then you notice that this claim is attributed to a declaration from “Mitchell”. You might jump to think, as I did, that this is a reference to Billy Mitchell, a.k.a. the Mullet Muppet himself. If you’re gonna cite him for anything, you may as well say “But Todd Rogers told me so!”
However, upon a further examination of the actual declaration (starting on page 17 of the evidence compendium), you see it attributed only to “William Mitchell”, once again with no further identification or distinction made as to which “William” is being referred to. That said, the signature matches the one on a 2020 declaration, in which the author does specify himself as the son of the plaintiff. Also, the new author makes the dubious claim of having reviewed “all of the documents produced by Defendant in this action”, and while I certainly don’t take Junior at his word, that sounds like way more effort than Mr. “Work is for people who can’t play video games” would even claim or pretend to do. So I’m going to proceed under the assumption it’s Junior behind the pen on this one.
Having established that, let’s see what exactly Junior had to say about Tash’s communications with the aforementioned witnesses:
I have reviewed all of the documents produced by Defendant in this action. In response to the requests to produce communications with Carlos Pineiro, Steven Kleisath, Robert Mruczek, Chris Gleed, and Dwayne Richard, no communications between Mr. Tashroudian and these individuals were produced.
Again, nothing? Wow, this sounds bad for Tash! In fairness, though, we should hear what the other side has to say about this most blatant, most inexcusable of ministerial misdeeds:
You’ll notice the craft involved in this lie from Team Billy, though. The lawyers themselves didn’t just make the false claim against Tash all on their own, which could be a problem if they knew the claim to be untrue. They attribute it to an unspecified individual named “William Mitchell”, like a high schooler blindly citing the first sketchy search result they can find that matches whatever it is they had already written down. But the thing is, it’s still just a lie! Either the attorneys are outsourcing the lie to their impulsively lying client “William Mitchell”, or even worse, they’re attributing the lie to the other “William Mitchell” who they have asserted works within the bounds of their firm. Ross and Ellrod either knew this was untrue when it was submitted to the court, or they should have known it was untrue and simply didn’t care. It’s maneuvers like this that tell me Billy’s lawyers aren’t merely suckers duped into representing a client they believe to be a genuine victim, but knowing practitioners and accomplices of that client’s attempted fraud of the court.
There are more supposedly forsaken communications at play, though. Let’s check back in with Kristina, on page 23:
Wow, that’s a lot of citations! They sound very confident in the existence of these messages Tash didn’t supply. You would think, if I tracked these citations down, I’d actually get to see these allegedly withheld communications for myself, right?
Nope. Sure, Ellrod’s declaration (attached to the end of Ross’ motion) does reference Exhibits M and N, which you can find in the evidence compendium. And once there, among the requests for communications naming everyone from “Tanner Falkins” to Nancy Bouvier (Pete’s widow) to Omnigamer to Amit Raizada to Ben Heck to motherfucking Tipster, you can see requests numbers 88 and 106, which name gamer Paul Dean, the prolific poster over at classicarcadegaming.com, and Electronic Gaming Monthly founder Steve Harris:
It’s interesting to note the different language between the two. In this exhibit, we’re only given portions of the production request document, leaving gaps that we can’t assess (such as between requests 34 and 55). But of the requests we do see, only one specifies documents “related to the purchase and sale of Twin Galaxies”, and two specify items “related to any past Pac-Man world record”. All the other requests shown seek communications “related to plaintiff”, with the sole exception of the Harris request, which asks for communications “related to cross-defendant Walter Day”. Sounds like they know something we don’t?
Anyway, it seems like Team Billy intended to attach these allegedly withheld communications. Junior’s declaration references two numbered exhibits to that end:
Woefully, these exhibits are nowhere to be found. Does Jace’s supposed chat with Paul Dean actually “relate to” Billy? Do they incidentally invoke Billy’s name? Did Jace once casually introduce himself to Steve Harris as “the guy who bought Twin Galaxies from Walter Day”? Once again, I guess we aren’t allowed to know.
Lest you think these were simply omitted from the online upload of these documents, Tash cited their absence in his response, while also pointing out that neither Paul Dean (identified here as “Dean Preston”) nor Steve Harris have seriously fuck all to do with this case:
But what really has Team Billy’s trousers tangled in a turnstile was the epic ambush of the mortgage brokers photos at Billy’s deposition. However, once again, it’s not enough that Tash’s effective advocacy makes the staff at Manning & Kass feel like losers. They have to conjure up a tangible misdeed for the court to act upon.
To that end, Ross recalls a series of events, focused around request for production number 36:
So basically, she’s saying “We asked for these photos, Tash didn’t give us any, but then suddenly Tash had them at the deposition”. Anthony Ellrod also attempts to bolster this narrative in a new declaration, included in their evidence compendium:
There’s Dwayne and that time machine, again. I chuckle a bit, as both Ellrod and Ross seem to frame Tash’s lack of knowledge of their secret subpoena as some sort of indictment. “You shouldn’t have known about the photos! Because we sent them to the wrong address… which… was totally an accident that we did not do knowingly and intentionally.”
If you want, you can track down this paper trail through the evidence compendium. First, Exhibit K shows communications Jace had with former DK record holders Wes Copeland and Hank Chien, discussing the photos in 2020. Then, you can find Special Interrogatory 190 in Exhibit O, where Tash is asked to explain why he didn’t provide the photos. Tash’s response, in Exhibit P, basically says “We weren’t obligated to provide them, and you had the photos anyway”:
Subject to, and without waiving these objections, Responding Party replies as follows: Responding Party was not obligated to make such a production. Propounding Party was in possession of these documents and had equal access to them.
To be fair, I don’t consider “I don’t have to give you my copies since you have your own copies” to be a valid discovery response, unless we’re talking about something that was strictly in the public sphere, which these photos were not. That said, there are a few ways one could interpret this brief remark, one of which is “Even if we did screw up, in the end, your case wasn’t harmed, since you had the photos anyway”. And that can be a valid legal argument in some contexts.
But the other element of Tash’s response is where this matter lives or dies. Was Tash actually obligated to provide these photos?
To answer that, let’s scroll back up to Exhibit I of that evidence compendium, and find this request #36 Ross is so upset over:
That’s it? One of a series of copy-pasted form requests, going down each paragraph of TG’s counter-suit? Do these people do any work?
Okay…. Let’s see this ominous, incendiary, revolutionary Cross-Complaint Paragraph 25 for ourselves:
………..wut?
This is, like the least contentious paragraph in the whole thing. It’s so unremarkable, I didn’t even include it in the initial write-up about the counter-suit. At least in paragraph 29, Tash says “Billy Mitchell’s 1,050,200 (Mortgage Brokers) score performance [was] fake”, and in paragraph 33, he says the claim that Billy’s score “was performed live on an original Donkey Kong arcade machine” was “untrue and misleading”.
What is TG’s “allegation” in paragraph 25 even supposed to be? That Steve Wiebe scored 1.049m on August 3, 2006? Nobody’s disputing that. Is it that Billy arranged a live performance at the FAMB event? That’s Billy’s own story! It was reported by Walter Day and by Stephen Totilo at MTV! At no point has current TG accused Billy of not being present at that event. Is the “allegation” that Billy “allegedly” scored 1.05m at that event? Again, that’s not TG’s allegation, they’re just repeating what Billy himself is claiming. And the photos do nothing to substantiate that, either.
This is why, in discovery requests, you have to actually ask for specific things. You can’t just say “Please send me all the things about the stuff” and then expect the other party to say “Gosh, I don’t know what that does or doesn’t include, I’d better just send literally everything I have about anything, just to make sure I’m compliant”. You can see how little effort previous attorney Natalya put into these copy-pasted requests. And they got exactly the results that work deserved. Garbage in, garbage out.
Hypothetically though, even if paragraph 25 did include some meaningful allegation, such as “Billy’s 1.05m score was not achieved on an original, unmodified Donkey Kong machine”, these photos alone still wouldn’t substantiate that claim. Remember, while Billy’s allies have fooled themselves into thinking this is about bootleg boards or MAME computers rigged into Donkey Kong cabinets, what the actual score dispute asserted was that the tapes used to verify Billy’s scores could not have been produced as claimed. While the big red joystick certainly raised eyebrows among Donkey Kong experts, these photos only become technically relevant when paired with Billy’s testimony about never playing on machines with bogus joysticks, and Billy’s and his friends’ testimony about the machine being original and unmodified. And even then, it’s still not central to TG’s case; it’s a secondary argument for why TG still would have been correct to disqualify the scores, even if the MAME evidence was set aside.
But there’s yet another problem with Ross’ argument – in other words, another reason why TG was correct in deciding these photos did not apply to the discovery request as asked. As Tash points out in his opposition filing, paragraph 25 references a score claim attributed to July 14th, whereas the FAMB photos were from an entirely different day:
As Plaintiff admits in his moving papers, he served a document request seeking documents related to Plaintiff’s July 14, 2007 appearance at the Mortgage Brokers convention where he claims he achieved a world record Donkey Kong score. The picture which was allegedly withheld was not taken on July 14, 2007 – the day of the world record performance. Instead, the picture that was allegedly withheld was taken on July 13, 2007 the night before at the convention’s 80’s Arcade Night event. The picture was therefore not responsive and Defendant was not required to produce it.
Note that Tash is incorrect about one thing here. The photos were not from “80’s Arcade Night”, which the FAMB schedule listed as the evening of Thursday, July 12th. As we’ve now established thanks to later-acquired metadata, the photos of the machine were taken a bit before noon on July 13th, the first day of the full trade show. That said, as seen in Exhibit K of Billy’s evidence compendium, the photos initially sent to Tash were displayed in a way as to give the appearance that they were from Arcade Night:
And while Billy’s friends Sheila and Ritch dressed differently across the two events, Billy himself seems to be wearing the exact same outfit both days, right down to the same tie. (That dude must have a million identical dress shirts and ties, lol.) At any rate, one would have had grounds to assume these photos were from an event prior to July 14th, and it turns out, one would’ve been correct in that assumption.
And then of course, as Tash also points out, you have the fact that Team Billy themselves did not properly notify Tash of their own subpoena for those photos. Recall that Ellrod sent this subpoena, and apparently only this subpoena, to Tash’s old address. I’ve discussed previously why the only sensible theory behind this maneuver was that it was a deliberate choice by Billy’s attorneys, in an attempt to deny Tash access to the photos at the time of Billy’s deposition (given that Ellrod didn’t know that TG had acquired copies from another source). And yet, here we are, with one attorney filing a disqualification motion against the other. I’m sure if you ask Team Billy, they’ll tell you Tash’s minimalist response to their poorly written discovery request was an unforgiveable, irredeemable act of malice not worthy of an officer of the court, while their own omission was a minor clerical gaffe.
There’s one more thing to discuss with these FAMB photos. Ross makes a big stink about how the lack of provision of the FAMB photos by Tash was, in Ross’ words, “intentional and tactical”. She cites a video from legendary YouTuber Karl Jobst, claiming that the plan was to ambush Billy at deposition, and that Karl knew about this plan years in advance. By now, I’m guessing you’ve probably already seen Karl’s video where he counters some of these claims, but if not, you should watch that for the whole scoop.
As for the deposition ambush itself, I’m just gonna be real with you all: It never even occurred to me that what happened could even arguably be considered unethical, at least in the context of court procedure. Sure, if you’re just regular people out in the real world, it can be scummy to play evidence games with others who are acting in good faith. (On that note, don’t forget Billy’s wacky plot to plant bogus evidence in the hopes of tricking everyone investigating the score dispute.) However, while the court process is ostensibly a search for the truth, rules are set in place with the knowledge that both parties are looking for the edge they need to win. And in many cases, that involves not showing your hand when you aren’t required to.
As a recent example, do you remember what happened to this walking colostomy bag?
Alex Jones’ lawyers accidentally (possibly with air quotes) sent the opposition a bunch of his emails, proving what a liar he was. And Jones was ambushed with them in the middle of trial, in front of the jury! The reason the opposing lawyers didn’t have to disclose them before trial was, since they were acquired directly from Jones’ lawyers (however unintentionally), it could be safely assumed those lawyers knew about this evidence. After the ambush happened, everyone was very open about what the attorneys did. And I heard no shrieking that any of it was unethical.
This is also baked into basic witness questioning procedure. Do you know how many people will just straight up lie under oath, about important things, if they know for sure there won’t be any consequences for doing so? One big reason so many people don’t do that is the implied threat that the opposing counsel could possibly have the evidence proving them a liar, and could possibly drop that evidence right on the table and make them answer for it. But that only works if it’s understood that the attorneys could possibly have such undisclosed evidence. The other party is allowed to use the discovery process to ask for such material, but again, you can’t just say “Please send me all the things about the stuff” and expect results. If you don’t do your job, it’s not the opposition’s fault when they make you eat shit for it.
Maybe this is one of those things that literally everyone does, but you’re not supposed to say it out loud? Like watching bisexual furry porn while being spanked by a 300-pound man dressed like the pink Power Ranger?
At any rate, as if to shore up even this potential line of argument, TG’s response came with a declaration from Karl Jobst, where he’s clear that the story of a deposition ambush was his own embellishment, and was not in any way conveyed from either Tash or Jace Hall directly:
I’m sure Billy is eager to distort this as “Karl Jobst even admitted he lies in his videos!”
Before we move on, I invite you all to take a moment to read Karl’s declaration in its entirety. The text is only two pages, and it’s all spot on. Karl correctly identifies himself as a “multiple time world video game champion”, countering the sorts of mantles Billy likes to claim for himself, while outlining why this lawsuit is of importance to Karl and to other competitive gamers. I believe this is the first time anyone has actually explained directly to the court why this case and these cheated Donkey Kong scores matter to people, and why adjudicators like TG and journalists like Karl are willing to fight for the truth. You’ve probably noticed, and will continue to notice, that all of this courtroom bellyaching from Team Billy is over alleged tangential conduct in 2022 and 2023, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual score dispute from 2018 ostensibly being litigated. Billy’s attorneys are desperately fishing for perceived injustices, and are directing the judge toward any distraction they can find. Testimonials like Karl’s bring the focus back around where it should be.
EMPHASIS ADDED
We’ve got a few more contrived grievances in Team Billy’s new filings to go over. But since we are talking about a motion from the clown council at Manning & Kass, we also get a couple more boneheaded moments of unintended hilarity. This time, their struggle seems to be with the English language itself.
As discussed earlier, Ross highlights a series of what she considered to be inappropriate remarks during inter-attorney communications. But she also included a moment during Walter Day’s June 2023 deposition, when Tash broke with protocol to deliver a soliloquy about the nature of the cheating allegations against Mr. Mitchell:
lol Yes, Kristina cracked a dictionary, to use Tash’s impromptu word choice against him. That’s how desperate these people are.
Ross cites Merriam-Webster, in arguing that Tash thus defines his own speech as “A bitter and abusive speech or piece of writing”. Personally, with respect to ol’ Webster, my go-to for definition confirmations is Wiktionary. It’s not perfect, of course, but it feels more up-to-date, more responsive to the ever-changing vocabularic landscape, and includes more creative terms wordsmiths like myself actually use, which aren’t yet recognized by legacy dictionaries (such as “vocabularic”). Also, there are fewer ads clogging up my browser. That’s always a plus.
Anyway, I wonder how Wiktionary defines “diatribe”:
Oh, THAT’S RIGHT. Words can have MULTIPLE MEANINGS. Holy crap!!
And that second definition, which was edited into Wiktionary prior to that June deposition, fits Tash’s aside perfectly: “A prolonged discourse; a long-winded speech”. (Merriam-Webster included a similar definition as well, although it notes it as “archaic”, which is ironic if you ask me.)
Team Billy is also trying to tattle on Tash for things he said during Robert Mruczek’s deposition:
It is inappropriate for Mr. Tashroudian to instruct a third party witness not to answer a question, especially when the questioning is about communications between that witness and Mr. Tashroudian. It is even more inappropriate for Mr. Tashroudian to tell the witness that he has no obligation to produce, or more importantly not destroy, communications between the witness and the Defendant, communications that have been requested from Defendant in discovery. Regardless of the substance of the communications, Mr. Tashroudian’s actions threaten the public trust in the scrupulous administration of justice and the integrity of the bar. He cannot continue to act as counsel for the Defendant.
Oooh, instructing a witness who’s not his client? And telling him he’s allowed to destroy his communications with the defendant? It sounds pretty serious this time!
Thankfully, Kristina gave us excerpts of her own questioning of Mruczek, so we can see what actually happened:
Oh, that’s it? Ross made a snide remark about how Mruczek remembers details of his notoriously meticulous tape verifications from long ago – the very same details he’s spent almost two decades recalling time and again on the TG forums with a consistency that would make even Tim Sczerby blush – but can’t remember exactly what month he first spoke with David Tashroudian in 2020. And Tash objected to this jeer and told Mruczek he doesn’t have to respond.
It is true that Tash is not Mruczek’s lawyer. In this case, I will admit I don’t know all the rules around how and when a lawyer may or may not advise someone who is not their client. But it is worth pointing out that Mruczek did not bring a lawyer, and that the deposition was Tash’s (with Ross being allowed to cross-examine the witness). This left Tash as the only advocate present who could intervene, should Ross herself forget standards of deposition decorum.
So what about Tash allegedly telling Mruczek he’s under no obligation to destroy communications?
Are you effing kidding me!?!? Ross asks Mruczek for two things: Could you not delete messages, and could you provide them to us? Tash objects, pointing out that Robert is under no obligation to provide them without a subpoena. And somehow, this becomes Tash telling Mruczek he’s allowed to delete those messages!?
Don’t worry, Mr. Tash was all over this as well.
Plaintiff blatantly and in bad faith mischaracterizes Mr. Tashroudian’s instructions to Mr. Mruczek at his deposition. Mr. Tashroudian advised Mr. Mruczek at his deposition that he did not have to answer Plaintiff’s counsel improper question. The question was: “So you remember stuff from 17 years ago about who sent you tapes and exact game play, but you don’t remember from three years ago when you signed a declaration?” The question was clearly improper in form and argumentative. Mr. Mruczek was not required to answer it accordingly.
Similarly, the fact that Mr. Tashroudian advised Mr. Mruczek that he was not required to produce documents without a subpoena is not improper. Mr. Mruczek appeared at deposition voluntarily and pursuant to Defendant’s notice. He was not subpoenaed by Plaintiff and had no obligation to produce any documents to Plaintiff. The fact that Mr. Tashroudian advised him of his rights in this context is not improper and certainly not a basis for disqualification. What Mr. Tashroudian did not do is he did not tell the witness that could disregard counsel’s instruction not to destroy evidence. That is not in the record and Plaintiff imagined it.
But my favorite faux pas from this filing comes on page 16. As you may have heard, Manning & Kass are crying to the court yet again about the publication of witness depositions, even though the judge already ruled against them on this very matter in September. We’ll get into the meat of that in a moment, but in attempting to argue the legal merits of their position, the author cites some bit of case law regarding the dissemination of deposition media. They even added some extra bold and italic emphasis to a particular passage that, apparently, they really want Judge Chang to read.
Let me know if you notice something odd about this one:
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL BRO THAT DOES NOT SAY WHAT YOU THINK IT SAYS 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I know, the double-negative can make it confusing. Let’s remove the two “not”s, and read it again:
Thus, depositions are ordinarily documents that the parties would reasonably envision would be made available to persons or entities outside the litigation.
Their own cited case law says “Yeah, people being deposed should probably expect that their testimony is going to be made available to others”. And that makes sense. I’ve seen portions of depositions in documentaries and on YouTube. This also tracks with the rest of the paragraph, which lists possible exceptions to the stated norm, which is that outside observers are going to see what you have to say under oath.
So, you have any other stunning case law for us there, Duke? How about “Gamers who submit MAME tapes to arcade leaderboards will not be considered to have not cheated”? Or maybe “Lying to the court is not an act that should not be severely reprimanded”? Or how about a more simple “Bogus lawsuits built on lies and fake evidence should not not be terminated at the earliest opportunity”?
THE HOT SEAT
Thanks to Manning & Kass’ stunning legal research, we have now affirmed through standing case law that depositions are not typically considered confidential, and deponents should expect people to see their testimony. And in a few cases, that’s exactly what happened. And yet, Team Billy still aren’t happy! Will their anguish never end!?
In regards to this never-ending deposition “controversy”, Tash once again points out that the statute cited by Billy’s lawyers, which restricts the provision of deposition media – California code of civil procedure 2025.570 – applies only to the “deposition officer” (although in his response, Tash incorrectly cites the relevant law as 2025.270). Other statutes specify this “deposition officer” is essentially the attending administrator, who “shall not be financially interested in the action, or a relative or employee of any attorney of the parties”. In other words, it still does not say defendants or their lawyers are restricted that same way. Hopefully I don’t have to start copy-pasting this passage every time Ellrod and Ross want to clog the courts with garbage.
You might think “Wait, this sounds familiar.” Well, it should! Team Billy are relying on literally the same debunked arguments the court rejected last time. I guess they just love handing Judge Chang more work. Either that, or they’re practicing for a “Greatest Hits” compilation.
As far as new arguments go, the best Team Billy could muster were some of the most contrived, most backbreaking mental gymnastics you will ever see:
Ah, so by making evidence available… Tash is actually making other hypothetical evidence unavailable… due to… things?
This is such a gross, strained, embarrassing interpretation of the law. Billy’s lawyers are openly insulting our intelligence at this point.
This circle of “People who are Billy’s longtime friends who would testify for him, and who are totally not tactically avoiding subpoenas either to evade evidence disclosure or because they don’t want to lie under oath” includes Rob Childs, Triforce, and a guy named Jerry Byrum. Byrum is the current president of Billy’s and Walter Day’s pet project, the “International Video Game Hall of Fame” in Ottumwa. He’s also been a longtime business partner of Billy’s, managing his arcade in the ’80s, and running an arcade auction business with him in the ’90s:
As I sarcastically remarked in my last update, following Judge Chang’s ruling on September 28:
Ah, so it’s really Tash’s fault that Byrum won’t cooperate and supply either the fake plaques or a better photo of them… all while he does cooperate in forwarding just these screenshots of text exchanges that Billy’s lawyers want.
How does anyone older than ten fall for this?
It gets even better, though! Because Byrum is still actively contributing just the trickle of material Team Billy wants for their case. In the new evidence compendium, the very first item is a fresh declaration from Jerry Byrum, signed on October 6th, authenticating the aforementioned text messages. Somehow, they’re always able to get this guy on the phone when they need nitpicky quibbles to use against TG, but when it comes to the hard evidence of Billy’s fraud, gosh golly, the guy just won’t cooperate.
We’ve discussed Tash’s text exchanges with Byrum before. For the sake of completeness, there’s some argument over whether these messages are “inappropriate” or “harassing”. In his declaration, Tash noted that Byrum is an important but “hostile” witness, who has refused to cooperate with a previous subpoena. Tash also noted these messages occurred on only four days. I’ll let you decide to what extent Tash’s messages were called for.
Team Billy’s filings assert that Rob Childs (the goofy guy from the board swap video) refuses to participate in a deposition for fear he will be humiliated on the Internet. However, Tash provided some correspondence with Rob’s lawyer, which conveyed a similar though not identical message:
I would surely advise Jace not to have any “off the record” chats with any of these crooks from Billy’s circle. Remember the whole business with the phantom phone call? Billy dug himself so squarely in that hole precisely because the communication he falsely claimed to have had with Jace would have necessarily produced some sort of corroborating phone or Skype record. Thus, Jace can prove it never happened. If Jace and Rob Childs had an “off the record” chat, what would you bet we’d see a future declaration from Mr. Reluctant saying “Oh, Jace told me this score dispute was all a scam to generate ad revenue”?
Regardless, you may at first blush see this message as corroboration of Team Billy’s story, that Rob won’t testify because of the publication of deposition media. However, note that the message is dated from June. The first portion of deposition media from this case was published in late July, via Karl Jobst’s video “Cheater Billy Mitchell’s Fake Story Is Falling Apart”. And it turns out, Rob was supposed to be deposed way back in January, in Florida, during the same visit as Billy’s deposition, but Rob backed out at the last minute. So it’s safe to say Rob’s reluctance wasn’t resultant from anything Tash did – not unless Dwayne is fiddling with the timeline again. Rob just surmised (astutely), all on his own, that there’s lots of hobbyist attention on this case, and his multiple provable lies were going to make him a focus of that attention. It was probably a mistake for Rob to lie for his friend all those times, but you know, hindsight is 20/20.
It should also be said, yet again, that if Rob’s testimony would actually help Billy’s case, they could just serve him a subpoena and force him to show up. TG made Jerry Byrum in Iowa attend a deposition. I would not be the least bit surprised if Billy and his attorneys knew either that Rob would no longer lie for him, or that Rob’s attempts to lie would be so easily shredded that his testimony would only help the opposition. But hey, it’s easier to just blame Mean Old Mr. Tash, right?
Again, the problem isn’t anything that Tash did, or Karl Jobst, or myself. The problem is that Rob Childs has to either lie under oath, or admit he was previously lying to the gaming community the whole time (including in his signed statements). His own behavior, and the behavior of Billy’s other con artist cronies, is what has made them the subject of Internet mockery. Contrast that with two other deposition stars, Valerie Saunders and Josh Ryan. Valerie and Josh were Billy’s witnesses, who were subpoenaed to help his case (or at least with the thought that they would help his case). The reason they haven’t been mocked is because they’re innocent people who simply told the truth as they recalled it. Sure, they got mixed up with the wrong people, but who among us hasn’t at one point or another? They aren’t out there, lying to our faces, treating us like we’re stupid. Meanwhile, Jerry Byrum is actively facilitating Billy’s fake plaque fraud, Rob Childs has lied to us since the first days of this score dispute, and Triforce… Do I even need to say anything about that guy?
Actually, I’ll let him speak for himself:
On July 31, 2023, at 8:20AM PST, Mr. Tashroudian emailed me asking, “are you willing to sit for deposition?” I did not reply to this email, because only three days prior on July 28, 2023, Karl Jobst published a YouTube video in which he falsely calls me a “liar and fraudster” in a “con artist clique.” I believe that Mr. Jobst sourced this false narrative from Mr. Tashroudian and materials provided to him by Mr. Tashroudian. On September 10, 2023, Mr. Tashroudian again emailed me asking me to sit for a deposition. I decline to sit for deposition in this litigation to preclude myself from receiving online attacks and harassment.
Triforce wants us to think Jobst only called him a “liar and fraudster” because Tash told him so!? These people’s desperation truly knows no bounds.
It would take an entire article to review the full historical extent of Triforce’s misdealings, from his time in the FGC (fighting game community), to his full-throated defense of Todd “The Fraud” Rogers, to all his lies and threats over the Billy dispute. And when this Billy case is over, I hope to compile all of this material in one place, some day. But for now, as you can see, the public documentation well preceded anything Tash ever told Karl Jobst.
Tash responded by highlighting Triforce’s longstanding and ironclad friendship with Billy Mitchell. Tash included a partial list of the nearly uncountable videos Triforce has filmed with Billy, including pre-dispute and post-dispute, as well as various videos filmed and streamed from Billy’s home. Triforce was also the one negotiating the settlement with Apollo Legend on Billy’s behalf in 2020, to say nothing of Billy’s invocation of Triforce in the “phantom phone call” lie. More recently, on July 31st, Triforce rhetorically asked on Twitter why it would be difficult for Tash to depose him, a foreign national:
Note that this tweet, early in the morning of July 31st, was just a few hours earlier than Tash’s email. I guess if Triforce did have a change of heart based on a days-old video, as he claimed in the passage above, it must have happened during that brief morning window.
What’s more, Triforce’s air-quotes “””reluctance””” to be seen associating with Billy hasn’t stopped the two of them from chatting it up, such as in this moment from Billy’s Twitch stream on the night of September 25th:
Again, the real reason Triforce won’t testify in this case, despite his earlier proclamation on YouTube that he would be doing so, is that he’s the key figure behind Team Billy’s attempt to bury those fake plaques out in the proverbial desert. Internet mockery has never stopped Triforce’s bald-faced lies, or his attempts to defend his friend and subsidizer. If they thought his testimony would help Billy’s case, Triforce would be on the first plane to California, like he was when he hosted Billy’s “dispute panel” at Kong Off 6. Together, they’ve made a tactical decision that they’re better off with Triforce out of Tash’s reach. And since they have to make up some lie to justify their evasion, and want to pad out this disqualification motion, this deliberate maneuver somehow becomes the fault of David Tashroudian and Karl Jobst.
Speaking of Karl, Team Billy are also still super-butthurt that Tash provided him with deposition transcripts from the TG case. As I’ve said before, both Jobst and TG are being sued by Billy, so it only makes sense that both parties would share material with each other. But I do appreciate how, multiple times, Ross derisively refers to Tash’s pursuit of the “truth”, as if that’s somehow something to be ashamed of:
At the hearing on Plaintiff’s Motion for Finding of Contempt Mr. Tashroudian stated that his forwarding the deposition to Mr. Jobst was important because Mr. Jobst was also being sued by Mr. Mitchell. He seemed to take the position that the violation of a protective order and/or the law was not as important as getting to the “truth” in both the subject litigation and the litigation between Plaintiff and Mr. Jobst.
However, as some of you who read the filings early may have noticed, Karl wasn’t the only independent journalist being put on the hot seat. When I first acquired the new motion, I began by excitedly scrolling through all the pages, just to see if anything would catch my eye. And I stopped when I hit this shocked Pikachu face, in “Exhibit U”:
My mind thought “Wait, that Pikachu came up recently. Where did… Oh God, that was my last write-up! This is ME. My last update is in this filing LMAOOO!“
There was a brief moment where I had to ask myself “Oh no, did I break something? Did I just ruin everything?” But, no. I re-read everything I wrote and – perhaps ironically, given the chosen meme – I said “This is fine”. And of course, I gave my writing that same review before I published it in the first place, because I’m not a doofus. If you just look at the title and the house-on-fire meme, the article may look like it’s going to be some inflammatory excoriation of Judge Chang in particular, but in reality, everything I say is perfectly reasonable. I vocally disagree with her dumb ruling which allowed Team Billy off the hook for all their lies and chicanery, but that’s all. Why Manning & Kass would want to direct Judge Chang’s attention to my detailed journalism advocating for the swift termination of their client’s frivolous lawsuit full of lies, I couldn’t honestly tell you. It’s a shame though that they didn’t include the site’s navigation bar which could have directed her toward my other works “The evidence against Billy Mitchell” and “The Video Game Fraud of the Century”.
So why is my writing now being included in court documents? Well, it’s because I featured portions of Walter Day’s deposition, which they’re still upset about. Normally, there’d be fuck-all they could do about that, since everything I included came from a public filing readily accessible on the Los Angeles court site. However, they seem to believe I was provided this filing in an inappropriate manner, and that this theory can then somehow be pretzeled into proof of… something? Let’s hear Kristina’s explanation:
Oh boy, it’s getting serious now!!
So to explain what they’re referring to, there’s an additional stamp at the top of some court documents, such as this one seen on the top of TG’s “motion to compel” in early September:
The nature of this stamp changes over time. In the “joint statement” from July (where we first heard about the fake plaques), it’s configured differently, and comes with an additional stamp along the left side. And if you go back to last year, the stamp is just some tiny text along the top of the page. At any rate, Manning & Kass are inferring some kind of misconduct based on the fact that some of the documents I’ve posted to this website are missing that stamp.
I’ll be honest though, this observation is a bit above the typically mediocre investigative work I’ve come to expect from the “law clerks” at Manning & Kass. I’ll give little Junior a gold star for this one.
As for what this actually means, I’ll begin by reiterating that the nature of the stamp itself has changed over time, making this metric less than exact. Also, the Los Angeles court site recently changed the external service they use to handle payments and provide documents, and so hypothetically this switch could possibly factor into these changes. But let’s set all of that aside and assume, for the sake of discussion, that none of that has to do with the missing stamp.
I get many of the documents I post directly from the court site, but some I get from other trusted sources as well. Hey, the longer documents are like $40 a pop, and while I’m certainly happy to do my part, I’m also glad when I don’t have to shoulder that burden all on my own. (Thank you to folks in recent comments who have stepped up to share those costs!)
I looked into this matter, and I believe I know why this particular document was missing the stamp. But I’m not going to go into any further details at this time, for a few reasons. Most importantly, to be perfectly honest, I don’t have to. I’m not on trial. No reasonable person following this story cares about this missing stamp. None of this Donkey Kong nonsense is about me, and my integrity’s not in question. Billy’s camp are just fishing for ammunition they can use against innocent people, and I’m not here to do that work for them. They can pay for a subpoena like every other hard-working, red-blooded American.
Insofar as there’s any overt allegation at play here, it seems to be that IF Tash supplied me with that filing prior to its publication on the court site, then it could be said (albeit a bit unfairly) that Tash effectively provided someone with excerpts of Walter Day’s testimony prior to those excerpts being available elsewhere, even though the document in question literally was made public through the court moments later. However, what I will say is that Ross has failed to acknowledge two distinct possibilities here. First, I may have acquired the document not from Tash directly, but from someone else who acquired it from Tash. (Indeed, Tash has already testified in his declaration that he was not the one to provide the document to me.) And perhaps that person I may have acquired it from had a valid reason to possess it, and was not restricted from sharing it with me. Second, it’s entirely possible I was given the document after it was already publicly available on the court site, negating whatever concern they’re pretending to care about.
I say “pretending” in this case, because I’m not an idiot, and I certainly don’t think this is about a serious grievance over whether one individual may have privately had this document for a short span of time before it was published by the court itself. I would say that the real aim behind this line of argument is to infer that Tash somehow endorses my writing about his case. To that point, let me say, if you sincerely think either Jace Hall or David Tashroudian want me writing about the judge adjudicating their work, referring to her by name, and inserting her into memes, you need to take another look at whatever it is you’re smoking. I am an independent journalist, which means there are aspects of my work they, at times, have to tolerate. I don’t work for them, and they don’t tell me what to do or not to do. As I’ve said from the beginning, I and many others would be out here defending Billy Mitchell if the evidence supported him. As for Judge Chang, I’d much rather be singing her praises, but I need a basis for doing so. I, as the journalist, have to explain to my readers why TG isn’t getting favorable rulings if their case is so strong, and if the reason for that is “The judge blew it”, I’m just going to say “The judge blew it”.
But the kicker of all this? Hold on to your butts, folks. Walter Day’s deposition wasn’t confidential anyway!! At least, it wasn’t properly designated. In his reply brief, Tash points out that their protective order allows parties to make such designations within 30 days of when the transcript is received, which was July 20th. However, no such designation was made for Walter’s deposition before that deadline expired. As Tash remarks, such clauses are included for a reason:
Allowing a party to simply mark the entirety of deposition as confidential would circumvent the limitation of reserving the confidential designation for material that in good faith is confidential under applicable law. Otherwise, a party would be able to mark even the most mundane portions of deposition testimony – such as the admonishments – as confidential where there is obviously no good faith basis to do so thereby rendering the good faith requirement inoperative.
The funny thing is, unlike with her previous motion for contempt, Ms. Ross neglected to include the much ballyhooed protective order as an exhibit in her filing this time. She just asserted without citation that they should have been allowed 30 days, not from the day the transcript was received (which happened on July 20th), but following a subsequent “meet and confer”, which was conducted on August 30th:
The protective order, which was entered on October 26, 2022, provides clear requirements for the meet and confer when a party disagrees with a confidential designation. While Mr. Tashroudian did meet and confer on August 30, 2023, Plaintiff was not required to file a motion to maintain the confidentiality for 30 days, which expired on September 29, 2023, nine (9) days after Mr. Tashroudian filed the confidential material.
Thankfully, Tash rectified Ms. Ross’ oversight by including the cited protective order as “Exhibit A” of his declaration:
“30 days following receipt of the deposition transcript”.
Will basic facts ever give these people a break!?
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THIS?
And that brings us to the end of Team Billy’s list of grievances against Tash. (Don’t worry, we’ll get to Tash’s spicy new motion in a moment.) All told, they want Mr. Tashroudian expelled due to him asking Walter Day questions when they told him not to, asking about an inadvertent disclosure that may or may not have been privileged, messages with Paul Dean and Steve Harris that may exist, messages with others that Tash did in fact provide as requested, FAMB photos Billy’s attorneys didn’t properly ask for, advising Robert Mruczek of his rights, sharing deposition transcripts that weren’t properly designated confidential, a settlement offer, and various soliloquies they didn’t want to hear. Damn, what a rebel! This guy listens to no one!!!
Given Judge Wendy Chang’s laissez-faire approach toward the last round of sanctions requests, and the incredibly high bar one would have to clear to forbid TG from retaining the counsel of their choice, I’d say there’s literally zero chance she disqualifies Tash at the next hearing, on Friday, Nov. 17. Even if she was inclined to not throw the filing in the garbage outright, and did entertain the arguments, could you imagine the shitstorm this would cause? It would immediately tie the case up in at least a year of appeals. There may actually be less chance of Judge Chang granting this than there is of Billy winning his case before a jury, and that case is already way underwater.
And even if somehow Team Billy succeeded and got this motion granted, where would that leave them? Do they really believe Jace would give up and pay out a settlement, when he knows the entirety of the evidence is still in his favor, and when he has witnesses lined up around the block in his defense? Do Billy’s lawyers think the next guy would somehow be less inspired, or have fewer resources at his disposal? Do they think that Karl Jobst wouldn’t immediately publicize this maneuver in a video, and get a dozen replies from hero attorneys eager to be known as the one who took Billy Mitchell down? Whoever came up with this plan is like the proverbial dog chasing a car, oblivious to what they would do if they caught one.
You could say this is an attempt to soften up Judge Chang, and there may be some truth to that. Maybe they intend to keep blowing smoke about various contrived grievances (some of which, I would reiterate, Manning & Kass are themselves guilty of), while burying the judge in as much paperwork as they can. Or perhaps they hope to introduce something less obviously hyperbolic next time, all with the longer-term hope that the judge is reluctant to keep telling them “No” over and over.
In the meantime, this motion did net Team Billy two concessions. First, it postponed the start of the trial. It was scheduled to begin on Nov. 17th, and run through U.S. Thanksgiving. Instead, the start has been pushed back to January 26th of next year. Second, while a definitive ruling will be issued at the upcoming hearing, Judge Chang did issue a temporary injunction granting confidentiality to deposition media until then.
Regardless of these hollow gains, it’s still a bizarre circus of incompetence. If it’s so important to them that they keep certain testimony under wraps, why not follow through and properly designate it as confidential? Why keep misrepresenting objective facts? Why give away your desperation with such obvious nitpicks? And why keep making such blatantly bad faith arguments? Are they so sure the judge won’t eventually see through these lies? For that matter, why on Earth did they include the entirety of my previous update? The one where I go into detail roasting their nonsense:
They could’ve just clipped the title and the opening meme, and said “Here’s the post with the unstamped document, we don’t want to waste a bunch of paper by including the other 70 pages, which you totally shouldn’t waste your time reading anyway.” They certainly have no problem skimping on citations elsewhere. Are they actually trying to prompt Judge Chang to sit down and read my lengthy, detailed argument for why their ridiculous case needs to be shown the door?
While we have reason to believe Billy’s case was initially taken on contingency, we have never seen the actual written agreement between Billy and his lawyers, nor should we ever expect to. Are they simply unable to bail on this case, not without creating a huge, embarrassing fiasco? Sure, they could probably nullify the contingency agreement if they openly asserted that their client lied to them, but that would discourage other clients of *ahem* similar standing, and would be tantamount to an admission of how badly they were taken for a ride. Is their only way to save face to convince the judge to terminate this case for them, but to do so while making it look like they’re really putting in an honest effort for their client? Is all of this just a giant cry for help? “Please, Judge Chang, for mercy’s sake, let us the fuck go!”
But who knows, maybe Judge Chang knows this, and doesn’t want to let them off the hook so easily? Maybe she enjoys seeing them squirm in their folly. Maybe every party in this case is locked into some twisted, never-ending Thunderdome nightmare they can neither escape nor forfeit. Perhaps all of us – the combatants, the witnesses, the reporters, the spectators – are all at the diabolical, Darwinian whim of General Chang:
Listen, I may have an active imagination, but I still say none of this makes sense. There’s no gold at the end of this rainbow for Team Billy, which means someone – either the attorneys or the client – has been getting played, big time. I’m tellin’ ya – and I know that you’re reading this – dragging this out longer is only going to make that worse.
“HOW MANY LIES MUST BILLY MITCHELL TELL BEFORE YOU CAN CALL HIM A LIAR?”
Okay, that’s enough laughing at Billy’s dumbass attorneys for one day. I promised you a piquant petition, and now it’s time to deliver.
Remember that bit about Billy receiving money from the sale of TG, while asking Walter Day to keep it a secret?
You will absolutely not believe this, and I apologize for shattering your universe, but it turns out Billy has been caught telling EVEN MORE LIES. This man just doesn’t stop!
Let’s roll back the clock a little bit. In 2022, TG asked for “all non-privileged bank account statements for Rickey’s Hot Sauce for every year from January 1, 2015 through the present”. (This was around the time Billy told everyone his doctor would no longer see him because of the allegations he cheated at Donkey Kong.) As you see in the provided link, Billy’s attorneys denied the request, claiming it “improperly seeks information protected by Responding Party’s constitutional right of privacy”. How they thought they could enter into a lawsuit claiming Billy’s business suffered monetary damages, and then assert that his business records are private and he doesn’t have to prove those damages, I couldn’t tell you. That’s some 3D chess which, unfortunately for them, the judge wasn’t playing. TG filed a motion to compel, and in late 2022, that motion was granted by Judge Chang. Billy was ordered to produce the bank statements within 30 days. He did so on the 30th day – just four days before his January deposition.
The bank statements Billy provided gave no indication of a payment from Walter Day or old Twin Galaxies. Billy testified in his deposition (at timestamp 5:20:20) that he was not given any portion of the proceeds from the sale of Twin Galaxies. And in later interrogatories in early June 2023 (which you can find attached to another new declaration from Mr. Tashroudian), Billy again denied having received any payment from Walter Day or TG, by way of claiming there exists no documentation of any such payment going back to 2014:
And yet, we know how that turned out, don’t we? Later that same month, during his own deposition, Walter Day recalled giving Billy $33,000, and that Billy asked him to keep that fact a secret:
Note, there’s a clerical error on the part of Tash there. He identifies Billy as “Defendant” instead of “Plaintiff”, as Billy was correctly identified in the previous paragraph. At any rate, Tash naturally came knocking on Billy’s door yet again, asking where this $33,000 mysteriously disappeared to. I guess this time, the dog un-ate Billy’s homework, and those bank statements evidencing this payment suddenly re-emerged from Jerry Byrum’s arcade or wherever they were hiding.
On this occasion, Billy provided records only for the window of March 1-31, 2018, which was when this payment was made. (The final payment Jace Hall’s HD Films made for the purchase of TG was in 2018, even though the terms of the sale of TG were otherwise finalized in 2014.) You get a glimpse of both the first and second set of bank records at the end of Tash’s declaration, with all entries and even the account numbers blacked out.
But there are a few problems here. First, these bank statements were requested prior to Billy’s deposition, and were not produced at that time. Lest you think there’s some clever wordplay involved (such as the previously discussed example of the FAMB photos), where he could maybe claim the payment was not to him personally but to his business, both of the provided bank statements show they’re from “Rickey’s”. Even worse, both statements seem to be from different bank accounts, in that they both contain entries for March 2018 which don’t line up with each other.
(Some may point out that there is a Rickey’s restaurant and a Rickey’s hot sauce brand, both of which are separate businesses. However, what is not so commonly known is that Billy does not operate the restaurant. His sister Karen Harrington runs the restaurant, and while I cannot cite a public source for this at present, it has become known that Karen does not like Billy at all. Billy merely owns a slice of that business, which he inherited from his parents, and receives an occasional check for the work Karen does to keep it going. I remain highly skeptical that even back in 2018 Billy would have had such intimate access to the restaurant bank account that he could use it to effectively launder money from Walter Day. I’m not asking you to trust me on this, when I’m choosing not to cite a source at this time. All I’m saying is, if you are asking this valid question, stay tuned for further developments.)
As you can see, Tash does not mince words on this one:
If the two March 2018 statements are from different accounts, Plaintiff should be ordered to produce all statements from which the Second March 2018 Bank Statement derives because those statements were not produced on January 5, 2023 as ordered by the Court. And if the two statements are from the same account, Plaintiff must explain why there are two different March 2018 statements for the same account. Something smells fishy.
What’s “fishy”, in particular, is that this maneuver seems to have been a deliberate attempt to hide this $33,000 payment away, especially prior to Billy’s deposition. Had TG received these bank records when they should have, Tash could have asked Billy about this payment or any other inconsistencies during his heretofore only chance to question Billy live, under oath.
What I love about this motion is its laser focus. While TG’s previous motion to compel came attached to various other requests including monetary sanctions and even termination of Billy’s case, this time, only three things are being sought: That Billy be required to sit for another deposition (to answer for these more recent revelations), that Billy be required to produce unredacted copies of these bank records, and that the court grant something called an “issue sanction”.
What is an “issue sanction”, you ask? Basically, it’s where the court itself grants a fact as sufficiently proven. You wouldn’t have to take the time to present all this bullshit to a jury, and hope they understand it and make the correct decision; you would be allowed to simply tell that jury “The court has decided that this happened”. Or, as the California Code of Civil Procedure puts it:
The court may impose an issue sanction ordering that designated facts shall be taken as established in the action in accordance with the claim of the party adversely affected by the misuse of the discovery process. The court may also impose an issue sanction by an order prohibiting any party engaging in the misuse of the discovery process from supporting or opposing designated claims or defenses.
Obviously, this is not something the court would do lightly, as it can have a major impact in a counter-suit alleging fraud. Ideally, you would have the “finder of fact” (in this case, the jury) make any such determinations. But Tash expertly argues why Billy’s abuse of the discovery process necessitates such a finding, especially so close to trial:
Defendant seeks issue sanctions for Plaintiff’s failure to comply with the Court’s order requiring him to produce the bank statements. The issue sanction that Defendant seeks is an order establishing the fact that Plaintiff received $33,000 from the sale of Twin Galaxies assets to Defendant’s predecessor in interest. The issue sanction is no more than a fact that would have been established if Plaintiff complied with the Court’s order and produced the withheld bank statement in advance of his deposition. The sanctions is appropriate in light of the dereliction.
Again, Tash didn’t bog this down with requests for monetary sanctions. Unlike last time, he’s not even asking that Billy be required to foot the bill for a new deposition. He’s not feeding into the narrative that this is a brouhaha between two parties grasping at whatever straws they can. He’s very clear, “This happened, the Plaintiff can’t even deny it, and it absolutely merits sanctions.” Oh, and if you’re worried about that technicality that foiled Tash last time, don’t worry; he filed a “Separate statement” with this motion:
Assuming Team Billy can’t pull some other obscure technicality from between their buttocks, this really puts the judge on the spot. The problem – and I’ll just be blunt about this – is that these issue sanctions could potentially end Billy’s case altogether. TG would be able to go before the jury and say “This court has determined that Billy committed fraud, and so I ask you, do you believe Billy committed fraud?” And so, especially given what we’ve seen, Judge Chang may not want to grant a motion that could have such a drastic impact on the outcome of the case. But that’s the conundrum, with each of Billy’s malfeasances. His whole case is built on lies, and it should be thrown out of court. This nonsense should have been blasted into the sun at the first opportunity. And this unhinged man just continues to flout his obligations to every inch that this court allows him to. The reason drastic action is being called for is precisely because drastic action is warranted and long overdue. Wendy Chang may not want to bring down the hammer, but Billy’s continued misconduct doesn’t give her much choice.
While Billy’s motion for disqualification is set to be heard very soon on November 17th, this matter of issue sanctions will be decided on Nov. 28th, after our American turkey day. I guess that means I’ll have plenty to write about in next month’s update. My sincere hope is that Judge Chang finally wakes up to this nonsense, and takes this opportunity to release everyone from the Thunderdome.
DRAWING CONTROVERSY
That’s all from Billy’s California case for today. However, I regretfully must report on a very ominous development in one of Billy’s other ongoing lawsuits. If you recall, in addition to the suit against TG in California, Billy has also tried suing TG in Florida (later dismissed), the moderators of Donkey Kong Forum (later withdrawn), and YouTuber Apollo Legend (settled out of court). (This is setting aside Billy’s historical lawsuits, such as against Cartoon Network.) Additionally, two more cases are still ongoing: Billy’s lawsuit against Karl Jobst in Australia, and his lawsuit against David Race in Florida. Australia’s court system is not as transparent as in the United States, and so without public documents to cite, I leave most of those updates to Karl himself, when he sees it appropriate. Florida, however, is an entirely different beast. Unlike the Los Angeles court site, Broward County doesn’t even charge for document downloads. It’s all just right there for the taking.
In most of these cases, I’ve been pretty upbeat and confident that justice will prevail. Billy has no chance of convincing a jury to side with him and his Donkey Kong lies in California, nor does he have any chance of convincing a judge in Australia that he has somehow been wronged by Karl Jobst’s journalism (especially if that judge is forced to watch the totality of Jobst’s videos). But the David Race case has been another matter. For the most part, the outcome hinges on a judicial ruling on whether David committed a “tort” (a wrongful act) by recording his phone calls with Billy while Billy was in Florida. Florida is a “two party consent” state, meaning that both parties to such a phone call have to consent to its recording. However, David made all of these calls from his home in Ohio, which is a “one party consent” state. In other words, by Ohio law, he can simply record his own phone calls with anyone without their permission or knowledge. Importantly, note that federal law defaults to “one party consent”, which would also protect David. I tend to believe the law should favor David in this case, however, I have not been able to express as much confidence in this outcome as I have in Billy’s other vindictive lawsuits, as this will ultimately come down to which interpretation of the law the courts decide.
Of course, it should be pointed out that none of this is actually about recorded phone calls. Billy and David were previously on good terms, when David was trying to prove Billy’s innocence. Eventually, David realized Billy had been lying to him the whole time, and began providing his evidence and testimony to TG to assist in their defense against Billy’s lawsuit. What this lawsuit is really about is A) trying to suppress TG from using David’s recorded phone calls as evidence, if Billy can lay claim that the recordings were “illegal”, and B) Billy’s need for personal revenge against David for what he perceives as a betrayal. Read the above passage from Billy’s 2020 declaration, and then remember that Billy’s accusations typically are just projected confessions.
The trial court initially ruled in Billy’s favor, allowing him to try David under Florida law. But earlier this year, Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeals reversed that decision, giving David what seemed at the time to be a clear victory:
The ruling was brief, but straight-forward. What David did was not “malum in se”, meaning it’s not something that’s universally recognized as a crime. David simply preserved the words Billy transmitted to him “with precision”, something which is perfectly legal in his home jurisdiction. The court also noted that the proliferation of cell phones has introduced complications, and that even a Florida resident using a Florida number may not actually be in Florida at the time of such a call. In the end, the court decided that David did not have “minimum contacts” with the state of Florida, and that the phone calls themselves were not sufficient to trigger Florida’s “long arm” statute, which is the only thing that would allow Florida to try David for conduct committed in Ohio. All of this made perfect sense.
Billy, and his Florida attorney James Stepan, appealed that ruling to the Florida Supreme Court. However, things were still looking good for David, with Ohio law, federal law, and a lower Florida court ruling all in his favor.
That is, until this dropped in October:
This is what’s called an “amicus curiae” brief – “amicus curiae” meaning “friend of the court”. Basically, it’s when someone who isn’t a party to a case files their own opinion, urging the court to rule a certain way on the grounds that the precedent the court may set can have far-reaching effects. After all, you wouldn’t want some important piece of law decided by Bozo & Krusty arguing one side and Manning & Kass arguing the other. Even incompetent attorneys may sometimes be on the correct side of the law, and you may actually want to get these things right on occasion.
This amicus curiae brief was submitted by none other than the Florida state Attorney General herself, Ashley Moody. For what it’s worth, while Moody was formerly a Democrat in the ’90s, she has since firmly established herself in the Republican camp, helping lead Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Personally, I take this to mean that her grasp of and/or respect for law is not as firm as her partisan devotion to team loyalty – and that’s coming from someone who detests Joe Biden – but your mileage may vary. (I told you up front we’d be talking politics!)
Moody cites a lot of case law to say that David Race’s phone calls should be treated the same as other tortious electronic acts, for which the aggrieved party should not be expected to track down the perpetrator in their home state, and that the phone calls themselves provide the basis for “minimum contacts” for trying David in Florida. She does seem to gloss over the appeals court’s concern over the changing nature of mobile communications, simply asserting that “Race contacted a known Florida resident in Florida via a Florida-based phone number”. Moody added that “While the Supreme Court has not addressed virtual or digital contacts, there is no reason to treat them differently from physical contacts in the context of intentional torts.” (Oh, and as for that bit about David’s actions not being “malum in se”, Moody seems to have neglected that point altogether.)
I’m not going to try to dissect all of this case law at this time, because I’m not a legal scholar, I lack the expertise to discern which positions have more weight in this particular dispute, and my input is not otherwise needed or solicited. (If someone does have this expertise and does believe Moody has erred in her interpretation of the law, now would be a great time for them to file an amicus curiae brief in support of David.) What is troubling to me is not the case law citations themselves, as both sides have presented justifications for their cases. It’s that this is coming straight from the Florida Attorney General. Is the Supreme Court of Florida, the entirety of whom were appointed by Republican governors Charlie Crist and Ron DeSantis, going to tell their colleague to take a hike?
The next question one may have is, why is Florida’s Attorney General intervening on behalf of Billy Mitchell, the Donkey Kong cheater? Perhaps it’s possible her office consistently peruses the Florida Supreme Court docket looking for stray legal interpretations they want to quash before they become precedent. Just because that’s a boring answer does not mean it’s not accurate. However, as a journalist investigating this case, I must explore other possibilities. Could it be that Billy’s attorneys petitioned directly to Moody’s office? And did they present her with a case so compelling, she felt obliged to intervene?
Given what we know about Billy Mitchell’s personal and business dealings, and the ease at which he’s accumulated gaming connections over the years, it’s safe to assume he’s also made a fair share of helpful non-gaming contacts during that time, including in local and state government. For example, do you remember that dork posing alongside Billy, Todd Rogers, and mortgage broker Sheila Kiniry in the FAMB photos?
That would be Ritch Workman, local Republican politician and former member of the Florida House of Representatives:
Don’t by fooled by the extra years or the change of hairstyle. Check the links. It’s definitely the same guy. At the time of the 2007 FAMB convention, Ritch already had one failed political run under his belt, but saw success in the 2008 election. During his tenure in the Florida House, Ritch drew controversy for his advocacy of “dwarf-tossing”, before being forced to withdraw his candidacy for a state appointment over some allegedly vulgar comments and gestures he persistently offered at a charity function. You know, classy stuff.
So did Billy get his old pal Ritchy Ritch on the phone and call in a favor? Is that how Billy and his lawyer were able to cut through the cacophony of the Attorney General’s inbox and secure this assist? Honestly, I would guess that Ritch isn’t involved based only on this one documented encounter from 2007, but I would be negligent if I did not at least point out this connection.
However, I saw an astute observation that this particular maneuver may have a lot less to do with Billy himself, and more to do with a wholly separate topic – one which can really draw some controversy:
I’ve chosen to run this site strictly as a gaming blog, and for that reason, I don’t generally discuss politics here. You can find plenty of that on my Twitter, and now over at BlueSky as well. But when it comes to abortion, I am resolutely pro-choice, for a few reasons. (I promise this will all be relevant in a moment.) For starters, I’m not particularly convinced that a tiny, fetal, protomorphic, could-maybe-hypothetically-one-day-grow-into-a-human embryo should be given the same self-determinative rights as a fully realized actual person. Then you have to consider that, even if that embryo did have some innate right against contraception, we generally abhor the practice of things like forced tissue donation. Even dead people are allowed to deny harvestation of their organs (okay, I made that word up), but living people aren’t allowed to say “Nope, I don’t want this thing feeding off my uterus”? Then you have cases of rape and incest, where in some cases the victim doesn’t even discover that anything happened to them until weeks later. This is where anti-abortion lawmakers have to decide between the ghastly “Yes, now that you’ve been violated, you must also be forced to gestate your rapist’s baby” or the more telling “Well, I guess it isn’t really, like murder murder”. Oh, and let’s not forget, scientists are out there literally right now regularly conceiving and terminating human embryos for stem cell research (albeit, perhaps a little quietly, given the current political climate). I guess an embryo is a human if it’s created through unprotected sex, or because someone’s contraception failed, but not if it’s conceived strictly with the intention of termination?
Even the religious arguments against abortion fall flat for me, given that Judaism openly allows abortion up until the time the baby is outside the mother and taking its own breath. At least for the moment, the United States is not a single-religion theocracy, and while your religion may dictate what you can and cannot do, I don’t have to follow whatever silly rules you come up with. However, even the strictly Christian argument gains no traction with me. Christian opposition to abortion is supposedly based on God’s instructions in the Holy Bible, and yet for the life of me, I can’t find one single solitary passage in either the Old or New Testaments that condemns early termination of a pregnancy. Not one. Instead, Numbers 5:11-31 seems to condone the practice, and even prescribes it in cases of adultery:
If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
It’s wild how straight-forward and explicit the Bible can be when its authors want to tell you something. But no, I’m sure your minister, who will tell you why all of this is wrong and why you shouldn’t believe your lying eyes and ears, has your best interests at heart.
There is, however, another key argument against criminalizing abortion – which, again, I promise will bring us back around to this Billy Mitchell stuff. As much as people want to believe otherwise, the criminalization of abortion is largely unfeasible. For one thing, women have been having abortions since the beginning of time itself. What was made legal with Roe v. Wade wasn’t so much the practice of abortion, but the ability to have one safely in a way that doesn’t harm the actually living patient. Like with many other things (drugs, guns), passing laws against abortion doesn’t stop them, it makes the ones people have more dangerous. And of course, I would be negligent if I didn’t point out that laws like this, attempting to govern a life-altering procedure which could be easily and privately secured with a timely “vacation” to Europe, only effectively apply to poor people. If that minister of yours knocks up his mistress, you better believe she’ll be sent on a “mission” to South Korea or wherever, and nobody will ever know anything happened.
The fundamental problem at play is that, unlike with an abortion, people notice when an actual living person is killed. Even when someone disappears with no body, such as with Jimmy Hoffa or Shelly Miscavige, people recognize the situation and understand that something has gone wrong. Even a baby has a birth certificate, and if that baby disappears without a report having been filed, questions will follow. And of course, a known pregnancy can naturally end in miscarriage all on its own, but as long as abortion is legal, the disappointed mother-to-be doesn’t have to suffer the added indignity of being interrogated at her most vulnerable moments as to whether she did something to cause a stillbirth.
Abortion opponents want to categorize abortion as “murder”, but to do so, they have to change this entire dynamic, and the only way to do that is to routinely violate everyone’s privacy. Indeed, the original Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 wasn’t so much about “Abortion is rad” as it was “People have a right to privacy, and laws criminalizing abortion violate that right”. In his written concurrence with the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe, Justice Clarence Thomas was open with his opinion that other rulings built on privacy rights and substantive due process should also be reviewed and overturned, including Lawrence (sodomy), Griswold (contraception), and Obergefell (same-sex marriage). And while he somehow left it off his list, the 1967 Loving v. Virginia ruling decriminalizing interracial marriage would also logically be on that same chopping block. In order to make abortion punishable, a significant swath of common-sense laws have to be rescinded and rewritten, so that the ensuing violations of privacy and due process are no longer themselves considered deal-breakers.
And all of this is complicated even further when neighboring states have such contrasting abortion laws, in some cases with total bans on one side of a border alongside full legality on the other. If someone in El Paso wants an abortion, it’s a short trip to New Mexico. Same with Boise and Oregon. Then you must consider the ease in which abortifacients can be delivered anywhere through the mail. If this were actually about the “states’ rights” rhetoric the anti-abortion movement has been relying on, these sorts of conflicts would largely sort themselves out. Maybe you live somewhere where you can’t get an abortion while simultaneously placing a bet on the Super Bowl, but Las Vegas exists, and your home state isn’t going to prosecute you – at least not for one of those two activities. However, anti-abortionism isn’t really about “states’ rights” at all. For the people spearheading the anti-abortion movement, it’s a pseudo-religious crusade intent on warping the law to the detriment of those not living a “Christian lifestyle” (or at least, a lifestyle that these crusaders would define as such). And so for them, it’s not enough to say “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”. They need to conjure legal justifications for why actions committed in an entirely different jurisdiction should be subject to the more restrictive laws of the chosen domain.
At this point, you probably see where I’m finally going with all of this. Perhaps Florida Secretary of State Ashley Moody doesn’t particularly care about whether some guy in Ohio records his phone calls. As we’ve discussed, the act is not “malum in se”, and carries an expectation of legality under either local Ohio law or under federal law. However, if that guy prevails in arguing that Florida laws don’t apply to his actions, and if that becomes established law, it could later prove to be a difficult precedent to overturn when it’s time to argue that a young woman should be tried under Florida law for an abortion she received in Pennsylvania. This is consistent with every other way common-sense governance has in recent times been twisted around this single issue.
Granted, I could be completely off-base as to what’s going on behind the scenes with this amicus curiae brief. It’s possible anti-abortionism has nothing to do with this maneuver. Maybe Moody just interprets the law differently than her appellate court colleagues, or maybe some other personal connection to the case is at play. But the intervention is still devastating news. Whatever motivation Moody has for throwing common sense law to the wind will likely be shared by the Supreme Court of Florida. From there, it’s up to federal courts, packed with Trump-driven Mitch McConnell appointees, likely to be just as eager to broaden prosecutorial boundaries to the detriment of the disadvantaged.
There’s no way to sugarcoat this one. What once looked like a sure win for David has imploded into what appears to be an impending defeat, all with one stroke of a stranger’s pen.
The saving grace in all this is that, even if Billy does get the favorable interpretation of the law he’s looking for, he still has to prove in trial that he did not know about or consent to the recordings, which could be a problem if others testify that David’s practice of recording calls was well known. And even if somehow Billy does secure a ruling of damages against Race, it can surely be offset by even greater damages ruled against him in either the TG or Karl Jobst cases. Billy will no doubt do everything he can to avoid paying out a judgement in either of those cases, up to and including declaring bankruptcy, but in that event, I’m sure it would be a simple matter for Jace Hall to assert to the court “David Race’s $100,000 debt to Billy is now debt to me,” and then forgive David’s debt. Sure, Billy’s Florida lawyer may still get a cut; you can’t win ’em all.
I apologize for ending this otherwise entertaining update on such a down note. But it’s important to remember, this isn’t the movies. In real life, irredeemable assholes can get their way. That’s why it’s so important to stay informed and to oppose them. Thank you for reading as always! Here’s hoping my next update brings some long overdue good news.
I’m sure Billy’s lawyer will file responses to Tash soon, but as of the moment I’m typing this (Monday at about 6:45am, U.S. Pacific time), they aren’t up on the court site yet. Granted, there are sometimes delays over weekends, so it could pop up later today that they were filed back before the holiday weekend. Anyway, links to new docs will be posted in the comments, but unless some major correction is warranted, whatever they have to say can wait for the next update.
Following this for 5 years, I am so pissed about the trial delay…. But as non-american i see your civil cases as walk out as rich man or bankrupt for the rest of your life … so yeah always attempt anything you can….while you could …
Ahaha so funny about how billy’s camp want judge read all of these,karl’s video and even your post LOL even ordinary dude would simply said ” what the f all of this over a fake high video game scores ?” A judge might have a facepalm to lead such trial….
Nothing will surprise me … even if triforce come to trial next year with a shaman on tow to summon masaya nakamura’s spirit to testify he grant billy “video player of the century” title back in 99…..
Suing karl is stupid as well since billy need to provide his settlement with apollo to prove his case, regardless the result I believe, the settlement contents would be public after their trial….
Shame about david race’s case …. If the rulling still up for debate ….
My entire Saw parody post was included? Did they somehow think that it would be proof of harassment? Or did they just include everything on the page no matter how relevant it was?
lol Yup! Not sure if there was any goal behind them including that, or if it was just part of the whole page. I know they screenshot everything fairly early, before most of the later comments. (And before a couple minor edits I made to the post the following morning.)
Given what was talked about in this installment, I’m inclined to think that they just included everything on the page, aka the laziest possible action.
So did we hear anything relaying to David Race’s Appeal and the Florida Supreme Courts’ response?
Great work on the research and reporting. Very detailed and thorough. I really appreciate all the hard work you put in. With that said, I thought your abortion comments were unprofessional and in very bad taste. My preference would be to read about gaming when I come here, not about your pro-abortion propaganda. There are already plenty of sites that cover those types of things. Just my two cents … appreciate the site and the hard work.
I understand. Thank you for your honest feedback. I don’t intend to make political remarks a regular feature here.
So what happened on the 17th?
That was the date of the hearing wasn’t it to get rid of tash
All the current motions, I.e. To disqualify Tash, The motion he filed again regarding withholding bank info, a Discovery session, and another motion filed regarding Manning Kass requesting why everything isn’t sealed or whatever, were all given continuance,
I.e. Everything was combined together and moved to a single hearing on 12/01
Right, I guess thats not good considering we were hoping it would all get knocked back on the 17th
New docs! For those who want ’em!
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-09-Billy-Reply-in-support-of-motion-to-disqualify.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-09-Billy-Response-to-objections-to-evidence-disqualify.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-13-Billy-Motion-to-seal-sanctions.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-13-Billy-Opposition-to-motion-for-issue-sanctions.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-17-TG-Reply-in-support-of-issue-sanctions.pdf
And yeah, as I mentioned the possibility earlier, it looks like Billy’s side had indeed already filed their first round of replies when this post went live, but they weren’t on the court site yet when I wrapped up my update.
Its quite strange how long it seems to take the court website to update documents, after all we had the super bowl of hearings on 12/1 yet not a single minute report, or even motion is held not held will likely be updated til 12/4 or even 12/5.
It is interesting to see however that we dig get fillings showing that twin galax dropped the cross complaint against walter in return for working with them. I would be a scared man if I worked at manning kass about now
Been a week since the hearing showdown ? I check the la court site and the date gone, so I assume the hearing did not happen ? if shit not done by Christmas i expecting another trial delay … another Fistfull of quarters to extend the lawsuit gameplay ….
also can someone explain what’s going on here ? about the walter day part
11/29/2023 Updated — Request for Dismissal: Filed By: Twin Galaxies, LLC (Cross-Complainant); Result: Granted ; Result Date: 11/29/2023
11/29/2023 Order to Show Cause re: Payment of Waived Fees; by:
11/29/2023 ERROR with ROA message definition 129 with DismissalParty:3197233 resulted in empty message
11/27/2023 Request for Judicial Notice; Filed by: William James Mitchell (Plaintiff)
11/27/2023 On the Cross-Complaint filed by Twin Galaxies, LLC on 02/04/2021, entered Request for Dismissal with prejudice filed by Twin Galaxies, LLC as to Walter Day
11/27/2023 Request for Dismissal; Filed by: Twin Galaxies, LLC (Cross-Complainant); As to: Walter Day (Cross-Defendant); William James Mitchell (Cross-Defendant)
11/27/2023 Informal Discovery Conference; Filed by: William James Mitchell (Plaintiff)
So they hearings all happened, One of the hearings involved making the case less open and available, it is very possible that this occurred, hence why we have no updates. It could also be the results of the hearing being so nuclear it did something else. We won’t know until we know.
The Dismissal is only regarding twin galaxies vs Walter day, they dismissed their claims against Walter day in exchange for cooperation.
There isn’t really a way that the hearings didn’t happen. It was regarding making the case less public, Twin galaxies wanting to punish billy for lying, billy wanting Tash removed as a lawyer, billy wanting the case not to be public. Thats why I jokingly called it the hearing of the Century and other dumb names.
Walter Day actually switch side what a day to be alive O_O …… that’s the last man i expect to “betray” billy
With Granpa Day abandon ship added, It should be hearing of the century indeed, he already testify about the monies … Now I expect he will also tell the truth about the Twin galaxies revival purges, Gamer of the century,KOK’s scores, 99 Namco stuff, Guiness reinstatement,etc
It appears the most important things that Tash assumes they can get out of Walter Day (I’m obviously not in Tash’s Head, but this is based on what I gather from his emails and other stuff filed) is, like you said the money, the events of 99 plus gamer of the century, and a lot of other stuff that shows that a lot of billy’s claims are lies
Such as: he never asked to have the KOK score recognized etc.
I mean just showing that he took money from the sale, and asked day to not tell anyone damn near proves the fraud allegation that Twin galaxies levied.
I don’t expect Day to spill everything, but I can only imagine the silver lining and relief many of the older members will likely feel once they learn that Walter is off the hook in the countersuit. Hopefully he doesn’t do anything that would warrant the wrath of Tash after being given mercy.
There is a new YT video posted by Veritas about the whole BM saga up tor his point which is nearly 4 hours long. Probably nothing in there you all didn’t already know but the intro alone is pretty funny.
Thank you! It is an amazing video. I’m finishing an update on the Completionist stuff (just to tack on to that existing piece), but I’ll get a blurb up about the vid as soon as I’m done with that.
That Video is FANTASTIC, SO WELL worth the watch..
So the motion to disqualify Tash was obviously not granted. Now Walter Day is actually working with TG to save his own arse?
Could this scenario be similar to Darth Vader throwing Palpatine down the reactor shaft?
How come there are no updates?
Look another delay …. And what complain the clerk filled again … illegally took away granpa day from them ?
04/17/2024 at 08:30 AM in Department 36 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Final Status Conference
04/26/2024 at 08:30 AM in Department 36 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Jury Trial
Thank you!! Fucking FINALLY the court site got updated. I’m working on something else in the immediate moment, but I guess this means I should start working on my next Billy update once that’s done. 🙂
So I went to acquire the new docs, particularly the two new rulings posted yesterday. However, for some reason they’re not coming up on the purchase list. I’m sure that’ll get updated soon. For now, here are a few others of note since the last batch of docs I posted:
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-27-TG-Request-for-dismissal-Walter-Day.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-27-Billy-Request-for-judicial-notice.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-11-27-Both-Informal-discovery-conference.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-01-Court-Minute-order.pdf
Those last two docs did eventually become available for acquisition:
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-12-Court-Ruling-disqualification.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-12-Court-Ruling-issue-sanctions-confidentiality.pdf
In short, Tash is not disqualified, but Judge Chang is not happy, and there will be a future hearing over a possible disciplinary review. Judge Chang also ordered Billy’s side to hand over all of Rickey’s bank statements, but for realsies this time, no seriously, I mean it this time. They have to un-redact the last four digits of the account number so TG can know which account is which. Also, everything (discovery, depositions, etc) is confidential from this point forward.
It’ll be a little while before I get the next full update up, both because of Christmastime, and also I’ve been under the weather. Plan is to have it up by the end of the month at the latest.
So the hard evidence of TG shares billy owned will come to light,
of course Judge Wendy not happy some asshole plaster her face front page here 😛 and it’s also printed as evidence in court filling 😛 I would love too see her reaction seeing her face plastered in the court filling =)
anyway no sign yet about the motion submitted on 12th ? I start can’t stand these worthless complains that somehow delay the court again and again …
Maybe
Man, I called the consequences for Tash pretty closely. I’m a little surprised that Tash didn’t get hit with fines now, but that may be coming. Hopefully this helps reign him in so he can get the victory that matters.
Why are the plaques and bank records so important?
The plaques were obvious forgeries in an effort to decieve and thwart Mr Tash. You can bet they will never be seen again. Lost in the mail I’m sure.
However, I am confused about the significance of the bank statements. What difference would it make if Billy recieved money from the sale of Twin Galaxies either directly or from Walter Day?
Can someone explain?
A big part of TG’s counter-suit against Billy and Walter is that they created the whole “Player of the Century” story (which the plaque(s) would obviously be a big part of) themselves in order to boost the brand of both Billy and Old TG, allowing both Billy and Walter to profit big-time from the selling of TG to Jace Hall. In essence, as TG alleges, lying about the plaques allowed them to profit, the exact quantity of which was also lied about, which constitutes fraud.
(That’s all I really have to offer, I’m sure there’s other details I’m missing.)
Another detail worth mentioning is the fact Billy’s original Donkey Kong World Record that was central to events depicted in the documentary was already beat by Tim Sczerby in 2000 not Steve Webie as deceptively depicted in the documentary.
Billy’s 1982 WR score that was beat in 2000 mysteriously becomes #1 again when the topic matter becomes marketable and valule to Billy? This is a clear cut case of fraud perpetrate by Twin Galaxies before the film was even made.
As for the bank statements, defamation requires you to establish that the defamatory statements caused damage to you in some way. Billy has chosen to do this by saying that his hot sauce business suffered losses due to TG’s statements, something which these bank records would show. In other words, if the bank statements don’t show a loss in revenue attributable to TG’s statements, then Billy can’t win his case.
Billy: I have a right to sue you guys because you caused me economic damages to my business!
TG: Okay, prove it by showing your bank statements.
Billy: Uhhh……no.
Oooh, we’ve got MORE goodies! Seven new items were filed by TG yesterday, and just hit the court site. Three of them are just re-filings of previous declarations by Laura Carrell and Jacob Pilkington of Bridgeview Center in Ottumwa, and the expert analysis of the fake plaques by Motti Gabler, so no need to upload. But the other four are spicy!
Tash refiled a previous declaration and exhibit set, except with a few new additions (which he specifies at the start of the new declaration):
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-18-TG-Declaration-of-Tashroudian-sanctions.pdf
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-18-TG-Tashroudian-declaration-evidence-sanctions.pdf
This is all to set up a new motion for sanctions against Billy, requesting either new issue sanctions, or evidentiary sanctions, or best case scenario, terminating sanctions, all related to the fake plaque chicanery:
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-18-TG-Motion-for-sanctions.pdf
(Keep in mind, the previous issue sanctions were over Billy trying to keep his bank statements secret, so this is a different matter.)
Last but certainly not least, you absolutely must read this declaration from Elizabeth Hunter, formerly president of the IVGHOF. She certainly doesn’t mince words about her experiences with Billy Mitchell:
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-18-TG-Declaration-of-Elizabeth-Hunter-sanctions.pdf
If Walter Day has switched sides then surely Billy must know its the end
Walter should be able to shed light on the dummy plaques, the “gamer of the century” award and billy telling him not to disclose the payments of TG sale
Maybe the looming date of the trial got to him?
Thing is, Walter is just as dirty as anyone. In fact, he’s been in on all this all along.
Yes he has, if he is co-operating with Tash I wonder how far hes willing to go and admit to
Just a quick note, I said I’d have the new update up “by the end of the month at the latest”. I’m working on it right now, but someone else has found something rather spicy, so I’ll be waiting for them to publish their findings first. I think that means my update will be finished the first week of January.
oooo so 2024 is going to start with a bang then
I thought with recent goings on the updates would stop for a while
I sorta thought so too. But even with all the discovery material and such being confidential, filings still go public, and those are giving plenty to write about.
Something spicy … Billy do a Jirard and finally donate the twin plagues out of nowhere 😛 ahaha
The lawfirm of Manning and Kass has to be the most dirty and corrupt or the most ignorant and stupid lawfirm in the world.
Seeing as depositions and other related material are now confidential, I’m sure TriForce and Rob Childs will be more than happy to go on the record now 🙂
If those two clowns had anything that would even remotely help Billy, you can bet they would have been deposed and done so several months ago. I’m sure TriForce is chomping at the bit to give a deposition now.
Those two jokers are scared because another of Billy’s crack-pot “plans” has turned to crap. People weren’t supposed to be smart enough to detect the plaques were fake. Billy Mitchell is the super genius
“man with the plan”, everyone else is stupid. Well, how’d that work out?
I’ll bet that Gerry Byrum never recieved the plaques and the case is postponed beyond the currently set date………again.
Over six months latter and no one knows where those plaques are?
We know why the lawfirm is the way it is and thats because of Billy JR, hes the one involved with the lawfirm and whos been pushing his dad to do this while having little legal knowledge and thinking everything his father tells him is the gods honest truth
I don’t think Rob Childs will do a deposition as he seems to just want to distance himself with any involvement at this point and like others have said I think more is going on between him and billy, personally I don’t think he’d be able to keep the ever changing story straight under questioning and probably drop some truths if questioned under oath
But yeah…..TriForce will come tell them Billy walked on the moon if he thought it would help the case
As for the plaques were not going to see them ever again, im sure they got “lost in the mail”
The Plaques get lost in the post. Next you’ll tell me Triforce’s iPad that he used to take the individual photos of the plaques at the Bridgeview Center has spontaneously combusted. Billy sure is unlucky his irrefutable evidence keeps disappearing.
Yep those plaques that when they break they magically turn into two completely different awards ha
lol As I was wrapping up the new update, new filings from before the holiday weekend showed up on the court site. One is just an evidentiary objection I won’t delve into:
https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-12-29-Billy-Evidentiary-objections-sanctions.pdf
The other two require acknowledgment in the new update, and so I’ll make them available when that goes live. But I may not get it all finished by the time I leave for work in about ten hours. That’s the problem with falling behind on updates, more stuff keeps showing up!
They don’t want alot do they, 24 pieces of evidence struck off!
At least its a sign they are getting scared by the evidence building up at this point
I hope you get your update done soon, everything seems to be happening so quickly now