Ellrod’s folly

This is Anthony Ellrod – California attorney, founding member of firm Manning & Kass (formerly “Manning & Kass, Ellrod, Ramirez, Trester”), and lead counsel for disgraced gaming nutjob Billy Mitchell. When he’s not practicing law, or being featured in local magazines, this dude is all about his true passion: karate! According to his site biography, Tony claims to be a “7th-degree black belt in Yoshukai karate”, a feat which has apparently granted him the title of “Shihan”. He even contributed to a dojo at his very law firm, which you can watch some other guy introduce in this Facebook video.

However, despite all these accomplishments… Anthony Ellrod is not very bright.

No, sir Tony has made a colossal mistake. Lucky for him, it doesn’t appear as though there will be consequences for either him or his client on this occasion. But, you know, we’re gonna go over it all anyway, because it involves new information to cover (information Ellrod was not supposed to disclose, lol), and you know, as potential narrative table-setting, just in case Ellrod’s next snafu is not so easy for the court to overlook.

WHAT IS IT THIS TIME?

Let’s back up the train a bit first. Obviously we’re here, uh-gain, to talk about Billy’s baseless lawsuit full of lies against legacy scorekeeper Twin Galaxies, in which Billy was represented by Ellrod and his crooked firm. Throughout most of those proceedings, everything was public – and I do mean everything, lol. Billy’s six-hour deposition video was published. A bunch of his discovery and interrogatory answers were also made public, leading to many laughs over Billy’s silly claim that TG’s dispute verdict gave him a hernia, or his equally implausible story that his doctor refused to see him because he cheated at Donkey Kong. On the more serious side, this discovery gave us a look at the facts behind Guinness’ secretive decision to reinstate Billy’s cheated scores in 2020 based on no discernable evidence whatsoever. Oh, and there’s the revelation that Billy had faked two copies of his Pac-Man plaque, presumably to falsely attribute words to the late Masaya Nakamura, which certainly didn’t help his public image either.

After getting pummeled repeatedly by the truth, Billy’s side got a bit skittish about this whole evidence thing. They started whining to the judge, asking for discovery and depositions to be labeled confidential going forward, and Judge Wendy Chang granted their request. This is why we never got to see Jace Hall’s or Walter Day’s full depositions. It’s also why redactions started appearing in some of the public filings. And those redactions became much more prominent after the lawsuit was ended with a mutual settlement agreement, the entirety of which was subject to a confidentiality clause.

So none of this cool new stuff was supposed to get out. But of course, nobody’s perfect, and mistakes will happen. The first offender was Kristina Ross, a junior associate of Billy’s law firm, who at that time seemed to be doing all the leg work keeping Billy’s bullshit case afloat. On January 5th of this year (which was about one week before the settlement was finalized), Ross casually sprinkled a bunch of Jace’s deposition testimony into one of her filings, you know, as one does moments after raising such a ruckus over the need for these specific materials to be kept confidential. As a result, if we are to believe anything Ross wrote to the court, we learned that the “second session” of Jace’s deposition was held on December 19, 2023, and that Jace answered various questions about the monetary damages TG claimed in its countersuit, about Jace’s use of the Signal messaging app, and about his dealings with Karl Jobst and yours truly.

Days afterward, TG’s attorney, the Mighty Mister Tash, filed a response, seeking to strike Ross’ motion on the basis that she inappropriately used material she knew to be confidential by court order:

The grounds for the requested order are that Plaintiff has disclosed Confidential Materials, Testimony, and Information, as those terms are defined in the parties’ stipulated protective order (the “Protective Order”), from the December 19, 2023 deposition of Jason Hall by filing the OSC Brief in violation of the terms of both the Protective Order and this Court’s December 1, 2023 order, and in violation of Rule 2.551 of the California Rules of Court.

I want to be crystal clear on this point: As far as I’m aware, this was the only time confidentiality in this case was ever breached without at least an attempt at redaction. (We’ll get to what that last clause means in a moment.) I was provided many things, by people who shall not be named here today, but I was never given materials which had properly been labeled confidential. There were materials which were later labeled confidential, retroactively – and its dubious whether that later designation would restrict myself as a journalist given that everything was above board at the time I received those materials. (Hey, maybe we can see more of those materials some day, lol.) And there was also stuff that Billy’s and Walter Day’s attorneys very much wish they had properly labeled as confidential, but which the public record shows they did not. But nothing that was not supposed to get out was released into the wild… at least, until Ross screwed up this one filing.

(Side note: People may quibble with my characterization given Judge Chang’s ruling against TG in the post-settlement matter back in the end of May. But her ruling was in a weird in-between spot. If she had ruled that Jace’s brief post-settlement remarks violated confidentiality, she would have awarded full attorney fees to Billy’s lawyers. Therefore, I must assume, she did not find confidentiality was breached. Instead, she decided Jace’s comments may have misrepresented the state of things, based on her personal opinion of what the word “banned” means. Thus, Chang awarded Billy’s side only half their request for legal fees, and granted Billy permission to publish two passages from the settlement so he could clarify to the public what exactly the outcome was, which Billy has so far failed to do.)

After her error was pointed out, Ross filed a quick “ex parte” application, asking the court to withdraw her prior motion, which she acknowledged should have been filed under seal. (“Ex parte” means you’re seeking action from the court on something without the presence of one of the parties to the case, which you can do in special circumstances.) It would seem this was granted, which is why you can no longer download Ross’ Jan. 5th filing from the court website – but lucky for you, you have resourceful journalists like myself who can preserve these things for you.

Note that I said Ross was the only one to breach confidentiality without at least an attempt at redaction. As much as I enjoy clowning on Billy’s lawyers, I must acknowledge that the Mighty Mister Tash fouled this up as well, albeit in a different way. Regardless of Ross’ faux pas, Tash had to respond to her filing as the standing motion it was, in case neither Ross nor Judge Chang felt inclined to have it withdrawn. Most of Tash’s filing was standard and unredacted, except for one lengthy paragraph he had blacked out, which dealt with Jace’s deposition testimony:

At least Tash made that much effort, right? He recognized that this paragraph was supposed to be confidential, and took steps to censor it appropriately.

The problem, of course, is that you can’t just add a black highlight to a word processor document and make the actual text underneath that highlight disappear. In this case, you can go to that pdf and select the blackened text (either by dragging the cursor across that paragraph or by hitting Ctrl-A to highlight the entire document), copy that text (either with a right-click or Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Insert), then open a plain text document like Windows Notepad, and finally paste the copied text into said document (either with another right-click or Ctrl-V or Shift-Insert). And voilà, we can all see what Tash had to say about some of Jace’s deposition testimony:

Mr. Hall testified at deposition that Defendant obtained an investment of $14,000,000 or $15,000,000 from Vision E-Sports in 2018 based on an enterprise valuation of between $25,000,000 to $30,000,000. Mr. Hall testified that the $6,000,000 damages figure is approximate, but less than, the actual damages that Defendant has sustained. He estimated that the damages derive from the loss of brand value Defendant has sustained from its score database being associated with fraudulent scores. After all, the whole of Defendant’s value and appeal as the foremost authority of video game achievement is based on the accuracy of the scores maintained in its database. Mr. Hall also testified that the damages figure is related to the amount of lost deal revenue attributable to Defendant’s association with the discovery of Plaintiff’s fabricated scores in the score database and the attendant damage to reputation. Accordingly, contrary to Plaintiff’s unsubstantiated assertion, there is a factual basis for the prayer for relief.

So both sides screwed up. But it’s not a huge deal, honestly. Tash, in particular, merely gave away some of his client’s own deposition testimony about his own financial situation. However, it did still fall under the expanded protective order, so he was still obliged not to disclose it regardless of Jace’s wishes. (At this point, Jace probably does wish the world could see his deposition where he no doubt trashes Billy ruthlessly while under the legal protections granted for compulsory testimony.)

Billy Mitchell’s credibility deteriorated throughout 2023, starting with his deposition full of lies, and continuing with his wacky plot to produce those fake plaques and stash them away with his friends, who just so conveniently made themselves inaccessible for testimony. (This included Billy’s conman friend Triforce, who was only too happy to testify for Billy in the Australia case.) As the year went on, and the desperation of Team Billy ramped up, they went all in on a bogus narrative that Twin Galaxies was out slinging around confidential material left and right, as if Tash just goes around taking steaming dumps on any court procedures he finds laying around unattended. Ellrod even went as far as to coin the phrase “Twin Galaxies disinformation machine”, apparently in reference to journalists like myself reporting the truth about his client’s lies.

But for all of Team Billy’s constant bellyaching and crocodile tears about confidentiality, those two filings from Ross and Tash were the only two cases I’m aware of where actual confidential material was made publicly accessible, and both were clear accidents. And many later filings by both Tash and Ross were properly redacted, with the actual text underneath the black highlights being scrubbed.

https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2024-09-12-Billy-Motion-to-enforce-settlement.pdf.pdf

However, I say those “were” the only instances of breach of confidentiality, because we now have a third instance, this time on the part of Big Tony himself. And this one’s a doozy! Apparently, Ellrod wasn’t reading my helpful updates like he should have, because if he did he would know we were on the lookout for black-highlighted text – or at least, it would have occurred to him to check his own work before sending it off to the courts for publication. Again, I specifically called out this exact error, earlier in this exact proceeding, and he still walked right into it. You could give Anthony Ellrod a fucking road map, and he’d still get lost.

The offending document was a new “Motion to enforce settlement agreement”, the details of which we’ll get to in a moment. Before anyone says anything, concurrent to this motion, Ellrod filed a “Motion to seal”, which is a procedural thing when submitting filings containing confidential material:

https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2024-09-12-Billy-Motion-to-seal-enforce.pdf.pdf

But this “Motion to Seal” refers exclusively to the “unredacted” versions of the filing and attached exhibits – meaning, the ones that are plainly readable. His quote-unquote “redacted” filing is still listed on the court site, although I’m not interested in paying extra money to see if the version you can currently purchase still features the easily defeated redaction.

Even worse, this isn’t some minor mix-up involving inconsequential bits of his own client’s testimony. We’re talking about verbatim portions and detailed descriptions of their confidential settlement with Twin Galaxies! The actual settlement is attached as an exhibit, but in that case the blackened text was used effectively. (Boy, it would be hilarious if Tony had let that slip, too!) Also included as an exhibit is a mostly-redacted subpoena from Queensland, Australia, dated August 9th, 2024. And as if all of this wasn’t bad enough, one of the other exhibits was a confidential trial plan for Billy’s Australian lawsuit against Karl Jobst! At this point, it’s mostly old news, since we’ve already heard from Billy’s witnesses like Preston Burt and Steve Grunburglar, and Karl’s witness David Race. However, it does appear that Billy’s witness Michael McNutt was a late addition, and we do get an indication that that we’ll be hearing from Carlos Pineiro, Jeremy Young, and Australian Kong Off organizer Jimmy Nails when Karl’s case resumes. More notably, this trial outline was very much not public when Ellrod’s motion was filed prior to the September trial dates. So Tony’s off fucking around with confidential stuff from entirely different lawsuits now lmaooooo!

Note that I pin this folly exclusively on Anthony Ellrod because, for one, he’s the signatory on the offending filing. But also, on this occasion, his is the only name listed for Billy’s attorney. For several months, it’s been Ms. Ross behind the pen on all of Billy’s California bullshit, with Ellrod’s name tacked on for good measure. I had to wonder, did Ross go on vacation? Was she busy on another, more important case?

Hahaha, Nope! She’s gone! Funny, she was on the Manning & Kass roster earlier this year. Now, with no Robin for his Batman, poor Tony has to do actual work all by himself. I guess, between him and Krissy, we can see who was the brains of their operation. No word on Ross’ new career trajectory, and truthfully I don’t care at this point, but for her sake I hope it doesn’t involve telling a bunch of lies on behalf of some fraudulent narcissistic has-been. Still, you just know that even years from now, like an old war vet, Kristina will fall into a cold, distant stare every time someone in her presence utters the name “Donkey Kong”.

And I know some of you are gonna say “C’mon ersatz, everyone knows the lawyers don’t do any of this shit themselves, they have clerks for that.” First of all, lighten up and have some fun. Second of all, who knows what’s going on at the Manning & Kass sausage factory. But most importantly, all I’m saying is, when Kristina remembered to redact confidential material, somehow her filings all got turned in without any problems. It wasn’t until Ellrod had to captain this particular ship that everything went sideways.

Ms. Ross may have moved on to greener pastures, but ol’ Boris is still here wrestling in the mud with us relentless fuckheads on the Internet. Did the “Duke of Malibu” really think we wouldn’t be watching him? Did he truly believe the “Twin Galaxies disinformation machine” would take a holiday?

WHAT’S NEW, PUSSYCAT?

Okay, so let’s start digging into our new treasure trove of informational riches. Note that if you just copy-paste Ellrod’s document into Notepad, you get lots of extraneous bullshit, like the numbered margins and odd page breaks, with inconsistent paragraph separation. For your reading ease, I’ve reformatted it all (minus the Karl case chart) as it would appear in the unredacted filing here:

https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ellrod-Unredacted.txt

But of course, we’ll go through the important stuff below. What follows are quotes from this filing and its attached exhibits, with the ostensibly censored portions highlighted in yellow. Or at least, that’s how it’ll look if I used the <mark> tag correctly. Hey, even this old dog can learn the occasional new trick!

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on September 13, 2024 at 8:30 a.m. or as soon thereafter that the matter may be heard in department 36 of the above-referenced Court, located at 111 N. Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, Plaintiff WILLIAM JAMES MITCHELL (“Plaintiff”) will appear and apply ex parte to move the Court for an Order enforcing the settlement agreement pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure (“C.C.P.”) § 664.6 such that Defendant TWIN GALAXIES, LLC (“Defendant”) and its principle Jason Hall be ordered to comply with Section 1(E) of the Settlement Agreement which states in pertinent part that:

Okay, before we hear from Section 1(E) of the settlement, I do find it funny that Ellrod attempted to censor this particular reference to forcing TG to comply with “Section 1(E)”, when he later makes that exact same reference three times without even any attempt at redaction. Does this guy even know what he’s doing?

Anyway, here’s Ellrod’s quoting of this all-important Section 1(E):

“Twin Galaxies, as an entity, and Jason Hall, as an individual, shall not voluntarily provide information to, or appear as a witness for a deposition or at a trial, in any litigation in which Mitchell is a party. Both Twin Galaxies and Jason Hall further agree to not voluntarily produce documents to any party in any litigation in which Mitchell is a party. Notwithstanding the foregoing, nothing in this Agreement shall preclude Twin Galaxies or Jason Hall from appearing as a witness or producing documents (1) in response to a judicial order compelling disclosure or appearance, or; (2) upon the written consent of Mitchell. In the event that anyone purports to require such production of documents or appearance as a witness, Twin Galaxies and/or Jason Hall shall promptly give written notice to Mitchell to enable Mitchell to take such protective steps as he may deem necessary.”

So let’s assume Ellrod isn’t quite so dumb as to misquote a specific document to the court. This would appear to be another concession Billy got in the Twin Galaxies settlement – that Jace and TG cannot “voluntarily” participate in any of Billy’s other lawsuits. Of course, “voluntarily” is a very key word here, and the settlement itself includes language to say “Obviously court orders and such take precedence.”

Before I continue, I know a lot of folks are still not fans of the settlement, the details of which I outlined in two installments back in February. However, when taking the entirety of the situation into consideration, I remain content with the outcome. All I can do is keep harping on the fact that Billy did not get any of what he really wanted. He wanted his scores back, and he didn’t get them. He wanted a public retraction and apology, and he didn’t get them. He wanted an unimpeded victory tour, and he didn’t get it. And he almost certainly didn’t get any money from TG or Jace. Billy Mitchell didn’t spend four years of life in litigation with Twin Galaxies in the hopes of being banished to some historical archive and gaining a pinky-swear that TG wouldn’t assist in Billy’s other lawsuits after already having contributed heavily to the body of evidence in those cases. This is just another minor concession, to which TG said “Sure, if you’ll agree to drop this nonsense, and we don’t have to keep spending money and time we’ll never see again, you can have a few meaningless considerations so you can pretend you didn’t really surrender.“

Also, when you think about it, it’s not much of a “concession” anyway. Sure, he agrees not to “voluntarily” assist these defendants, but they can just subpoena him and make him do it anyway. Jace probably laughed and said “Really? That’s what you want me to promise?” Granted, as we’ll see in a moment, it does seem to have had an effect with regard to international litigation, and the complexities of subpoenaing a foreign agent. But I suspect it will prove a fruitless clause with regard to any ongoing or future United States proceedings.

Next up, Ellrod claims the settlement entitles him to attorney’s fees for this motion:

PLEASE ALSO TAKE NOTICE that pursuant to the Settlement Agreement, Plaintiff also seeks an order of attorney’s fees and costs associated with filing of this Motion totaling $3,870.00.

We already figured out that the settlement includes a clause granting attorney fees in the event one party has to file an enforcement motion, which is standard practice in these cases. But here we see it spelled out.

In his “Memorandum of points and authorities”, Ellrod gives some background on the settlement itself, most of which is procedural:

The parties entered into a written Settlement Agreement that was signed by both parties on January 10, 2024. The Settlement Agreement included an express agreement for the Court to retain jurisdiction to enforce the Settlement Agreement pursuant to C.C.P. § 664.6. Moreover, counsel of record for the parties appeared in Court on January 11, 2024 and advised the Court of the settlement. Finally, the parties and counsel entered into and filed a stipulation for the Court to explicitly retain jurisdiction to enforce that settlement under §664.6 on January 11, 2024. Ellrod Decl.; See Exh. A.

Again, sadly, “Exhibit A” itself has been properly redacted. Ellrod then repeats the previous passage about TG and Jace being expressly forbidden from “voluntarily” testifying or producing documents in Billy’s other lawsuits. (The first rule of Billy Mitchell lawsuits is that Billy hates evidence.) Following that, we get into some new events:

On or about August 20, 2024, Plaintiff received a request for subpoenas and a witness list in the case Mitchell v. Jobst pending in Australia as set to begin trial on September 16, 2024. Both documents listed Jason Hall as a witness. (Cumulatively Exh. B.)

Ohoho! So there was Billy, sitting in Weston, Florida, drinking a tall glass of incontinence medication or whatever, when he opens his mail to find Jace Hall is listed as a witness in the Karl case, and after an exaggerated cartoon spit-take, his eyebrows hit the ceiling, and his medicine is flying across the room.

For some reason, the date on this next item is unredacted, whereas dates for many other events were blackened out. I’m not sure why.

On or about August 23, 2024, counsel for Plaintiff directed correspondence to counsel for Defendant pointing out that Section 1E of the Settlement Agreement precluded Jason Hall from voluntarily providing information to, or appearing as a witness at trial, in any litigation in which Mitchell is a party, including the Mitchell v. Jobst action in Australia. Deeming Hall’s inclusion on Jobst’s witness an anticipatory breach of the Settlement Agreement, Plaintiff demanded written assurance from Hall that he had not received a subpoena and would not be providing testimony in the Mitchell v. Jobst case pending in Australia. Counsel noted that if such assurances were not received on or before August 28, 2024 Plaintiff would be forced to seek court intervention, including a request for reimbursement of all fees and costs associated with having to do so. (Email string, Exh. C.)

On the evening of August 23, 2024 counsel for Defendant responded stating “Good evening Tony — Attached is a subpoena to Mr. Hall from the District Court of Queensland.” The email attached a purported subpoena in the Mitchell v. Jobst matter. (Email string, Exh. D; Subpoena, Exh. E.) Counsel did not address the request for assurances or indicate in any manner what Mr. Hall’s intentions were.

On August 25, 2024, counsel for Plaintiff directed correspondence to counsel for Defendant citing Section 1(E) of the Settlement Agreement and making a second formal demand that Mr. Hall provide written assurances that he would not be providing testimony in the Mitchell v. Jobst case pending in Australia. Counsel reiterated that absent such assurances Plaintiff would be forced to seek court intervention, including a request for reimbursement all fees and costs associated with having to do so. (Email string, Exh. D.)

I’m gonna guess that there’s no provision in the settlement stating that Jace had to provide any such written assurance of anything. If there were, Tony would be citing that exact clause. No, this was just Ellrod pounding the table and asking for more than he’s entitled to. And Jace, naturally, didn’t offer anything more than what was strictly required of him.

On August 27, 2024 counsel for Defendant responded stating “We understand that Mr. Hall must comply with the subpoena as it appears to be duly issued by an Australian court.” Counsel offered to meet and confer on the issue if Plaintiff believed the subpoena was insufficient to compel Mr. Hall’s testimony. (Email string, Exh. D; Subpoena, Exh. E.)

Tash was like “Bro, this looks like a legal subpoena. What the fuck you want us to do?” It doesn’t seem Ellrod really answered that question either, but he was very curious what the legal foundation for this international subpoena was:

On September 2, 2024, counsel for Plaintiff responded asking how Mr. Hall was served. To date Defendant has not answered. Counsel asked when Mr. Hall was served. To date Defendant has not answered. Counsel asked if Mr. Hall was purportedly served through the Hague. To date Defendant has not Answered. Counsel asked why the subpoena issued on August 9 not provided to Plaintiff until August 23, and not until Plaintiff asked about it. To date Defendant has not answered. (Email String, Exh. D.)

lmao THE HAGUE?

One thing is abundantly clear, even by way of Tony’s own account: Anthony Ellrod was flipping the fuck out. “When was this served!? Was it served through a proper authority!? Did it go through the fucking Hague!? ANSWER ME!!!”

Now, if you’re wondering why the International Court of Justice (based in The Hague, Netherlands) is suddenly a location of interest, let’s read on just a little bit more:

In the same email counsel for Plaintiff pointed out that an Australian court has no jurisdiction over Mr. Hall, and that he cannot as a US citizen, residing and present in the US, be compelled to give testimony in Australian litigation. As such, providing testimony in Mr. Jobst’s action would be voluntary and in direct violation of the Settlement Agreement. (Email string, Exh. D.)

And here’s the fundamental issue at play. It is true that a foreign subpoena from a foreign court doesn’t really have authority to compel you as a foreign citizen to participate. You have to go through international courts to make that a thing. Thus, as Ellrod argues, this subpoena is toothless, and thus if Jace testified in Karl’s case, he would be doing so “voluntarily”.

The problem is, since Tash never filed a response, we’re only getting one side of the legal argument. But I do think, as we read along with Ellrod’s rant, we can fill in some gaps as we go to present a counter-narrative. For one thing, Jace is an international entrepreneur. His Twin Galaxies scoreboard is now based in the Bahamas, and operates globally. If he wants to maintain good relations with the Australian government and to do business in Australia in the future, he would be wise to comply with such subpoenas, whether they properly go through the Hague or not.

At this point, Ellrod issued his first threat to take the matter up with the court “ex parte”:

A week later, on September 9, 2024, having received no response to the September 2 email, counsel for Plaintiff notified counsel for Defendant that absent immediate written confirmation signed by Mr. Hall stating that he will not provide testimony in the Jobst litigation in Australia Plaintiff would be going in ex parte seeking a court order and sanctions. (Email string, Exh. D.) Counsel for Defendant responded as follows:

“Where does it say in the agreement that Mr. Hall must give Mr. Mitchell any sort of written assurance? I have represented to you that Mr. Hall will not comply with the August 9, 2024 subpoena as it was served. Is there anything else that Mr. Mitchell is entitled to under the settlement agreement? If so, specify the portion of the settlement agreement supporting your demand and we will comply if the demand is reasonable.” (Email string, Exh. D.)

Oooh, Ellrod also inadvertently published confidential communications with an opposing attorney. Add that to the list, I guess.

So Tash assured Ellrod that Jace “will not comply” with the subpoena “as it was served”. On an initial reading, those last four words appear to be doing some lifting, implying that a more proper version of the subpoena could elicit Jace’s participation. Ellrod seemed to agree, emphasizing that portion of the quote as he continued his narrative:

Counsel for Plaintiff responded pointing out that Mr. Tashroudian did NOT represent that Mr. Hall would not comply with the subpoena. To the contrary. Mr. Tashroudian said “We understand that Mr. Hall must comply with the subpoena [as it was served]” Counsel for Plaintiff again pointed out that an Australian Court has no personal jurisdiction over Mr. Hall and he cannot be compelled to testify. Counsel for Plaintiff went on to say that while there is nothing in the Settlement Agreement that requires written assurance from Mr. Hall, Plaintiff was trying to give him a chance to avoid an ex parte seeking a court order and sanctions. That Defendant’s position per Mr. Tashroudian was an anticipatory breach of the Settlement Agreement and absent a sworn statement from Mr. Hall that he will not testify at the Jobst trial Plaintiff will be left with no alternative but to seek a court order and sanctions. (Email string, Exh. D.)

(On a technical note, those four words don’t show up properly when the text is copied and pasted, possibly as a result of whatever method Ellrod used to italicize them or whatever. Instead, you get a series of dots, demonstrating a gap of missing content. If you try it, you’ll see what I mean. I’ve restored the words as I believe they are intended to appear within brackets above.)

Ellrod really wants Jace to promise not to testify at all in the Jobst trial. Why? So he can then get Jace in a “gotcha” if an effective subpoena gets issued? Why should Jace comply with this nonsense at all?

And Ellrod’s threat of an “ex parte” motion speaks again to his state of mind. Sure, you see ex parte applications here and there, including earlier when Ross was like “Oops, please take back that thing I wasn’t supposed to file”. If you check the list of filings in this case, there were a few, mostly from Billy’s side, and typically dealing with continuances (“I can’t appear on the scheduled date”) or in one case, a request for permission to file an abnormally long motion. But it’s pretty brazen to file an “ex parte” application in a situation where you’re seeking a court order binding the out-of-court actions of another party, given that the affected party is usually allowed a voice in that decision.

Defendant’s counsel responded as follows:

“Mr. Hall cannot state categorically that he will not testify in the Australian matter. If he is served with a duly domesticated subpoena, he will have to testify and the settlement agreement contemplates this situation. So, I am telling you he will not testify pursuant to the August 9, 2024 subpoena – there is no anticipatory breach accordingly. If, however, a later subpoena is duly served on him, he will have to comply and that will not be a breach of the settlement agreement.”

So for those who don’t know, there’s a process by which a subpoena can be “domesticated”. In this case, that basically means a U.S. version can be issued in conjunction with the Australian subpoena, and the domestic version is enforceable. And Tash is just noting this possibility, and his client’s hesitance to commit to a course of action he may be legally compelled to countermand. Even reading Ellrod’s own filing, where he’s supposed to be making his own case, he still comes across as the unreasonable one.

Counsel for Plaintiff responded citing authority for the fact that no Australian court has the power to compel a person outside Australia to require the attendance of that person to give evidence at a trial. Noting that since the inception of the U.S. litigation Mr. Hall has been working with Mr. Jobst to harm Mr. Mitchell, including providing depositions and discovery in violation of Court orders, noting that Mr. Hall and Mr. Tashroudian have been found to have violated the confidentiality provisions of the Settlement Agreement by misrepresenting the terms of the Settlement Agreement publicly, including to Mr. Jobst, noting that Defendant did not notify Plaintiff of the purported subpoena from Australia until confronted about it by Plaintiff, and noting that Mr. Tashroudian initially stated that Mr. Hall was compelled to testify because of the subpoena, nothing short of a sworn statement from Mr. Hall that he would not testify in the Mitchell v. Jobst litigation would suffice to avoid an ex parte application for a court order and sanctions. (Email string, Exh. D.) As of the filing of this application there has been no response.

And once again, we have Team Billy’s big lie about “Oh, Jace and TG were violating all this confidentiality” (which, again, they weren’t). He even misrepresents the content of Judge Chang’s ruling over her flawed interpretation of the word “banned”, which as we discussed was not a ruling on confidentiality. Meanwhile, Ellrod continues demanding assurances Jace and Tash simply cannot give him:

Absent written confirmation signed by Mr. Hall stating that he will not provide testimony in the Jobst litigation in Australia which is set to begin on September 16, 2024, Plaintiff had no alternative but to seek judicial intervention through ex parte application to avoid irreparable.

Ellrod then goes into a bit of unredacted legal arguments, before breaking out the sharpie again for some incidental text:

Here, Plaintiff is entitled to have the settlement agreement enforced pursuant to C.C.P. § 664.6. The parties entered into a written Settlement Agreement that was signed by both parties on January 10, 2024, and included an express agreement for the Court to retain jurisdiction to enforce the Settlement Agreement pursuant to C.C.P. § 664.6. Moreover, counsel of record for the parties appeared in Court on January 11, 2024 and advised the Court of the settlement. Finally, the parties and counsel entered into and filed a stipulation for the Court to retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement under §664.6 on January 11, 2024 as the settlement agreement itself was confidential.

Okay, it seems like if “the settlement agreement itself was confidential”, that that fact alone would therefore also be confidential, and would require redaction. At any rate, we can now say that “Premise #15” – “The settlement includes a confidentiality clause pertaining to the text and elements of the contract” – has been confirmed.

A bit further down, Ellrod censored part of a section header:

B. This Court Should Find that Jason Hall Has Breached The Settlement Agreement, And Issue An Order That Jason Hall Not Testify in the Mitchell v. Jobst Trial Absent Being Compelled To Do So By A Court Of Competent Jurisdiction.

This section gets a bit reiterative, but I’ll cover these redactions as well for good measure:

The Settlement Agreement in this matter states that Mr. Hall will not provide testimony in any matter in which Mr. Mitchell is a party absent “a judicial order compelling disclosure or appearance.” It further states that in the event that anyone purports to require such appearance as a witness, Mr. Hall shall “promptly give written notice to Mitchell to enable Mitchell to take such protective steps as he may deem necessary.” (Exh. A subsection (1)(E).)

Plaintiff learned from his counsel in Australia, NOT Mr. Hall, that Mr. Hall was included on Mr. Jobst witness list. It was not until Mr. Hall was confronted with this that he acknowledged that he had received a subpoena. Despite requests, Mr. Hall has refused to say when and how the subpoena was “served”, or whether there was compliance with the Hague convention. All of this is in breach of the Settlement Agreement which requires “written notice to Mitchell to enable Mitchell to take such protective steps as he may deem necessary.”

lol Look at that break in the attempted redaction. Ellrod just really wanted the world to know that Jace refused something secret.

Let’s call back briefly to part of the settlement, as provided by Ellrod earlier:

In the event that anyone purports to require such production of documents or appearance as a witness, Twin Galaxies and/or Jason Hall shall promptly give written notice to Mitchell to enable Mitchell to take such protective steps as he may deem necessary.

If we were to take Ellrod’s unreliable narration strictly at its word, then sure, it would appear that Tash and Jace broke protocol by sitting on this subpoena until Billy received independent notice of it about a week and a half later. But again, we aren’t hearing from the other side. Our few quotes from Tash indicate he was unclear as to whether this was a binding court order Jace had to adhere to, and thus one which would trigger the quoted settlement requirement. And how was it sent? And by whom? Exactly what forms of paperwork are Jace and Tash required to notify Billy about? Does Tash have to tell Billy any time someone says the word “subpoena” while in the same room as Jace?

It is hard to imagine that Mr. Jobst has included Mr. Hall on his witness list without discussing the matter and obtaining Mr. Hall’s agreement to testify. Indeed, as this Court is well aware Mr. Hall and Mr. Jobst (and indeed Mr. Tashroudian ) have been working together to damage Mr. Mitchell and his reputation for years, to the point of providing Mr. Jobst with confidential information and discovery in this case in violation of Court orders.

Uh-oh. Is it possible Karl added Jace to his witness list with Jace’s consent!? I’m guessing the settlement didn’t include a clause saying “Thou shalt not find thy name added to a preparatory witness list without the express written consent of Major League Baseball”.

Once again, Ellrod then spins some fiction, deliberately mixing up cause (Billy’s initial proclamation that his scores were flatly “reinstated” by TG) and effect (Jace clarifying that Billy’s scores are still not on the real leaderboard and that he’s still banned):

This Court is aware of Mr. Hall and Mr. Tashroudian’s willingness to breach the Settlement Agreement. On May 30, 2024, this Court issued an Order finding not only that they breached the confidentiality provisions of the Settlement Agreement, but that the misrepresented terms of the Settlement Agreement, knowing that Mr. Mitchell could not respond without breaching the Settlement Agreement himself. Accordingly this Court permitted Mr. Mitchell to publish limited provisions of the Settlement Agreement and sanction Defendant and Mr. Tashroudian. (Order, Exh. F.)

Ellrod seems especially up in arms about Tash initially indicating that the subpoena, as it was served, was valid and enforceable. Granted, I’m not a lawyer, and am not in a position to say whether it was enforceable or not – and, as you can see, the paid professionals themselves seem unable to agree on this point. But Ellrod goes on a tear over this, highlighting (pun always intended) Tash’s change in position as well as some case law behind Australian subpoenas in particular:

Mr. Tashroudian initially stated that Mr. Hall was compelled by the subpoena to testify. That is not the case. Under the Foreign Evidence Act of 1994 of Australia and under basic principles of comity a U.S. citizen cannot be compelled to testify at a trial in Australia.

“The primary difficulty in obtaining evidence outside Australia compulsorily is that the power of each nation’s courts extends only to that court’s national boundaries and no further. No Australian court has the power to compel a person outside Australia to produce documents to it or to require the attendance of that person to give evidence at a trial.” (The Foreign Evidence Act, Volume 18(1), Karen Coleman.)

Subsequently, Mr. Tashroudian appears to change that position, stating that Mr. Hall is not compelled by the subject subpoena, but could be compelled by another subpoena. Still, Mr. Tashroudian and Mr. Hall refuse to disclose when and how the initial subpoena was purportedly served, or how any subpoena could compel him to testify in Australia.

Plaintiff believes that Mr. Hall, Mr. Tashroudian and Mr. Jobst will do whatever they can to have Mr. Hall testify at the Jobst trial in breach of the Settlement Agreement. It is not unreasonable to believe that Mr. Hall and Mr. Tashroudian will come up with some last minute claim that Mr. Hall was compelled to testify, knowing that Mr. Mitchell will be irreparably harmed and Mr. Hall and Mr. Tashroudian’s only exposure will be a subsequent claim of breach – too little, too late. Nothing short of an order from this Court that Mr. Hall comply and the corresponding threat of contempt will prevent that from happening.

Dang it! Tony sees right through their evil plan.

To be clear, a contract contains only those assurances it spells out. I’m only speaking strictly for myself here, but hypothetically, if Jace signed an agreement saying “I will not testify in a case involving Billy Mitchell unless compelled to by court order”, that doesn’t legally prohibit him from chatting it up with one of Billy’s defendants and telling them “Hey, I’ll be at such-and-such address at this time and day, it would be a perfect occasion to serve me a subpoena, and if you do, I have no qualms about testifying in your case.” Ellrod can call that a “conspiracy” or whatever until he’s blue in the face, but that doesn’t make it actionable.

What does make any of this potentially actionable is that one word we’ve seen in the relevant contract clause: “voluntarily”. So sure, the court can order Jace “You super-duper cannot testify, unless you really have to”. What does that even mean? And how relative is this requirement? You could say I’m “required” to pay my taxes, but strictly speaking I am physically capable of refusing to do so, if I’m willing to accept all the other consequences of that action. Could Jace just accept service of a subpoena sent to his place of business? Or would he be obliged to evade process servers and sheriffs deputies, lest his testimony be considered “voluntary”?

While this next paragraph was unredacted (and I mean fully unredacted), it offers a summary of what Ellrod is asking for:

Plaintiff is not asking this court to do anything other than issue an order requiring Mr. Hall to comply with one provision of the Settlement Agreement. In light of the actions of Mr. Hall and Mr. Tashroudian throughout the history of this action this is entirely reasonable. If Mr. Hall is not facing contempt of court, he will likely thumb his nose at his obligations under the Settlement Agreement yet again, and Mr. Mitchell will be irreparably harmed and deprived of what he bargained for in the Settlement Agreement without remedy.

Ellrod want’s Jace charged with contempt of court if he testifies in Karl’s case. He wants actual criminal charges over this. (EDIT: I may have misunderstood this point, and it may be that Jace could have faced “civil” contempt charges rather than “criminal”.)

Make no mistake: No matter how much posturing Billy does, Billy Mitchell does not want you to hear what Jace Hall has to say.

Oh, and once again, Ellrod seeks money for filing the motion:

The Settlement Agreement unambiguously permits the recovery of attorney’s fees and costs for seeking Court intervention to enforce the terms of the Settlement Agreement. Specifically, it states in paragraph 17 that in the event of a breach “the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred in enforcing this Agreement.” (Exh. A.)

Mr. Hall already breached the Settlement Agreement by failing to promptly notify Plaintiff of the purported subpoena, and then refusing to provide information on how and when it was purportedly served to permit Mr. Mitchell to take action. Mr. Hall has flip flopped on whether he is compelled to testify under the subpoena (which he is not), and refused to provide written assurances that he will not testify. Plaintiff’s counsel implored Mr. Hall and Mr. Tashroudian to provide those assurances so that this motion could be avoided, however they refuse to comply. As such, Plaintiff was forced to incur the costs and fees associated with the instant Motion.

Also included was a declaration from Ellrod, restating many of the above passages but with “I” in place of “Plaintiff’s counsel”. This is a requisite formality, so his bullshit stories can be properly considered as testimony. But there are a few more bits to note. For one, Ellrod confirms that the text of TG’s public statement was negotiated, and that the date of publication was specified in the settlement:

Pursuant to the Settlement Agreement, Defendant was to issue an agreed upon public statement as a standalone article on its website on January 16, 2024.

Toward the end, his declaration deviates a little from what we’ve seen, although the tone remains the same. Ellrod claims he was “forced” to freak out, he rambles more about Jace risking contempt charges, yadda yadda:

17. As such, Plaintiff is forced to bring this Motion under C.C.P. § 664.6 and request an Order finding that Defendant and Jason Hall have breached the Settlement Agreement by failing to promptly notify Plaintiff of the purported subpoena, and then refusing to provide information on how and when it was purportedly served to permit Mr. Mitchell to take action. Further, that the Court order Jason Hall to comply with Section 1(E) of the Settlement Agreement so that if he breaches he will be in contempt of court. This is necessary because a breach will cause Mr. Mitchell irreparable harm and deprive him of what he bargained for in the Settlement Agreement.
18. Good cause exists to address this motion through ex parte application because, on information and belief, the trial in Mitchell v. Jobst is set to begin on September 16, 2024. If Mr. Hall is not subject to the requested Court order he can testify with relative impunity and Mr. Mitchell will be irreparably harmed.

I keep saying this, but Team Billy really does not want Jace Hall to testify. They could give a shit less about seeking punitive measures after the fact. And it seems they really can’t make up their minds, either. Ellrod’s position seems to be that this was a full-fledged subpoena which warranted disclosure… but also, not? And by testifying, Jace is either facing contempt of court and/or breach of contract, or “relative impunity”? Either way, Anthony Ellrod knows how badly his client is fucked the moment Jace Hall opens his mouth.

19. Plaintiff requests an award of costs and attorney’s fees incurred in bringing this Motion pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement. My billing rate in this matter is $375.00 per hour. I have expended in excess of 6 hours in connection with this instant Motion, including the research, drafting, and redacting of confidential portions to lodge conditionally under seal, and I anticipate spending an additional 3 hours appearing ex parte. Further, I expended another hour in connection with the concurrently filed Motion to Seal to seal the documents lodged conditionally under seal and protect the confidentiality of the Settlement Agreement. Additionally, Plaintiff incurred the $60.00 filing fee to file this Motion and $60.00 filing fee to file the concurrently filed Motion to Seal. The total amount sought for recovery of attorney’s fees and costs is $3,870.00.

Ah yes, the confidentiality of the Settlement Agreement. Always at the forefront of Ellrod’s mind.

Ellrod then concluded his declaration with this bit of narrative:

20. Before 10:00 a.m. on September 12, 2024, I gave Defendant’s counsel of record notice of this ex parte via telephone and email. I advised counsel that Plaintiff would seek the instant ex parte relief on September 13, 2024 at 8:30 a.m. in department 36 of the Los Angeles Superior Court, located at 111 N. Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, to ask the Court to issue an order finding that Defendant and Jason Hall breached the Settlement Agreement and ordering Mr. Hall to comply with Section 1(E) of the Settlement Agreement.

The dates here are important. Tony was asking the court on September 12th – a Thursday – to immediately hear his motion on the 13th – a Friday. And that of course would be the Friday prior to the Australia trial, which by United States time would be commencing Sunday evening.

THE DUST SETTLES

So what the hell happened with this?

First of all, the same day Ellrod filed his ex parte brief, it was considered by a judge. But it wasn’t reviewed by Judge Wendy O. Koopa, but rather some other guy named Bruce Iwasaki. And so far at least, I happen to be a fan of sir Bruce:

https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2024-09-12-Billy-Minute-order-enforce.pdf.pdf

Ellrod was like “This matter has to be heard immediately, or my notoriously lying client will be irreparably damaged!” And Bruce was like “Sure bro, I’ll hear your bullshit, like two weeks from now.” LMAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOO

Can I get a Judge Frink in the chat?

However, by the time September 24th rolled around, Team Billy had already filed to remove their own ex parte application from the court calendar:

https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2024-09-23-Billy-Notice-of-removal-enforce.pdf

Thus, no ruling, no contempt charges, no attorney fees for Shihan Tony, and sadly for the rest of us, it seems no Jace Hall testimony in the Karl case.

There are no doubt a complex series of legal details at play, which the parties can’t discuss. As we’ve discussed, this could include whether the domesticated subpoena was actually enforceable enough to override the settlement stipulation, whether it applied to a full trial procedure (rather than something like a discovery request or deposition), and whether proper notification was given to the other party pursuant to such a valid subpoena.

But it also may be much simpler. Recall how, during Team Billy’s previous spontaneous eruption, that whole brouhaha ended up being over whether or not Billy was, to use the specific term, “banned” from Twin Galaxies (as opposed to being disqualified in some non-ban-like capacity). Despite Billy’s misinformation parade, Jace Hall asserted at that time, through the required redaction that “Billy is banned”:

And yet, as Karl Jobst reported in a May video, Billy’s Australian lawyers were arguing the opposite, that Billy was never banned by TG:

As I remarked in my previous update (the one with the numbered premises):

This may have played a part in Jace’s decision to be so forthright in the unredacted portions of his declaration. “Billy is banned.” “The original ban was [for] cheating.” However the clause from Premise #7 may be worded, Billy will surely employ it in an attempt to befuddle the Brisbane judge over the distinction between “banned” and “banned, but for longer”. But now Karl has the testimony, at least, to counter that narrative.

And so this could speak to why Jace was being called to testify, because he’s the only one who could effectively counter this point. Jeremy Young can testify to Billy’s cheating. So can Carlos and David Race, who can both also discuss their experiences trying to help Billy prove his innocence before discovering his whole narrative was a bunch of lies. But Karl’s attorneys would need Jace to shoot down this particular Billy lie.

Unless, of course, Billy were to shoot it down himself.

Let’s go back to “Day 3” of the Australian trial, which happened during this ex parte window. Granted, we have only my summaries to work with, and not an official transcript, but I do remember this interaction distinctly. “KB” – Karl’s barrister – asked Billy under oath to confirm that he was banned from TG:

KB said the original publication said Billy was banned from submitting scores to Twin Galaxies for cheating, to which Billy disagreed. KB asked, [“But you were banned from TG for cheating?”]. Billy said “I was told that, yes”, before adding [“I was told I was banned, but I never tried to submit a score.”] The Judge asked how long the ban lasted. Billy clarified that Jobst’s video was in 2021, that Guinness reinstated Billy in 2020, but that TG’s resolution came later, in January of this year. Billy then claimed the TG settlement would allow him to submit scores through normal channels.

The bracketed quotes indicate items which represent the meaning of what was said aloud, using as close to the actual verbiage as I was able to quickly jot down, but which I can’t strictly attest as being word-for-word. However, the unbracketed quote – “I was told that, yes” – is verbatim what Billy’s answer was to the given question.

So Billy just admitted himself A) he was told that he was banned, presumably by the authority who would make such a determination, and B) he never attempted to test whether it may not be true.

I’m not sure where exactly he or his attorneys got off asserting to the court that Billy was “never banned” in the first place. You were told you were banned, and you just accepted it? And now you’re telling everyone it wasn’t true? lulz

Anyway, as much as I would love to hear Jace’s unfiltered sworn testimony on all things Billy Mitchell, it’s hard to say Karl’s attorneys really required it at that point. Why try to fight through American red tape a hemisphere away when you have everything you need? Alas, this does mean that poor Jace, the talkative and opinionated Twin Galaxies head custodian we all know and love, will likely miss this golden opportunity to finally let loose on that narcissistic ass-pimple who keeps trying to drag him back into court. But who knows, if Billy keeps suing people, Jace could yet find himself with a fully American subpoena, and a (perhaps welcome) platform to say what he really thinks about Mr. Mullet.

As always, I thank everyone for reading! The sixth day of the Karl/Billy trial in Australia will be commencing soon, and so I will leave you all with one silly surplus note. Again, the settlement between Billy and Twin Galaxies is included as Exhibit A, and is properly redacted. You can still use Ctrl-A to select everything, and attempt to copy-paste what’s there. It just doesn’t come up as text – at least, not in any program I’ve tried.

However, as I went through what did come up, I found some odd bit, which you probably also found if you attempted the same thing. The words “EGG FARME” are somehow included with the settlement, on Page 10 of Exhibit A, apparently veering off the page to the right. They’re not visible on the displayed page itself, and can only be found when using the copy-paste method, or by doing a Ctrl-F search of the document:

So what exactly is this “Egg Farme” about? Is it where Billy’s planning to grow his secret exonerating evidence? Is it a reference to Anthony Ellrod’s private collection of perjury-themed Fabergé eggs? Is it a wily Easter egg (har har) left by Greasy Gibbons or some paralegal prankster? Or is it a bit of vestigial text from a previous contract Manning & Kass used as a template for the TG settlement?

There’s a part of me that deeply wants to know where those words originated from. And I’m sad that we’ll never get to know.