Why did Karl Jobst lose?

by ersatz_cats

Recently, someone told me I lack… tact.

I know, right? Can you believe it? Me, the guy who spends his free time online writing about narcissistic litigants and saying things like “Mr. Tiny-Dick over there sues people because his wife won’t fuck him.”

(Obviously that’s a joke I made up, although to be fair, I can’t tell you with certainty that it’s not true.)

But believe it or not, I really do soft-pedal my personal opinions from time to time. I endeavor never to soft-pedal facts, because that’s how you readers can use my reporting to form your own opinions and beliefs. But I don’t always broadcast any passing judgmental thought or initial assumption that crosses my mind. I hope you all understand why I would restrain these impulses, and if you don’t, it might be worthwhile to go get some sunshine and touch some grass.

However, eventually, there does come a time and a place to let reflective opinions rip. And that’s what we’re here to do today. No, we aren’t talking about any small time litigants-of-the-week like Todd Rogers, or implied legal threats from bozos like the Completionist. We are once again discussing the fallout of the massive Australia judgment in favor of professional cheater Billy Mitchell against enduring legend Karl Jobst.

Yeah, yeah, I know. “What took you so long?” I have an early draft in my folder where I wrote that it’s been “almost two months” since the verdict, as if that were an excessively long time. And now it’s been four months lol.

First of all, you’ve probably figured out by now that I don’t write on anyone’s schedule but my own. Still, this was longer of a delay than I’d wanted. Without saying more than it behooves me to, I’ve been at least vaguely aware of gears turning behind the scenes. I preferred to publish this after all of Karl’s bankruptcy stuff was totally absolutely finalized, with Karl’s eventual follow-up video as the backdrop. And I do believe that video will still come eventually. However, had I known it would take this long, I would’ve ripped off this band-aid much sooner. The delay wasn’t anyone’s fault. You know how it is. Each week comes and goes, and before you know it, you’re months in. Sometimes, things just happen the way they do.

And I’ll be honest, I also never felt like I had to get this out in a timely manner, for the sake of content-hungry sloptubers or whoever. Those of you who read my coverage throughout the process deserved a follow-up. It was important that I address all of this eventually, but as you’re about to see, it’s not like you ever really needed me to tell you what Karl’s mistakes were.

And that is what we’re here to discuss. Yes, I will bag on Judge Barlow a bit more lol, but the main point of this is to dissect the errors made by the “good guys”, including yours truly. Obviously, this will be a departure in tone from my usual fare (that’s code for “This will be on the long and rambly side, even for me” lol), and may include some uncomfortable conversations. My typical write-ups on the Billy cases focus on facts, with a few beliefs and opinions sprinkled in for fun and for proper framing. Today, informed opinions will be the star of the show.

I say this every time, as if it wasn’t obvious, but I do not speak for Karl Jobst. Yes, he and I stay in touch. But he has his opinions, and I have mine, and at times they differ. I did not consult him specifically toward writing this piece. He will have his turn to discuss his court loss in greater detail. As always, I’m here for you, my readers, and for the truth as I see it. I can’t stop knuckleheads from reading this and cherry-picking things out of context, but I intend for this to be a reasonable, adult conversation.

As I said a moment ago, sometimes things just aren’t anyone’s fault. If your baseball game gets rained out, it’s not like any person or group of people made it so. It just happened, and you have to accept that. For instance, I did write a piece on why it wasn’t really anyone’s “fault” why so many folks were misinformed about the nature of this lawsuit. It just worked out that way.

However, if we’re talking about why Karl lost the lawsuit, I can identify very few “It just happened” factors. There was no rain. Karl wasn’t legally prohibited from presenting his best defense in the courtroom. And the judgment wasn’t delivered by a robot. Yes, it seems Australian defamation law can be a bit silly. (See the friendlyjordies lawsuit for a demonstration of that.) But in this case, I don’t think the law itself was unfair to Karl.

So if we aren’t identifying unfair circumstances, and we aren’t discussing errors by unidentifiable non-corporeal entities out in the æther, then what we’re really talking about are the people most responsible for Karl’s courtroom defeat. Among these suspects, I’ll exclude one obvious candidate for consideration at the very end. And there are a small number of incidental characters I’ll briefly discuss. But I’m going to start with who I believe are the three key “suspects”, so to speak, in order of their primacy. Yes, I will be frank about what Karl did wrong, but his mistakes definitely don’t top the charts.

(Post-pre-script: All of this relates to the Apollo Legend story, which if you don’t already know, involves an act of self-harm.)

MILLS CHOKELEY

Let’s be real. The first people on this list are Karl’s lawyers. Tactful as I may be, I wanted to utterly trash his high-priced firm Mills Oakley for losing what should’ve been a slam dunk case. And if you’ve followed my coverage, you probably already have an idea of how Karl’s attorneys fouled everything up. However, in researching this piece, I found the question of who is responsible may be a bit more complicated than I first expected.

Now once again, I do not represent Karl. He’s a big boy, and he can speak for himself, as he often does. In his Discord, he has expressed both criticism and compliments for his attorneys. And even limiting ourselves to Karl’s publicly accessible remarks, it sounds like those lawyers have aided him expertly in his post-verdict bankruptcy proceedings. (No, I wont fuel any fires by sharing examples.) But at the end of the day, I’m no good to anyone if I don’t report journalistically on what transpired in the trial process itself.

I could go on a lengthy screed about lawyers in general, and it’s entirely possible I did exactly that while drafting this write-up, lmao. But that’s too deep a subject to sufficiently cover as a subsection to today’s topic, so consider this a working summary: I don’t like lawyers in general. They often think they know everything, even when they don’t. They often don’t listen to clients, even when they should. Their incentives are often at odds with their clients’ goals, in a “Freakonomics” sort of way. And they tend to be super-arrogant, although that is a bit understandable considering their profession is mired in gaslighting, such that even honest and ethical attorneys have to be constantly on guard for it. (Any time a scumbag attorney like Anthony Ellrod does the whole “This is highly unusual and/or outrageous, I’ve never seen anything like this before” dance, I prefer to believe he knows full well whatever he’s objecting to is perfectly acceptable, and he’s just trying to be difficult to leverage an advantage.)

Despite what many people seem to think, attorneys aren’t magic. They’re not all-knowing warlocks. They’ve been to law school, and have passed the bar exam, so they are experts on law and legal procedure. But an attorney never – and I want to emphasize, never – knows more about the facts particular to any given case than an informed client does. (I’m sure someone will point out a weird corner case, but there’s always a weird corner case.) So the lawyers also have to know how to ask the right questions to get all the relevant details they need to know out of their clients. Meanwhile, their advice to clients isn’t always terribly useful, either. Your attorney will instinctively tell you “Do nothing, say nothing,” the same way a doctor will reflexively tell you “Drink some water, get some rest”, as if that’ll help cure the bone fracture they failed to identify. So just as attorneys have to press to get the relevant information out of you, sometimes you as the client have to coax the more useful advice out of them. All of this makes more sense when you remember that your attorney is working several cases for several clients at any given time, whereas your case may be the single most important thing going on in your life.

Obviously my pessimistic perspective doesn’t stop me from praising certain attorneys for good, ethical work, both in these Billy Mitchell lawsuits and in regard to the more important battles of the world. I was highly impressed with David Tashroudian (“The Mighty Mister Tash”) in the TG legal battle. And when I finish my big multi-part write-up on the David Race lawsuit, you’ll hear about David’s two outstanding lawyers, who were key to winning that case. And I’m more than willing to commend good work by attorneys in efforts lost for reasons beyond their control.

The lawyers just can’t be the reason their clients lost.

There aren’t a lot of really good photos of Karl’s attorneys, but I’ll use this one because it has both. Alongside Karl are his solicitor Sam Barber (in the suit) and his barrister Michael de Waard (in the silly robe thing).

I guess I should try to explain how solicitors and barristers work, as if I’m qualified to do so. In the U.S., you have an attorney. Your attorney files motions, submits claims, sends threats, conducts settlement negotiations, writes arguments, interviews witnesses, addresses the court, cross-examines the opposition, washes the dishes, mows the lawn, etc. They sing, they dance, they act, they do it all. They – singular or plural – are your representative(s). However, in countries where everyone talks funny, this profession is split into halfsies. You start out with a solicitor, who does the paperwork not involving a judge or courthouse directly. And that solicitor is a member of the law firm you hired. But when it comes time to address the judge, your law firm partners with a barrister, who’s practiced in the intricacies of court etiquette. (As I alluded to in my trial coverage, there seem to be rules about which barrister can stand at which times, resulting in a goofy stand-and-sit dance as they banter back and forth. I’m guessing that was but a glimpse of the minutiae of court procedure in the Commonwealth.)

The point of all this is that Karl’s barrister, Michael de Waard, is not a member of Karl’s law firm, Mills Oakley. de Waard belongs to a separate barrister firm called “Murray Gleeson Chambers”. And then when it comes time for court, MO and MGC partner with each other. I guess you could say it’s like the old west, and barristers are hired gunslingers, except they dress like dainty maids instead of badass cowboys.

And this is where the “more complicated” comes in. Don’t get me wrong! Someone fucked up big time! I just can’t tell you with certainty exactly which half of the lawyer hoagie it was.

With all of that explained, and the suspects identified, let’s table the discussion of who exactly was responsible for what until after we’ve determined the specific fuck-ups under consideration.

Okay, who among the class can tell me what Karl’s lawyers did wrong?

I know, that was an easy question.

Let’s start with this…

How on this green motherfucking Earth do you – the defense attorney – walk into a defamation trial, where your client had evidence supporting their contested statement, and you don’t even bother submitting that evidence, or arguing that your client had reason to believe at the time that their statement was true?

How is that possibly a thing?

Like, even if your evidence kinda sucked, why not at least bring it to the court? Because remember, this issue isn’t going away on its own. The nightly custodian isn’t going to sweep everything under the rug for you. You will inevitably arrive at the step in the process where someone’s gonna look at you – the defendant – and ask “Okay, why the fuck did you do the thing?” And you can’t be up there saying “Uhhh, I made it up, cuz I’m a person who makes things up and reports them as fact.” Failing to bring this evidence is effectively an admission that you had no evidence at all.

Sure, as has been discussed elsewhere, the evidence in this case was confidential sourcing and not like hard paperwork, but it was sourcing that had previously proven reliable. That’s still evidence, and certainly more substantial than the “Billy said so” claims that were accepted as “evidence” at face value. You also can’t tell me that “I had evidence” isn’t at least on some level a viable defence in Australian defamation law, considering how much Judge Barlow kept referring to Karl’s supposed lack of evidence in his ruling.

Imagine you’re buying someone’s old car. You do your diligence, secure all the paperwork. Everything seems great. But then, weeks later, the cops come knocking on your door. It turns out, that car you bought was mega-stolen. And unbeknownst to you, all that paperwork you thought you verified was bogus. So now you’re charged with grand larceny, and you have to lawyer up. The smart thing would be to (at the appropriate times) tell the truth, present all your evidence, accurately convey your own ignorance and confusion, and hope the judge or jury realize you’re not a crook and have mercy on you. But your hotshot lawyer wants to ignore all that, leaving the court to speculate on how that car mysteriously ended up in your possession. Instead, his genius plan is to argue that the car you “stole” wasn’t that valuable, therefore it doesn’t legally qualify as “grand larceny”.

Now, let’s be as fair as we can be. Lawyers are specialists. They are hired for that reason. And the law doesn’t always make common sense. So this is the kind of thing where, if it works, you just assume the attorney really had some great insight. After all, they should know what they’re doing, right? But when it fails, like a head coach who punts on second down, or pulls the goalie late in a tie game leading to a loss, it looks very, very dumb. “How the fuck did you think that was a good idea?”

There are things about this situation we don’t know, and may never know. It’s possible Karl raised all of this with his attorneys and was given assurances “No, that’s not the way to go because of X, Y, and Z.” I’m not going to ask Karl about this because it involves attorney-client privilege, it ultimately doesn’t change anything, and because I’d rather my commentary remain independent.

But what we do have is Michael de Waard (“KB”), on day four, attempting to present this line of argument, even though it was reportedly not reflected in their written pleadings. And pursuant to an objection from Billy’s barrister (“BB”), you may recall how that worked out:

But alas, BB objected to this message being tendered into evidence on the basis of relevance. KB noted that his client is being accused of acting in either malice or reckless disregard when he published the video. This led into a lengthy discussion about whether the defense pleadings properly reflected a denial of this inference. Basically, if the defense failed to argue in its pleadings that Karl took sufficient steps to confirm this information prior to publication, then the prosecution’s allegation that Karl did not do so stands effectively undenied. The defense, therefore, cannot start entering evidence and arguments supporting a contention they never made in the pleadings. KB countered that a denial is suggested by certain pleadings, however Judge did not interpret it this way, adding [“The court doesn’t have to adopt admissions, once an admission is made, it’s made.”] The Judge then decided, by rule, that the defense has effectively admitted to every item in whatever paragraph of Billy’s pleading BB was citing. KB stood there speechless for a moment, before composing himself and continuing on.

To help explain a little more, each side had to present “pleadings” of their case. These documents, which are not public, are summaries of what arguments and supporting evidence each side plans to present at trial. This is important because it’s how each side knows what to be prepared for. Because remember, the trial is ostensibly a search for the truth, and that search is aided by having minimal late surprises. They don’t want attorneys scrambling at the last minute to dig up evidence they didn’t know they would need, to rebut arguments desperately conjured after half the witnesses have already been called and dismissed. (Hell, they’d rather parties realize on their own who’s set to win and settle before trial ever begins.) And if it were permitted for attorneys to ambush trials with this sort of material, that’s all they would ever do. What I’m saying is, this wasn’t just a formality. There are very good reasons for these requirements. Assuming the defense pleading did not adequately reflect this line of argument, then Judge Barlow was correct to shoot down de Waard’s line of questioning. Allowing it would have violated a basic fairness standard, which KB (intentionally or not) was improperly attempting to circumvent.

We don’t have to play Monday morning quarterback on this one. We don’t need to guess that an error was made. In trying and failing to argue this forbidden point, de Waard broadcast to everyone that someone dropped the ball. In that moment on day four, de Waard was doing his job. But whoever filed the written pleadings hamstringing his case fucked up royally.

Now, in my never-ending quest to be as fair as humanly fucking possible, sometimes these things are grayer than they may appear. People unfamiliar with court often don’t realize how frequently this process is not black-and-white. Even with all the rules and objections and technicalities, judges often say “Sure, close enough, I get what you were saying.”

So is it possible the pleadings softly suggested this line of argument, without it being explicitly spelled out? Should Billy’s barrister have been expected to prepare for the “We had evidence” argument regardless? Would some judges have allowed de Waard to continue, based on whatever language the pleadings may have contained? Could it be that Barlow (as I’ll discuss in a moment) already had it out for Karl, and shot it down for that reason? I don’t know. Again, the document itself is not public. But even if any of this were the case, at the very minimum, it was a mistake to leave an ambiguous pleading up to the whim of the judge. You need to be able to say “Yes, we included it, it’s right fucking here.”

And this is why I felt it necessary to preface this analysis with some talk of lawyers in general. This particular blunder speaks to a mindset of “This case is readily winnable, so we don’t have to put that much effort into it.” And that is the last thing you ever want from your attorneys, no matter how much or how little you’re paying them. Yes, Billy Mitchell lies a lot, and you will catch him in some lies under oath. But Billy also throws everything he can at the wall, hoping something will stick. I’ve spoken to others who were not prepared for how prolifically that dude lies, or for how willing some people are to take him at his word despite contrary evidence. Like it or not, unfair as it may be, you have to meet him on those terms. You have to address it all, especially in a court of law, where you can’t just let suckers be suckers.

(As I said before, lawyers’ incentives are often at odds with their clients’ goals. Someone will undoubtedly point out that lawyers work on retainers, and are paid by the hour. Thus, one may think, more work on a given case means more pay. And surely, a client like Karl would pay the extra time if it was literally the difference between winning and losing. But the more hours the attorneys pour into a single case means fewer cases they can take on, so the incentive to cut work time is still there. Lawyers at that level are typically not twiddling their thumbs, looking for things to do. They have full calendars, and are often barely keeping ahead of their requirements. That’s one reason why so much court shit gets done at the last minute.)

Once you identify this mindset, you start to see it reflected in other mistakes from Mills Oakley and company. On day seven, de Waard showed up to closing arguments not knowing basic facts about his client’s timeline. (I called it “the own-goal”.) Additionally, as with failing to argue that Karl had basis for his contested claim, they also didn’t bother trying to establish that people online were blaming Billy for Apollo’s death the moment it happened – well before Karl’s video. Did they think this line of argument was also superfluous? This allowed Billy’s lawyers to spin a bogus narrative that every instance of someone invoking Billy’s name in the context of Apollo’s suicide, even years later, was doing so because of one video by Karl wherein nothing new about Apollo’s situation was reported.

Karl’s lawyers also never even interviewed me as a potential witness. They didn’t even bother having the conversation with me directly. Granted, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of giving Billy Mitchell my real identity, but I’m under the belief his team acquired that information prior to the TG settlement anyway. (That’s a story for another time.) And even if they hadn’t, I recognized this as an “all hands on deck” must-win case regardless. I conveyed to Karl’s attorneys through Karl my willingness to testify, which would have given foundation for why Karl made the claim, and possibly would have taken the heat off him for his error in reporting. (Being one of the people who pushed the “Apollo paid Billy money” claim, as I’ll discuss in a moment, I did have some responsibility here.) I also would have provided examples from my own research of people blaming Billy prior to Karl’s video, as I indicated at the end of “Day 7”. Admissibility shouldn’t have been an issue, given Billy’s side got all these random YouTube comments and shit entered into evidence, and I would’ve been there to testify “I saw this, and I personally screencapped this on such-and-such date.” At the very least, you’ve gotta fight for those things.

So I should’ve been a slam dunk inclusion! However – and I re-re-re-checked my email in writing this just to super-duper confirm – I never had a single conversation about any of it with the attorneys directly. I only ever heard from Karl that, so he was told, my testimony wasn’t necessary for the defense the lawyers planned to present.

This is especially inexplicable in hindsight. The attorneys called David Race, Carlos Pineiro, and MoistCr1tiKaL as witnesses, so it’s not like being openly critical of Billy Mitchell was disqualifying. Sure, the lawyers might glance at my writing and say “This guy has no filter, he’ll say anything.” But they still have to interview me or conduct a mock questioning or something to know! Gosh, what if it turns out I conduct myself differently from the witness stand than I would in casual conversation? Do they think I go around talking like this in daily life? Did they really believe I’d get up there and be like “Your honor, I’d trust lying fuckface over there less than I’d trust a fart after I haven’t shat for two days.”

I didn’t get on Karl about this at the time because – despite my experiences with attorneys – sometimes I still go “Well, they’re the experts, maybe they know what they’re doing.” And that was especially true in this case dealing with Australian defamation law, which I had absolutely no familiarity with. But, as we’ve seen, the lawyers had no special winning insight, and they made inexplicable blunders. Once again, this makes more sense when considered as an extension of “We don’t need him, we’ll just win anyway.” Calling me as a witness could be a lot of extra work, given Billy’s barrister could cross-examine me about any of a gazillion things I’ve written about his client, for which you’d want to be prepared. But if the case you think you have wins anyway, you get tempted to skip the bother.

In the real world, people tend to frown on conditional defenses. “I didn’t do it, but if I did it wasn’t that bad, and even if it was it wasn’t my fault, et cetera.” However, the court of law thrives on such arguments. You are expected to avail yourself of multiple, alternative defenses and motions. And Karl’s lawyers know this. But instead, with everything we now have laid out, it seems they were content to offer as minimal avenues to victory as they could get away with. And I struggle to consider any word to describe this other than malpractice, especially coming from a firm as reportedly high-priced as Mills Oakley. You’re paying your lawyers because you want them to win, not to do a cost-benefit analysis on the least amount of time and energy they can expend before cutting out for an early weekend.

Even setting aside the extra effort Karl’s attorneys failed to invest, their basic legal strategy still leaves one scratching their head. If I wanted to be charitable, I could say they focused on an approach of “Show that Billy’s enduring reputation is that of a cheater and litigant, and not as someone who pushed Apollo Legend to suicide”. And to be fair, that much is true! Some folks remembered the text messages, but Billy wasn’t widely known for this alleged connection between his actions and Apollo’s suicide. The fact that most everyone was so surprised to learn that this Australia lawsuit was about this question and not directly about cheating speaks to that. However, when you consider the impression these sorts of arguments make, the perception of this strategy is very easily twisted into “Being known as a video game cheater is worse than being known as a guy who hounds people to death.” And that is obviously counter-ethical, to the point of being offensive.

You get the idea. I may be missing some lesser mistakes, but again, Australian defo law
isn’t my expertise – nor is it yours – so I don’t want to stray too far from the obvious and undeniable. I have heard it suggested that calling David Race and Carlos Pineiro as witnesses at all was a mistake, given their particular histories with Billy opened them to witness-impeachment. I tend to think it depends on the disposition of the judge whether they get taken as reliable ex-colleagues with valuable insight or irrational actors with a personal axe to grind. And while Carlos has the unfortunate position of having to explain why he signed contradictory statements at Billy’s behest, his story also introduces doubt as to the signed statements of Billy’s other friends, who may not have wrestled with their ethics the way Carlos did. Meanwhile, de Waard did skip a golden opportunity to simply ask Preston Burt, on the record, how much Billy Mitchell actually lost in appearance fees between their 2018 and 2019 Southern-Fried Gaming Expo events. (In Exhibit 50 of his June 2020 declaration in California, Billy claimed to have lost $15,000 between the two events.) I’m not sure it would’ve made a difference in Barlow’s ruling, but since you have the evidence in hand, and since dude is on the stand anyway, there’s no reason not to give Preston the opportunity to surprise you with his answer. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Old trial wisdom says “Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.” But Australian bench trials use a different process.)

Okay, with all of that spelled out, we can now circle back to our counseltacular dichotomy:

Was this loss on the solicitor, Sam Barber of Mills Oakley? Or was it on the barrister, Michael de Waard? Which half of the peanut-barrister-and-solicitor sandwich do we blame?

The easy – and probably correct – answer is “Both”.

No matter what, de Waard does not walk away unscathed. I can’t say I ever had a bad personal impression of him during my time in Brisbane. As I recalled at the end of “Day 4”, I ended up in an elevator with Karl’s legal team, briefly discussing my ongoing coverage of the trial. de Waard indicated he didn’t want to read what was said about him, as it might get into his head, which I totally understood and respected. I also didn’t find anything particularly negative of him online. His bio page at Murray Gleeson says that in 2024 he “was appointed Adjunct Professor with the Griffith Law School”, his alma mater. Curiously, that page, and de Waard’s LinkedIn, are the only sources I could find for this claim. There was no announcement, and he’s not on the staff page, where one other adjunct is listed. But whatever, that’s probably standard. The school itself has acknowledged other adjuncts who lacked such formal recognition. I’m sure it’s fine.

The problem is, the own-goal from “Day 7” was on him, and him alone. I don’t care if someone else prepared his notes or whatever. He has to know the case better than that. And he has to be able to spot what appear to be massive weaknesses and go “Is this what really happened?” No excuse.

That said, I think the even bigger blunders (failure to plead key arguments, etc.) are paperwork related. And going into this analysis, I amateurly assumed “paperwork” equals “solicitor”, which would be Sam Barber.

I knew of Sam’s name before I traveled to Brisbane to cover the trial. Karl always spoke well of him. But again, I never interacted with Sam directly in any pre-trail prep. So it wasn’t until court that I was able to meet Mr. Barber for myself. And right away, he struck me as… hmmmmmm, how do I say this tactfully… a typical smug lawyer twat.

I will grant, as I’ve indicated, that I’m pre-inclined to dislike attorneys. So you can factor that into my impression as you wish. Obviously I didn’t broadcast this assessment, for what I hope are obvious reasons, not the least of which is that sometimes your first impression of someone is just wrong. How many bosses have you worked for where your first day together was not at all like your hundredth? Also, I’m aware that courtrooms involve theatrics, and that attorneys will often be different people on trial day – although I’m not sure how that applies to a solicitor quietly sitting in the peanut gallery with the rest of us slobs while the barrister absorbs the spotlight. At any rate, I never had enough personal interaction with Sam to decide whether my first impression was accurate or not.

However, based on this impression, and my limited understanding that the solicitor is “the paperwork person”, I was ready to fucking pillory Mr. Barber for this colossal fuck-up. Oh, I’m telling you, I had a litany of Sam Barber slander ready to go. “I wouldn’t trust Sam Barber not to undercook my food. If I went to Cole’s, and Sam Barber was my cashier, I’d double-count my change, just assuming he probably got it wrong, like he gets everything wrong. If I were Billy Mitchell, I’d be sending Sam Barber Christmas cards every year whether he wants them or not.”

But as always, I did my diligence. You can call it “tact” if you want. I just wanted to make sure I get things right. If I’m going to roast someone up, I want it to be someone who deserves it. I did find the occasional odd reference to a solicitor drafting a pleading (or at least, being held responsible for an ethically derelict pleading). But Google is also replete with references to barristers “drafting” civil pleadings, including questions about how to determine authorship of a given pleading. Although, I noticed many of these results relate to the UK, so maybe Australia is different? Also, to this American, “drafting” suggests preliminary work – say, something that may be considered nonfinal until a solicitor signs off on it. So maybe these search results from places not called America use the term “drafting” differently? The point is, for all I know, Sam Barber could actually be completely innocent.

Imma be real with you. I lack sufficient whiskey to continue dissecting this bit of minutiae with any hope of coming to a sincere conclusion on which party is responsible for these particular case pleadings I don’t even have access to. Someone fucked up royally. And while I can’t say for sure, I would venture that it was most likely a collaborative process between the parties identified. And that’s a problem in and of itself, as it results in a diffusion of responsibility.

All of this is bad enough already. And yet… there is an even more dire angle to this conversation. A lot of what I’ve written about this case assumes Karl should have won. In a moment, I’ll lay out my case for why I still believe that. The many evidentiary flaws in Barlow’s ruling certainly have not convinced me otherwise. If the ruling was reasonable, the assessment of the evidence would have been as well. I knew well before the trial that Billy had already testified under oath that Karl’s videos had basically no effect on him, and I certainly wasn’t expecting an educated judge to hear that and go “Well, I don’t think he was saying what he was saying.”

However, one could ponder the possibility that what Karl said, and the way he handled the fallout, was always going to run afoul of weak Australian defamation law, regardless of Billy’s inability to prove damages. In that universe, Karl’s confidence, and my confidence, were entirely misplaced.

Now, one may immediately ask, where was that confidence coming from? If such were the case, it would’ve been the lawyers’ responsibility to frankly convey that likely eventuality to Karl. “Hey, we’ll do what we can, but this set of facts is not a good look, and you should be preparing yourself for an unfavorable judgment.” (Always pay attention when a sympathetic attorney tells you something is “not a good look”.) Instead, we’re left with the shocking possibility that Mills Chokeley knew all along – or at least had a very good idea – that this case would not end well, but were happy to pump Karl up on his chances in order to soak up a few years worth of legal fees.

I personally do not subscribe to that outlook, but it would be unfair of me not to mention it as a possibility. We in the public also don’t know what conversations went on behind the scenes, or what early settlement offers were even possible with a narcissist like Billy Mitchell. One such offer is publicly known to exist, and was not acknowledged in the ruling. One could also speculate whether or not Karl eschewed potential attorneys who were more candid with him in favor of the firm offering assurances of victory. All of that is ultimately Karl’s business. However, if we are discussing responsibility, these possibilities wouldn’t let the chosen lawyers off the hook either. And in this wholly hypothetical scenario, if I’m to be honest, I don’t think the fault would lie with the guy in the silly robes who only shows up when it’s time to address the judge.

Look, I understand, there are reasons to be tactful here. We – and by “we” I mean either the YouTube community, gaming adjudicators like Twin Galaxies or Speedrun.com, or just gamers in general – we need attorneys willing to defend against bullshit defamation lawsuits without fear of being humiliated for small mistakes, or for losing tough cases. But we definitely do not need lawyer-grifters who think we’re easy marks to soak up ever-escalating legal fees while putting in the bare minimum. Again, I’m not saying that’s entirely what happened here, but I can’t lie, this conduct carries a certain whiff of “We’ll get paid either way.” We sometimes do need legal representation, but we don’t need attorneys who aren’t invested in our outcomes. They can go chase ambulances instead.

This does lead directly to one inescapable question: Should Karl have dumped these attorneys prior to trial? Particularly, at the moment they told him “It’s better for us to allow the judge to believe you made up shit about Billy out of thin air?”

Okay, stupid question. Obviously he should have shitcanned these lawyers and gotten someone else. The more compelling question is, is that just a matter of hindsight?

Truthfully, I’m inclined to think it is. The problem is, law really is complex, and even counter-intuitive at times. People think that because they watch a fucking TV show they have any idea how the process works, or how to build a case for trial. Or even worse, they naively think showing up to court with a pocketful of truth is enough to win. As disappointed as I may be with the many arrogant, low-effort attorneys out there in the world, expertise still counts for something. Meanwhile, for those of you who care about public perception, sticking with conventional wisdom is always the safer path. Again, you don’t want to be the coach who left your pitcher in the game too long. People will laugh at you when you lose following your attorneys’ advice, but they’ll laugh at you even harder if you ignore their advice altogether.

These are the kinds of things you learn your first time through the system. You have to watch your lawyers, you deserve reasonable explanations from them, and you have to be willing to drop the ol’ Vaudeville Hook on them if they just are not on the correct page with you. At the end of the day, unless your attorneys are on contingency, or unless you stiff them lmao, they get paid whether you win or lose. You’re the one who has to live with their consequences.

Okay, who’s next?

CORONATION STREET

Ah, our old pal, the judge. For the longest time, I had missed that “Ken Barlow” is the name of a long-running character in a UK soap opera called “Coronation Street”, hence all the references folks posted in the comments lol. Maybe that Ken Barlow hangs out with the Billy Mitchell from “EastEnders”?

We could quibble over whether the lawyers or the judge should be #1 or #2 on this list. My feeling is, while the ruling was outrageous (at least in the excessive amount awarded to Mr. Lies About Everything), and Barlow certainly failed in his duty as a result, the judge wasn’t there to be Karl’s advocate specifically. In some respects, it becomes difficult to evaluate Barlow’s contributions, because you’d have to constantly interject “If Karl’s lawyers had done their jobs…”

However, the incompetence of the attorneys doesn’t let Kenny Barlow off the hook, either. I’ve already written many words about Barlow’s ruling, but in short, all of Billy’s claims were taken at face value, even when they presented major conflicts or were obvious lies. Billy said under oath in the U.S. that stress from Karl Jobst is “minimal compared to” the TG matter, before testifying the opposite in Australia. (And no, no matter what Billy says now, there was no context that meaningfully changes that.) That alone should have sunk Billy’s credibility, and yet, Barlow went full Olympic gymnast, reaching and stretching to find any excuse to keep the circus going.

Again, follow the above link for an extremely detailed analysis of how Judge Barlow fucked us all at our most needed moment of vindication. Today, I’m more interested in using this space to address two questions: At what point did Barlow decide nothing Billy Mitchell could say would affect his chances, and how did I get my mid-trial assessment of Barlow so wrong?

Honestly, y’all don’t even know how wrong I got this one, lol. Sure, I had some kind words for Ken Barlow in public, but privately, it was even worse. Hey, I’m a real person. I talk on the phone to folks involved in this and other Billy cases, some of whom are desperate to see at least a morsel of justice get dished out to that mulleted con-artist who had wronged them. And I was telling people “No no no, don’t worry. This judge gets it. He’s no dummy. He has to see what’s going on. There’s no way on this Earth he doesn’t see it.”

At least my public coverage was a bit more measured. Looking back, I did present Barlow favorably, but I wasn’t exactly effusive in my praise either. I guess that makes me a good reporter who doesn’t let my emotions and assumptions cloud my factual reporting? (Well, at least some of the time.) The best I wrote of Barlow came in my conclusion to “Day 7” in October, as I was hoping to send some positive thoughts out into the world:

True justice requires judges (and juries) to see the totality of what’s going on before them. It obliges finders of fact to differentiate bad faith actors with honest individuals who make mistakes, and to recognize patterns of dishonesty and act accordingly. Judge Ken Barlow strikes me as an astute adjudicator, often asking exactly the sorts of clarifying questions I was hoping he would. I just hope, now that the case is out of the attorneys’ control, that he sees the totality of what’s going on here.

lmao Welp.

So how did I get my earlier assessment of Ken Barlow so totally wrong?

Truthfully, my high esteem for Barlow began before I even set foot in Australia. As Karl had correctly reported in late 2023, Billy had been working to push off trial dates in each of his active lawsuits. (Perhaps this was an indication Billy didn’t expect to win any of these trials, and wanted to delay the consequences of his actions as long as possible.) Billy continued trying this with Barlow into 2024, resulting in this amusing bit of reporting:

I read that and I thought “Oh snap! We found the judge who won’t let Billy bullshit him or push him around!”

And this impression carried over to a moment on the very first day of trial. Remember, I’ve covered this and the other Billy Mitchell cases extensively, watching hours and hours of interviews and podcasts and panel presentations. This means I’ve seen Billy lie to lots and lots of people, often directly to them individually. And usually, despite what reputation he ought to have by now, most people engaging with him this way take his claims at face value. They’re not looking for lies or weasel words. “Oh, this man is confident, and he’s been in a movie, and he’s wearing a suit. So his statement must be true in the straightforward way I would perceive it to be true.” I often expect claims like “Twin Galaxies reinstated all my scores” to go unchallenged by anyone who isn’t already onto his grift. So when that exact topic was addressed on day one, my ears perked up when Barlow asked Billy to clarify whether these supposedly “reinstated” scores in the “historical database” currently appeared exactly as they had before they were disputed.

Looking back at my own reporting, I didn’t make a huge deal of it at the time. But in that moment, I felt that either Barlow had familiarized himself with Billy’s track record prior to trial (something which he may or may not be formally entitled to do), or he’s just really good at sussing out horseshit on the spot.

At that point, I was all in on “This judge gets it”. Hell, in my day-to-day coverage, I never would have associated Barlow with two of my favorite movies (Rocky Horror and Shock Treatment) if I had any indication he’d turn out to be such a villain.

In writing this piece, I went back and searched my trial coverage for any time I referred to the judge as “astute” or “savvy”. There was a sequence with two described “savvy” moves on “Day 4”. First, when Karl explained the concept of using MAME to produce a Donkey Kong score, Barlow asked if this would affect the way the game could be played. Barlow’s given example was if Donkey Kong could be played more quickly, which obviously wouldn’t help on a non-speedrun, but it is a solid question for a non-gamer. Then a moment later, when discussing how high score claims are uploaded and adjudicated, Barlow interjected that different score-trackers would naturally have different procedures. Again, I’ve found it uncommon for people unfamiliar with gaming competition to catch on so quickly to these details. But, as I expressed to folks at the time, Barlow is a judge, so part of his job would involve being able to adapt to understanding the social and technical and cultural intricacies of video gaming, or home realty, or taxidermy, or medical school, or semi-pro lacrosse, or whatever corner of our shared universe is facing the court’s spotlight that week. So, at the time, I took this all as more indication that Barlow was indeed good at his job.

Ironically, one of Barlow’s actions I referred to using the word “astutely” was when Barlow shot down KB’s aforementioned attempt to enter evidence justifying the claims in Karl’s original video. And that was bad for Karl! But as I explained, both in my coverage during the trial and just a moment ago when discussing Karl’s attorneys, de Waard attempted an improper run-around, and Barlow correctly quashed it (pursuant to an objection from Billy’s barrister). So Barlow didn’t allow himself to be manipulated, which in isolation hurt Karl’s case, but which on the whole again reinforced to me that this judge had some competency.

And this brings us to an obvious question. As the reigning lawman of this very site, I am aware of the bad faith trolls who converged on Karl’s loss like a swarm of cockroaches. I don’t feel any particular need to defend my extensive coverage of this case merely because a bunch of antisocial idiots want to piss their diapers and smear their feces on the walls. I’m sorry, I just don’t write for stupid people. However, it is not necessarily unintelligent for one to ask the following:

“If you thought the judge was so astute throughout the trial, then why did you suddenly decide he’s a bonehead when the ruling didn’t go your way?”

But the answer’s actually very simple. Ken Barlow hadn’t really opened his mouth yet. He was kind of like that silent protagonist who everyone mistakenly thinks is a great character simply for the fact he hasn’t said anything stupid. Granted, it’s not literally true in this case, in that Barlow did weigh in on procedural things here and there, and he did ask a couple savvy questions. But it wasn’t until the ruling was issued that we discovered what he genuinely thought of the evidence presented. And hey, once we got to hear what he thought, it turned out he was a massive sucker who was happy to invent flimsy excuses for Billy’s obvious lies. And yes, such a discovery will affect my impression of someone, because Of course it will, are you insane?

The reason those of us most familiar with the case reacted as though the ruling came out of left field is because it did come completely out of left field. As I’ve said many times, I could’ve handled a ruling of “Both Karl and Billy suck, Karl technically defamed Billy, but damage is minimal”. Given all the circumstances, that would’ve been understandable. And we could chalk it up to Karl’s mistakes, or the attorney blunders. It’s obviously not the conclusion I had come to, but it’s a reasonable one to make, especially if Australian defamation law isn’t as forgiving as one would hope. But the reason it shouldn’t have gone any further than that is because Billy’s claims of damages relied on the credibility of his word, and his word is worth nothing. I know I keep saying this, but we felt so confident going into trial because we believed it was inevitable that Billy would tell a bunch of obvious, provable lies under oath, which Karl’s attorneys could use to totally discredit him. And we were right! That’s literally what happened. Billy did the thing he always does, with the whole “nothing compared to this” bit being the most obvious and inescapable of his lies, and KB successfully exposed them all.

So surely, this astute Ken Barlow could see what was going on right in front of him… right?

In a way, reading the ruling was like perusing a vapid AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) from a celebrity actor. People think the actor is a deep and interesting person because they play deep and interesting characters. And then folks refuse to believe it’s really the actor behind the keyboard, because all his answers are trite and dull. The fans struggle to accept that this is who the actor has always been in real life. Similarly, part of a judge’s job is to act – to hide their leanings through the course of the proceeding. I can at least acknowledge that Barlow was good at that part of his job. He sure bamboozled me into believing! But as we saw, that veneer of discernment didn’t last beyond the “Let’s hear what you really think about all this” stage.

Of course, there were also warning signs, which I duly noted in my reporting as they came up, even if I chose not to assign them too much personal worry. At the end of day five, as they were joking about His Honour sitting and watching King of Kong as evidence, I was disappointed to hear him laugh and suggest he’d have some Rickey’s Hot Sauce with his popcorn. I remember sitting in that courtroom, witnessing this exchange, hoping that was a meaningless joke and an attempt to hide his leanings, and not a sign he was especially amicable to Billy’s side. I also didn’t care for Barlow’s back-and-forth with Billy’s barrister on day seven on the topic of defamation litigation in general. BB argued that, without such lawsuits, those of his profession would have “nothing to do”, to which Barlow agreed, “It keeps many other people employed.” Pretty gross! You haven’t read it yet, but I’m pretty far along into my overview of the David Race case, and in that I’ll be discussing the difference between legal professionals who look for reasons to bring people into court versus those willing to ask why any intervention is necessary. Suffice to say, I am not at all impressed with the perspective of “We should be litigating this because without this to litigate we’d be useless.” And I know that’s not exactly what Barlow and BB were saying… but it was off-puttingly close.

Of course, the bigger warning sign came earlier on day seven. I’m referring again to the “own-goal” from Karl’s barrister. Ken Barlow was heated at KB for his client’s actions in when exactly the “offending words” were taken down and then restored. But during the time of the proceeding, this outburst was easy to explain. As I described in my coverage, Barlow had the timeline completely wrong, and KB for whatever reason failed to clarify anything on the spot. (As a refresher, Barlow seemed to think Karl restored the “offending words” after hearing back from Apollo’s brother. So, as Barlow described that narrative, Karl had “three sources” that the claim was incorrect, but chose to ignore all “three sources” and restore it anyway.) And the incorrect timeline did make Karl look totally unreasonable, so Barlow’s reaction was perfectly understandable in that context. It was my hope both that an oral correction be made – which did happen after their lunch break – and that a review of the written evidence and facts would inform Barlow that his impression was inaccurate. So again, clearly a warning sign in hindsight, but one that came with a built-in explanation in the moment.

With all of that said, it’s hard to say in retrospect that it really mattered. More than ever, I think this was the most telling moment of the entire trial:

I remember I posted “Day 2” late enough that I couldn’t even swing by anywhere for breakfast, I had to scavenge something from the fridge and get my ass to court for day three. And even still, within that hour or two window, the first thing Barlow raised on “Day 3” was that written note I’d posted on my blog. And he was not happy. Here was my paraphrase from Kenneth I scribbled down that morning:

[It has come to my attention, the possibility was raised, that when your client was on the phone in court yesterday, he was texting with his son, discussing this case. If that’s the case, then your client is in contempt.]

As I explained in the “Day 3” post, I returned to my nearby hotel room to attempt to contact the author of that note, and as a result I missed the resolution of that bit. So I could only base my assessment off what I was told by others, and by public news reporting. But by all accounts, Barlow took Billy’s story at face value, and promptly dropped the matter and proceeded with the trial.

Obviously, if this matter was serious enough to raise at all, then it was serious enough to know the truth. I mean, even if they were innocent messages, just the act of deleting them and thus destroying the evidence of their alleged innocence can be considered contempt of court. And Barlow had demonstrated his license to ask witnesses direct questions of his own. And yet, he just took Billy’s version, and moved on. He also didn’t bother asking direct questions of Junior to inquire if his version of events differed.

But I didn’t find this concerning, because I do have experience with judges. One time, representing myself in a petition I won’t bore you with, a judge disallowed me from calling a witness – one which I was certainly within my right to question. It was very obvious she was formally allowing both parties to present a case, but had already made up her mind (in my favor), and didn’t want to waste any more time than necessary. And that’s how I interpreted this with Barlow. Any time something came up that was unsettling, such as the “own-goal” or KB’s failure to properly plead their defense, I just kept going back to “There’s no way Barlow thinks Billy and Junior were secretly texting, and deleting the paper trail, and explicitly making sure each other was deleting their paper trails, but only because it was all innocent dinner plans.”

Because remember, this was the start of day three. Technically, we hadn’t even gotten to Billy’s “nothing compared to this” ridiculousness. But this was still after Billy’s (to paraphrase) “Things I said were true at the time” dance, and his conflicting stories about event cancellations, as well as him getting grilled about his obviously malicious text messages about Apollo Legend.

So any time I entertained the thought of “Are we in trouble?”, I went back to that moment, and I said “No way. The only reason Barlow would let that go is because he already sees through Billy’s lies. And there’s no reason to waste everyone’s time tracking down stories from father and son and finding contempt of court if he’s just going to rule against Billy anyway.” And that’s exactly how I relayed it to others in private conversation. If all else fails, to me, that exchange was the giveaway.

And this is why I say this was the most telling moment of the entire trial. Now having a better idea of what was going through Barlow’s mind, I think I can say I was half right. As shocking as the possibility is, I suspect Judge Barlow had indeed made up his mind by that point. Except, in the other direction.

Now, I don’t want to step outside of whatever potential narratives the evidence allows. And this point gets a bit complicated. To be clear, it is acceptable for a judge to conclude against a plaintiff (or prosecutor) without ever hearing from the defense; there’s even a formal process to move the court for this outcome. The idea is, the proactive party hasn’t even cleared the hurdle of proving their own case, so it’s not necessary for the defense to discredit that case any further. And so, it did not seem unusual to me for the judge to have come to an internal conclusion of “This guy’s credibility is shot, his case is toast” by the start of day three. However, folks would be right to point out how insane it would be for a judge to come to a decision in favor of the plaintiff before the defense has begun presenting their case. (Note I say “insane” and not “impossible”, as there are absolutely judges who consider themselves magic human lie detectors.) But as I’ve learned, Australia does things very differently, and not in ways that are always transparent. In the U.S., this case would’ve been decided by a jury, and that jury would be limited to only the information and evidence presented at trial. On the contrary, as I mentioned a moment ago, Barlow was the same judge hearing pre-trial motions and such. I don’t know what access he was given to each side’s evidence prior to the trial, much of which had to be disclosed along with the pleadings. If Barlow was unable to view evidence early, then I would not stand by my bolded assessment above. (That would not make Barlow’s failure to examine Billy’s and Junior’s texting any more sensical, but I have to acknowledge it as a possibility.) However, I could see a situation where Barlow watched Karl’s podcast interview prior to trial – the one where Karl says “Billy Mitchell needs to be destroyed in court” and “I’m not gonna be a good winner” – and decided on the spot “This guy’s attitude is the real problem here,” and allowed that perspective to color everything that came after, to the point where Billy’s obvious lies were treated as honest mistakes that don’t undermine his claimed grievances. (And before any jokers step in to say “A judge would never review evidence before a trial”, you’re not any more of an expert on Australian jurisprudence than I am.)

So how does all this relate to that written note?

Well… There’s another classic judge standby, which I have also seen first-hand.

“Bro, here I am, I’m on your side, I’m ready to rule in your favor, and you pull this shit!? I’m trying to help you, and your idiot ass is about to make me look bad for doing so, and you need to knock it the fuck off right now!”

Barlow was apparently super-angry about the note, and then suddenly he was quick to dismiss it and move on. That exchange made sense if Barlow had already decided “This Billy guy’s a massive liar and this case will not end well for him anyway”. But in retrospect, it also makes sense if Barlow had already decided “This Karl guy is a punk YouTuber and it’s up to me to put him in his place.” And judging by the vapidity of Barlow’s eventual ruling, that does seem to be the level of consideration we were dealing with.

Obviously, I can’t prove this. You can agree or disagree. If I may recycle yet another saved image and Trek quote, “It’s only a theory, which happens to fit the facts.”

All I can say is, it makes a lot more sense than “This is super-concerning, and we need to get to the bottom of this right away, oh wait, he says the texts he deleted were all innocent, I believe we’ve sufficiently addressed any concerns anyone might have, let’s never bring this up again.”

While an early disposition on the part of Barlow would explain a lot, it would also cast an uncomfortable pall on the rest of the proceedings. Barlow’s insistence that David Race refer to Billy respectfully as “Mister Mitchell” feels nauseating coming from someone who had already made up his mind “That’s my boy.” Meanwhile, it has not been lost on me that the way in which Judge Barlow announced the verdict and damages simultaneously did not allow for the consideration of pre-trial settlement negotiations, which is customary in civil procedure. (Although again, maybe Australia operates differently.) One such offer is known to exist and was not acknowledged in the ruling, which went to great detail discussing everything else.

Before we move on, since we are here to discuss opinions, what exactly do I think Barlow should have done? I mean, besides actually listen to testimony and weigh evidence, as is ostensibly his job?

Obviously, I would’ve been thrilled with a totally one-sided ruling denouncing Billy’s provable lies and his demonstrable inclination to use lawsuits to curtail criticism. (Basically, the opposite of the totally one-sided ruling we got.) But let’s set those dreams aside, along with our pre-existing biases. You have two public figures, who clearly will never like each other, and who don’t want to give an inch to the other. And one may have been sloppy and crossed the line once amongst dozens of videos, while the other has chronic honesty issues which he carries into multiple lawsuits, each of which involves a matter which is either single-handedly unraveling his life, or is utterly inconsequential, depending on who is asking the question.

I think a fair outcome would’ve been a stern warning. Barlow was obviously free to opine at will in his ruling. He didn’t need to rely on monetary figures to say anything. So basically, “I’m not impressed by anyone in this case. I can’t award plaintiff damages when he brings no meaningful evidence and can’t keep his stories straight. But defendant should consider himself super-lucky he wasn’t sued by someone who had his shit together. Let it be known on the record that everybody sucks, and that Donkey Kong is a waste of time. Don’t none of you show your faces in my courtroom again. GTFO.”

Yes, such a ruling would have resulted in Billy paying Karl’s legal fees, with “loser pays” being an unavoidable outcome no matter where the judgment landed. But that fairly ought to be the price for being the one to push a frivolous case fueled by lies all the way to trial.

Regardless of what could have been, I’ve discussed Ken Barlow (the Queensland one) and his dumbass ruling quite enough by now. Personally, I hope he’s either super-disappointed with himself, or alternatively, fuming that some intransigent Yankee out of his reach would dare pollute his Google search results with such unkind words about him. But I also have to accept the disenchanting possibility that he just doesn’t care either way. Some people – even some in positions of authority – just don’t give a shit, and there’s nothing you can do to make them.

INTERMISSION

You probably have a good idea already who’s number three on my list of responsible parties. And I will discuss his mistakes… in a moment. But before I get to that, there are a few broader questions about this case worth addressing – enough that I felt it was worth spinning them off into their own section. As I alluded to a moment ago, there is a degree to which these arguments are being stoked by bad faith, outrage-baiting circles, who I’m not inclined to babysit. But once again, I know some curious well-meaning folks will want answers for some of these as well, and hey, I do enjoy exploring deeper topics. And so for philosophical purposes, I think it’s fair to dip our toes into these conundra, starting with this most obvious one:

If Karl was innocent, why didn’t he appeal the ruling?

Only Karl can say for sure why. You can count this as another reason why I had preferred to wait for Karl’s follow-up, so all this could have been addressed (assuming he chooses to do so). But I can shed light on one important fact: Court appeals are not simply do-overs. Whether we like it or not, Judge Barlow was empowered to weigh evidence and assess witness credibility, as off-base as his assessments may be. You don’t get to just pick a different parent the way you did when you were a child. I’ve seen other judges whiff, and unless you have connections at city hall or something, there’s often nothing you can do about it. The appeals process is there to help correct misapplications of the law, not simply to get a second opinion. As I pointed out previously, there are portions of Barlow’s ruling where he seems to violate his own cited standards for witness evaluation. (Something, something, demeanor.) But my impression is that if an appeals magistrate or whoever were to hypothetically overrule Barlow on those sorts of points – “The witness you believed was truthing was in fact lying” – they would be operating outside of prescribed protocol in doing so. I’m not the expert on Australian defamation law, so while I’m happy to mock Barlow’s clear misassessment of testimony and evidence, I’m reluctant to declare that strict legal standards were misapplied. That’s something a solicitor would have to weigh in on.

One may ask, why shouldn’t Karl take the shot anyway? Especially if he’s declaring bankruptcy, and thus spending money that would instead be going to Billy as a creditor? Wouldn’t that be a free roll then? Well, there are still a number of reasons not to bother. Maybe what money he had left was insufficient to fund the appeal process. Lawyers ain’t gonna work for free. Maybe his attorneys advised him it would be a waste of everyone’s time, including his. Maybe Karl’s sick of this bullshit and wants to move on. Hell, maybe the missus had a say in that. Who knows? What we do know, per his previous video on the subject, is that he was availing himself of that option before ultimately declining.

Like it or not, innocent people accept plea deals all the time. They also settle lawsuits because the alternative is more costly. I don’t know if folks are expecting me to read them bedtime stories where justice always prevails, and the heroes always win (and those that don’t win are by definition not heroes). Sometimes, things suck. And often in those cases, truth is carried not by formal decree, or official vindication, but by the witnesses who refuse to deny what they saw.

Okay, maybe that was a bit much, lol, but you get the idea. At any rate, this brings us to our next question:

If Karl made a bunch of mistakes, how can I say he was innocent?

For starters, I’ve chosen to frame this a certain way by using the word “innocent”. It’s a deceptively extreme word. Christians very strictly believe no human being is “innocent”. I’m not religious, and I would caution against the faith-based guilt-tripping inherent in impossible standards, but I would tend to concur with the underlying premise. Nobody is “innocent” in all things at all times, for a variety of understandable and often predictable reasons. In other words, it’s a hurdle which literally everyone would fail to meet. The word “innocent” is relevant here because it ties into common perceptions of justice, but courts themselves typically use broader terms like “not guilty”, which as applied tends to mean “not sufficiently proven to have been guilty”.

A fairer way to reframe the question would be: If Karl made a bunch of mistakes, wouldn’t that mean he deserved to lose? But therein lies the problem. That question is easily addressed. It’s when you start throwing in words like “innocent” that it feels like a difficult question to tackle. Doesn’t a lack of innocence necessarily imply guilt?

Let’s set aside that this entire premise puts the burden exclusively on the defendant’s actions and character, when certainly the plaintiff making the accusation should be subject to scrutiny. Yes, I’m sure I’ve referred to Karl as “innocent” here and there, in context. That doesn’t mean he’s never done or said things I would disapprove of, including long before this current matter. But none of that relates to the facts of this particular case, which should be the scope in which this case is judged.

So let’s answer the question that can be addressed. Did Karl Jobst make mistakes? Yes, and I will discuss them below. But “Karl should’ve been more careful” is not at all equivalent to “Karl deserved to lose a massive defamation judgment”. Each of us could always be “more careful” in everything we do. And defamation law basically everywhere allows for people making founded mistakes, especially about public figures like Billy. Karl never needed to be literally “innocent”, and anyone suggesting otherwise is being unfair. I maintain that the mistakes Karl did make, in the context of Billy’s dishonest claims of distress and his lack of damages, did not justify more than the previously illustrated stern warning.

This one has probably been clear thus far, but I figured I should take the opportunity address this directly:

Has the passage of time changed my opinion on the merits of Karl’s case?

Honestly? Nope. In writing all this, I read back through my entire assessment of Judge Barlow’s ruling, just to see if anything stood out with the benefit of hindsight. There are a couple passages I’d probably go lighter on if I were writing it today, but not many. I know some folks reading this may dissent, and I’m happy to disagree with anyone, but I stand behind most everything I’ve written about this case. Using the definition of “defamation” I’ve always used – untrue and particularly damaging – I still do not believe Karl Jobst defamed Billy Mitchell.

Here’s the fundamental calculus I’ve always gone back to. Saying “Apollo paid Billy money” by itself was never damaging to Billy’s reputation. No more than saying Billy overpaid or underpaid for a car. Hell, getting money from Apollo was literally the outcome Billy sought, in a public forum. So why would that be offensive to say? And if the claim were damaging, Billy’s circle wouldn’t have been the ones pushing the narrative in the first place. The damaging part comes into play when a connection is made between Billy’s lawsuit against Apollo, and Apollo’s later suicide.

Did Billy sue Apollo? Yes. Was the lawsuit meritless? Well, Apollo was a bit sloppy (such as by suggesting Billy’s muted DK tapes had audio splicing), but the overall message that Billy cheated was accurate, so I’ll say it was meritless. Did Billy seek one million dollars in damages? Yes, it’s on the cover sheet. Did Billy “hound” Apollo? Well, he claimed in his filing to have hired a private investigator to track down Apollo’s real name, so I’ll say that’s true. Did Apollo settle out of court? Objectively, yes. Did this settlement hurt him financially? Yes, he gave away his lucrative Billy videos, and ended any hope of resurrecting his YouTube career. Was Apollo suffering from health issues around the same time? Reportedly, he was. Did Apollo end his life four months later? That is also true. So far, these are all just facts.

Now, I will agree that it would be kinda fucked to take what I’ve laid out above, and use it as an excuse to paint an illustration of Billy trying to compel Apollo’s suicide – at least without proper disclaimers. It’s possible for such things to be coincidental. Just because you had an argument with someone at the worst possible moment doesn’t mean you “bullied them to death” or whatever, and it would be shitty for someone to come along and portray it that way. But the problem is, in this case, you also have to add the fact Billy texted with multiple people joking about his desire to verify news of Apollo’s untimely death.

No matter what Billy says, he had no idea whether that early report was true, or what the supposed cause of death was, which means he really was mocking what could’ve been a tragedy-in-progress. I realize people joke about things, even in dark ways, but (to throw out some purely hypothetical examples) responding to reports of someone’s death with “I hope he’s dead” or “I wanted him dead” or “I’ll have to pretend I’m not overjoyed by the fact that he’s dead” is clearly one of those not-really-joking moments. So there was indeed a basis for one to infer that Billy, at least at some point in the process, actually desired that outcome, even if Billy chose to self-servingly “regret” some of his actions and remarks years later, after Apollo bent the knee. And that changes the whole calculus. Suddenly, the whole situation does feel very cohesive. And as damaging as all of that may be, I still wouldn’t consider that “defamation” (in a legally actionable sense) because the illustration is based on facts and sufficiently justified. What’s the saying? “It’s not defamation if it’s true.”

It’s at that point you can add Karl’s inaccuracy – that Apollo paid Billy a bunch of money as part of that settlement. (I say “Karl’s” inaccuracy, when it was mine as well. But I’ll get to my role in a moment.) So that part was incorrect? Okay? And resultant talk of Apollo’s “debt” was thus exaggerated? Sure. But that doesn’t change the calculus above. Karl focused more on the repugnant text messages, which could be shown and proven. He also made sure to point out alternative considerations, like Apollo’s health issues, so people would understand it wasn’t necessarily a case of “A” leads to “B” leads to “C”. He got a detail wrong, one that didn’t make the video any more damaging than otherwise. That shouldn’t be “defamation” anywhere.

Then of course you have to add that damages need to be proven, not just asserted, which is all Billy did (with the help of his son and a few other friends). And Billy couldn’t keep his own stories straight. Again, read my breakdown of Barlow’s ruling if you want all those details. It’s the real world, so I would’ve understood a “Both of you suck” ruling, and even minimal damages in Billy’s favor. But – speaking strictly for myself – I stand by my opinion that Karl Jobst did not defame Billy Mitchell. Nothing I’ve seen has changed my mind.

Okay, we’ve got one more, this time dealing less with the lawsuit itself and more with my coverage of it:

Why is it I’ve spent the last few years of this saga going into such great detail about Billy Mitchell’s countless lies, without discussing until now what Karl Jobst himself did wrong?

In other words, why didn’t I make a big deal out of Karl’s mistakes all along? Why has it taken me until now to acknowledge them?

You may notice that, once again, I’ve chosen to phrase this question with a loaded term. This time, it’s the word “wrong”. What exactly is meant here by that? To use the board game Monopoly as a comparison, “wrong” play could refer to miscounting arbitrary spaces (a mistake), collecting money at “Free Parking” (a bogus house rule that secretly sucks), or stealing money from the bank (cheating). But obviously these three are not the same, nor would I treat them the same, nor would I get upset at others for not treating them the same.

As I’ll discuss in a moment, Karl’s “wrongs” are procedural mistakes. In contrast, I hope I’ve sufficiently established that Billy’s “wrongs” are immoral actions – lying, cheating, fraud, deception, etc. I don’t equate procedural mistakes with immoral actions, and the reason I don’t do that is because I’m just not a dummy. Sorry!!

I’ll keep this as brief as I can, but this does tap into a broader conversation. Sadly, there are many liars and swindlers out there, and they would love for you to write off their patterns of serial wrongdoings as “mistakes”, which incidentally happen to always work in their benefit. It’s like the Monopoly player who “miscounts” spaces, but consistently does so as a way of avoiding high rent or to secure a needed property.

Now, there are many flavors of hucksters in the world, some of whom stick to their own door-to-door business or whatever. They’re just trying to make a buck, and for whatever reason, don’t feel like getting a real job. However – again, tapping into a larger discussion – some are a bit more committed to the craft of making the world a shittier place to their personal advantage. You see this in scapegoating politics all the time. These crooks understand that it benefits them for honest folks like you and I to get all worked up over sincere mistakes of some well-intentioned bystander, or marginalized group, or especially someone who is actively trying to make the world a better place yet in doing so fails to live up to a selectively-applied standard of being literally perfect. This serves the conman’s interests in easily identifiable ways, such as immediate misdirection. But on a deeper level, this confused perspective reinforces their general “business model”, so to speak. Like, of course most politicians want voters to be total rubes. People aren’t going to identify scams as easily if they’re befuddled as to what a proper scam even is. Sure, these marks might ultimately buy the other guy’s “miracle spring water” instead of yours, but at least they’re with the prey where they belong.

Obviously, we’re getting very abstract here. Billy Mitchell the grifter is not a literal politician, nor do I recall him ever claiming that his hot sauce will make your hospital bills disappear. And if Billy’s mission was to make the world at large a shittier place, being the small-time operator he is, he’s doing a relatively poor job of it. But what Billy does have in this particular case is a vested interest in getting you to ignore his many, many, many lies, and instead fixate on whether the guy reporting on those lies hired the right attorneys, or whether a particular claim was given exacting detail, or whether Billy’s victim sufficiently discussed their lawsuit defense. And – if I may express my opinion as to his motivation – he’s doing it both with an eye toward immediate gains, and with the longer-term goal of ensuring the gaming community at large directs resources and appearance fees toward him and his circle of frauds, and away from genuine gaming champions more accomplished than he ever will be.

The point of all this is, the misdirection is inseparable from the grift. I don’t fall for it, and you should not either. I’ve focused on Billy’s wrongdoings and not on Karl’s mistakes because I’m not confused as to which of those I should be covering.

That said, there are other reasons why I’ve framed my coverage the way I have. When Billy Mitchell says he matched each of his contested DK scores “exactly on the head”, that’s a thing I can fact-check! And should fact-check! “No, that’s not true, here’s the evidence.” But I can’t “fact-check” that Karl blabbed about his motivations too much on some podcast. That’s not how fact-checking works. And you also don’t need me to tell you whether something like that was a bad idea. I’m not the authority on how silent a defamation defendant should be. Again, this is what happens when you get muddled into confusing procedural goofs with intentional lies. The basic premise doesn’t make sense, and so you’d end up with nonsense output. On the occasion I have felt the need to fact-check Karl, I have done so diligently, and came to the conclusion “Nope, nothing here, he didn’t lie or mislead anyone.” So… I guess you’re welcome?

There’s one last aspect to this, which I believe I should just be frank about: I wanted Karl Jobst to win. Could you tell? Did I ever not make that sufficiently clear? I know I don’t always explicitly identify my biases, but I did point out my slant in my “Day 0” write-up heading into the trial:

At this point, I can’t tell you that I’m unbiased and impartial as to how this case should end, nor should you expect impartial reporting from me.

One reason I didn’t make a big deal of Karl’s mistakes was, I didn’t want to give Billy ammunition to use against Karl. I wasn’t gonna be like “Hey, here’s where Karl’s case is weakest.” Why the fuck would I want to do that? Even if I had such an opinion – based on the same facts available to you all – it was not an opinion I felt obliged to share. Should I have also said in the TG case “I think such-and-such strategy is Billy’s best avenue to victory”? Or “When Ellrod deposes David Race, he should press him on such-and-such statement”? And what if he sues me next? Should I openly opine, “Billy’s strongest case against me would focus on the statement I made on such-and-such date, which I decided to remove the morning after, but which is still visible on Wayback Machine”? It’s adorable if you think so, but man, I do not live in the same Pollyanna world you do.

Does all of this make me “biased”? Sure. Do I give a shit? Nah. You knew exactly where I stood. Anyone else could’ve done the same work, and put together the “I have no interest in this fight, but will still put in the same excessive amount of work about this topic which I am totally dispassionate about” version of my coverage, if there even is a universe where such a thing would exist. I definitely saw, and still do, that one party was in the right, and one party was – to use that loaded term – in the wrong.

None of this is to suggest I am free from mistakes or errors, some of which I’ll discuss a bit later. But identified bias is not a “mistake”, no matter how much the rich man’s press has convinced people to believe otherwise. I would be failing you if I endeavored to avoid actual facts, or misrepresented them, or concealed them from you, since those are what you can use to form your own opinions based on your own beliefs and values. And I can share my beliefs and expectations, such as that Billy’s penchant for lying would and should sink his case. But if you seriously think I should have directed equal attention toward Karl’s occasional lapses in common sense as I do to Billy’s decades of blatant con-artistry, it’s because you’re the mark.

Well, that was a fun intermission. Whatsay we continue with our big list?

THE LEGEND, ABSOLUTE

We’ve discussed the lawyers. We’ve discussed the judge. And now, it’s time to discuss the man himself. I think, if we’re evaluating parties who dropped the ball, I have correctly identified the top three. I chose to put Karl third based on the following analysis: Setting aside the factual inaccuracy in the original video, had Karl done everything right through the mitigation and litigation processes, he probably still would have lost based on the errors of his attorneys and the judge, whereas the reverse is not true. Had Karl’s attorneys done their jobs, and had the judge not been the most gullible man alive, Karl should still have won despite some dumb mistakes.

Per the title, this is about actions that may have subtracted from Karl’s chances of winning in court. Thus, I’m not gonna cover every little overblown outrage and contrived grievance some people choose to twist their drawers over. I do not give one single solitary shart that Karl ran his trial transcripts through AI as a lark, lol. I also don’t care that Karl doesn’t pay lawyers to approve every video he publishes, which I have no doubt the various YouTube commentators discussing this case also don’t do.

Now that the dust has settled on the case proper, I do believe it’s worth being honest and forthright about what mistakes Karl did make along the way. This isn’t to say I’m the bottom-line authority on what is or isn’t a mistake, and you may disagree on some. That’s fine. There are also reasons why my list of Karl’s mistakes, and Karl’s list of his own mistakes, will likely not share a one-for-one equivalency. He can have his opinion, and I can have mine. Either way, since this case will probably be seen as a key example of YouTube litigation going forward, a reasonable discussion on how to avoid certain outcomes may have value, either now or in the future.

The first and most obvious mistake is the much discussed factual inaccuracy in his original “Conmen” video. Karl Jobst should not have reported the existence of a financial payout from Apollo Legend to Billy Mitchell as though it were a known fact, rather than something that was strongly believed.

Now, as most of you already know, this ties heavily into my own role in this story, so I’ll save the elaboration for when I discuss myself in a moment. As for Karl’s situation, what’s shocking is, the written judgment from Barlow was so off-base (see my comments on passages [155] through [171] for examples of what I mean here) that I’m not even sure shoring up that claim with “I believe” would have affected the outcome, which is just insane to think about. In a parallel reality where Karl only reported known facts and properly identified his supported beliefs, would he still have lost a defamation lawsuit strictly for reporting that Billy Mitchell sued Apollo Legend, while also reporting that Apollo committed suicide months later? I also can’t really say the factual inaccuracy helped Billy secure his first attorneys (the now defunct firm Miller Bou-Samra), since they had already helped Billy issue his first legal threat to Karl a year earlier. At the very least, I guess the factual inaccuracy gave them the confidence to think it was worth pursuing this case beyond the “We’re really gonna do it this time” phase?

So you may ask, was it a mistake for Karl to discuss the fact that Apollo Legend committed suicide months after being sued by Billy Mitchell?

I’d say, in retrospect, it should have been handled more carefully. As I illustrated a moment ago, the actual facts sans le faux pas were enough to give Billy the negative reputation he claimed was so damaging. Sure, just because a narcissistic litigant wanted to utterly destroy someone’s life with a frivolous lawsuit doesn’t mean he wanted that person to literally commit suicide… IIIIIII gueeessssss. But Billy’s own joking text messages themselves make that connection for us. Would Billy get to escape reporting of known, provable facts simply because they inevitably paint him in a horrendous light? Are some things so reputationally damaging that it’s illegal to report them in any way?

The problem is, as we’ve seen, liars will reframe your words in the most uncharitable way possible. So suddenly, even if you were careful with your contexts and connotations, whatever you think you said becomes “You accused Billy of outright murder” or “You directly said Billy caused Apollo’s suicide” or whatever, even if that’s not in the words as you wrote them or intended them. And people who aren’t liars will unfortunately entertain the liar’s framing and go “Yeah, I see that,” even when that wasn’t their own first reaction. It becomes the perception, which becomes the truth. If you’re going to live this life, you have to learn to future-proof your work against such perceptions. Speaking as someone who writes often about a certain narcissistic litigant, I often find myself stopping and going “Okay, I can say what it is I want to say here… but I can’t say it in that way.” So adding some clarification and – yes – disclaimers to the original video would have been prudent.

But this gets to a deeper problem, which relates to some of Karl’s other mistakes. Billy Mitchell is a bully, and as a general rule, it’s a bad idea to show the bully fear. And so, I understand the impulse both to avoid demonstrating hesitance and to not give Billy the satisfaction of seeing you waver. As much scrutiny as some people may want to put on Karl, his bold coverage of Billy Mitchell’s trail of litigious misconduct has been absolutely invaluable. And that coverage only exists because Karl was so fearless. The aggressive posturing accompanying that coverage is not a coincidence. However, you also have to be smart and not fall into traps those impulses can lead you into, because the bully will seize on those as well.

One mistake which was certainly seized upon was Karl’s decision to fully restore the contested words following Billy’s video threat. In the moment, I understood Karl’s choice, on some level. Until Billy responded to Karl’s video, we had no indication – not even a claim to the contrary – disputing the idea that Apollo had paid Billy a bunch of money. We simply believed we knew a thing that was true. And Karl did responsibly remove those words when Billy (by way of Keemstar) disputed that claim privately to Karl. But then Billy did his big public threat, basically declaring that a lawsuit was on the way, while waving around a stack of papers and saying (to paraphrase) “These papers prove what I’m telling you, but no, I won’t show them to you, neener neener.” The problem is, we’ve seen that exact premise from Billy Mitchell be a lie before. And the confidentiality of the settlement had expired with the passing of one party, hence Billy’s ability to discuss it. So certainly, there was fair suspicion that we were being fucked with again. If the papers supported the claims, a reasonable person would show them and prove it. Meanwhile, Karl had no indication at that time that he would ever hear back from the source he could trust (Apollo’s brother).

As was revealed during the trial, I do chat with Karl on occasion. And so for that reason, I once again want to be crystal clear that I don’t speak for Karl. He’s not responsible for anything I say. I’m also not a mind-reader. I cannot tell you what he’s thinking or what his motivations are. And I do not recall Karl saying anything specifically giving me the following indication. What follows is 100% pure ersatz_cats personal opinion, with the benefit of hindsight. With that said, obviously Karl’s choice to fully restore the words subsequent to Billy’s video performance was in part an expression of skepticism of Billy’s claim. But also, I personally believe it was a conscious attempt to discourage the practice of conducting this sort of business through legal threats, rather than reasoned communication and the sharing of evidence. To invent a quote out of thin air, “If you show me where I get something wrong, I’ll be reasonable, but if you’re going to play games and try to bully me, you won’t get any cooperation, and I’ll stick with my sources saying you’re wrong.” (Again, that is not a quote from Karl or anyone. It’s just my illustration of a mindset.)

Obviously, if you’re going to take that approach, your lawyers had better fucking bring those sources to court. Otherwise, years from now you may find yourself looking especially unreasonable to some clueless outsider judge or juror who holds your fate in their hands, and who refuses to understand why you wouldn’t immediately retract the claim being contested. But let’s set aside the fumbles by Michael de Whoops and Sam Blunder. I totally understand the impulse to be uncooperative with someone whose only engagement consists of legal threats. I have been in that position myself. However, when dealing with someone who really does have a hard-on for suing people, that’s a trap you have to be mindful to avoid. Unfortunately, some legal threats do have to be taken seriously. And while we in the real world see these sorts of casually dispensed threats at life ruination as despicable, the court of law will not ever see it that way. As Barlow joked with Billy’s barrister, this is all just part of their sausage factory. Yes, you want to show the bully a lack of fear, but you have to find a way to do so that won’t be used against you.

This also brings us to Karl’s eventual retraction. It was at the end of a long video, with no lead-in, and no teaser in the title or thumbnail. I maintain that this was technically a legally defensible position. Newspapers don’t typically print corrections on page one. And it is a fact that this retraction video got more views than the initial “Conmen” video that was being corrected. Ethically, Karl did his job – especially when you remember that the factual inaccuracy requiring correction was “Apollo paid Billy money”, which by itself is neither defamatory nor scandalous, and was buried toward the end of its own video. But it was a mistake to assume these factors alone would be seen as exculpatory in a court of law with a skeptical judge presiding.

Once again, relying on the same disclaimers (I don’t speak for Karl, I’m not a mind-reader, Karl never told me anything specifically giving me the following indication), I suspect Karl’s choice to issue the retraction in the way it was done was again influenced by the mindset of not showing weakness, and the desire not to give the bully any satisfaction. Jerkface isn’t gonna go “Ha ha, I made him say the thing” when “the thing” is an unannounced addendum to something unrelated. I say this because otherwise, especially when dealing with a serial litigant, it would be more prudent and logical to err on the side of ensuring your correction makes a readily identifiable impact.

This isn’t to say it’s impossible to issue a correction as a show of strength, or that you must give the bully the satisfaction of hearing you say “I was wrong”. You just have to be smarter, and not fall into the trap. In retrospect, I think the correct play would’ve been to do another full video on Billy – even if there’s no other “news”. Just pick a subtopic, or do an overview on all his lies to date, or whatever. And make the correction part of that, toward the front of the video, and play into the correction in the title and thumbnail. Would the bully throw a fit over it in court? Of course. And you may regardless fall victim to the same sucker judge, who identifies with the bully, and gives him everything he wants as he lies and laughs behind the judge’s back. (I did put Karl third on this list of responsibility, after all.) But they wouldn’t be able to realistically say you were hiding the correction.

However, I do believe hindsight plays a part in that as well. Personally, I tend to let people make their own decisions without butting in so much, but hey, I did have the opportunity back in 2021 to tell Karl “Bro, this was a bad idea”, and I did not do so. Also, in drafting this write-up, I did a quick Twitter search around the time of the video’s release and I didn’t find anyone back then saying “Wow, this correction at the end should’ve been more prominent”. As with other matters, people didn’t really bat an eye when it happened. Obviously that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a mistake, or that past actions aren’t worth reconsidering or reevaluating. It’s that any judgments of conduct must be made in that context.

But Karl did make one big mistake that, frankly, didn’t require any hindsight at all.

The last person on YouTube you want to lose to is me. ‘Cuz you know there’s gonna be a hundred vids rubbing it in afterwards. Like, I… Billy will never… I will never let Billy forget this. Assuming I win. I mean, obviously I’ve… I’ve gotta win first. But man, if I win, oh boy, I’m not gonna be a good winner. I’m not gonna be a good winner.

Karl’s February 2024 podcast interview with Camelot331 was dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I know, I’m spitting some nuclear hot takes here. Again, you never really needed me to tell you what Karl’s errors were. But you just don’t ever say anything like that about a court case you’re engaged in, not on permanent published media where your opposition can find it. Granted, none of what Karl said affects the facts of the case, and in an ideal world a judge should rule strictly on the merits. But your judge is going to be human – and in some cases, quite so. You don’t want the person deciding your verdict disliking you personally, or thinking of you as disrespectful toward the court. You also don’t want them pondering negative consequences of a judgment in your favor. “Well, I could rule for the defense, but if I do, that’s just going to exacerbate the reputational damages being alleged.” Assuming you, my reader, are an average denizen of the Internet, you’ll want to get in and get out with the win before the judge realizes what a contumelious asshole you really are.

In fact, you could argue that saying what Karl said in that podcast is worse than discussing material facts of the case. The reason it’s a general rule of litigation that you don’t discuss your case is not because you should be afraid of honesty or candor, but because you could inadvertently provide ammunition to the other side, like if you say something that seems to contradict your later testimony or whatever. The remarks above just are ammunition. You skip the middle man!

Oh and on top of how it could affect your case, as sure of victory as you may be, anything could still happen before the end of trial. No matter how confident you or your attorneys are, there’s always a possibility you could lose to a dumb judge or jury, or to a huge blunder, or a witness who utterly blows it for you, or surprise ammunition from your opposition, or something. (Yes, I did say court procedures aim to limit surprises, but they still happen.) So why would you run your mouth and say things which, if you lose, will so obviously be used to mock your arrogance into perpetuity? I guess Karl doesn’t follow sports?

The one, single thing I will say sort of in defense of this interview is, it was a crime of excessive honesty. Karl wasn’t bullshitting you! As we all know, either party would have been a sore winner following a clear victory in this case. Billy Mitchell manipulates people and cries victim, when he is every bit the bully at all times. Karl at least was willing to tell you all the truth.

So did this podcast braggadocio cost Karl the case?

This is a complicated question, because again, nothing Karl said changed the facts of the matter. So even if those remarks established an entire 100% of the judge’s motivation in ruling against Karl, the blame would still rest just as much on the judge’s shoulders for not paying attention to Billy Mitchell’s vapid case and untruthful testimony. But yes, as I indicated earlier, if Judge Barlow was able to review evidence prior to trial, I could see this possibly being the thing that prompted him to think “This guy has no idea of how the world works and thinks he can just say or do anything without any consequences, and it is my responsibility to teach him that is not the case.” (Barlow’s livestreamed decision summary certainly spoke to that mindset.) And then all the testimony that came after, Billy’s “dark humor” and “It must have been true at the time” and other supposed cOnFuSiOnS would all have been filtered through that lens. But again, this begins to tread far into speculation and what-ifs, so I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

At this point, I’d like to address something I’ve heard people cite as hurting Karl’s chances, but which I do not consider a “mistake” per se. And that is Karl’s choice to continue making videos covering Billy Mitchell’s other lawsuits, against Twin Galaxies and David Race.

“But ersatz! How can you say that wasn’t a mistake? Surely it affected the judge’s decision, did it not? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just shut up and say nothing whatsoever?”

Before I go one step further on this point… you know…

… you know…

… you know…

… that some of the people who have argued “Karl should have said nothing about Billy or his case” are some of the same people who pushed the whole “Karl misled everyone by not discussing his case in more detail” line. Yes, I’d wager even some percentage of you reading this right now fall into that camp, as evidenced by the irritation (as opposed to amusement) you feel at this very moment at seeing me make that otherwise benign connection, while knowing in your heart of hearts that I’m talking about you, yes you, and that you’ve been arguing childishly contradictory nonsense. Feel free to tell on yourselves in the comments below, lmao. Unfortunately, some people have no interest in being reasonable, and nothing I say is going to help them. Once again, I prefer speaking to the rest of you, the adults in the room.

With that acknowledged, let’s set aside any bad faith actors, and address this important question in isolation: Should Karl have just stopped reporting on Billy Mitchell at all until his lawsuit is over?

This point is a bit tricky. First of all, Karl’s continued coverage of Billy’s lawsuits may have influenced Barlow in his ruling. But that’s never really made explicitly clear. Passage [535] says “Mr Jobst’s ongoing conduct has also continued to damage Mr Mitchell’s reputation,” which may refer to Karl’s continued coverage of Billy’s U.S. litigation. And in [75], Barlow characterizes Karl’s videos in an unfavorable way, although [76] does clarify that “most of the videos themselves are not in evidence”, suggesting Barlow didn’t actually watch hardly any of them. I know, it would be awfully ridiculous for a judge to condemn a YouTube content creator for a series of videos they didn’t even bother watching, but Barlows gonna Barlow. Based on the heavy emphasis the ruling explicitly places on other factors, and how badly the ruling misses the mark in general, I’m going to guess these series of videos did not affect the outcome in this particular case.

But here’s where we get to the tricky part. I’m inclined to reject the “Karl should’ve stopped reporting on Billy” argument, not in a pragmatic sense, but strictly on ethical grounds. Yes, you improve your chances of winning a lawsuit by turtling up and saying nothing whatsoever. And so, if you’re sued by Billy Mitchell, if your only focus is to win your litigation defense, your best chance to do so is to publish no media referencing Billy in any way. Heck, you could even take it a step further and cease discussing Billy in any typographical communications with anyone, and only discuss your case with privileged parties (i.e., your attorneys) or with trusted colleagues in voice chat with assurance of non-recording.

But the reason this becomes an ethical dilemma is because, if you – the hypothetical “you” who has a YouTube channel and covers topics of interest to the gaming community – if you stop reporting on Billy Mitchell’s lawsuits against innocent people, then Billy has already succeeded. He wants you to stop criticizing him, or making fun of his cheating. That’s the whole point of the legal threats. His goal is to bully you into silence. Sure, he might be out a little money before the case gets tossed out or settled before trial (which is usually what happens to Billy Mitchell lawsuits), but from his perspective, that’s money well spent. Criticism is suppressed, and he gets to continue the convention circuit and maintain the veneer of “I’m just a friendly, innocent celebrity who draws controversy for reasons beyond my control” a bit longer.

I’m not saying your focus should be to stick it to people like Billy Mitchell. Again, that runs the risk of falling into the aforementioned traps. What I’m saying is, continuing to cover Billy is a decision, with benefits to balance, some of which carry ethical implications. “Yes, I run the risk that some of my extended coverage could potentially be used against me in court. But I’m choosing to run that risk, because it’s important that the community stay up to date on this person’s frivolous and destructive lawsuits.”

Like, it’s a good thing when people are willing to take on personal risk and cost for the benefit of the community, is it not? Aren’t people like that usually the heroes of our stories? And did we not enjoy viewing those videos when they were released? Were thumbs not upped? Holy heck, I can’t even imagine where the general level of gaming community consciousness of Billy Mitchell litigation would be if they had only my imposing walls of text to rely on. Would folks even know about the big red joystick? Or the fake plaques? Or Billy’s deposition?

Anyway, you get the idea. Unlike some of these unforced errors, this wasn’t just a rookie move. Even if you disagree with Karl’s motivations and decisions, the weight of this particular alleged “mistake” still has to be measured against that benefit.

Howevah…

This does fall into what I believe was Karl’s last mistake. Or… the last mistake I think is worth discussing. It’s not like I’m trying to do these chronologically or anything.

This one, which is much broader than a single act, is what I’ll call the “head coach” factor. If you’re defending a lawsuit, then you are the captain of your defense. Your witnesses are there for you. Your supporters are there for you. And your attorneys – if you’re paying them – are supposed to listen to you. (I added the “paying them” clause because there are corner cases, although those don’t change what I’m about to say.)

You have to be the one setting the tone. If you are not focused on and dedicated to winning, the rest of your team will not be either. If you aren’t careful about what you say prior to the trial, your witnesses will be similarly less mindful about what they say. If you go on shows and blab about things that may make the judge dislike you, your lawyers will be less likely to give it their all. They may even think “Welp, our guy’s not that serious about winning, but I guess it’s his money to do as he wants.” Like it or not, you and your actions will be looked to as the standard. And even still, your outward portrayal is no more important than your internal mindset. You need to be in it to win it. Victory is the prize on which you maintain your eyes.

Now, I still don’t think this makes it a “mistake” for Karl to have continued reporting on Billy’s other lawsuits. Again, it’s a risk-reward assessment, with the reward being the community’s benefit. But when you do that, you have to make clear to your team, even if only in private, why you’re making that choice. And especially with the lawyers, you should just be direct. “I appreciate the advice to say nothing at all. I intend to continue reporting on this guy’s other lawsuits anyway, because I value the community I belong to, and that community needs quality reporting on what this guy is doing. But I don’t want this taken as a sign that I’m taking a favorable outcome for granted. I remain committed to putting in the work and winning this case, and I expect the same from you.”

And I’ll acknowledge that this starts to get down a complicated road. For instance, the lawyers may then suggest changes to that reporting such that it unintentionally conveys a sense of trepidation, whereas it’s also to Karl’s benefit to portray a lack of fear – both for keeping his audience engaged and for dissuading further legal action. You and I also have no fucking idea what Karl did or did not say to his lawyers privately in this regard. We should be honest with ourselves that all of this is easier said than done, especially when chiming in from the peanut gallery, after the fact. But as I’ve discussed, there were avoidable mistakes, which lowered the “This is how hard we’re trying to win” bar. And so this is an aspect of Karl’s overall game (so to speak) that I don’t believe he optimized.

I think you long-time readers of mine understand I’m not saying any of this with joy in my heart. As I suggested earlier, one of the reasons I feel some candor is necessary at this time is because I know that narcissistic litigants in general aren’t going to go away. There will always be another Billy Mitchell. Someone else in Karl’s position, who is just trying to be a positive influence in their community, is going to face a similar legal challenge. And that defendant is likely to say or do something stupid along the way. That’s real life. What I write about this stuff now will later be part of the historical record, which will be looked to by anyone hoping to avoid Karl’s mistakes. And their future success is improved by being honest about those mistakes, both real and imagined.

Okay. Before I move on, I would like to address oooonnnneeee laaaast question regarding Karl specifically.

Should people be angry at Karl Jobst for these mistakes?

Even if we were to set aside the money that was invested into Karl’s defense GoFundMe, people spent time and interest following this case. Folks wanted to see Billy Mitchell get taken down, and that did not happen. (At least, not as a direct result of the verdict.) And while I stand by my culpability rankings, one is within their right to believe this loss was due to Karl’s own mistakes.

While I’m obviously free with my opinions, I generally don’t prefer to interject my actual self personally into these matters. But here, I do think I’ve earned the right to point out that few people in this motherfucking universe have invested as much time and personal interest into this and the other Billy Mitchell cases as I have. And I’m obviously not mad at Karl. I’m disappointed overall in the outcome, and I can identify mistakes that were made by Karl, but I understand them, and I don’t see them as malicious or exceptionally malpractical.

Hey, you want to know who else invested a lot into Karl’s defense?

Literally nobody spent more money – actual liquid fundage – on Karl’s legal defense than Notch, the creator of Minecraft. And he obviously still has Karl’s back, just as I do.

But sure, Notch and I… _{Hmm, I never imagined I’d have a legitimate basis to say the words “Notch and I”…} Notch and I aren’t the authorities on Karl Jobst. So I’m sure some may dismiss our personal testimonials by claiming that we’re merely acting in self-interest, or are biased, or maybe even totally delusional.

But what is not delusional is that most of the people in a position to be angry at Karl for these mistakes have never gone through this process themselves. Speaking as someone who has successfully self-represented a few times, on both sides of the courtroom, there is no replacing the education of experience. I know, you’ve seen every episode of Franklin & Bash, and you especially love that movie where the game-changing evidence gets introduced right as the jury is about to read the verdict. But in the real world of defense pleadings and cross-examination and motions in limine and months of waiting, you just never know the process until you do. And you never know what mistakes you can make – in and out of the courtroom – until you make them, or see them made. (I’ve got some stories, lmao, but they’ll have to wait for another time.) I am certain, if Karl has to go through all of this again, most if not all of these gaffes will be heavily shored up.

So should you be angry at Karl for letting Billy off the hook? Even setting aside my personal account, I think the reasonable answer should be “No”. Karl’s mistakes – even the dumb podcast braggadocio – aren’t outside the realm of what can be expected from a first-time defendant. Like, none of y’all are gonna recognize when you should shitcan your crap lawyers (and pay extra for your new ones to get up to speed) until it’s too late. I know, everybody’s the Monday morning quarterback. But even if you really genuinely would have never discussed your case, and never acknowledged the person suing you in any way, and never would have let the life-altering pressure negatively affect you and your behavior, you would have found a way to commit some other first-time blunders all your own.

If, on the other hand, you want to seek your GoFundMe refund from Judge Barlow, or Michael de Waard, or Mills Oakley, who definitely were not learning about the process for the first time, hey, you’ll get no argument from me.

THE LEGEND, DECEASED

Okay, that covers our primary suspects. But there are a few other people worth discussing, even if only briefly. Unlike my ranked top three, the rest of us are not assigned any relevant order.

“Geez, I know ersatz is a total cunt, but he isn’t really gonna blame a dead guy for Karl’s loss, is he?”

Well, I’m obviously not afraid to, if I thought it was warranted. And to be fair, I am a total cunt. But that’s not what’s happening here. This is simply me, attempting to be my usual thorough self.

For years now, I’ve avoided fully relitigating the actions of Apollo Legend, for one simple reason: He’s dead. Who cares? I did have some harsh words for him while he was alive (as I’ll show in a moment), but I’d much prefer to just let him rest, although to date that has proven nigh impossible. Also, I’ve seen plenty of people be misinformed about the known circumstances and timeline behind Apollo’s settlement with Billy, which is relevant to this whole equation.

However… It looks like I’m going to avoid all of that yet again. It’s way too much of an aside for a piece that’s already trending long and rambly. So I’ll put it back in the drawer, possibly for another day, or maybe to never worry about at all.

Thankfully for our immediate purposes, I don’t think my conclusion will be especially controversial. As with many things in his public life, Apollo handled the situation with Billy Mitchell very poorly. And it could be said that the way Apollo defiantly boasted his intention to fight Billy, followed by how quickly he walked back his pledge to “not delete a single video”, opened the door to speculation. (We know now Apollo had much more going on behind the scenes, especially with regard to his physical health.) But Apollo bears no particular responsibility here, because there’s no way he could have known this would be the outcome. Apollo made many inaccurate claims, about many things, but the claim from Karl’s video was not one of them.

Like I said, if you want full elaboration, you’ll just have to wait for me to decide it’s time to discuss the matter in greater detail, if that day ever comes.

WHERE’S HALL, DOE?

See, it’s the opportunity to write beautifully wince-inducing subheaders like this that gets me out of bed each day. I do feel bad piling on Jace Hall, after everything he went through defending his Twin Galaxies against a massive Billy Mitchell lawsuit, and after all the backlash he got for settling it out of court just prior to trial. But I still think it’s fair to pose the question: What role did that settlement play in Karl’s loss in Australia?

As you may recall, Billy’s dumbass California attorney Anthony Ellrod published a bunch of material from their settlement, which was supposed to be confidential. As a result, we got public confirmation that, pursuant to that contract, Jace Hall agreed not to testify in any of Billy’s other cases. Here was the actual text Ellrod quoted from the settlement:

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.

The key word is “voluntarily”. You can’t sign away your ability to testify in lawsuits, or else people would do that all the time. If Billy’s scaredy-cat friend Rob Childs didn’t want to appear under oath, they’d sign a contract between themselves, and Rob would tell TG or whoever “Sorry, you can’t subpoena me and make me testify, I signed a contract with Billy promising that I wouldn’t.” But the problem is, subpoenas are really only enforceable domestically. It’s a whole fucking process to get them enforced internationally. (Hence why TG was ultimately unable to subpoena Craig Glenday of Guinness in the U.K. to answer for why they chose to reinstate Billy.) So while Jace Hall could still be subpoenaed to testify in the U.S. – say, if Billy ever decides to sue me up here in Washington state – unfortunately this settlement provision resulted in Jace being unable to testify in the Karl Jobst trial in Australia.

So did Jace’s lack of testimony make a difference?

Obviously we’re just talking opinions here, and you’re free to disagree. But to me, the answer is very simple:

lol No.

Given the ridiculousness of Barlow’s ruling, I cannot see anything Jace Hall could possibly have said moving the needle with Clueless Kenny a single centimeter. Jace is a great speaker, but with the way all of Karl’s other witnesses were casually dismissed as “biased” or whatever, it would’ve been very easy for Barlow to say “Well, this guy got sued by Billy, so of course he would say Billy’s a bad guy.” (Remember kids, just sue all your staunchest critics, and then fools like Ken Barlow will think that alone is the reason they all don’t like you.)

If we got an actual decent judge, then sure, it could’ve made a difference. And in theory, I guess it would’ve helped to have another voice emphasizing “I took Billy Mitchell as genuine until I realized he lies all the time about everything.” So in a poker sense, yes, given what we knew at the time, the correct play would obviously have been to have Jace available, and the TG settlement hindered that. But materially, no, it did not affect the outcome.

But there’s a different reason I’m interested in bringing this up here today…

Most everyone wanted to see Billy Mitchell get destroyed in court. (Obviously, there’s a vocal minority of Billy fluffers whose baboonish gibbering occasionally drowns out the discourse.) And so, folks were really disappointed when TG chose to settle both the main lawsuit and countersuit, especially when the terms of that settlement weren’t universally in TG’s favor. As I explained at the time, TG got some stuff, and Billy got some stuff, with TG’s gains being mostly substantial and Billy’s being mostly Pyrrhic, outside of his ability to spin perception. Most importantly, Billy did not get what he really wanted from the whole years-long endeavor, which was an actual reinstatement of his cheated DK scores.

Still though, people were disappointed – not because the settlement couldn’t be explained as a technical victory on paper, and not because a trial would’ve introduced any new evidence we didn’t already know, but because folks wanted to see Billy get vanquished, humiliated. They wanted Billy Mitchell to get utterly destroyed.

And yet… here we are. In the Karl case, we got our trial, one which some of us closest to the matter thought there was no way we could lose… aaaaand it did not work out the way we wanted.

Obviously the situation is different. TG’s case was much stronger than Karl’s, both for the fact TG did not make a factual inaccuracy, and because TG and Jace Hall went out of their way to avoid any discussion of Billy whatsoever following the score dispute. The U.S. case also would’ve been decided by a jury, although the judge can still have a heavy impact on procedural matters.

But still, all it takes is for one or two oblivious suckers to step in and make it all about themselves and their ignorance. “Well, according to Billy, Twin Galaxies lost the video showing crowds of people cheering on his scores, so it’s still their fault.” “That Dwayne guy seems pretty unhinged, I could see him doing something like this.” “Sure, years later people found some weird technical oddities, but nobody identified what rules Billy broke at the time he submitted the scores.” “Billy’s expert was a USC professor with decades of experience, so I don’t think he’s lying.” “Do these guys I’ve never heard of really think they know more about world records than Guinness?”

Everyone was hard on Jace and TG for choosing to settle. But I think the folks who had that understandable reaction at the time ought to reflect on that moment now. At minimum, there are ways in which the Karl Jobst outcome justifies Jace’s decision to settle the TG matter. You just never know what will happen at trial. Ever. Yes, there are aspects of the settlement people found distasteful, such as the inclusion of the word “reinstate” for scores which were objectively not “reinstated”. But TG also held to their non-negotiables. The scores didn’t go back on the leaderboard, and Billy’s “secret” “expert” evidence was exposed as a sham. It wasn’t the ending any of us dreamed of, but it was undeniably better than at least one alternative.

ET TU ERSATZ?

And almost-lastly, we get to yours truly. The verdict fallout seems to have sparked curiosity in my own involvement in all this Billy Mitchell stuff. While I’m always free with my opinions and beliefs, I’ve avoided discussing my actual self much through all this, because doing so suggests I’m personally relevant to the Billy Mitchell saga. I’m honestly nobody important. And who I am has no bearing on the actual evidence against Billy’s old DK scores, or his Pac-Man stories, or his meritless lawsuits, or his general pathological lying. Heck, a lot of that historical material is just me collating other people’s research I did not originate. It was my hope folks would reckon with the evidence itself, and not with the person compiling it.

But I have indeed published lots and lots of material on this case. And if we’re discussing people who were in some way involved in the sequence of events ultimately leading to Karl’s loss, I’m obviously on the list. It’s a bit awkward for me to analyze what I myself did or didn’t do wrong, if only for the fact that I may not consider certain actions of my own to be “mistakes”, and some people seeking humility over sincerity may not appreciate that, lol. On the other hand, I don’t want to come across as though I believe I’m an objective arbiter on myself. It also could be awfully presumptuous for me to rank myself outside of the top three. With that said, I think it’s fair to say I’m not as responsible for this as the lawyers or the judge, and if we’re being honest, I don’t think I’m as responsible for Karl’s video as Karl is either. But I’ve gotta put myself somewhere. I definitely did make mistakes, and so I’ll say what I think is appropriate here.

Before I continue, I have tended to use the word “we” when discussing the early speculation around Apollo’s settlement. “We believed X”, “We didn’t believe Y”, etc. And that’s because there were multiple of us pondering the situation – and I don’t mean only Karl and I. Just because I was publicly reporting on this stuff does not mean I was the only one who believed as I did. But obviously, that language is problematic when it comes to accountability. So with that noted, in contrast to other places I’ve discussed this stuff, I will mostly be using pronouns “I” and “my” below. And if you’re allergic to pronouns, you shouldn’t be reading this, anyway.

I’m not going to give a complete illustration of why and how I got involved in this Billy Mitchell stuff at this time. But part of the motivational calculus was, I wanted people to be informed. In 2018 and 2019, following the TG score dispute, Billy was spreading lots of lies about the score dispute and the people behind it, leading some to falsely believe the cheating allegations had been refuted. There needed to be a single location that asserted “No, here’s the evidence, it still stands.” Obviously I can’t make people read lmao, but at least the information would be out there, and not buried in a 300+ page dispute thread filled with irrelevant nonsense. I can’t say I was expecting to still be documenting this as an active saga in 2025, and I definitely was not anticipating everything to be hashed out in grown-up court in the first place. But Billy’s legal threats against others didn’t scare me, and at no point did I decide I would stop documenting the truth.

I spent those first couple years researching and archiving everything I could find on the saga, which included familiarizing myself with some deeper TG lore. (Okay, I did find this all very fascinating.) I discovered the old Robert Mruczek MTV interview with the girder finger, which helped cement Billy’s Donkey Kong lies. This put me in touch with Mruczek himself, and others like Dwayne Richard and Steve Kleisath. There wasn’t an exact day this happened, but at some point I just became the guy. If you wanted to know about Billy Mitchell stuff, you asked me.

It was in that context I received my first DM from legendary YouTuber Karl Jobst in 2020:

It all started innocuously enough, as you see. Within 24 hours, I helped publicize the first legal threat Karl had received from Billy. (I didn’t have this website yet, so I was just posting things to Reddit and to my TG wall.)

All was well and good, except for a couple comments from that very Reddit post, which caught our attention:

This was where user “mio456” replied that Apollo was pressured into “quitting YouTube” (something Apollo had already announced) and [sic] “a sizable settlement” (not yet announced). I want to emphasize, because it’s easy to miss this in retrospect: There was no public indication anywhere of any settlement. This was it. And yet, unbeknownst to us at the time, a settlement really was being brokered behind the scenes. mio456’s remarks came with further elaboration, suggesting they had spoken directly with Apollo. Their comments were soon deleted, but you can still see where I replied, pointing out the lack of evidence for such a settlement. Ironically, you can probably see the skepticism dripping from my words:

And within our first day of introductions, Karl and I discussed this uncanny remark. Here again is Karl in the gray and me in the blue. For all the people saying we (Karl and I) just believed nonsense someone posted on Reddit, in fact, the opposite was true:

It made no sense. Especially with how defiant Apollo had been in his videos responding to Billy’s legal threat. And I was at least correct that the fact Apollo’s videos were still up was a sign no settlement had been consummated.

This got even more complicated when Billy Mitchell ally Casey Ross began publicly declaring that Apollo had already reached out to settle:

This was posted as a screenshot to Twitter by another Billy defender, the day after the Reddit comment. And as you see, the screenshot itself says “1 day ago”, suggesting this and the Reddit remark were posted at the same time. And both were quickly edited or deleted to remove the reference. Is it possible Casey herself was “mio456”? Who knows?

But still, I stubbornly refused to believe it. “No way is Apollo with his giant YouTube channel gonna settle after what he said.” And every day, I’d check to make sure his videos were still up. Their continued presence was all the proof I needed. Clearly, the Billy people are nuts, Apollo’s just laying low because his lawyer told him to or whatever.

Obviously all of that changed when news broke that, yes, Apollo really did broker a settlement with Billy Mitchell:

LMAO Oh, boy. “There’s no doubt Apollo gave Billy money.”

That was wrong. I fucked up.

Now, I could shut my yap and leave it at that. And if I was a typical content creator, and this project was a source of revenue underpinning my livelihood, I’d probably be wise to do so, to take the “L”, and move on. But I don’t really care if some people don’t like me, and I don’t think failing to examine this mistake, as I chose to analyze the mistakes of others, helps anyone learn from this, which I think ultimately is the more constructive point of discussing this.

Obviously, I had a strong emotional reaction. I don’t enjoy admitting that, but it’s true. That’s not an excuse for a heavily asserted inaccuracy. It just is what it is. First, I got embarrassed, having told people there’s no way Guinness will reinstate Billy, when my confidential source had reported otherwise. I then got embarrassed a second time for being so dismissive of an Apollo settlement, when again sources were reporting otherwise. I decided, I was not going to make the same mistake – of dismissing my sources who were claiming a financial payout – and be embarrassed a third time. (Ironically, this ended up being the opposite mistake, leading to my biggest embarrassment of all.)

As to the language I used, all I can do is be honest with you now. In my mind, words like “no doubt” were the qualifier. That was my way of saying, both in that context and to anyone reading down-thread, “Look, I don’t know this as a confirmed fact, I’m not telling you it’s objectively proven, but I 100% believe it to be the case.” Because otherwise I wouldn’t say “no doubt this happened”, I would just say it as fact, and cite the source, even if the source to cite was “a trusted party who has direct knowledge of the situation” or whatever. I did none of those things, instead choosing to impress with a sense of “C’mon” and “Get real”. Now… is that sort of factual stipulation legally defensible? Well… That particular claim is outside the statute of limitations, and it wouldn’t have been “defamation” anyway. It was a reputationally arbitrary claim with no connection to a suicide that would not happen until months later. But since I’ve written a lot about Billy Mitchell, and could yet one day end up in a courtroom defending a frivolous lawsuit of his, I’ll just say I definitely should have cooled my jets. In short, I did what I did, and it was dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

You could say the inaccuracy itself was my first mistake here, but I think this runs even deeper than simply “I reported something that ended up being untrue”. I knew going in to all this Billy Mitchell stuff that I would eventually get something wrong. In journalism, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much verification work you do, it is a statistical inevitability that you will have inaccuracies. I’ve also had to correct a claim I made about color Donkey Kong recording, and an early report about Billy’s mortgage broker score (that his cabinet was in an isolated room) which turned out to be untrue. Legally, you’re allowed to get things wrong – especially when speaking about a public figure – if you have sufficient justification for the claim.

Also, if that were the extent of this mistake, I could dismiss it by acknowledging that I was working with limited information. Just because your opponent had a royal flush doesn’t mean it was a “mistake” in the moment to call with your four aces. (Whatever, let’s say jokers were wild.) It just means you did the thing that was correct 99% of the time, and this one is the statistical outlier. Others saw the same evidence indicating an Apollo payout, and came to the same conclusion I did. But as I said, this mistake goes beyond the inaccuracy itself.

After Apollo’s settlement was announced, YouTuber EZScape reached out to me, asking what basis I had for believing Apollo paid Billy money. Granted, the evidence did involve a confidential source I could not personally identify, but I illustrated it all as best I could, and he agreed enough to report it. Astutely, he acknowledged it as a possibility and not strictly as fact – and truly, I don’t think Billy ever cared about EZScape, because EZ wasn’t also reporting on Billy’s lies and fraudulent lawsuits the way Karl was.

However, even if EZScape had straight up said “Per ersatz_cats, Apollo paid Billy a bunch of money”, he should reasonably have been in the clear, because I had asserted it so strongly.

And that’s where we touch the depth of this particular mistake on my part. I could be an asshole and be like “Well, technically I said this, and technically I didn’t say that.” But that would miss the point. As you saw, I was straight up lazy with my qualifiers, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume I was a bit more rigorous. Even then, no matter how I couch something, no matter how I imply a claim is believed but not quite proven, people will think “This is the guy with the juice. He knows all kinds of shit about Billy Mitchell. If he believes it, I should believe it as well.” And that’s where I failed you all. As pissed off as I was at the way Apollo boasted and then immediately buckled (again, a story for another day), I should have pulled way back on the attitude of “I believe this, there’s no way this isn’t true, so you’d better believe it’s true as well.” Even if in that moment I did fully believe it to be the truth. Inadvertently, and contrary to my mission statement, I conducted myself in a way that encouraged people to reckon with me and my opinion, and not the evidence.

Now, this is a tiny bit complicated (“Bingo!”) by the fact that I was relying on a confidential source, which unavoidably introduces questions of individual trust. The reader is being asked to accept that I’m not lying about that source, or misrepresenting what they actually told me, or misremembering in cases where such communications aren’t preserved. For the record, I’ve discussed this bit with my source many times, before and after news on Apollo’s settlement broke, and again after Billy’s response video. I can’t speak to the veracity of what they were told, but I completely trust my source, and I stand by my representations of what I was told. And as was pointed out in “Day 5”, one such private message found its way into the Australia proceeding. Sometimes, the use of such sources in journalism is a necessity. For one thing, not everyone will want to discuss the crazed narcissistic litigant so openly. Also, if the person I spoke to were identified, then the person from Billy’s camp they spoke to would be less willing to talk to them. You see how that goes.

There is a way to handle confidential sourcing appropriately. But that’s no excuse for me missing the target so wildly with my aggressive “trust me bro” public messaging at the time. Again, I let my emotions get the best of me, and my methodology disintegrated as a result. It’s not like I’ve never had to deal with awful individuals before. There are way worse people than Billy Mitchell in this world, and most of them sleep very securely. Any time Billy’s lies and personal attacks felt so outrageous, it was usually easy to remind myself of this, and keep a cool head. Billy Mitchell really is just a two-bit conman. But I lost my professional edge, and I did it at the worst possible time.

It would have been more appropriate for me to stick to a dispassionate assertion, such as: “Okay, here’s evidence we have that Apollo paid Billy a bunch of money. Strictly based on this, I personally believe the claim is true. You can come to your own conclusions. Please don’t assume I have extra undisclosed evidence.” And indeed, I did lay out the evidence in a later TG wall post, and (if you log in to TG) you’ll see that my summary there does include language to that effect. So good job that time! But that was after the claim of a payout was disputed, and not before, when it mattered.

Notice there, I said such a dispassionate assertion would have been “more appropriate”, and not “ideal”. This is where we get to another mistake of mine, but to discuss that, I have to get into some of the most razor-thin bit of nuance you’ll find anywhere on the subtlety-averse Internet.

First, did I have a basis for believing the claim? Not reporting it, just believing it?

Absolutely, undoubtedly, unflinchingly yes. A confidential source with a connection to the situation and a proven track record is sufficient to believe a thing. And the armchair quarterbacks barking otherwise (or worse, repeating the line that “it was all over a comment on Reddit”, which is a lie) aren’t trying to engage this point sincerely, and should not be taken seriously. Again, this doesn’t excuse how I chose to report it. And “believe” is an imprecise word here, as we’re talking about a concealed fact and not a belief like “Governments shouldn’t starve babies”. But what you believe to be true, and what you conclude is supported by sufficient evidence to cite as verifiably true, are two different things, with two different standards of evidence. And the lower threshold of those – what you believe to be true – was sufficiently met by the evidence we had.

However, I can reframe the question, which brings us to that nuance. At first glance, this may feel similar, but I think it’s sufficiently distinct. And the difference is not mere semantics.

Should I have believed the claim?

My answer today is: Possibly not. The reason it’s not a stronger “No” is because it still, to this day, never made sense that Billy would let Apollo settle without so much as repaying his attorney fees. I accept it’s true that it happened, the paperwork was later provided to the court, and the brother confirmed it. Shockingly enough, Billy did settle the Apollo lawsuit at a loss. He chose to lose money and let the kid go.

But the reason it would otherwise be “No” is because, regardless of public Casey’s clairvoyance, or our secret source’s clean track record, the information would still have ultimately come from Billy or Junior themselves. And those fuckers, they lie all the time, about everything.

In the early days of all this, it was easy to declare that “Everything Billy Mitchell says is a lie.” If you worked with that as your premise, you would be correct more often than not. But it’s also not exactly accurate. He does occasionally say things that are true, as I have acknowledged when appropriate. So I try to word it differently. Instead of “Everything Billy says is a lie”, maybe it’s “Billy lies all the time”. (More of that legally distinct language I foolishly think will save me, haha.) Or “Billy lies about everything”. That one actually has an exceptionally good track record. Heck, even in Billy’s video response about the Apollo settlement, where all he had to do was correct any untrue claims Karl had made, even in that video Billy made untrue assertions. So even when it’s to his advantage to tell the truth, it’s like he can’t help but sprinkle in lies anyway, like he’s the Riddler compulsively leaving clues everywhere.

Over time, all of this eventually led me to develop a better maxim, which I think is far more reliable:

Billy Mitchell saying something does not make it any more likely to be true than if he had said nothing at all.

(That applies to Billy’s son as well, as the apple clearly hasn’t fallen far from the tree.)

And it’s that maxim I failed to live by, in believing the claim of a financial payout from Apollo. Indeed, prior to Apollo’s suicide, it was to Team Billy’s advantage for everyone to believe Apollo paid a bunch of money, as that might frighten other defendants into settling, and would discourage other YouTubers from covering Billy’s lawsuits. So I had sufficient basis for believing it, but I also had reason to remain skeptical. And in that window of time, I failed to seriously consider that possibility.

Whew! That was a lot of words. I made some other mistakes, but thankfully, they’re much easier to spell out. I didn’t write what Karl said in his “Conmen” video (or any of his videos), but in retrospect I should have gotten on Karl about the way he made the claim. “Dude, you cannot just report that as fact. Even if we’re 100% sure it’s true, we don’t have hard confirmation.” I failed to do this. But that circles back to my “Should I have believed the claim” mistake. We fully did believe it, so much so that at no point was I like “Oh, there’s a future where we learn there was no settlement payout, and all these words will bite us in the ass.” It was full speed ahead, right into the train wreck. Along these lines, to the extent I am an authority, I could’ve done better in the “head coach” factor generally. Also, it could be said that my style of writing encouraged others to be looser with how they discuss the unhinged litigant, but that’s a longer story.

I would not at all suggest that this is an exhaustive accounting of my mistakes relating to the entirety of this saga. I’ve already discussed how I never wanted anyone to feel misled about the lawsuit, and would have put more effort into broadcasting the underpinning of the legal dispute had I known folks would feel so disappointed to learn it wasn’t strictly over cheating allegations. And aspects of my coverage would’ve been different had I seriously entertained that Mr. Cheater was about to win such a massive judgment on what I already knew would be a pathetic handful of obvious, provable lies and self-serving contradictions. (Hey, I was right about that last part, at least.) But y’all are neither my therapist nor my priest, so I’m content to limit today’s accounting to my gaffes which may have in some way contributed to this disappointing outcome.

I’ll be straight with you all on this point. I do not believe I am distinctly responsible for the trial outcome. I’m also very resilient – probably more than y’all realize. I’m not going to be convinced of anything by dumbass apology trolls who, for whatever their unhealthy reasons, get off on dogpiling people in their moments of weakness or accountability. (The Internet will do what the Internet does.) And I suspect I already know what the people whose opinions I actually value will say. But it would also be very inappropriate of me to act as though I played no role in the chain of events which brought us here.

It was never my hope or intention to do anything to let that contemptible piece of shit off the hook, for all the awful stuff he’s done to people – of which cheating at a video game is far and away the least of his crimes. I remain proud of my role in championing the truth, even through the hard times. But I’m deeply apologetic and remorseful for anything I’ve done, even marginally, to squander what may prove to be the final opportunity at actual accountability.

I’m sorry.

THE X FACTOR

There’s one other person who contributed to Karl’s loss, but unsurprisingly I was going to save this individual for last.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this one. I don’t take joy at commending irredeemable assholes for being effective at that role. And I also don’t wish to give future litigants advice on how to win.

With that said, I did take seriously the endeavor of identifying what Billy Mitchell did to win this lawsuit. But fortunately for my ego, it turns out I don’t have to give him that much credit. As I’m sure you’ll agree, there’s a nexus between fault and responsibility. If something is the fault of Person X, then it’s also the responsibility of Person X. But credit is also part of the larger responsibility web. If you were to say Karl and his lawyers were faultless, then the “responsibility” – and the “credit” – for their loss would fall on other parties, including Billy. But that’s clearly not what happened.

And sure, in some cases errors could be said to have been forced. You could say Judge Barlow failed to scrutinize Billy Mitchell’s obvious lies, in part, because Billy is a practiced liar and manipulator. You could even go the extra step to suggest Billy’s lies were so pathetically transparent that they lulled Karl’s attorneys into a false sense of security. But if you were to assume that was all part of a larger “plan”, you’d have to believe that when Billy testified in his TG deposition that Karl’s video had a “minimal” impact on him, he was doing so with consideration of anything beyond his immediate goal of “Say whatever I have to say to win this case against TG”.

Truthfully – and I mean this with absolute sincerity – Billy Mitchell got insanely lucky. Again, he literally testified, under oath, that Karl’s video had a “minimal” impact on him, even though (since he wasn’t claiming economic damages) that impact was crucial to him winning. From that moment on, he continued pursuing the lawsuit against Karl, thinking “I’m just gonna roll into court and make up some bullshit story, and the guy who deals with liars all the time will buy it.” He’s also fortunate his obvious attempts at fanning the flames of his own claimed injuries weren’t called out by the judge for what they were. And it’s not like Billy has a winning track record in the courtroom to back up his “methodology”, if you wanted to call it that. Given all of this, and his general propensity for telling easily disproven lies, it’s also unlikely Billy really pondered the ramifications of suing Karl in a loser-pays venue. (Sure, Billy would’ve done everything to avoid paying Karl, including filing for bankruptcy himself, but that’s different from expecting to prevail.) And that’s to say nothing of his text messages literally expressing his desire to see Apollo dead, and how they ought to factor into his reputational damages.

Speaking of text messages, Holy shit! I realize I’m the guy who wears sports jerseys to a courtroom, but sitting there texting with people during your trial, when you know electronic devices are forbidden, is a level of disdain from a plaintiff that I struggle to comprehend. And then discussing stuff with your witness son, and then agreeing to delete everything, all within eyesight of the peanut gallery? I know, he lives in the world of “My word versus everyone else’s”, and obviously accountability for these exact actions was lacking, but you know, occasionally people in positions of authority aren’t so gullible.

Billy Mitchell really is not that bright. He’s just persistent, and there are sadly enough suckers in this idiot world to grease his wheels.

But that’s not to say Billy didn’t do anything strategically correct. Whereas the “head coach” factor was a weakness of Karl’s, I suspect that was a strength of Billy’s. In “Day 4”, I noted when Billy was on his solicitor, Francis, regarding something. I never knew exactly what that exchange was about, but I imagine Billy was never shy about getting on his allies’ cases about anything that might improve his odds.

I’m also reminded of this 2018 exchange, preserved by a June 2020 declaration from Carlos Pineiro:

Granted, it seems the bulk of that was written by the late Joel West, with Billy’s endorsement. But I do think this mindset speaks to the approach taken later on in the Karl Jobst lawsuit – at least when it came to public affairs. Suffer the temporary indignities, and Twitter lockdowns. Eyes on the prize. Wait to run your mouth until the goods are in the bag. (Okay, he did run his mouth a bit in his UK rant, but it obviously didn’t affect him.)

To be clear, I have no hard proof to this effect, but I would not be surprised if Billy coordinated testimony with his son, and possibly with other witnesses who are in on his grift, like Triforce. (I can state personal beliefs like this as long as I’m clear it is merely a belief, supported by no additional evidence beyond the same public observations available to you.) So, if you share that belief, you could count that as more effort to win the case, unscrupulous as it may be. And then of course, there are those emails from John Weeks and Ryan Burger which were a little too on-the-nose. The provision of those emails also seems designed to elude cross-examination, which in my eyes makes their content even more dubious. (Note that I’ve since issued a correction to the Barlow piece: I’d forgotten that Ryan Burger did respond to an email from me, confirming at least that he was indeed the person behind that message.) But then, Billy clearly didn’t coach guys like the event organizers who happily testified that Billy’s reputation was totally unaffected. So I think it’s safe to say, some of his witnesses were along for the ride, helping someone they think of as an innocent victim. And Billy clearly chose not to spoil that naivete by being like “Here’s what you should say when they ask you for your opinion”.

I would be willing to give credit to Billy’s lawyers, if I thought they deserved it. But I honestly don’t think they were anything special, either. If they had some masterful insight, it would have been reflected in Judge Barlow’s ruling. And they clearly weren’t coaching Billy’s witnesses not to say stupid things. I guess you could say Billy’s attorneys didn’t royally screw anything up, so they get that ribbon, I guess.

At the end of the day, I stand by my top three parties of responsibility, with lucky Billy failing to make the podium. It’s fair to question and examine these circumstances, and especially one’s own assumptions. But this isn’t Hollywood. Sometimes, there just isn’t any justice. Sometimes, the bad guys win, and all you can do is pick up the pieces and move on. Oh, and keep telling the truth. Always do that.

NOT YET CLOSING THE BOOK

I know this was a long one. Thank you all for your patience, both with the wait, and the read. I can’t say I’m closing the book on the Karl stuff just yet. Since the verdict, Billy’s published two videos and several tweets slamming Karl, including many lies and misrepresentations I intend to address. But for that, I’d prefer to wait until after Karl’s eventual follow-up video, which hopefully will bring better news, and which I look forward to watching as much as anyone.

However, if you’re interested in the following matters, there is one thing I’d like to close now that I have the opportunity:

When I traveled to Brisbane to cover the trial, I had no fundraising apparatus set up. The overwhelming and heartwarming words of support I’d received, as well as inquiries about how to donate to the cause, convinced me I needed to figure out how to make this happen before publishing coverage of day six.

You all appreciated my work so much, you donated $2,368 to support it! I’m so immensely humbled. I literally have no words for how appreciative I am. Do not even worry about what the stated goal or percentages say. I’m not going to get into too many personal details, but I don’t make a lot of money at my day job, and like many Americans, I’m more-or-less broke all the time. I have been able to afford to pay upkeep for this website, so I’m not exactly in dire straits, but it has been a not-insignificant cost each summer.

I realize that, for most if not all of the contributors, the outcome of this case was probably as disappointing to you as it was for me. I’m also aware this disappointment may extend into reflections on my coverage. It was never my hope to give anyone false security. If I’ve impressed nothing else on you all, it’s that the judgment and excessive damages genuinely were unexpected, and frankly unjust. I don’t control the judge. I do think it’s fair to say, even with the letdown, we’re better off having it all chronicled. Without it, the process would’ve been a black box. Imagine if all we had to go on was daily summaries from disinterested Australian TV reporters, whatever snippets Karl felt empowered to share, and Barlow’s written verdict. Yes, we all put time and effort and energy into following a losing campaign. But if the outcome was a given, we’re better off knowing how it happened.

As for the GoFundMe, this was my first time doing any fundraising thing like this, and thus I wanted to cross all my “I”s and dot all my “T”s, so I wouldn’t run afoul of any potential controversies, lol. Per the terms of the GoFundMe campaign, my first obligation was to reimburse some amazing folks, who without their help my trip to Brisbane would have been impossible. You know, I felt like it would be bad form for me to accept money without prioritizing such repayment, and thus that had to be written into the GoFundMe description. However, as I expected, said parties each generously declined compensation. As a result, the entire fund is allocated toward maintaining this website.

I’m choosing not to divulge exact figures here, because… Well, you know how these things can go. “No, I’m the real owner of perfectpacman.com! My account was hacked! I can prove it, here are the exact amounts of my last three payments.” The Internet is not always a secure place. But here’s what I can tell you. Maintaining the site involves domain registration – literally just paying ICANN or whoever for the plot of real estate located at perfectpacman.com – and separately, for the actual hosting of all my text, images, etc. The former is public knowledge. You can look me up, and see that in the early hours of June 16th, I paid to extend this domain into the year 2035:

I actually would’ve purchased the domain for longer, but it turns out they literally only allow you to register domains for a maximum ten years out. I didn’t know that! I’d always heard about stuff like the old “Heaven’s Gate” cult website still being active, and thought they had just paid for everything way in advance. Nope, turns out there’s actually someone out there renewing it every so often. Crazy people! Too bad that “Time Cube” guy didn’t have more friends. It’s a shame though, I would’ve loved to secure this URL way into the future, well beyond the natural reach of Mr. Mullet.

That left the actual hosting, which has been extended into the summer of 2037. At least they’re happy to take my money into perpetuity. There’s actually some GoFundMe money left over, but hosting is cheaper if I renew three years at a clip, and it feels a bit silly to reup the hosting for much further out than I’ve been allowed to secure the actual domain, if you get my drift. So I guess I’ll have to take a rain check on applying that last amount? Y’all were too generous! Don’t worry though, I have automatic deduction set up, as well as a backup plan for the site in the event I get hit by a bus or something, so the remainder will be applied one way or another.

Again, thank you all so much. I’ve scrolled through the whole list of donors, most of whom are anonymous, but I did recognize a few names. Each and every one of you are appreciated. And even if you didn’t donate money, if you just peruse the site and take time to read my work, as long as you’re not a poop face in the comments, I love you.

Going forward, this website will continue to be the place to go for updates on Billy Mitchell and any ongoing lies or frauds of his. I have a mostly complete multi-part write-up on his loss in the David Race lawsuit, which you’ll see in the not too distant future. And until the day he simply confesses his wrongdoings (which will never happen), this site will host “The evidence against Billy Mitchell” and such. However, after all the immediate stuff gets addressed, I think we can all hope to hear from that dude as little as possible. He’ll never truly vanish, because there will always be suckers. But I suspect his lawsuit days are done. Some people have pushed the narrative that he would go away if people didn’t give him attention, often while failing to acknowledge that it would be ethically derelict to ignore him while he’s suing innocent people. But now, we have that opportunity before us.

Meanwhile, there are other battles to cover, including the “Stop Killing Games” initiative in Europe. It turns out, mocking corporate-speak isn’t too different from deriding legal filings.

Plus, believe it or not, there will be actual fun gaming content! In fact, I’ve already got my next piece all lined up and ready to go! What, you didn’t think I’ve been sitting on my ass doing nothin’, did ya? It’s just been waiting for this to be published first. This one’s a fun romp through the weeds and deep minutiae of a beloved vintage video game from the ’80s. I won’t say what game it is yet, because it involves an upcoming TG challenge, but I’ll give you three hints:

• Not an arcade game
• High score based
• Not Nintendo

Drop your guesses in the comments. As always, thank you all for reading. Here’s to funner days in the future!