Billy Mitchell update: New witnesses, new lies, and new fake evidence!

by ersatz_cats

People often ask how the Billy Mitchell / Twin Galaxies lawsuit is going. Early on in the process, most of the proceedings involved testimonial declarations and motions (such as a motion to strike based on anti-SLAPP law), allowing the public to weigh new evidence and watch events unfold. In June 2020, Twin Galaxies themselves published a cache of such declarations in the original dispute thread for free public access, even though those same documents were already available behind a paywall on the Los Angeles court’s website.

However, once the anti-SLAPP ruling and appeal were resolved, the case entered what’s known as the discovery phase. In short, each party can request private communications and other proprietary material from the other side, can submit written interrogatories to the other party, and can conduct sworn depositions of witnesses. Court processes are geared toward encouraging parties to work out their differences without resorting to a jury trial, which would require significant resources. Thus, while encouraging honesty and transparency between the parties, discovery is also intended to help reveal which party would be most likely to prevail at trial, and thus which party should be looking to settle out of court. While the material being shared may or may not fall under asserted designations of confidentiality, it is typically sent directly between the attorneys, and thus usually not made public without a direct media inquiry, which those attorneys may or may not grant.

For this reason, it’s common for public information on a case like this to dry up during this phase. Most of what’s being posted to the court site at this point consists of procedural items – certificates of mailings, notices of orders issued at hearings, the occasional change of address, things like that. However, not all of these items are as innocuous as they may appear. Today’s bombshell comes courtesy of such an item, labeled simply “Joint Informal Discovery Conference Statement”. Unremarkable as that may sound, this filing is probably the most incendiary document in this case yet. Basically, this “joint” statement is being used by both TG and Billy as a platform to air grievances with the other, and to seek orders from the court compelling action from the other party.

There are five key issues being argued over. The main two are related, and they’re pretty astonishing, so we’ll get to those last. The other three have to do with Apollo Legend videos, private communications between Billy and his son, and alleged breach of confidentiality. We’ll be covering everything in the order I have chosen, but if you’d like to simply read the document itself straight through, I have freed it from the confines of the paywall and made it available here:

https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Legal-Billy-vs-TG-2023-07-20-Both-Joint-statement.pdf

Before we proceed, I’m assuming readers are generally aware of the circumstances behind this case (watch this video if you are not), but people may not be familiar with all the characters involved. Billy Mitchell, the Donkey Kong cheater, is the “plaintiff” of his defamation lawsuit against gaming scorekeeper Twin Galaxies. He’s being represented by California law firm Manning & Kass. Incredibly, despite the overwhelming evidence against Billy, it seems Manning & Kass took this case on contingency, meaning they only get paid if they win, leading me to facetiously refer to them as “The U2 Fan Club”. (Get it? They’re “Pro Bono”!) The actual work is being done by founding partner Anthony Ellrod, along with junior attorney Kristina Ross. Meanwhile, Twin Galaxies is being represented by local attorney David Tashroudian (or “Tash”), with TG owner Jace Hall acting as the face of the organization. Note that there is a third party to this case as well. Former TG owner Walter Day was named as a defendant alongside Billy in TG’s countersuit for fraud relating to the sale of TG to Jace. You can read more about the details of that countersuit here. Since Walter’s and Billy’s interests don’t automatically coincide, Walter has had to secure his own representation, which I’ve discussed before. However, Walter’s lawyers did not provide any input into the new document we’ll be looking at today.

Also, to help folks follow along, I’ve framed the text excerpts from the new document in either blue or red. Blue represents material from TG’s portion of the joint statement (as signed by Tash), and red represents Team Billy’s half (as signed by Ellrod). There are a couple bits from old documents as well, which are left unframed.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.

SON OF MULLET

We’ll start with Billy’s son, whose legal name is William Mitchell IV, but who we’ll refer to as “Billy Junior”. TG is asking for all communications between him and his father during the timeframe relevant to the lawsuit. Again, this is standard. Each party has a legal right to subpoena what the other is saying about the lawsuit and related dispute, just in case they’re stupid enough to get caught telling their friends and accomplices “Mwahahaha, now we’ll tell a bunch of lies to the court and make fake evidence to push through this lawsuit which we know to be meritless”. That said, conversations between a party and their attorney are exempt under attorney-client privilege, because it would be very difficult to prepare a case if every little thing said between them could be used against them. But that privilege doesn’t extend to your friends and family.

Normally, this request from TG wouldn’t be an issue. Billy’s side has already provided all of Billy’s communications with his old technician friend Rob Childs, and with Todd Rogers, and with Craig Glenday of Guinness World Records. However, Manning & Kass are claiming that Billy Junior is actually a “law clerk” for them, and thus Junior’s communications with his father would fall under attorney-client privilege.

But TG is pushing back on this claim that these father-and-son communications are privileged. First, note that TG appears to be refusing to concede that Junior actually is a “law clerk”, given the placement of the word “ostensibly”. Junior has done work preparing and collecting witness statements for his father’s lawsuit, however this designation of “law clerk” stinks of being just as much about denying TG their right to acquire discovery as it is about any sort of formal paid employment with the firm.

More importantly, new evidence has come forward that some of these statements written by Junior contain blatant falsehoods. We’ve already known about some of these, and for brevity’s sake, I’m not going to relitigate those here at this time. However, with testimonial depositions currently underway, the testimony from these live witnesses is beginning to significantly contradict the statements Junior wrote for them.

The most blatant of these is from Walter Day’s deposition. First, let’s look back at Walter’s declaration, signed on June 21, 2020, and submitted to the court the following day:

If we can rewind the clock a bit, this statement from Day was in the context of TG’s motion to dismiss Billy’s case on the grounds that it violated anti-SLAPP law. Basically, anti-SLAPP laws exist as a mechanism to obstruct frivolous lawsuits whose only purpose is to harass critical voices and to suppress free speech. In order to move his case forward to trial, Billy had to make a “prima facie” (Latin for “on the face of it”) showing that he could actually have a case. The court couldn’t weigh the totality of the evidence yet – that’s what a trial is for. Billy simply had to show he could at least claim to have all the elements needed to establish defamation. (Of course, Billy didn’t actually have a case, and thus needed to lie through his teeth to fabricate one. But we’ll set that aside here.) Since Billy is a limited sphere public figure, he had to show at least some evidence, some basis for his claim, that Jace Hall and/or Twin Galaxies were acting with “malice” toward him when they removed his cheated Donkey Kong scores. This statement, in a signed declaration from Walter Day, was part of this case for malice. In other words, “Look, Jace told Walter Day way back in mid-March that he was going to remove Billy’s scores. This proves he didn’t actually care about the evidence, and this was all a malicious charade to defame Billy for some unspecified reason.”

Except, Walter’s deposition has now come and gone, and that’s not exactly what happened. While Walter’s full deposition video or transcript has not been made available, per this document, Day was forced to admit that, no, Jace Hall did not say those things which were attributed to Jace as direct quotes.

Even worse, as seen above, this false quote was included in the court’s ruling denying TG’s anti-SLAPP motion. (You can read that whole ruling here.) Again, this ruling was over two years before this deposition, and per anti-SLAPP rules, the court couldn’t consider contrary evidence at that time. But since Billy’s success against TG’s anti-SLAPP motion was based on a lie, would that not merit a reevaluation of this entire case?

While this false quote is the most blatant example of false statements cited as attributable to Junior’s “law clerk” work, it’s not the only one. The long-fabled “Game Stop manager” who set up Billy’s claimed Donkey Kong attempts at the 2007 mortgage brokers convention has since been identified as Josh Ryan. Josh, who did not submit a written declaration during earlier proceedings, testified in deposition that there was no way any direct feed recording could have been produced from the machine he worked on. This contradicted various statements Billy’s attorneys did submit, including one from Billy’s personal referee Todd Rogers. Again, if Junior wrote those statements as it appears he did, that’s a problem, both for him and for Manning & Kass.

Tash goes on to provide legal arguments for why the “crime-fraud exception” to the attorney-client privilege applies to Junior’s communications, arguing that TG has a right to determine if a crime occurred when Junior produced these testimonials containing lies.

In response, Ellrod argues that the words attributed to Jace represent the basic gist of what Jace said to Walter… even though they were presented to the court as a direct quote. He also says that Todd didn’t contradict Ryan’s testimony, he just said there was “recording equipment” “on top of the machine”… which I guess, given Ryan’s testimony, would be non-operational?

We’ll be hearing more from Walter Day’s deposition later, but as a quick aside, apparently he testified that he’s currently filming a movie with the producer of King of Kong, Ed Cunningham. Ellrod responded that the film is just about Walter’s life and not “about” the lawsuit, even though Walter himself admitted to discussing the lawsuit on film.

APOLLO’S VIDEOS

Next up, we have the videos related to Billy Mitchell’s lawsuit settlement with the late YouTuber Apollo Legend. In early 2020, it was announced that Billy had filed a defamation lawsuit in Florida against Apollo, over what Billy called “untrue statements and misrepresentations”. Later that summer, Apollo announced via YouTube post that he had entered into a settlement agreement with Billy, transferring ownership of several “videos from [his] YouTube channel” to Billy in exchange for him dropping his lawsuit. As has been widely reported, Apollo sadly chose to end his own life a few months after this announcement.

As noted in his announcement, Apollo chose to remove access to a few unrelated videos as well, mostly those related to Todd Rogers. Notably, two of those Todd Rogers videos were restored in early 2023, by whoever currently has access to Apollo’s old account:

“The Biggest Cheater in Gaming History? (1700+ Scores w/ no Evidence)” (published 2018-01-23)

“How to Lose a Guinness World Record” (published 2018-02-04)

Unlike those Todd videos, which were merely set to private, the videos transferred to Billy were removed from his channel entirely, likely due to a stipulation of their written settlement. Due to this, at least at the time, attempts to access those videos were met with a particular message from YouTube: “This video has been removed by the uploader”. Due to this unique message, I was able to identify six specific videos included in the settlement:

“World’s Most Infamous Donkey Kong Player Caught Cheating!” (published 2018-02-17)

“Disgraced Gaming Legend Threatens Lawsuit!” (published 2019-09-13)

“The Greatest Hoax in Gaming History” (published 2019-09-27)

“Arcade Cheater Files Fraudulent Copyright Claims” (published 2019-10-01)

“Angry Cheater Sues Me For $1,000,000” (published 2020-05-10)

“Billy Mitchell Won’t Be Sued (For Now)” (published 2020-05-13)

You occasionally see reuploads of these videos pop up, but since they now belong to Billy Mitchell, he has the legal grounds to file copyright strikes against them, which he is known to do. (Billy Mitchell hates evidence.)

In this new filing, Tash is seeking to acquire copies of these transferred videos from Billy, as well as the actual written settlement between Billy and Apollo. The latter is relevant both in that it can be used to verify that all such videos were provided as requested, and also because Billy’s lawsuit against Apollo and his lawsuit against TG are essentially for the same claimed tort (allegations of cheating). In other words, if Billy told a court in Florida “Woe is me, this guy said I cheated and that cost me one million dollars”, Billy can’t then turn around and go to another court in California and say that same one million dollars was lost due to TG’s statements. Ellrod responded by simply citing that the settlement carried a “confidentiality clause”. As I’m not a lawyer, I can’t speak to what circumstances would allow for this clause to be waived or overruled.

As for the videos themselves, here’s where things get a little tricky. It’s true that Billy falsely claimed in testimony that volunteer technician Carlos Pineiro never worked on his behalf during the original score dispute. And it’s true that Apollo visited a Florida event attended by Billy, wherein Billy was recorded pointing to Carlos and saying “He’s the gentleman that has the proof”. Two video clips from that event featuring Apollo’s interactions with Billy (which you can see at 2:00 and 3:40 in this video) were later published, not via YouTube, but by the files themselves being distributed on social media. (My understanding is that they were posted to Apollo’s Discord, but I have not confirmed this.)

And here’s where we get to an incongruity. While I have not had much reason to question the diligence of the Mighty Mister Tash, I am willing to do so when called for. The videos given to Billy in his settlement, which were cited by Apollo as “videos from my YouTube channel”, were produced commentaries, which used others’ material as allowed under fair use. While Billy has suppressed these six videos’ current publication, their contents have been known, and do not include any further revelations regarding Billy’s relationship with Carlos. Also, the specific clips recorded at the Florida event were not filmed by Apollo, and thus were not owned by him, and could not have been part of his settlement with Billy. Tashroudian’s language seems to conflate Apollo’s once-public commentary videos on YouTube, and any extra footage taken by Apollo’s associate at the event, some of which made its way into various videos by Apollo and others. While this could be an oversight or point of confusion, it may also not be, and it certainly doesn’t prohibit Tash from simply asking for all such videos (which, per Ellrod, Billy claims not to have), or for the written settlement agreement to demonstrate that all such videos have been identified. Who knows, maybe Apollo himself filmed some portion of their private Florida footage, and this random footage somehow found its way into the Billy settlement, even though other public YouTube videos Billy could have attempted to claim were overlooked?

Tash also claims, without citation, that Billy testified that there were 10 or 11 such videos. In response, Ellrod cites where in the deposition Billy testified that the actual number he gave was “Less than ten, more than three”. (Again, the actual number is six.)

THE DISINFORMATION MACHINE

The only grievance in the new filing initiated by Billy’s side relates to Tash’s choice to share material from Billy Mitchell’s deposition with fellow Billy defendant Karl Jobst in Australia. Of course, aside from questions of whether this material was strictly confidential, this is all perfectly normal and reasonable. TG should be sharing everything they can with Karl, and Karl should be sharing everything he can with TG. That’s what happens when one guy decides to sue multiple people on multiple continents, which in hindsight was probably a poor idea from the start. It’s not like these unaffiliated defendants have to pretend not to know each other or have common interest.

Ellrod, however, would like to paint a different picture. He suggests that TG’s discovery requests are not being made with the intent of assisting in their own lawsuit defense, which is what any sane lawyer in Tash’s position would be doing with their time and energy. Rather, Ellrod is suggesting the true purpose of these requests is so TG can fuel what Ellrod calls “the Twin Galaxies disinformation machine”.

As much as I’d love to continue spinning jokes from this, since I am reporting on a crazed narcissistic litigant and could one day become embroiled in this litigation nonsense myself, I suppose I should be clear on this point before proceeding. There is no “Twin Galaxies Disinformation Machine”, el em ay oh. I can’t speak for Karl, but with regard to myself and my own reporting on this case, I’m simply a gaming hobbyist who happens to find this story interesting and worth reporting on. This website operates independently of TG, or any other party to this case. I have been critical of Jace Hall on numerous occasions in the past, including his handling of score disputes other than Billy’s. But I also appreciate what the current Twin Galaxies is trying to become. I especially like their new bounty system, and have submitted eight challenges toward it so far. If Billy Mitchell doesn’t appreciate the things I say about his frivolous, baseless lawsuits, perhaps he should stop trying to destroy people’s lives over his proven lies. And in turn, if Ellrod dislikes being on the wrong side of strangers’ opinions of him, maybe he should reconsider his involvement in this perjury parade. But hey, if he’d rather be the guy who utters the words “Twin Galaxies disinformation machine” with a straight face, honestly, who am I to stop him living his best life?

As far as legal arguments go, Ellrod claims that Billy’s deposition was marked as confidential, and thus Tash’s decision to share it with Karl violates a protective order. However, while Ellrod was happy to cite Billy’s deposition regarding the disputed number of videos, he seems a bit shy about citing it here. Thankfully, Tash is back in Mighty form, providing the necessary citations for us to fill in the blanks.

The segment begins when Tash goes to play a 2018 interview Billy did with podcast Gen X Grown Up: (This is the one where Billy admitted to assisting with his team’s technical analysis, and with providing them a television to use.) Here’s the portion of that deposition transcript, with Billy being identified as “The Witness”:

MR. ELLROD: You don’t know who he’s talking to on the tape?

MR. TASHROUDIAN: No. We do at the very beginning here, yeah.

THE WITNESS: Go ahead and let us know that first. It’s David Race. It’s David Race and one of his illegal recordings that he’s being sued for. So I —

MR. HALL: I can give you the title.

MR. TASHROUDIAN: Yeah. What is —

MR. ELLROD: I’m going to ask —

MR. HALL: The title — it’s a — it’s a public, it’s an interview that was done called — from Gen X called Grownups Special Edition, Billy Mitchell Interview.

MR. ELLROD: I’m going to designate this portion of the deposition going forward as attorneys’ eyes only. Well, I’ll just designate it confidential as we believe it’s an illegal conversation.

It appears Billy and Ellrod began freaking out, mistaking this interview for the phone call recorded by David Race, back when David was working with Billy in his defense. (That’s the one where Billy spoke of a harebrained plan to misrepresent fake evidence in the hopes that he could trick Twin Galaxies and make them look foolish.) Note that an appeals court has since ruled this recording, made in Ohio, is legal after all, and thus would be admissible in court. However, at the time of Billy’s deposition, a lower court ruling against David still stood, giving Billy and Ellrod the basis to claim the recording was illegal. And yet, that wasn’t what this deposition exhibit was at all! It was just some podcast where Billy blabbed about his case, making claims he later decided to walk back.

Anyway, once this misunderstanding was hashed out, Tash tried to get Ellrod’s assertion of confidentiality rescinded:

Q. Does this refresh your recollection as to where they came from?

A. Yeah, it’s a show in Atlanta.

Q. Okay.

A. 2018, I think.

MR. TASHROUDIAN: All right. Can we remove the attorneys’ eyes only designation, Tony?

MR. ELLROD: Well, I — I took that off because — because it’s clear your client’s sitting next to you, but I want to keep it confidential.

MR. TASHROUDIAN: Until when? On what basis?

MR. ELLROD: Until I investigate whether or not it’s a legal recording.

It seems that, by the end of the day, they had resolved their differences on what exactly this recording was:

MR. TASHROUDIAN: All right. One other thing. You had marked the deposition confidential going forward after, on the —

MR. ELLROD:· Yeah, I’ll take that — withdraw that now.

Well, there you have it! Confidentiality withdrawn.

As I said, this is the only grievance being raised by Ellrod’s side in this new document. While I’m sure Manning & Kass genuinely would love to suppress the dissemination of evidence against their guilty client, as an observer, I suspect this protest was lodged out of concern for being on the wrong end of so many other grievances. This way, the document wouldn’t look so completely one-sided, and the U2 Fan Club could act like they’re an aggrieved party as well.

At any rate, like you, I eagerly anticipate Karl’s impending videos on Billy Mitchell’s deposition, popcorn at the ready. While this exchange of information with Karl received the brunt of Mr. Ellrod’s ire, yours truly did get a nod as well:

Awwwwww. Glad to know I’m an official, certified member of “The Twin Galaxies Disinformation Machine” as well.

TWICE THE PRICE

Okay, I know this has been a lot to read so far, but we’re down to the last two related requests, and I swear, this will make it all worth it.

This has to do with that little Pac-Man plaque Billy allegedly received during his on-stage appearance at the Tokyo Game Show in 1999, following his claimed perfect score on Pac-Man earlier that year. As we discussed in our nine-part series The Video Game Fraud of the Century, this little plaque was always presented as though it were Billy’s much-ballyhooed “Player of the Century” award, which in reality was merely a printed certificate he received from his friend and business partner Walter Day the month prior to his Japan trip. Anyway, since Billy asserted lies related to this award in his lawsuit against TG, and since those lies also relate to the counter-claim, this little plaque has become an object of scrutiny.

In the new filing, recent events are told out of chronological order, but I’ll assemble everything in the proper sequence here. For starters, Billy claimed in deposition that he donated all of his old gaming awards, including the Namco plaque, to the International Video Game Hall of Fame back in 2010 (the first year of the IVGHOF). Billy claimed to no longer even have pictures of these awards. (For decades, this guy insists that people call him “The Video Game Player of the Century” as allegedly declared by Namco themselves, and yet he wants us to think he just didn’t care to keep the one item Namco supposedly gifted him.) Anyway, so the story goes, Billy has no access to this plaque, and can’t be called upon to produce it or photos of it for the defense. The plaque just says whatever he says it does. When pressed for clarification on who may have knowledge of this donation, Billy did say that Jerry Byrum (current president of the IVGHOF) and Brian Cady (member of the Board of Directors) would be able to confirm the story about this donation.

Well, that was a mistake. It didn’t take TG long to track down both Byrum and Cady and depose them. And guess what! Neither of them knew anything about it. Surprise, surprise. I guess Billy must have gifted the plaque to two impostors. Or maybe Dwayne Richard with his time machine are somehow responsible.

While it is incumbent on the lawyers involved, and on us reporting on this case, to track down these spurious claims to at least some reasonable extent, let’s not mince words on this one. Billy lied about the plaque, and then had to tell other lies to make up for the first one. And now he’s attempting to rope others into these lies without their apparent consent. All of this, from the guy who submitted cheated Donkey Kong tapes, and who continues to misrepresent his bogus high score claims to the present day, all because he is incapable of simply admitting he lied about something.

Oh, but it gets so much worse. Last month, on June 26th, Walter Day was deposed. And during that deposition, lo and behold, Mr. Day admitted that Billy recently sent him a photo of said Namco plaque – the same one that Billy is claiming he has no access to. Whoopsie!!

Naturally, this piqued Tash’s curiosity, prompting him to ask the equivalent of “May I see it?” At first, Billy’s and Walter’s lawyers objected to any questions about the picture, citing “common interest privilege”. (Basically, since they’re co-defendants in TG’s countersuit, their communications are considered exempt from disclosure, just as their communications with their attorneys are.)

But it seems this privilege didn’t preclude Tash from requesting the picture itself, now that he had been made aware of its existence. Manning & Kass attorney Kristina Ross provided it, along with a new claim that the picture was taken on or about June 23rd by John Grunwald, an Iowa high school coach and associate of Walter Day’s, who supposedly found the award at an Ottumwa location called the Bridge View Center. (This happens to have been the site of an epsorts event the weekend of June 24-25, organized by Grunwald, at which Billy was scheduled to make an appearance, but which he ultimately did not attend.) However, as you can see above, Tash soon made contact with Grunwald, who – put on your shocked faces – said he does not have the original photograph.

Okay, okay, enough beating around the bush. Are you ready to see this picture? You are not going to believe this:

THERE. ARE. TWO. PLAQUES.

Holy moly, where do I even begin?

Okay, let’s start by looking at the known plaque Billy used to bring to events years ago:

This plaque disappeared right around the time that cell phone cameras were getting good enough to capture the actual text. Thankfully, when researching our project, we were able to find a clear photo, allowing us to provide a transcript which you can read in “Dot Seven”. The text of the plaque, which seems to be formatted in the style of a personal letter addressed to Billy from the late Namco founder Masaya Nakamura, congratulates Billy on his claimed perfect score of Pac-Man, while promoting Namco’s new “Pac-Man World” game for Playstation. Notably, however, this plaque made no mention whatsoever of Billy’s claimed title of “Video Game Player of the Century”, which he had always attributed to Namco at the time he received this plaque at the Tokyo Game Show in 1999.

So why are there now two plaques?

While this may not be adequately conveyed by the web-resolution image used above, the actual original image file provided by Kristina Ross (which they had renamed “IVGHOF”, as if to imply a sense of legitimacy) is exceptionally low-resolution by modern standards. You can see the actual image file for yourself here:

https://perfectpacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Plaques-IVGHOF.jpeg

If I may connect the dots, the reason there are now two plaques is because Billy has testified that the plaque is his “Player of the Century” award from Namco. And yet, we’ve seen the known plaque and the text on it, and we know that is not the case. Thus, in order to continue maintaining the lie, Billy has had to produce two nearly identical plaques, one of which has the same text as the original, and one which has added text, which in this photo we cannot read. Indeed, if you zoom into this new photo very closely, and focus on the largest paragraph on the plaque standing in the background, you can see that paragraph has eleven lines of text, whereas that same paragraph on both the original plaque and the new one laying flat only have nine lines.

I guess these extra lines are where Billy had the words “Video Game Player of the Century” inserted into Masaya Nakamura’s letter? Of course, if this photo was of reasonable resolution, we might be able to read the text for ourselves. In this day and age, the only way to take a photo of such low quality would be to do so deliberately.

Tash of course was quick to note the exceptionally low resolution, while also alleging the text itself was specifically blurred to make it even more illegible. (I’m not an expert on the detection of photo editing, so I’ll leave such conclusions to the reader.) Thus we arrive at Tash’s two related requests: Plaintiff Mitchell should be compelled to provide both the actual physical plaques themselves, and the original photograph from which this poor-quality copy was conjured.

But here’s the real whammy. Even with this low resolution photograph, it’s easy to spot that these new plaques are total forgeries. The Pac-Man logo, while similar to the one used on the original, is not identical. Things to look for are how thick his eye-wink is, how much space there is between his chin and his mouth, and a new little divot in his thumb.

The legs on the new standing plaque also look nothing like those that used to be attached to the old plaque (seen above). Why would Namco commission two nearly identical plaques but use different stands for each? For that matter, why would Namco commission two nearly identical plaques at all? Even if we accept Billy’s claims and evidence at face value, in what universe would any of this make any sense?

Of course, the Pac-Man logo seen on the original does not align the same way on the standing plaque. There are two more lines of text on the new one, so the plaque is just taller overall. But even if you compare the old plaque to the one laying flat in the foreground (which it seems is ostensibly supposed to be the same old plaque, rediscovered after all these years), the Pac-Man logo still doesn’t align consistently. Look in particular at the top of Pac-Man’s thumb. In the new one, it just barely reaches up to the top of the main text. But in the old one, it extends all the way up to the faux letter’s address.

Oh, and what’s the deal with this foam? If it wasn’t there, we could see the underside of the nine-line plaque, and see if it was consistent with the slightly distressed underside of the original plaque. But of course, with that there, we can’t compare the bottom or top edges of the old and new plaques at all.

Let’s be crystal clear on this: Billy arranged to have these new plaques fabricated by some trophymaker, in the style of his old Namco plaque, to justify his longstanding lie that he was named “Player of the Century” by Masaya Nakamura. There’s no other reasonable conclusion one could draw. And while it’s easy to get desensitized to any particular lie among Billy’s ongoing avalanche of bullshit, one must not miss sight of the fact that, by producing this fraudulent evidence in this manner, Billy is attempting to falsely attribute words to a deceased person. Billy never cared about the legacy of the late Masaya Nakamura. Like everyone else, Nakamura was just someone who Billy could opportunistically exploit.

This and any other new evidence will get hashed out in our eventual “Dot Ten” update to the Video Game Fraud of the Century series. However, before we continue, one more point should be raised. In our initial research, we entertained the idea that the original plaque was not a gift from Namco, but rather a creation of Billy himself, using a congratulatory paper letter from Namco as a template. It always did seem weird that Namco would fashion a plaque in the form of a personalized letter, complete with salutations and Billy’s mailing address. But since we were unable to find any indication of the existence of this plaque prior to Billy’s appearance at the Tokyo Game Show, and since Billy was invited onto Namco’s stage at the event, and since it did seem conceptually reasonable that Namco would give him a plaque to commemorate his supposedly invited visit, we remarked in “Dot Seven” that our earlier theory was probably unfounded, and that the original plaque likely was produced by Namco themselves. However, this new revelation calls all of that back into question. Producing fake plaques as his “awards” is exactly the type of thing Billy would do. Even when you think you’re finally on to how far this dude will take his lies, you end up regretting giving him even that tiny margin of consideration.

As for the other two “awards” seen in the new picture, one is an apparent reproduction of his “Player of the Century Award” certificate from Twin Galaxies, in a configuration unlike the ones we’ve seen previously. The other trophy is from Billy’s 2010 induction into the IVGHOF; that one may or may not be the genuine original, and at this point, I’m not even interested in expending energy determining if it is.

However, aside from the fact this picture was obviously taken in a hotel room, there is one more curious detail to this photo you may have noticed. Let’s zoom in on the right side:

Now, that certainly appears to be a YouTube video! Why Billy’s associate would carelessly provide this added detail, which could be used both to help identify the day in which the photo was taken and who it was taken by, I’ll never know. I guess good help is hard to come by these days. At any rate, our crack research team was able to identify the exact YouTube in question – an unrelated commentary video pertaining to some bit of K-pop drama:

Note the published date of June 24th (at least as it appears in my time zone). Billy’s lawyer did say the photo was taken “on or about June 23” (as Tash recalled it), astutely giving themselves the leeway they would need.

However, the date is not the only detail this video revealed. Guess who was in the comments below!

“Empire Arcadia” would be the personal account of longtime Billy Mitchell confederate Isaiah “Triforce” Johnson. It seems Triforce enjoys being on the wrong side of gaming controversies, from various dramas during his time in the fighting game community, to his full-throated defense of Todd Rogers’ Dragster lie, to his unending defense of Billy Mitchell despite the overwhelming evidence against him. I, for one, am still waiting for the secret evidence Triforce swore would end Jace Hall. Perhaps he left it with the secret Guinness evidence he claimed to be privy to while knowing nothing about.

So first the story was that Jerry Byrum and Brian Cady had or knew about the plaques, but when asked, both of them said they didn’t. Then suddenly a photo emerges, meaning someone currently has access to them, but Team Billy didn’t want to say who. Then the story became that John Grunwald took the photo, meaning he’d be the guy to ask. But of course, he didn’t have them either. Then, in early July, it was claimed the plaque was in the possession of a Laura Carrell, executive director of Meet Ottumwa, whose office is located at the Bridge View Center. But shocker, the plaques weren’t there either.

John Grunwald was finally deposed on July 20th – that’s this past Thursday. He testified that Triforce went to Jerry Byrum’s arcade in Ottumwa and returned with the plaques in a black trash bag, and that they laid the awards on the floor to take pictures of them. (Note that a convention center floor is not the same as a motel room table with a coffeemaker, so this obviously wouldn’t be the same photo that was provided.)

Also, did I read that correctly? Did Billy really tell Grunwald he “did not want to know where the awards were found”? Are these not important pieces of evidence he needs to prove his case in court?

The whole story becomes this dizzying tale wherein various random people each are possibly involved in the location of the plaques, leaving Tash to dutifully seek each person out and confirm that, no, they aren’t willing to say they’re the ones that found them. The purpose of this elaborate ruse seems to be to conjure a scenario seemingly consistent with at least one of the stories Billy has already given. Note above how Laura Carrell was asked by Grunwald, on behalf of Billy, to send Billy an email saying the awards were “found” – a request she found strange. Was this an attempt to forge the appearance of a paper trail confirming some element of this new attempted narrative?

So what’s the new story from Manning & Kass?

Basically “We still don’t know”.

As mentioned earlier, Billy was scheduled to make an appearance at that event in Ottumwa that weekend, but ultimately failed to appear for unspecified reasons. It’s interesting to consider how this change of plans plays into this convoluted tale. If Billy was present in Iowa that weekend when the plaques were “found” and photographed, it would be hard for him to attest to the court that he has no control over them and can’t produce them. However, sitting in his home in Florida, receiving photos of the plaques while directing people in Iowa to send him corroborating emails from a safe distance, he can then try to claim to have had no direct part in this whole fiasco. And he and his lawyers can at least nominally attempt to assert that these plaques are out in the æther, somewhere, far beyond the distant sky.

It’s worth noting that it doesn’t seem this picture of the two plaques was intended to be shared with TG in the first place. Walter Day disclosed it, thus compelling Billy’s attorneys to oblige Tash’s request for production of the photo itself. But perhaps, they had designs on keeping it a secret as long as possible. Now, one may ask, what good is evidence that’s never presented? It could be that this was intended to be a surprise revelation withheld until trial, where it would be difficult to track down all these loose threads in the time allotted while attending to the daily proceedings. (Sounds like the act of an innocent man, to me!) Thus, the hope may have been that Billy could “prove” to the jury he received a second, secret Namco plaque, the text of which only he is privy to, and maybe the jury would fall for this nonsense.

However, I wonder if there isn’t a different dynamic at play here. Allow me to be perfectly blunt: If Anthony Ellrod was as familiar with this case as he should be, he wouldn’t be trying to prolong it a day longer than he already has. He’s a founding partner of a successful legal practice, and so I would like to assume he’s not a complete fool. But he has not yet realized that there is no contingency gold at the end of this rainbow. Like others before him, he’s been accepting the confidently asserted lies of his narcissist client, thinking there’s just no way this guy could be lying about all of this. Billy knows his evidence can be shot down by the experts, but to a gullible lay person like Ellrod, it can seem compelling on its face. “Look at all these witness statements from Billy’s friends! And look at this box Billy used to ship his Donkey Kong board to Nintendo! And look, we finally found the Namco award Billy’s been telling us about!” And so I wonder if this, and perhaps other not-yet-disclosed evidence as well, is being held back at Billy’s urging simply for the purpose of maintaining the lie between himself and his lawyers, to keep them invested in his case as long as possible.

On that topic, attached as an exhibit at the end of the document is an email wherein Tashroudian responds to Ellrod’s characterization of his prior response as “flippant”. Tash illustrates the resources and energy its taken to pursue this ever-evolving lie and disprove it. Recall how dedicated people like Steve Kleisath, Carlos Pineiro, and David Race were in defending their friend and colleague, until they finally discovered everything Billy had been telling them were lies. It seems Tash, too, is wondering when the folks at Manning & Kass will finally realize their client has been lying to them all along.

As for the eventual fate of the new plaques, they were reportedly last seen with Triforce, as he flew into Fort Lauderdale on his way back home to Jamaica. Grunwald, who claimed to have paid for this flight, produced text messages showing that Billy planned to pick Triforce up from the airport.

However, in Ellord’s version, Billy was unaware of Triforce’s plans to return the plaques to him. Instead, after Triforce’s flight was reportedly delayed, Triforce allegedly shipped the awards back to Jerry Byrum in Iowa… which seems a bit weird. If the point was to return them to Billy, why not simply mail them to Billy locally?

So now, in an apparent effort to squeeze every drop they can out of this wild goose chase, Team Billy have tossed the ball back in Byrum’s court yet again. I’m sure he’s happy to be facing yet another subpoena and deposition over being implicated in Billy’s lies. Meanwhile, Triforce will almost certainly make every effort to avoid a subpoena out in the Caribbean. As for the “awards” themselves, I don’t suppose this middle-of-the-night airport shipment to Iowa will get lost in the mail, and the new plaques will just disappear forever? At any rate, Billy will continue to claim to the court that, gosh, golly, he just doesn’t have any access to these plaques, and no way to comply with any request to produce them. And while I would expect a judge to be smarter than that, perhaps Billy is rolling the dice on the possibility that she is not.

But don’t worry! Ellrod assures us that there’s no need to see the plaques themselves, or a higher resolution version of this motel room photo. After all, it’s the same plaque Billy’s always had, and you can just find photos of it online and use those instead.

While Billy already had his deposition back in January, Tash has asked the court to require he attend another one, seeking answers for these new revelations.

Back in December, when I published the letters between Billy’s lawyers and the lawyers for Guinness World Records, I predicted that 2023 would be a year of “L”s for Billy Mitchell. And so far, while public commentary has been quiet, that scenario has been playing out behind the scenes. What you’re seeing today is only a taste of it. But some of this new evidence is starting to emerge. In his January deposition, Billy sat through several hours of sworn questioning by Mr. Tash, with this award fiasco being only one item on the docket. Can you imagine what other lies Billy spun off that day? While I can’t promise anything at this time, it is my sincere hope that you won’t have to imagine it much longer.

Stay tuned!