perfectpacman.com has received its first legal threat

by ersatz_cats

Yes, you have read the title correctly. It’s true. perfectpacman.com has received its first legal threat. Or at least, it purports to be a legal threat. I’m not sure yet how sincere it is. Nonetheless, someone is not happy about something they saw on this site.

However, surprisingly, this did not come from anyone in the established gaming Legion of Doom seen above. It’s not exactly a new player to the scene, it’s just someone I didn’t bother including when I did that mockup.

No, this new legal threat is not from Billy Mitchell, or anyone currently in his camp. That means no Triforce, or Todd Rogers, or Walter Day. Neither is it from Jirard Khalil, or Tommy Tallarico. I also haven’t heard a peep from the likes of Kryssstal, or Riolu, or Dream, or Kevin Durden, or Mike Damiani.

No, this new legal threat was from…

Patrick. Scott. Patterson.

I know, I know. Based on things I’ve seen said about Mr. Patterson on other sites, some of you are saying “This actually doesn’t surprise me at all.” But for the uninitiated, let me offer a glimpse of who this guy is.

MY BRIEF HISTORY WITH PATRICK SCOTT PATTERSON

Truthfully, I don’t have an extensive history with Patrick. He was one of many figures I encountered as I began more heavily researching the Billy Mitchell and Todd Rogers cases in 2018. I’d heard many poor opinions of him, but I learned years ago to come to my own conclusions about people. I always listen to warnings folks have to say, but I make up my own mind. So I socialized with Patrick a bit on Twitter. I even shared this funny meme he posted, which as far as I know originated from him:

All of that changed with the 2019 prototype incident. Pat the NES Punk (a good Pat) covered this story well, but for those who don’t know, in Mr. Patterson’s role as a self-styled “games preservationist” and owner of “VideoGamePreservation” dot com (a site I will not link because the domain has lapsed), he was donated some one-of-a-kind video game prototypes, including a Game Boy adaptation of Akira, “Heavy Weight Hockey” on NES, and “Mall Rats” on Genesis / Mega Drive. Obviously, the intention of the donation was that the games – both the physical cartridges and the data stored on them – be preserved. That’s why someone would donate them to a known “preservationist”, right?

Instead, Patterson flipped these prototypes on eBay for a profit. Of course, he attempted to spin this cash-grab as positively as possible:

Plans changed, and not by design but by fate. Other opportunities outside of the video game world presented themselves and between that and family, we found ourselves without time to keep to our grandiose plans for items like this one. The end result saw these items just sitting stored away like they had for years previously, which defeats the intent of preservation in the first place.

Even worse, in the sale description, Patterson promoted these as “undumped”. To explain the implications, “undumped” means “We never bothered to copy the game data off this cartridge to preserve it.” There are many people with the tools to do this who are eager to serve their hobby. And in the field of games preservation, dumping cartridge data is necessary, both because it’s the only way most people will ever experience rare games, but also because any external media can fail at any time. Imagine allowing a one-of-a-kind game or prototype to disappear forever because the EPROMs finally die out, and you never bothered to copy the data. However – and this is where Patterson’s malfeasance becomes blatant – there are collectors (perhaps the words “scalpers” or “hoarders” are more accurate) who put extra value on items being one-of-a-kind. Sure, they may pay $1000 for a rare game cartridge, but they’ll pay $3000 if nobody else can play the game they now own. I won’t pretend to understand the mindset of those who would deprive the world of art that would make everyone happier, or why their egos need such selfish gratification, but those people do exist.

So to recap, Patrick Scott Patterson took one-of-a-kind artifacts which he acknowledges were donated to his “preservation” project, and sold them to the highest bidder. And instead of having the data dumped first, he promoted that they were undumped, presumably because that fact would boost their sale price. One could speculate that he could have secretly had the prototypes dumped first and then lied about it to the bidders, but that would still mean he’s an eBay scammer for selling items with falsified descriptions. Meanwhile, if you check his Twitter feed at that time, dude was constantly bragging about buying and flipping collectibles, and you know he keeps a share of those for his own collection, so it’s not like he was on the street starving.

As my friends will attest, I’m a 7th-degree Shihan black belt in the art of trying to understand reasonable motivations for what appear to be unreasonable actions. Obviously, you have to be careful with this, lest you find yourself identifying with abusive people. But the truth is, you really don’t know what folks have going on in their lives, and how that colors their perspectives and influences their actions. You have to take a moment to put yourself in other people’s shoes, or else you become part of the problem. And you also need to give people space to say “Wow, okay, you’re right, I fucked up there.” With all of that said, as much as I tried to wrap my head around this prototype conundrum, there was no innocent explanation for it. None. Patterson posted a disclaimer to his “VideoGamePreservation” site, basically saying (paraphrased) “Gosh, the project got overwhelming, so I had to sell all the stuff that was given to me”, while leaving out the fact that he didn’t dump the media, or that he had the option to pass it on to a legitimate foundation for games preservation, or that he used its “undumped” status to pump the price. (That page doesn’t seem to be properly archived, but I have a screenshot of it here.) Patterson then tried to spin all this with a giant word salad on his personal Facebook, which I will not link, about the effects of stress on his life, because he’s the real victim. (Of course it would be stressful to be publicly called out for disgusting behavior.)

(Note that the above tweet, formerly located here, has since disappeared. Part of me now wonders if discussion of Patterson’s misdeeds has disappeared because of legal threats such as the one I’ve received now.)

And while I had previously been willing to overlook other unverified rumors about Mr. Patterson, in my mind, all of this brought weight to other implications of shady dealings. For instance, a guy who would do this would definitely be willing to fake a kill screen on Donkey Kong, as PSP has been accused of doing. Oh, and it certainly informed my opinion of his decision to lie to the community in 2010 about Billy Mitchell’s cheated Donkey Kong scores:

For brevity, I’m not going to get into the whole story here. Patterson later admitted he knew this baloney wasn’t accurate, but felt pressured to say it because someone at TG owed him money, and he needed to stay in their good graces. (Apologies for the lack of links here; I’m trying to get back to more important work.) Again, I try to be sympathetic, and I accepted this explanation at the time I first heard it. Patterson wasn’t the only person who allowed himself to be caught in the grind of the Twin Galaxies “old guard”. But the prototype scandal cast new light on this as well. It was a true “Oh, this is who he is” moment.

And so I ceased communication with Mr. Patterson at that time, in April 2019. And as far as I recall, that was the last I’d heard from him… until last Monday, October 7th.

THE THREAT

So there I was, trying to finish my “Ellrod’s folly” update before the sixth day of the Karl Jobst / Billy Mitchell trial began that evening (my time), when I received this message:

Before I go any further, for legal reasons, I should be clear that I’m not representing to you, my faithful readers, that this message was 100% stone cold confirmed without a doubt to be from actual Patrick Scott Patterson in the flesh himself. It’s the Internet, and there are a lot of wacky things that go on. It was from his real account on Twitter (or “X” or whatever the exploding truck guy calls his pet site now), meaning when I click through on that user pic at the top, I end up here. And no, I don’t believe Patrick was “hAcKeD” by some mysterious online entity. But, you know, maybe he has a teenage kid or a spouse who jumped on his already-logged-in computer at home and decided to have some fun at both our expenses. Hey, it’s possible! I’m just trying to be mindful of the circumstances at play, and how those circumstances may affect any legal obligations or conclusions I may have. If Patrick publicly disavows this threat, and assists in identifying who sent it on his behalf, I would be happy to note that retraction here. However, with those caveats duly noted, I will continue with this assessment speaking of the threat as though it comes from Patrick himself.

Now, as you can see indicated by my red redaction, Patrick included a name. I’m not going to say at this time whether this name was accurate. What’s important is that he believes it is. This is obviously an attempt to intimidate me. “I know where I can find you, buster!” (Or at least, he believe he does.) So right away, I’m just not particularly inclined to respond constructively to threats from bullies trying to throw their weight around.

But as you can see, Patrick Scott Patterson is BIG MAD about the people mocking him on this site’s comments section. Why he would admit this so readily, I’m not sure. I’d probably keep that to myself, if I were him. As far as his legal threat goes, the problem is, aside from anything specifically bearing my nom de plume, I didn’t write any of that bullshit. Most of what I assume he’s upset about is not my style at all.

The whole thing reads like a copypasta bit. “I’m a twenty-year Marines drill instructor who knows forty-seven forms of karate and I am prepared to violently force your compliance if necessary.” Except in this case, I have no doubt Mr. Patterson believes he’s 100% serious.

My personal favorite part though is how he ends this blatant legal threat with “You can call me directly if you wish to discuss”, which is another way of saying “I have no lawyer to speak to” LMAAAAAAOOOOOOO.

BTW, a pro life tip for you all: Do not ever have a “friendly chat” with anyone threatening to sue you. How am I supposed to trust that Patrick Scott Patterson won’t lie about things I “said” in our spoken conversation? Even if I said all the right things, what’s to stop him from framing them disingenuously? After all, it would be his word against mine. The nanosecond legal action is on the table, all oral communications must immediately cease, and any written messages must be dry, and carefully written, and must go through official channels only. (Note that I’m a bit loose with this post, because this is intended for the entertainment of my readers, and because unlike Patrick Scott Patterson I have at least some idea what I’m doing.)

There are so many ways in which this threat is baffling. Had he just asked politely, I would’ve at least considered his request. Instead, he thinks he’s going to fling demands with absolutely no leverage to back them up? He thinks this is going to successfully suppress criticism of him? He wants compliance… from the guy spending his free time writing voluminous treatises about Billy Mitchell… who is backed up by a team of relentless researchers… and his plan… is to antagonize all of them?

For what it’s worth, I tried to track down which comment Patrick was referring to when he told me “yOu hAvE sEeMiNgLy eNgAgEd iN iT yOuRsElF oN aT LeAsT oNe OcCaSiOn”. I’m pretty sure that was referring to this notice I posted in the replies to “Day 4”:

But I’m sure, given the background we’ve already covered, people will understand why that comment was not defamatory.

Let’s be clear about one thing: I do not give one single solitary shit whether people I don’t even know make fun of Patrick Scott Patterson. Yes, it is possible for anything to be taken too far, but I don’t have to be invested in whether two strangers have a contest for who’s the bigger arsehole.

Obviously I’m going to think Patrick Scott Patterson is a piece of shit when he’s sending me legal threats over things I didn’t even do. But this isn’t even about whether I like the guy or not. Unlike Mr. Patterson, I’m a fan of Robert Mruczek. Yes, Robert trusted the wrong people at times, but so many would have made those same mistakes in his place, whether they will admit it or not. Dude probably deserves a fucking statue somewhere for all the thankless, unpaid work he did chronicling competitive gaming history in its early years, and yet it seems all he ever gets for it is a ration of shit. We literally wouldn’t have any evidence around Billy’s missing 1.014m tape if not for Mruczek’s score analysis. With that said, I still don’t care if trolls in the comments section mock him, or call him “Slobert PubeCheck”, or make fun of his art collection, and I’m not inclined to censor that activity strictly because I like the guy. If nothing else, that would introduce an ethical dilemma of its own. That would be me saying “Oh, you can mock these people I don’t like, but don’t you dare mock these other people who are my friends.” Hell, they make fun of me too, and I allow it:

My primary concern, in this regard, is helping make sure people don’t believe a comment comes from any particular real life “Patrick Scott Patterson”, or “Robert Mruczek”, or “Triforce Johnson”, or whoever, just because someone enters that name with their contribution. Note that I wouldn’t call this my “responsibility”, as I’m not the one posting any of the nonsense. Let’s just call it something I would strive for. And if you scroll through, you’ll see comments from me to that end, when I think that maybe a particular caricature pushes a bit too close to that line:

ARGUMENTS

Okay, so let’s take a look at the basis for Patterson’s “claim” against me, shall we?

For starters, legally speaking, how am I supposed to know these are mockeries of him in particular? I’m sure there are many Patrick Pattersons in the world, and surely some number of them have the middle name “Scott” as well. What if some other Patrick Scott Patterson is really down on himself, and is using the Internet to work through some emotions of guilt and self-pity? And then this flaming douchebag comes along and says “Hey Mistur! Ah own a trademark on the name Patrick Scott Patterson! You have to stop immediately because your depression is defaming me!” And… simultaneously, it’s somehow my fault?

Which gets to the next line of questioning: Is he really going to sue me for “defamation” over what other people said about him? Does he sue a YouTuber because someone posts nasty replies in their comments? Hell, does he sue YouTube for allowing those comments to be posted? Does he sue Comcast for transmitting unfavorable remarks to his home computer screen? Or Dell for producing the monitors displaying them? If he wanted, he could go after the people who are actually making these allegedly defamatory statements, and if he issued me a legal subpoena requesting what identifying information I may have, I would comply to the extent required. But that’s apparently not what he wants.

And even then, I struggle to see how these replies constitute actionable “defamation” on their face. To that point, as an academic exercise, let’s take a look at some of these comments, starting on the mild end of things. We’ll begin with this direct reply to my musing about Mr. Patterson being a loser:

Obviously it’s a comedic bit to portray Patrick as unintelligent, and simultaneously poor and hungry for chicken wings. Oh, and the author portrays Patterson as inclined to file frivolous lawsuits – and that was two weeks before I received this legal threat on October 7th. I mean, I guess the imputation that he’s too poor to afford a fridge or stove is probably inaccurate? But why would anybody assume this is true, especially based on some random Internet remark by someone who can’t even spell Patrick’s name right?

Again with the misspelled name. I take it “brother” here is a Hogan-esque reference to Patrick’s time as a wrestler? I can’t say the bit about him taking bribes is particularly inaccurate, given Patterson’s own admission that he promoted Billy’s fake scores in anticipation of a payday. As for the illustration of “Patrcik” charging hot wings to his neighbor, while that would be a civil violation worthy of small claims court, given the context, I sincerely doubt anyone believes any of this really happened. (And I also have yet to hear from anyone named “Patrcik” claiming they were defamed as a result.)

As I was drafting all this, another one came in:

Am I supposed to take this as a serious claim that Patrick Scott Patterson has a copyright on farting? Does this comment somehow malign Patterson’s “good name”? Is it really my responsibility to delete this, just in case some idiot walks away with the mistaken impression that Patrick Scott Patterson invented flatulence?

But hey, these are easy to laugh at and dismiss. Only an unmitigated loser would threaten to sue a bystander over garbage like that. So instead, let’s take a look at one of the more extreme examples of Patterson mockery, again, as an academic exercise:

Before I go any further, yes, this is crass, and it is highly vulgar. It’s not my style of humor at all, I would never write this, I didn’t ask for it, and I don’t particularly want stuff like this on the site. But – and I know this is a bit of nuance some folks struggle with – I also don’t want to be the type of person who only allows the kinds of humor I personally appreciate. That’s the point of allowing comments and replies: People will say things that you would not. Otherwise, your site (page, YouTube channel, whatever) just becomes a big hugbox, and that’s the last thing I’d want. It’s a microcosm of a broader philosophical principle: Defending free speech, at times, requires defending things you disagree with, or would not say yourself.

So let me go through the list of things I consider when seeing a comment like this. First of all, as we’ve said, there’s nothing that particularly indicates which “Patrick Scott Patterson” in the world this refers to, so the idea that this is defaming any particular “Patrick Scott Patterson” has no legal basis. But for the sake of argument, let’s proceed with our discussion under the assumption that the given username is a reference to the meathead seen above in the Drew Barrymore shirt. (Bear in mind also, it was Patrick and not anyone named “Evelyn” protesting this comment as defamation.)

If I believed this was written by our Patrick Scott Patterson, I would have removed it, because it could be interpreted as a threat to do these things to others. But it was very obviously not written by him. It’s just some tasteless dipshit somewhere wanking it to his own imagination.

I also looked to see if the encounter being illustrated was being portrayed as non-consensual within its fictional universe. In other words, is this a depiction of you-know-what? But it’s clearly not portrayed that way. Each of the author’s characters seem to be joining in willingly.

Lastly, I would sit here and tell you I have no way of knowing whether or not the claims made in the comment are real or not – and it’s true that I don’t strictly have proof either way. But I’m not going to do that here, because this is obviously just some bullshit some idiot wrote. Does Patrick expect me to police the Internet for him? Is it my job to make sure people aren’t saying things Patrick doesn’t like?

Nobody – and I mean nobody – read that comment and thought it was an accurate description of a real encounter. Not one person on this planet. Nobody, nobody, no one, not a single entity in the history of the universe. I triple-dog dare Patrick Scott Patterson to make one of his dipshit friends go up on the stand and lie and say “Uuuuhhhhh, well, I used to have a high estimation of Patrick Scott Patterson’s reputation, but after I saw these serious allegations of ejaculatory misconduct, I cancelled all his convention appearances, and kicked him out of his home.”

And at that point, we get into the question of damages. If nobody believes this tripe, then how exactly does it harm him? Is he gonna pull a Silly Bitchell and lie and say it gave him a hernia? Or atrial fibrillation? Is he gonna testify in several lawsuits and claim each time “The damage from all those other defamations was minimal compared to this”?

Patrick… listen… It’s just some fuckhead on the Internet. Fuckheads on the Internet will say all kinds of nasty shit about you, especially when you give them a reaction like this. You don’t have to read any of it, and bullshit like that won’t affect you unless you allow it to. Let. It. Go.

And it’s not like we’re talking about some poor awkward fourteen-year-old who doesn’t know how to handle the stress of social media. This is a public figure doing this, who as recently as July was appearing in yet another personal profile on television news. He wants the “People are talking about me” life, and lemme tell you sir, that life goes both ways. Especially when you’re an established scam artist.

But then I have to remember, Patrick’s out here trying to sue a bunch of random people, and thus playing directly into his existing negative reputation. So I have to wonder if maybe he’s one of these twisted crazies who enjoys having this negative reputation while constantly complaining about it. Who fucking knows, man? Some people are just nuts.

OUT OF THE BAG

Ah, but here’s where the plot really thickens. Remember that name I blocked out in red? Again, I’m not going to confirm at this time whether the name is real or not. (I will say, it is a name I have given to a very select few people.) However, I can say this, with absolutely no doubt whatsoever in my mind: There is only one person on this entire planet who would have provided that name to Patrick Scott Patterson.

I can already hear Catherine DeSpira protesting “How dare you drag me into your wild conspiracy theories” as if she doesn’t know exactly what she did. Again, from my perspective, it’s very simple. There does not exist anybody else who would’ve given that guy that name.

I probably have enough material on Ms. DeSpira to do a write-up on just her one day, so I suppose I’ll save some of the finer details. But for now, I’ll go over an abbreviated accounting of my interactions with her. Admittedly, there’s a part of me that’s still genuinely sympathetic to the fact that Ms. DeSpira has been the target of some pretty vile misogyny from some in the community. That simply must be acknowledged before I continue. With that said, she goes to great lengths to make even that much sympathy difficult to express.

For starters, she’s just very rude, so frequently, to people she hardly knows, and often for no discernable reason. Like, sure, it is Cat’s right to conduct herself in that fashion if she wants, but I don’t see why I should give a shit how she’s viewed in the broader gaming community when she doesn’t appear to care herself.

Oh, but this goes way beyond issues of mere demeanor. Over the two years or so I maintained contact with her, she would occasionally send me random stuff, about Richie Knucklez opening an illegal arcade, or Billy Mitchell giving hot sauce to a “Women for Trump” group, or some ages-old legal battle between Namco and Corn Nuts. I’m not gonna say this material wasn’t interesting on some level, but it was never the stuff I was actively looking for. If you ever asked Cat DeSpira for something, it was always “Oh, I know I have it somewhere, probably on another hard drive, I’ll look for it later.” And then it never surfaced. It came to be like asking Todd Rogers for his world record videos. They definitely for sure existed, because as everyone knew this person absolutely had the goods, but fuck if you’d ever see them. Meanwhile, Cat would complain constantly on Twitter about never getting credit for all her work. Personally, I didn’t care if she gave the research to me, in which case I’d credit her, or if she published it on her own blog where I could link it. I just wanted whatever she claimed to have out there where it could be cited going forward. That’s what a journalist and historian does. They publish shit.

Eventually, a small group of us started researching Billy Mitchell’s “perfect Pac-Man” and “player of the century” myths more closely. Cat was never at any time a member of this group, but in service of this project, I did reach out to her again, hoping to make our work as complete as possible. Once again, same deal. Nothing of value. Soon afterward, Cat blew up over, of all things, the fact I voted for Bernie Sanders, lmao. Part of me wondered if that was just an excuse to avoid fulfilling anything. I ceased contact with Cat at that time, and my research collaborators and I proceeded to work on what became the “Video Game Fraud of the Century” project (a.k.a., the “Dot” series) without her involvement.

But sure, of her own accord, Ms. DeSpira had done valuable “research” into things like early Pac-Man history – or so I thought. So we still compiled her public postings of newspaper clippings regarding early Pac-Man high scores, properly noting where these items had been acquired from. And obviously the plan was to credit her for those. I don’t have to like someone to acknowledge their work. Meanwhile, we sourced actual newspaper scans to replace the images she posted, you know, just to be thorough, just in case. (And thank goodness we did!)

If you did the deep dive on that project, and read “Dot Two Supplemental”, you have an idea of what happened next. At the absolute last possible fucking minute prior to publication of “Dot Two”, I noticed a major discrepancy between what I had written (based on a newspaper clipping posted by DeSpira) and the legitimately sourced article we later acquired for display.

The original, legitimate copy included a high score claim of 3,999,420. (This was impossible as a single run on original Pac-Man, but it may have been a “stitched” score, or who knows, maybe just a lie outright.) However, someone had taken that legitimate print, and photoshopped a bunch of “3”s to make the score just a hair above the now-known perfect score of 3,333,360. If you zoom in super-close, the fakery is obvious. The same “3” was used each time, and they weren’t even aligned terribly well. Someone did that deliberately, and that someone… then posted the photoshopped version… to Cat DeSpira’s Twitter.

Her comments certainly give the impression that she knows the newspaper was bogus. She doesn’t go around labeling all her other newspaper clippings, including those with impossible scores, as “unvetted”. Was this her built-in excuse if someone caught her? And if it was “unvetted” in the first place, why would she not simply use her newspaper archive subscription to call up the original copy, as we did? Also, I wouldn’t say I’m the expert, but I do believe her claim that early Pac-Man boards “scored differently” is dubious. And even if I set all of that aside, and don my “What’s the innocent explanation” black belt, where could this clipping have come from? This was very deliberately done by a person, either Cat herself or someone who gave this to Cat, and honestly, we have a right to know who that someone is.

Based on this discovery, I made the call – again, at the last possible moment – to scrub links to Cat’s “research” from the project. And of course I hastily rewrote the aforementioned supplemental note, acknowledging Cat’s forgery. We had sourced everything independently, anyway. The links – which were limited to high scores reported in old newspapers – were intended as a courtesy nod to her “work”, which could no longer be trusted.

Even worse, Cat was later notified about this photoshopped newspaper, and was linked directly to that falsified clipping on her Twitter page. (You can see that whole exchange here.) Instead of apologizing, removing the offending material, and offering some explanation of where this photoshopped newspaper came from, she accused me of “credibility fishing” and “looking for smoking gun conspiracy theories”. Wow!! She certainly seemed way more offended at me for politely asking the question than at any theoretical person who hypothetically gave this vandalized newspaper to her to publish. Worst of all, as I write this on the 15th of October, Year of Our Lord 2024, her tweet with the photoshopped newspaper is still unchanged! That’s astonishing!! Imagine how offensive it is to trawl through old newspapers, only to discover a self-styled “historian” has been defacing these historical artifacts. This is a frankly outrageous case of journalistic malpractice, one which instantly turns all of Cat’s other “valuable” work radioactive. How many times has she done this, and no one caught it? How could I trust anything she posts, no matter how legitimate it may otherwise appear to be? How much has Cat DeSpira knowingly polluted the chronicles of video game history?

Of course, none of this stopped her from diminishing our project based on the fact I write under a pseudonym (which could be the most ironic thing anyone has ever said), and then later lying to her audience to take credit for our work:

LMAO Yes, you heard it here, folks. As of February 21st of this year, fifty percent of this blog is just stuff Cat fucking DeSpira sent me hahahahahaha. (And that was her response to me at least attempting to be cordial and credit her with something.)

Returning to the present day, when I looked into Patrick Scott Patterson’s recent Twitter activity, sure enough, there I found him and Cat DeSpira chatting about “being impersonated” while having their usual pity party about being the only ones who saw the truth:

I’m not going to tell you that either Cat or Pat are any more responsible for sustaining Billy Mitchell’s legacy of lies than anyone else in that corrupt circle (although you can posit otherwise if you want). Overall, it’s a complicated situation, and I sympathize with those who were taken advantage of. But it’s still wild how they talk about it. Guys like Carlos Pineiro and David Race openly acknowledge and regret what they did trying to defend Billy, when they believed his lies. They’re not out prioritizing their own egos over the need to continue speaking up. If you just listened to DeSpira and Patterson, you’d think they were never every bit as much a part of that entourage and that machine as those around them.

None of this directly implies Cat’s involvement in Puddinhead Patterson’s legal threat, of course. But again, the fact that she’s the only person in the entire Milky Way Galaxy who would have given that name to Patterson very much does.

So did Cat DeSpira urge Patterson to send his threat? Is she also advising Patterson on his legal strategy? Is she providing material support for Patterson’s planned lawsuit? Is she intending to appear as a witness in Patterson’s case? Or possibly even join in as a plaintiff herself? I think I have a right to know these things, and if Patterson does go through with his threat, I’m sure I’ll find out.

THE PROCESS

As we’ve discussed in relation to Billy Mitchell’s various litigious outbursts, lawsuits are an attempt to destroy people’s lives. In issuing these threats, Patrick Scott Patterson is, in fact, threatening to personally ruin me. (Cat is too, if she’s actively involved.) Now, he may not think of it that way. He’s probably used to achieving compliance for his unreasonable demands, and then giving up when the going gets rough. But who knows? As has also been observed, it’s so easy to file some half-assed pro se complaint, and it’s so much more expensive and time-consuming to properly defend against it. So does Patrick Scott Patterson believe he’s going to bleed me of resources?

What he may not have really grasped is that a defamation claim, carried through to its conclusion, is a long-ass process. It’s this day and this day and this day and this day and this day and this day, and the years that preceded it. And the thing is, you know that I’m here for it. Motherfucker, I do this shit as a hobby.

I’m not going to file for a subpoena or injunction or anything formal until Mr. Patterson’s threat becomes realized, but I will say one thing here and now to Mr. Patterson – and Patrick, I know you’re reading this – Save your DMs now. Save your emails, Discord messages, Facebook messages, Twitter/X DMs, private messages, app communications, social media notifications, text messages, postal correspondence, printed memoranda, facsimiles, telegrams, audio recordings, phone records, electronic attachments, portable electronic media, documents, carrier pigeon missives, smoke signals, and semaphore logs. Do not delete or alter or destroy or make inaccessible any electronic or printed or otherwise recorded communications, or backups of same, involving any of the individuals or topics discussed in my perfectpacman.com posts and/or its replies, between you and anyone else even remotely connected to any of these topics, including but not limited to anyone who may have helped write, assisted with, contributed toward, consulted on, advised regarding, supplied information for, or reviewed drafts for what ultimately became your message to me on 7 October 2024. Sir, if you go through with this, I will want it all, and being that you would be the plaintiff, I will have a legal right to all of it, and you will have no excuse for having “lost” it.

At this juncture, I do not wish to hear from Mr. Patterson again until his legal complaint has been formally filed and can be responded to in that venue. And if he never files, then I’ll be happy to never hear from him for the rest of eternity. Meanwhile, while I understand there’s a price to be paid whenever reporting on the misconduct of certain unhinged individuals, if they could invent a way to hear from Cat DeSpira less than never, I would be all for it. I do wish Patrick Scott Patterson the best of luck in finding the big boy pants he seems to have misplaced, and I wish both he and Cat DeSpira a big hearty bowl of eat shit.

Oh, and if you, my fine and educated readers, are disappointed in the delays in getting out the latest Karl Jobst / Billy Mitchell trial updates, you can “thank” this guy. Granted, his threat came in a few hours prior to the “Day 6” hearing, but no matter how you feel about receiving a threat like this, it’s going to take your mind off your work. I did manage to finish the Anthony Ellrod update prior to the beginning of that hearing, but I had something else important to finish as well, which had to be put off until the next morning, delaying work on the actual “Day 6” write-up. And obviously, I’ve chosen to prioritize this notice over starting work on the “Day 7” update. You can blame me for that choice, or you can blame the guy sending me dogshit legal threats as I’m trying to do this important work. I leave that decision up to you all.

More urgently, I need to properly prepare myself for this impending legal battle. So I bring to you all the following request: If you have evidence of misconduct by either Patrick Scott Patterson or Catherine DeSpira relating to this or any other related topic, I would very much like that in my inbox at your earliest convenience. I’m not looking for more rumors, or general shit-talk, as there’s plenty of that available. What I need to do, in the face of this lawsuit threat, is start collecting evidence. I don’t know when Patterson or DeSpira will make their next moves, and I’d like to be prepared for when they do.

I will admit, this sort of conduct from Mr. Patterson and Ms. DeSpira does anger me, on some level. But I would like to end this post on a lighter note. As you may recall, I made the choice to curate replies to “Day 6” a little more heavily. I assure you all, that was a decision I had already made prior to receiving Patrick’s threat, based on public feedback, and I went through with that decision regardless of what ol’ Puddinhead had to say. I thank those of you who honored my request to keep that post’s replies free of nonsense. And here’s where your consideration is rewarded. This post will feature as little moderation as I have to do. My blanket rules are still in effect: No bigotry (inclusive of misogyny), no doxxing or pseudo-doxxing, no serious allegations of major wrongdoings that aren’t justified (jokey bullshit is fine), no blaming people for suicides, and nothing that would hypothetically involve visits from the FBI or federal prison time. Otherwise, go ham, folks! (I bet the one dipshit who insisted on getting banned from “Day 6” regrets that now, lol.) Just assume everything posted below is complete and utter horseshit, and nobody is who they say they are.

Thanks as always for reading! I… guess I should get started on “Day 7” now, huh?