Andre Yoskowitz
18 Sep 2008 14:36
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has declared that the lawyer Ray Beckerman is a "vexatious litigator" and is now seeking monetary damages in an effort to punish him for his defense of a NY woman in a recent P2P case.
Beckerman, one of the few lawyers who defends alleged file sharers, is also a blogger and that point is at the heart of the new case. The RIAA says Ray "has maintained an anti-recording industry blog during the course of this case and has consistently posted virtually every one of his baseless motions on his blog seeking to bolster his public relations campaign and embarrass plaintiffs. Such vexatious conduct demeans the integrity of these judicial proceedings and warrants this imposition of sanctions."
Lory Lybeck, a Washington state defense attorney is in charge of a soon-coming class-action lawsuit against the RIAA laughed at the move and noted that this is the same organization that has sued 7-year old children, 90-year old grandmothers, a printer and even the deceased, all while using the unlicensed investigator Media Sentry.
"This is like irony and irony and irony," Lybeck said. "That's what vexatious litigation is."
"Irony is too tame of a word to describe the motion against Ray," Lybeck added. "Their whole 30,000-lawsuit scheme is founded on the purpose to run a PR campaign based on a fundamental starting place of an illegal investigation by unlicensed investigators and then a threatening letter...Ray is duty bound and ethically bound to zealously defend his client."
In response, Beckerman agreed, saying the allegations were "frivolous and irresponsible."
The case against Beckerman is also seeking monetary damages from the woman he defended in 2004, Marie Lindor, accusing her of destroying evidence.
"Here, sanctions are appropriate because defendant, her family, and her counsel engaged in a deliberate pattern of misconduct by providing false, misleading, and incomplete information as to the status of defendant’s Internet service in August 2004, who resided in defendant’s home during that time, the identity and location of witnesses with information about the case, and the existence and owner of the computer connected to defendant’s Internet account at the time of infringement. …Defendant’s misrepresentations caused plaintiffs and the court to waste substantial resources chasing empty leads and ultimately led to the destruction of critical evidence in this case. The actions of defendant and her counsel have caused Plaintiffs to engage in additional discovery at great time and expense, prolonged this litigation unnecessarily, and resulted in the destruction of critical computer evidence severely and irreparably prejudicing plaintiffs’ ability to prove their case."