Government Knocks Hansmeier's Attempt To Talk Court Out Of Federal Prosecution

Legal Issues

from the a-fraudulent-scheme-is-made-of-small-interconnected-acts dept

Paul Hansmeier — bankrupt both in moral and financial terms — is facing the blackness awaiting him at the bottom of a hole he dug himself. After engaging in copyright trolling, fraud, Disability Act trolling, more fraud, and generally embodying everything anyone hates about lawyers, he’s now facing a multi-charge federal indictment. Fortunately for him, his representation is far more competent than he is.

His public defender crafted a motion to dismiss masterpiece, epic in length and containing a multitude of creative assertions that culminated in a not-completely-wrong point: to convict Hansmeier for engaging in bad-faith litigation would create a chilling effect on the act of litigation. Not included in this analysis of the issues was the fact that Hansmeier’s copyright trolling also involved fraudulent behavior, which is the sort of thing most vexatious litigants manage to avoid.

It was a fun read, as far as motions to dismiss go. One over-the-top argument followed another until everything, including the reader, was exhausted.

The government has responded to the motion to dismiss. [h/t Sophisticated Jane Doe] Fortunately, the government cuts to the chase. It goes after the “litigation chilling effect” argument raised by Hansmeier’s lawyer. From the government’s reply [PDF]:

Defendant Hansmeier moves the court to dismiss Counts 1-17 of the Indictment. Hansmeier argues the detailed allegations set forth in the Indictment do not state an offense, and asserts the charges brought by the government impermissibly infringe on his “constitutionally-protected” right to engage in frivolous civil litigation. Unfortunately for Hansmeier, no such right exists. There is no safe harbor for fraud simply because one of the tools of the fraud involved litigation.

The government goes on to point out Prenda did not just engage in speculative invoicing.

Moreover, Hansmeier and his co-defendant, John Steele, did not simply file dubious lawsuits. They constructed an elaborate ruse designed to deceive people—state and federal judges as well as numerous victims who paid settlement fees to them—and, for that reason, violated the mail and wire fraud statutes. Hansmeier’s attempt to confuse this issue, through a convoluted 64-page memorandum wherein he pretends to champion the rights of unethical litigators and thereby create a strawman to save himself, should be rejected.

It attacks the assertions of the motion to dismiss, noting that separating each and every aspect of Prenda’s schemes in order to make them appear singularly non-criminal is pretty much like denying a forest exists because it’s just a bunch of single trees standing in the same general area.

Defendant also attempts to isolate each part of the scheme, arguing that each facet standing alone cannot state a fraudulent offense. However, the defendant did not commit each act in isolation. He did not merely breach his ethical obligations to the court. He did not solely mislead the court about the nature of his copyright infringement claims, or conceal his surreptitious ownership of his clients and their pornographic content. The indictment charges a multi-faceted scheme designed to deceive various courts and internet subscribers, and when viewed in its totality clearly describes a scheme to defraud.

The rest of the government’s opposition motion details Prenda’s fraud in greater detail, linking up all of Hansmeier’s (and Steele’s) illegal activities, which went far beyond simply filing lawsuits they knew to be meritless. Hansmeier’s attempt to use civil litigation as a shield against prosecution fails for all the reasons listed in the government’s reply: mainly that engaging in fraud during civil litigation doesn’t immunize you from prosecution. Nor does Hansmeier’s attempt to portray this all as something no more serious than an ethical violation find any sympathy. Again, the government points to Prenda’s long history of fraud, perjury, and concealment.

The government also has an issue with the motion’s demand for a better explanation of the charges than what’s contained in the rather voluminous indictment. GFY motion entered:

Hansmeier also seeks to have the government define and explain the boundary between fraud and legality. The government is not required to prepare a treatise for the defendant explaining why precisely his conduct constitutes fraud. The defendants used various methods—all of which are described in the Indictment—to deceive state and federal courts into allowing them to pursue early discovery, and then tricked numerous individuals into parting with their money. The indictment in this case is more than sufficiently detailed, and has been supplemented by voluminous governmental disclosures that have gone well beyond what the government is legally obligated to provide.

In other words, the government was just as exhausted by the end of Hansmeier’s 64-page motion as the rest of us were. It’s ready to prosecute and Hansmeier is trying to argue it all away as though the grand jury had returned a dozen single-count indictments over several months or years, rather than the multi-count indictment tying all of Prenda’s bad behavior together.

Filed Under: doj, fraud, paul hansmeier
Companies: prenda, prenda law