Preston Poulter et al v. Ali "Dean" Assaf et al (2021)

[Shaka Brah]

I thought Vikki would get fucked from not addressing the court at all. I honestly never thought a real judge would let something like this go forward past the initial stage.

My guess is most of the actual examination was done by a clerk, and the clerk said "ok service was rendered (process server testified) seems good" and rubber-stamped it. It might get thrown out the second it gets to a real hearing, but we're not even there yet.

With cases like these the arguments are taken largely at face value until the first hearing. Listen to the Patrick S. Tomlinson court recordings for a good example of this. His case was totally frivolous and he lost bigtime, but it had to be presented formally to the judge and litigated with thousands in lawyer's fees involved despite the judge being openly hostile to the argument his counsel was making.

 

[Captain Manning]

I took the liberty of clipping the lawsuit-related portion of @FROG's livesteam from Feb 8th for local archive. I think this is the first time he's talked about the lawsuit at great length in a long while, so it belongs in this thread.

Manning is right. I'm a little stunned the Dean case is even going forward. It's meritless. Forget damage, Poulter can't name a single thing that Dean said that he doesn't believe is true.

The technical reason it went forward is because the Judge has to look at the facts alleged by Preston as if they were true. Then, with the assumption they are true, determine whether Preston has a case. The Magistrate Judge apparently felt that Preston's bullshit was enough to form a case because he wasn't really there to determine whether it's all bullshit. He's the trier of law, and not fact. The Magistrate Judge feels it meets the bare minimum legal requirements. His superior, the District Court Judge, rubber-stamped that, as they often do.

The thing is, a lot of Preston and Lamont's allegations are indeed bullshit. That could still become apparent to the court later.

And therein is the problem: Dean will now have to fight this much further down the pipeline than he should have. An obnoxious and much more expensive thing. If he doesn't... if he does what Vikki did and ignores all this shit from this point on (it's disconcerting to me that no objection was raised from Dean's side when the Magistrate made his recommendations last month)... Preston will go 2-1 (see video above).

Frog being smart enough to hire a lawyer might have something to do with his father who is an actual attorney.

It's common fucking sense. Everybody and their second cousin told Dean to hire a lawyer. I did. @FROG did (again, see above). @5t3n0g0ph3r did. Plenty of others. Even people he's not on the best terms with like Yellowflash did. Instead he went with a crater-faced pathological liar who spent more than a decade trying to to convince everybody he is a Marine Corps officer. It's jaw dropping to me. Frustrating. Maddening even. Nobody wants to see Preston win anything.

I know this is basically the surrogate "Preston is a faggot" thread (and to be sure, he is), but there's a mighty big elephant standing in the corner when it comes to how Dean has handled this. That's why we are where we're at right now. Not because Preston is so great.

EDIT: Typo.

 

[TheShedCollector]

I took the liberty of clipping the lawsuit-related portion of @FROG's livesteam from Feb 8th for local archive. I think this is the first time he's talked about the lawsuit at great length in a long while, so it belongs in this thread.

View attachment 2976328


The technical reason it went forward is because the Judge has to look at the facts alleged by Preston as if they were true. Then, with the assumption they are true, determine whether Preston has a case. The Magistrate Judge apparently felt that Preston's bullshit was enough to form a case because he wasn't really there to determine whether it's all bullshit. He's the trier of law, and not fact. The Magistrate Judge feels it meets the bare minimum legal requirements. His superior, the District Court Judge, rubber-stamped that, as they often do.

The thing is, a lot of Preston and Lamont's allegations are indeed bullshit. That could still become apparent to the court later.

And therein is the problem: Dean will now have to fight this much further down the pipeline than he should have. An obnoxious and much more expensive thing. If he doesn't... if he does what Vikki did and ignores all this shit from this point on (it's disconcerting to me that no objection was raised from Dean's side when the Magistrate made his recommendations last month)... Preston will go 2-1 (see video above).


It's common fucking sense. Everybody and their second cousin told Dean to hire a lawyer. I did. @FROG did (again, see above). @5t3n0g0ph3r did. Plenty of others. Even people he's not on the best terms with like Yellowflash did. Instead he went with a crater-faced pathological liar who spent more than a decade trying to to convince everybody he is a Marine Corps officer. It's jaw dropping to me. Frustrating. Maddening even. Nobody wants to see Preston win anything.

I know this is basically the surrogate "Preston is a faggot" thread (and to be sure, he is), but there's a mighty big elephant standing in the corner when it comes to how Dean has handled this. That's why we are where we're at right now. Not because Preston is so great.

EDIT: Typo.

I want to see Peggy win a few rounds. It'll be funny. Maybe if we're really lucky Vikkis stupidity will get us a video of balifs piling her stuff up on the lawn.

 

[SargonF00t]

Your guess is as good as mine.

Again, I was told back in October that if "Operaton Stolen Valor Craterface" didn't work, Plan B was for Dean to stop fucking around and hire a lawyer.

The only reason I'm not making hay over the fact that Dean was given $1,130 (including $20 from me personally), and that hasn't happened, is because that doesn't seem particularly fair given that I know you aren't gonna get much professional legal help from such a paltry sum.

Why didn't Dean make the GoFundMe for $5,000?

Dunno if he would have made it to $5K or not, but choosing $1,130 makes it look like a scam and I am amazed he has skated on this.

 

[I'm not a Robot]

The GoFundMe for Dean has inexplicably been closed. I'm unsure as to when this occurred. It was still soliciting donations as of October 15th when the last archive was made. They don't shut down on their own. Preston's GoFundMe is currently open for business. He's at $240 dollars.

Help For The Little Guys, organized by Saggy Melonz

We live in a time where money is used to abuse the legal system. Thus making it easy for those … Saggy Melonz needs your support for Help For The Little Guys

www.gofundme.com

The goal of $1000 was surpassed, but that wasn't enough to hire a lawyer, he didn't hire a lawyer, and the case is far from over.

 

[Captain Manning]

Why didn't Dean make the GoFundMe for $5,000?

He didn't make it. SaggyMelonz/ReiBear did. I think she was just being nice.

And it was open ended. I don't think there was a close date. It was designed to collect what it could collect. $1,130 was it.

Dunno if he would have made it to $5K or not, but choosing $1,130 makes it look like a scam and I am amazed he has skated on this.

There's two things that I think make this almost a non-issue.

1. $1,130 ain't gonna get much of a lawyer. He would have had to combine that money with other money he may or may not have. I think there's growing speculation that D&V simply don't have the money to mount much of a legal defense.

2. If you wanna make an argument he should refund donors now, he'd have to send the money back to Saggy, who would have to redeposit the money into the GFM account, and then go through all the receipts to issue refunds. I don't know if that's even possible on a technical level, but at the very least it sounds like a logistical nightmare.

The only thing that worries me about this is that I know for a fact that Saggy sent him the money after Operation Craterface, but before the recommendation by the Magistrate Judge. I was in a Discord VC with them at the time when Saggy was closing out the account and setting up the transfer to Dean. Dean assured me he would put the money towards a lawyer if Operation Craterface failed, and Saggy joked that my $20 contribution made at the very end basically covered the account transfer fee. As we know, a lawyer has yet to be hired.

If Dean knew at that time it wasn't enough money to hire a lawyer, an argument could be made that he should have told Saggy to refund everybody's money then and there. I think that would have been the most honest move. Now he's in a position where he was given over a grand, he said he was gonna get a lawyer, and nobody knows what it was spent on.

OTOH, I suppose it's possible he was genuinely ignorant about the cost of legal representation and reality finally hit him last month, after the Magistrate Judge's recommendation, if he made inquiries. I don't like crying "scam" unless I'm 100% sure.

But really, @FROG is 100% correct in the clip above. If this is a problem for him, it's very much a relatively minor one. Dean is now staring down the barrel of a $75,000 gun.

The GoFundMe for Dean has inexplicably been closed. I'm unsure as to when this occurred. It was open as of October 15th when the last archive was made. They don't shut down on their own.

See above. Late October. I forget which day.

As you are aware, "weird things happened" shortly thereafter. I haven't talked to Dean since then, and the most people seem to be able to do now is speculate.

 

[FROG]

Vikki and Dean are both very mad at me for some reason. Making videos on me.

I sure hope those videos make $150k in ad revenue.

 

[Strix454]

Preston's best course of action at this point would be to do a deal with Vikki and Dean. He has kind of proved his point with them and there is nothing
of any particular value to take from them. But their cooperation could be extremely useful to him in various ways.

He should resume the case in New Jersey State Court. The advantage to bringing the action again in New Jersey is that it will immediately overcome nearly all of the jurisdictional issues and it should be possible to force the case through depositions and all the way to a trial. The other advantage to moving the case to New Jersey is that its potentially a very friendly venue to find attorneys who would be interested in working on a contingency basis. There are attorneys in the state that would love a target loaded up with money who had legal exposure. And by
wrapping up the cases against Vikki and Dean, he would have more than enough money for legal expenses elsewhere.

Of course the other thing to keep in mind is that Preston is certain to do depositions of all the parties involved no matter what happens. But I'm sure that everyone involved
has thought through that. I mean nobody would think that just because the action failed on jurisdiction against them, that they would be immune from being deposed
in the other cases. I mean nobody would be dumb enough not to realize that they were still in a complicated legal situation while any of the cases continued. And no smart person
would think that it was completely safe to talk about the case in public while there is still a fair amount of legal things that could still happen.

 

[AnOminous]

He should resume the case in New Jersey State Court. The advantage to bringing the action again in New Jersey is that it will immediately overcome nearly all of the jurisdictional issues and it should be possible to force the case through depositions and all the way to a trial.

Unless he has a defendant in New Jersey, diversity would be complete and any defendant would obviously remove it to federal court under diversity jurisdiction. What he should do, both in terms of rationality and the actual law, is quit wasting everyone's time and money with this absolute nonsense.

Nobody cares that he is a cocksucking cucked fairy. That's just something he should have kept to himself.

 

[Captain Manning]

Vikki and Dean are both very mad at me for some reason. Making videos on me.

I sure hope those videos make $150k in ad revenue.

I was hoping you'd tell us, man.

No joke, somebody PMed me a couple of days ago asking WTF the deal is with them going in on you harder than ever before. I told them that it could be sour grapes over you winning your portion of the suit, but it could also just be the usual CG vs. anti-CG bullshit. That's just a roundabout way of saying "I have no fucking clue."

This bizarre comment was highlighted by Dean just a few days ago on their "Guntpocalypse" stream. Spectre has a wrench in the D&V channel.

@I'm not a Robot highlighted the fact that Spectre seemed to say that "Uncle Ethan" was gonna get everybody off on the Rule 12(b) motion. Perhaps he's conned them into believing that your legal team failed them instead of him?

Just a theory.

Preston's best course of action at this point would be to do a deal with Vikki and Dean. He has kind of proved his point with them and there is nothing
of any particular value to take from them. But their cooperation could be extremely useful to him in various ways.

I mean, yeah... surrender is an option for them. I guess. But based upon the C&D letter, that would mean (at a minimum) taking down the Preston videos, apologizing, and not mentioning it ever again. Would they ever consider doing that?

 

[I'm not a Robot]

Preston's best course of action at this point would be to do a deal with Vikki and Dean. He has kind of proved his point with them and there is nothing of any particular value to take from them. But their cooperation could be extremely useful to him in various ways.

I mean, yeah... surrender is an option for them. I guess. But based upon the C&D letter, that would mean (at a minimum) taking down the Preston videos, apologizing, and not mentioning it ever again. Would they ever consider doing that?

That would be a huge win for Dean and Vikki. They incur no legal expenses, while Preston spends tens of thousands to get some no name YouTubers to take down their 500 view videos and apologize. Dean would mumble his way through his, and Vikki's normal speaking voice already sounds insincere and sarcastic. You're not going to get anything approaching contrition because there wouldn't have been any consequences. Dean thought so little of them, he let someone else do his homework, and despite getting an F, it's still a joke.

Ethan was right on the money with his take. Preston can ruin their lives with judgments they can't afford to pay. That's going to be more gratifying than any half-hearted weasel words procured at $10,000 per paragraph.

 

[FROG]

I was hoping you'd tell us, man.

No joke, somebody PMed me a couple of days ago asking WTF the deal is with them going in on you harder than ever before. I told them that it could be sour grapes over you winning your portion of the suit, but it could also just be the usual CG vs. anti-CG bullshit. That's just a roundabout way of saying "I have no fucking clue."

This bizarre comment was highlighted by Dean just a few days ago on their "Guntpocalypse" stream. Spectre has a wrench in the D&V channel.

View attachment 2983096

@I'm not a Robot highlighted the fact that Spectre seemed to say that "Uncle Ethan" was gonna get everybody off on the Rule 12(b) motion. Perhaps he's conned them into believing that your legal team failed them instead of him?

Just a theory.

It's a good theory. Frankly, Dean had the right idea in copying my homework, but they fucked up in filing that initial response.

 

[WhimsicalTrolli]

I just think it's hilarious that they listened to a military larper because they thought I was the leader of a silverware regime.

 

[SargonF00t]

It's a good theory. Frankly, Dean had the right idea in copying my homework, but they fucked up in filing that initial response.

If Dean and Vikki had approached you and asked if they could effectively copy your lawyer's response, would you have given them a copy after it had been lodged?

How long before the deadline did your response get lodged?

 

[FROG]

If Dean and Vikki had approached you and asked if they could effectively copy your lawyer's response, would you have given them a copy after it had been lodged?

How long before the deadline did your response get lodged?

It's publicly available, so I wouldn't need to give a copy to them.

 

[SargonF00t]

It's publicly available, so I wouldn't need to give a copy to them.

By the time it had become publicly available, was their response already due?

 

[FROG]

By the time it had become publicly available, was their response already due?

I don't recall.

When the lolsuit was first announced, I advised them both to get counsel. But they hesitated because the judge kicked Preston's suit back to him, and there was a good chance the case wouldn't proceed on it's merits. Vikki said she wouldn't bother getting a lawyer until she knew she needed to. Even when it was clear that she definitely needed to, she didn't bother, because she claims she was never served. (She still needs to. Now more than ever.)

I actually asked my lawyer if he'd represent these two broke-asses, but he said it was a conflict of interest, since Dean's case was far more complicated than mine, and he'd need to prioritize his first client, me, should problems arise. However, we invited Dean and Vikki to join in our Motion to Dismiss at no cost to them, which they both didn't seem interested in doing.

At that point, we really just stopped communicating about the lolsuit. Vikki sent me some stuff about the ComicsGate TM, though.

 

[Captain Manning]

That would be a huge win for Dean and Vikki. They incur no legal expenses, while Preston spends tens of thousands to get some no name YouTubers to take down their 500 view videos and apologize.

The scary thing is I don't know if Preston would consider that a loss. Remember, he's a trust fund baby. I don't think he knows the value of a hard earned dollar like many of us do. The weirdo might actually consider that money well spent.

There are those of us who believe this was NEVER about the money for Preston. That he was willing to spend with no expectation of financial return.

Dean would mumble his way through his, and Vikki's normal speaking voice already sounds insincere and sarcastic. You're not going to get anything approaching contrition because there wouldn't have been any consequences.

It would look and sound like a hostage tape, yeah.

Might not be a bad idea to go that route now, TBH.

It's a good theory. Frankly, Dean had the right idea in copying my homework, but they fucked up in filing that initial response.

That's the funniest thing though. Maybe they'll claim they were copying your work NOW. Before, if it worked, the plan was to portray it as Spectre's victory.

By the time it had become publicly available, was their response already due?

No. FROG had his in on September 28th, and Dean had his in on October 4th. We were reading those almost instantaneously.

However, we invited Dean and Vikki to join in our Motion to Dismiss at no cost to them, which they both didn't seem interested in doing.

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!?

So, they were offered a Rule 12(b) motion, for FREE, written by your ACTUAL ATTORNEY, and they STILL went with Spectre?



We don't know if your Rule 12(b) motion would have worked, because the Judge really didn't have to look at it after ruling on jurisdiction. It might have. We know he looked at Spectre's though.

This is unfathomable to me.

 

[WhimsicalTrolli]

two broke-asses,

Lmfao. I'm sure getting lance corporal Patrick fehey as legal counsel wasn't cheap dough to fuck them in the lolsuit.

 

[Strix454]

By the time it had become publicly available, was their response already due?

Dean could have got a delay I think. They would have been friendly to that given that he was representing himself. Vikki's strategy of dodging the process service meant that she could have dropped into the case at an appropriate time.

I actually asked my lawyer if he'd represent these two broke-asses, but he said it was a conflict of interest, since Dean's case was far more complicated than mine, and he'd need to prioritize his first client, me, should problems arise. However, we invited Dean and Vikki to join in our Motion to Dismiss at no cost to them, which they both didn't seem interested in doing.

Well. At least you tried. You deserve credit for that.