Steve Quest (p/k/a Montagraph) vs. Nicholas Robert Rekieta & Rekieta Law, LLC (2023)

[Twitter Is Cancer]

"false or reckless disregard for the truth" unless "a joke or labeled as such"
The problem for Rekieta is that he has repeatedly said he is not joking and that it is a documented fact on two occasions that Montegraph sucks little boys' penises. So leaving aside all the rubbish about Colorado and all the rest of the crap, how does Rekieta jew his way out of that?

 

[Kosher Salt]

"false or reckless disregard for the truth" unless "a joke or labeled as such"
The problem for Rekieta is that he has repeatedly said he is not joking and that it is a documented fact on two occasions that Montegraph sucks little boys' penises. So leaving aside all the rubbish about Colorado and all the rest of the crap, how does Rekieta jew his way out of that?

First of all, he's repeatedly said that the kid thing was a joke; secondly, he didn't say that Monty sucks little boys' penises, but that Monty likes sucking little boys' penises (actually having done something, or liking something, are not the same accusation - one is a fact, and the other is an opinion); and finally, reckless disregard for the truth means that Nick would've had to have serious doubts as to whether Monty is a pedo when he accused him of being one.

 

[Swole McPole]

First of all, he's repeatedly said that the kid thing was a joke; secondly, he didn't say that Monty sucks little boys' penises, but that Monty likes sucking little boys' penises (actually having done something, or liking something, are not the same accusation - one is a fact, and the other is an opinion); and finally, reckless disregard for the truth means that Nick would've had to have serious doubts as to whether Monty is a pedo when he accused him of being one.

He's repeatedly said it was a joke *after* the summons landed on his doormat. It's a bit late then. Damage is done.

The statement that somebody 'likes sucking little boys penises' contains the implicit claim that they've done it in order to acquire the taste for the act. If somebody says 'I like lobster', it's not an unreasonable inference that they've eaten lobster -- otherwise, how else would they know that they like it? So for Monty to say 'I like sucking little boys penises' -- yes, that would be an opinion. But when Nick says it, he's making an implicit claim that Monty is a paedophile.

So, did Rekieta have any doubts as to whether Monty was a paedo or not? If he's claiming, after the fact, that it was a joke, then that's surely an implicit claim that he has no evidentiary basis to support his allegation? That seems like a reckless disregard for the truth to me.

If I'm the judge, I'm leaving all of these issues to a jury to decide.

 

[Kosher Salt]

He's repeatedly said it was a joke *after* the summons landed on his doormat. It's a bit late then. Damage is done.

There's no First Amendment exception that says you're required to clarify when you're joking in order for free speech to apply to jokes.

So, did Rekieta have any doubts as to whether Monty was a paedo or not? If he's claiming, after the fact, that it was a joke, then that's surely an implicit claim that he has no evidentiary basis to support his allegation? That seems like a reckless disregard for the truth to me.

Joking that someone likes sucking little boy's cocks because he's a pedo is like joking that someone's dumb because they're a blonde. The fact that I can tell they're blond just by looking at them doesn't make it any less a joke when I say they love Orville Redenbacher's, they just wish they got the popcorn at the beginning of the episode.

Does Nick have any factual basis to claim that Monty likes sucking little boy's cocks? He has no factual basis to not believe it, and he can tell just by looking at Monty (and at his filmography career) that he's a pedo.

 

[Swole McPole]

There's no First Amendment exception that says you're required to clarify when you're joking in order for free speech to apply to jokes.

That's a fine defence -- but that's exactly what it is. A defence. Whether the jury accepts it as such remains to be seen.

My guess is that a jury won't be quite so willing to see it as a joke. Where's the punch line? My guess is that a jury would see it for exactly what it is. An excuse, made after the fact, to try and get yourself off the hook.

In the Hustler vs Falwell case, it was an easy argument to make. Falwell was clearly a public figure, the juxtaposition between Falwell's moral indignation and the idea of him fucking his mother in an outhouse had a pretty clear satirical intention. I just don't see any of those elements in Rekieta's assertions about Monty. I don't even remember Randazza making them. He seemed to me to be making the argument that these are two retards, slinging shit on the internet and that Monty gave as good as he got. I think that's a fair summary of the issue. Nevertheless, if it gets to a jury, some people are going to want to put themselves into Monty's shoes and will think about how they'd feel if they were in his position.

When do we expect the judge to rule on the motion for summary judgement?

 

[Balldo's Gate]

he's repeatedly said that the kid thing was a joke

Has he? At certain points, he has said some of the things he said were jokes or opinion. AFAIK, he has not said what was a joke and what was real. We need a deposition to do that.

He has also not even two weeks ago claimed Monty admitted to EVERYTHING Nick said on camera. Pretty sure Nick said that "joke" on camera. Where's Monty admitting to that?

"Your client has, not only, admitted to everything I've said on camera..."

actually having done something, or liking something, are not the same accusation - one is a fact, and the other is an opinion

In the complaint it's fairly clear that Nick links the "liking something" to actions at the end of his statement.

What would this accomplish? Monty is at least a limited purpose public figure - he's "internet famous" to the point where Nick only learned of him because of his notoriety. If Nick's opinion of Monty was based on things attributed to Monty that were actually not done by Monty (says Monty), that's not actual malice - actual malice would've required Nick entertaining serious doubts about the accuracy of his opinion. If Nick's opinion was based on things that he thought he knew, he wasn't entertaining serious doubts. It doesn't matter if the things were false (says Monty), the only thing that matters is Nick didn't make them up, he heard them from other people.

I don't think Monty is a public figure. He has ~70k YouTube subscribers, which if I'm reading Social Blade right is lower than nearly 100k accounts in the US alone and not really a lot when you consider he has been putting out content regularly for over a decade. His most popular video by some margin is a recording of a thunderstorm. There isn't a lot of commentary about him online other than other random psychos who think Monty is some power player and a handful of people mocking him like Metokur or Rekieta. Other than that nobody really knows who he is.

I don't think he's a limited purpose public figure either, because I am not sure how to define the controversy he is supposed to have inserted himself into other than "Crazy people made things up about Monty, Monty denied it", which is not really how it works - by that definition basically everyone who is defamed automatically is part of that category.

In any case, Schneider didn't really seem to be arguing the public figure status at this early stage of the case. He basically said even if you consider Monty to be a public figure, there's enough meat on the bone to proceed to discovery to see if they can build a case for actual malice.

 

[waffle]

@Balldo's Gate the best shot to make Monty a public figure is that he is a limited purpose public figure for the purpose of the controversy over the weird movie that the pedo allegations stem from. Monty released that on his own volition and for public consumption.

The cleanest argument for summary judgment is "Monty is a public figure for purposes of weather his weird movies make him a pedophile, and my vote is yes. The only reason I'm publicly talking about this is that he publicly did it, and it's not fair for him to go act like a retard in public and then pretend like it's a private matter when I make fun of him" I don't feel like they got that out clearly in oral argument.

 

[Strix454]

the best shot to make Monty a public figure is that he is a limited purpose public figure for the purpose of the controversy over the weird movie that the pedo allegations stem from. Monty released that on his own volition and for public consumption.

Monty briefly released the film in 2010 but after that has not made it available and in fact went to great lengths to ensure that it was not available via enforcement of intellectual property rights. The problem with trying to make him a public figure over the controversy of the film is twofold: 1) There wasn't a whole lot of controversy over it. Alot of their argument about controversy around it centers on a review done by one less than dependable and totally obscure person in 2016. 2) The real public controversy such as it is largely came about in 2019 due to Monty attempting a self-filed lawsuit over comments made about the film in 2010. That 3 month 2019 lawsuit and Metokur's handful of streams about it in 2019 are how Nick and most people learned about it (and monty). Making an argument that someone is a public figure based on discussion about a legal action that they took to defend themselves isn't a great argument in court.

The guy (Monty) has a thread on the farms and between 2019 and the case being filed against Nick there were maybe four or five messages added to it. I'm also not sure how many direct pedo alligations were made against him by identifiable persons between the initial ones in 2010 in that video and Nick directly calling him a pedo last year.

The public figure test is somewhat in the hands of the judge and could go either way. But its not a strong argument for Nick's side.

 

[Balldo's Gate]

@Balldo's Gate the best shot to make Monty a public figure is that he is a limited purpose public figure for the purpose of the controversy over the weird movie that the pedo allegations stem from. Monty released that on his own volition and for public consumption.

I agree but the problem for Nick is that that argument would go that Monty released a creepy video featuring an adult woman, which turns into a controversy when random weirdos claim he actually killed a female child, which results in Nick claiming that Monty abused male children.

I don't even think there was a public controversy over the movie. The evidence Randazza presented for the existence of allegations that specifically relate to the movie go back to two separate blogs written by a guy who thinks that a shadowy organization is going to try to wipe his brain. There are no news articles in even semi-reputable sources about it. By that standard you can bootstrap literally anybody into becoming a limited purpose public figure by finding some weirdo who claimed something outlandish before you said something tangentially related.

The cleanest argument for summary judgment is "Monty is a public figure for purposes of weather his weird movies make him a pedophile, and my vote is yes. The only reason I'm publicly talking about this is that he publicly did it, and it's not fair for him to go act like a retard in public and then pretend like it's a private matter when I make fun of him" I don't feel like they got that out clearly in oral argument.

It seems to me that, even if Monty is a public figure of some sort, under MN law there is enough meat on the bone to at least get to discovery to see if the plaintiff can find enough evidence of actual malice to take the case to trial. If after discovery there is not enough evidence for a jury to conclude Nick acted with actual malice, the case could be dismissed at that point.

Discovery would be extremely expensive and at least potentially embarrassing for Nick, so Randazza has tried the Colorado gambit.

It also seems like Randazza's oral argument was mainly focused less on legal issues and more on restating the facts of the case, namely that it is a trashfire with both parties being total trainwrecks. This seems to me to be a clever way of emphasizing an unstated implication that Judge Fischer could make her life a hell of a lot easier by finding a reason to throw the thing out ASAP knowing that Monty doesn't have any money for an appeal.

 

[AnOminous]

Odds on Nick streaming about how he TOTALLY REKT Monty tonight?

That would definitely be premature gloating so I wouldn't put it past him in his current state.

So leaving aside all the rubbish about Colorado and all the rest of the crap, how does Rekieta jew his way out of that?

We're gonna need a bigger nose.

It also seems like Randazza's oral argument was mainly focused less on legal issues and more on restating the facts of the case, namely that it is a trashfire with both parties being total trainwrecks.

I think it's hilarious he's paying six figures to have some hot shot lawyer basically tell the judge his client is a fucking retard and nobody would believe anything he says anyway.

Other than that nobody really knows who he is.

Also nobody showed up in court for his hearing, which as Judge Chupp has told us, is the real legal test for what a public figure is.

I think that's a fair summary of the issue. Nevertheless, if it gets to a jury, some people are going to want to put themselves into Monty's shoes and will think about how they'd feel if they were in his position.

And Nick hasn't done a good job in this regard. In fact, while I think Monty is a scumbag, Nick's behavior thus far has been so repugnant I'm almost sympathetic to him. I mean seriously, "sucks little boys' dicks." Really? That's something you thought it was a good idea to say, Nickhole?

 

[waffle]

t seems to me that, even if Monty is a public figure of some sort, under MN law there is enough meat on the bone to at least get to discovery to see if the plaintiff can find enough evidence of actual malice to take the case to trial. If after discovery there is not enough evidence for a jury to conclude Nick acted with actual malice, the case could be dismissed at that point.

Discovery would be extremely expensive and at least potentially embarrassing for Nick, so Randazza has tried the Colorado gambit.

It also seems like Randazza's oral argument was mainly focused less on legal issues and more on restating the facts of the case, namely that it is a trashfire with both parties being total trainwrecks. This seems to me to be a clever way of emphasizing an unstated implication that Judge Fischer could make her life a hell of a lot easier by finding a reason to throw the thing out ASAP knowing that Monty doesn't have any money for an appeal.

I think this is it, really. There is likely to be a big shit show discovery fight where the try and show that Nick wasn't relying in good faith on his understanding from the internet. Unless the judge yeets it because she doesn't want to deal with it.

@Strix454 you seem to have the best command of the facts. How wide was the release of the film in question? I think that's going to matter for what we're discussing. The level of release the film got before it was pulled will essentially be somewhere from "major theatrical release" to "posted on Monty's website for a week and five people saw it", and at some point I don't think you can unring the bell and demand nobody make fun of you for your private copyright that you previously publicly broadcast to everyone. Like I know it wasn't popular, but that doesn't mean he didn't try and make it that way.

 

[Twitter Is Cancer]

I think this is it, really. There is likely to be a big shit show discovery fight where the try and show that Nick wasn't relying in good faith on his understanding from the internet. Unless the judge yeets it because she doesn't want to deal with it.

@Strix454 you seem to have the best command of the facts. How wide was the release of the film in question? I think that's going to matter for what we're discussing. The level of release the film got before it was pulled will essentially be somewhere from "major theatrical release" to "posted on Monty's website for a week and five people saw it", and at some point I don't think you can unring the bell and demand nobody make fun of you for your private copyright that you previously publicly broadcast to everyone. Like I know it wasn't popular, but that doesn't mean he didn't try and make it that way.

There's another wrinkle in the "where's the movie" thing. Which version of the movie is Rekieta basing his slurs on? There is a gotcha there because strangers edited Montegraph's epic and took a few seconds of it "out of context" or however Montegraph will portray it.

 

[Strix454]

@Strix454 you seem to have the best command of the facts. How wide was the release of the film in question? I think that's going to matter for what we're discussing. The level of release the film got before it was pulled will essentially be somewhere from "major theatrical release" to "posted on Monty's website for a week and five people saw it", and at some point I don't think you can unring the bell and demand nobody make fun of you for your private copyright that you previously publicly broadcast to everyone. Like I know it wasn't popular, but that doesn't mean he didn't try and make it that way.

As far as I've been able to determine, it was "released" on Youtube in 2010. I don't think there is a trustworthy source for how long it was on youtube. There were stills taken from the video at some point and used by people to talk about the film and clips of undetermined origin with different edits & lengths sometimes appeared in different places. But there is no clear evidence that Monty himself has distributed "the umbrella man" since youtube in 2010. I would think that video would have been taken down on YT for obvious TOS violations in 2010, but I have no evidence of that happening.

When Jake Morphonios wrote his response to Monty's lawsuit against him in 2019, he was able to come up with three mentions of the film as a public controversy all dating from the 2015-2016 timeframe. Nick's attorney wasn't able to do much better so far.

 

[Balldo's Gate]

@Strix454 you seem to have the best command of the facts. How wide was the release of the film in question? I think that's going to matter for what we're discussing. The level of release the film got before it was pulled will essentially be somewhere from "major theatrical release" to "posted on Monty's website for a week and five people saw it", and at some point I don't think you can unring the bell and demand nobody make fun of you for your private copyright that you previously publicly broadcast to everyone. Like I know it wasn't popular, but that doesn't mean he didn't try and make it that way.

As far as I've been able to determine, it was "released" on Youtube in 2010. I don't think there is a trustworthy source for how long it was on youtube. There were stills taken from the video at some point and used by people to talk about the film and clips of undetermined origin with different edits & lengths sometimes appeared in different places. But there is no clear evidence that Monty himself has distributed "the umbrella man" since youtube in 2010. I would think that video would have been taken down on YT for obvious TOS violations in 2010, but I have no evidence of that happening.

When Jake Morphonios wrote his response to Monty's lawsuit against him in 2019, he was able to come up with three mentions of the film as a public controversy all dating from the 2015-2016 timeframe. Nick's attorney wasn't able to do much better so far.

I looked at the response from the guy Monty sued in Colorado from 2019 and looked at the websites he's cited as evidence. It goes without saying that all of these appear to be written by random boomer conspiracy theorists.

TLDR: I don't see how you can determine the reach of the video while distributed by Monty accurately without proceeding to discovery and deposing him and/or trying to subpoena YouTube in the hopes that they keep data on 7+ year old deleted videos.

The first article the defendant cites is a blog post from July 2015. In this blog post it is stated that: "In 2010 Montagraph released a video on YouTube called “The Umbrella Man.” The video was removed almost immediately by the YouTube Community Moderators, but was later reposted." In this blog post it is mentioned that people have speculated the video is real but adds "we have no evidence to suggest that this is the case." The blog post describes the actress as a "young woman" and not a child.

A second blog post from November 2016 appears to be the earliest extant source which claims that the video is of a child. This blog post is from the guy who thinks that "The Firm" wants to wipe his brain, and in fact the very same blog post was cited by Randazza in footnote 7 of his reply to Schneider's opposition to the motion to dismiss. What is odd is that the post includes a screenshot which if real shows the video still being up around the time of the blog post on Montagraph's channel with 3,479 views at the time. The screenshot shows YouTube's logo as including a hashtag "#VoteIRL" which would date the screenshot to around the time of the 2016 elections. The purported screenshot is cropped in such a way that the date of upload is not visible.

The defendant cites a third weirdo's blog post dated December 2016 which speculates that the actress from the video is a certain adult female who they specify by name and who has relevance to their insane conspiracy theories. Bizarrely, this very lengthy post appears to have been translated into Chinese and is still available circulated on various Chinese-language conspiracy websites.

It is unclear IMO the periods for which the video was uploaded on Montagraph's channel. One blog post gives a date of 2010 and states the video was removed for violating TOS, the IMDB page gives a date of 2014, and a 2016 blog post has a screenshot which if real shows it was uploaded on Montagraph's channel in 2016. It's clear that by 2019, when Rekieta learned about the guy, the complete video had been totally scrubbed off the Internet and only resurfaced later.

It does appear that the oldest extant evidence of an accusation of the video potentially featuring a child is from this guy who fears brain wiping. The only extant evidence I can find that the video was being distributed by Montagraph past 2010 comes from the same guy. From what I can gather, the main controversy over the video was that some conspiracy theorists in the mid-2010s believed that the video contained a checkerboard pattern or something which was a winking reference to the Ramsey murder case in Colorado, suggestive of Monty's involvement in the crime, which is both insane and not something Rekieta brought up.

 

[5t3n0g0ph3r]

Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to join in the Zoom hearing, but here's a summary from a Twitter user (plus a response from Randazza).

Doesn't seem to have been that eventful.

From what I gather from the social media chatter, the judge did not appear to be all that engaged in the hearing. She didn't allow Randazza a rebuttal after Schneider was finished and had no questions for either side, which gives rise to the impression she may have already largely made up her mind one way or another.

View attachment 5024368
Twitter | Archive

>Mike Dunford
LawTwitter continues to be obnoxious.

 

[feral cat #6385]

That's a fine defence -- but that's exactly what it is. A defence. Whether the jury accepts it as such remains to be seen.

My guess is that a jury won't be quite so willing to see it as a joke. Where's the punch line? My guess is that a jury would see it for exactly what it is. An excuse, made after the fact, to try and get yourself off the hook.

In the Hustler vs Falwell case, it was an easy argument to make. Falwell was clearly a public figure, the juxtaposition between Falwell's moral indignation and the idea of him fucking his mother in an outhouse had a pretty clear satirical intention. I just don't see any of those elements in Rekieta's assertions about Monty. I don't even remember Randazza making them. He seemed to me to be making the argument that these are two retards, slinging shit on the internet and that Monty gave as good as he got. I think that's a fair summary of the issue. Nevertheless, if it gets to a jury, some people are going to want to put themselves into Monty's shoes and will think about how they'd feel if they were in his position.

When do we expect the judge to rule on the motion for summary judgement?

In liberal Minnesota I don't see the jury siding with Nick. It's so quaint some of you think laws and facts matter. We live in a post law world. The law will be twisted and contorted in any way necessary to punish wrong thinkers. Nick is most definitely a wrong thinker.

 

[Strix454]

In liberal Minnesota I don't see the jury siding with Nick. It's so quaint some of you think laws and facts matter. We live in a post law world. The law will be twisted and contorted in any way necessary to punish wrong thinkers. Nick is most definitely a wrong thinker.

Nick lives in conservative Minnesota. That county where he lives went 62% for Trump in 2020. The judges and the legal system can be more liberal than the voters, but the jury pool is conservative. The problem for Nick in that area is that the jury can be given a perception that this case is weirdo vs. weirdo. Certain things that Nick does and the way he does them are not going to go over well with some conservative people in the potential jury pool.

 

[feral cat #6385]

Nick lives in conservative Minnesota. That county where he lives went 62% for Trump in 2020. The judges and the legal system can be more liberal than the voters, but the jury pool is conservative. The problem for Nick in that area is that the jury can be given a perception that this case is weirdo vs. weirdo. Certain things that Nick does and the way he does them are not going to go over well with some conservative people in the potential jury pool.

Imagine a supercut of Rekieta's worst moments played for the jury.

 

[Owlbear]

My guess is that a jury won't be quite so willing to see it as a joke. Where's the punch line? My guess is that a jury would see it for exactly what it is. An excuse, made after the fact, to try and get yourself off the hook.

Ah, Nick's eternal struggle in his career as a "legal comedian" - he's not funny.

In any case, Schneider didn't really seem to be arguing the public figure status at this early stage of the case. He basically said even if you consider Monty to be a public figure, there's enough meat on the bone to proceed to discovery to see if they can build a case for actual malice.

I personally liked this approach. I don't think Monty should be considered a limited-purpose public figure - by the definition a lot of people are using, every struggling filmmaker in LA who releases a short on YouTube is a public figure - but the doctrine is so fucked up that it's better to not touch it. Schneider made some very unsophisticated arguments, but they seemed kind of effective. I still think Randazza came out better with the judge in the most recent hearing.

Nick lives in conservative Minnesota. That county where he lives went 62% for Trump in 2020. The judges and the legal system can be more liberal than the voters, but the jury pool is conservative. The problem for Nick in that area is that the jury can be given a perception that this case is weirdo vs. weirdo. Certain things that Nick does and the way he does them are not going to go over well with some conservative people in the potential jury pool.

Even worse, the jury pool could think that Monty was getting railroaded by a degenerate balldo-wielder who makes money from a "librul" career: YouTube influencer. That's one step from being a TikTok star, which makes him a Chinese sympathizer going after our kids. That would be a problem for Nick. Also the fact that getting to trial will cost $500k on Randazza.

 

[Himedall All-seeing Waifu]

For research purposes, did anyone make out the name of the local Minnesota counsel that waived Randazza in?