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

[Spaded Dave]

The dude filmed a video which, by appearance, was a snuff video of a kid

Incorrect. It was clearly an adult in appearance and in context of the "story".

 

[Kosher Salt]

Incorrect. It was clearly an adult in appearance and in context of the "story".

"context of the story"? Context of what story, the context of the story was that she was being abused and murdered and people thought she looked like a child. And the whole time his character, "Rapist", was speaking to her in baby-talk and nursery rhymes.


This is "clearly an adult" to you?

 

[Harm]

I can't believe I'm doing this, but to be clear, here are the potential references to the girl's age in the videos themselves. I don't know the separate names of the films, so I'll differentiate by runtime:

13 minutes and 29 seconds

05:13 - There is an explicit mention by the Umbrella Man that his captive may have a husband. This is the only comment which makes any allusion towards age in this video, and it implies that she is an adult.

19 minutes and 29 seconds

07:31 - The Umbrella Man alludes to her "turning tricks" and asking her how much she "charges."

17:16 - Her letter specifically mentions having to pay rent, which wouldn't make sense if she was underage.

16 minutes and 31 seconds - This third film is entirely ambiguous in her age.

 

[Mind Goblins]

This made me laugh. It would be a good way to tard wrangle intractable clients, but I doubt it would fly in America.

That was actually a direct quote of something that a judge said to Russell Greer about a Facebook post of his. It would be such poetry if Nick, who can attribute a good part of his rise in popularity to his Greer readings, gets taken out in much the same way that Greer did in his Ariana Grande case.

 

[AnOminous]

Even $50k isn't going to hurt Rackets, based off the amount he's spent on Randazza. I would just appreciate the lulz from Balldoman having to take the L, even for $1 in damages.

It would be his Pay Quasi moment.

What's mind blowing is Nick is spending all this money just so he doesn't have to apologize to Monty for saying he sucked little boy penis.

It's so weird and funny how his infantile "oppositional defiant" dipshittery has permanently beclowned him and may even financially ruin him.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

and people thought she looked like a child.

And Montagraph brags about employing child actors. Soooo, one can see why people would make such assumptions.

 

[Balldo's Gate]

He also claims to "often use[ing] [...]young children in his work"

And Montagraph brags about employing child actors. Soooo, one can see why people would make such assumptions.

This is clearly not an official bio. Anyone can submit an addition, as is made clear by the presence of an "Edit" button on the page:

 

[Spaded Dave]

This was already settled on the main Rekieta thread. Monty is a weirdo but anyone who still buys the "totally a pedo who did a child snuff video" shit is an abject retard.

 

[Mind Goblins]

I can see multiple sides on the issue, really. Nick's introduction to Monty though Jim was, according to Nick (who is an unreliable narrator on many things at this point), with all of these weird pedo allegations, and then with Monty behaving absolutely bizarrely in Nick's chat, reinforcing the 'weirdo' characterization. I can see how Nick would believe the things he's seen and been told and, without doing any research into them on his own, parrot those things.

All that said, one part of the hill Nick has decided to die on is the "Monty likes sucking little boy cocks" line. Even if you 100% bought into Monty being a pedo, and making a child snuff film (which @Harm has done a pretty decent job of debunking, I'd say), and using his photography company to take nude/risqué photos of minors, and whatever else has been claimed about him... all the allegations I've heard have related to girls, not boys. "Monty likes sucking little boy cocks" is actually completely against the grain of even the most potentially harmful characterizations I've heard about Monty from anyone but Nick, and I would absolutely die laughing if that distinction ends up swinging the case in Monty's favor.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

This is clearly not an official bio. Anyone can submit an addition, as is made clear by the presence of an "Edit" button on the page:

If he didn't write it, he would have it taken down, like Greer did. I mean, the man allegedly has been trying to combat his bad reputation since 2019. You email IMDB, and they take it down. That simple. Considering he didn't, I am lead to assume that he approves of the statement and has wrote it himself.

I also forgot to add that Montagraph never contested (as far as I can recall) the accuracy of the IMDB page when Nick brought it up in his motion to dismiss.

and using his photography company to take nude/risqué photos of minors, and whatever else has been claimed about him... all the allegations I've heard have related to girls, not boys. "Monty likes sucking little boy cocks" is actually completely against the grain of even the most potentially harmful characterizations I've heard about Monty from anyone

Very good point. Monty should have probably raised that as a defense to his reputation. It wouldn't be a good defense, maybe, but I could see this convincing the jury to award a good sum of punitive damages, and I don't see the Judge reversing that.

 

[waffle]

If this goes to trial it's going to totally go off the rails and turn into a contest to make the other guy look like a bigger piece of shit.

I feel like if discovery touches Nick's communications with other people he's almost definitely going to have made some damming admissions.. nb4 he tries to claim attorney-client privilege to keep all the lawtubers from testifying.

 

[Swole McPole]

using his photography company to take nude/risqué photos of minors, and whatever else has been claimed about him...

I thought this had been debunked as well? I've certainly never seen any evidence to support the claims that he did this -- other than a single sentence from Monty saying that any pictures he'd taken of children had been with the consent of their parents. Which could just mean any pics of children he'd taken had just been innocent family photographs.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

I thought this had been debunked as well?

Most if not all allegations against Montagraph seem to be bunk, from what I can tell. He's a retard and a shockjock, perhaps, but he is neither a pedophile, nor a real rapist, or whatever other things he has been accused of.

 

[Kosher Salt]

05:13 - There is an explicit mention by the Umbrella Man that his captive may have a husband. This is the only comment which makes any allusion towards age in this video, and it implies that she is an adult.

The character he plays is obviously deranged. Write a letter to your mommy, daddy, husband. Does he have any knowledge that these people exist/live, or is he just listing arbitrary relations for this "letter"? It's unclear.

07:31 - The Umbrella Man alludes to her "turning tricks" and asking her how much she "charges."

It would not be the first time that a rapist called his victim a whore. Is she actually, or is he just crazy? Nor would being a whore conclusively prove that she's old enough to break the law without breaking that other law.

17:16 - Her letter specifically mentions having to pay rent, which wouldn't make sense if she was underage.

And here I can't help but be critical of the "art", because the letter makes no goddamn sense. It's a "dear john" letter from some whore who's apparently been living on her own for some significant term of her life. Who is the recipient, what relationship does she have with him, and why would her dying message be directed toward him? If she's in this committed relationship, why is she turning tricks to pay rent? Again, unclear. The character makes no sense, she is just some crazy dude's mental image of "whore". And given the mind that she originated from, I am not confident that his mental image was an adult whore.

but anyone who still buys the "totally a pedo who did a child snuff video" shit is an abject retard

"Call me an abject retard if you want, then, because I actually believed it" could actually be a legitimate defense against defamation.

Very good point. Monty should have probably raised that as a defense to his reputation.

I'm not sure "my client doesn't like sucking little boy dicks, because he's clearly only exhibited deviant actions directed toward very young girls" would be a successful argument. That's the sort of thing that a jury could see as insignificant in the bigger picture. Kinda like the distinction between raping a watermelon vs. some other type of melon. You're allowed to get minor details wrong as long as the general impression conveyed within your message is warranted.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

I'm not sure "my client doesn't like sucking little boy dicks, because he's clearly only exhibited deviant actions directed toward very young girls" would be a successful argument. That's the sort of thing that a jury could see as insignificant in the bigger picture.

If Nick said "Montagraph rapes little girls", there would theoretically be some sort of reputational basis from which he drew that statement. It both limits liability and damages. If Nick said something that was evidently created by him, that could serve as evidence of malice and do the opposite of the example listed above. I see where you're coming from, but that small change is pretty significant in determining whether Nick was actively malicious, or just reckless (I'm talking about punitive damages, not the standards.) You don't even have to concede that you are "deviant [...] toward very young girls" for this to work. Ultimately that could have been a small part of a very larger attack to Nick's defense.

Saying that, I can sorta see why he didn't do that. There IS a decent chances that people would interpret it as you did, and I admit to not having considered that.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

Monty is at most an old ass Internet troll. The allegations of pedo shit come from bad home movies from the start of YouTube when people did found footage horror.

I hope this goes to trial solely because it’d make Rekieta more of the village AIDS positive idiot.

 

[Spaded Dave]

The character he plays is obviously deranged. Write a letter to your mommy, daddy, husband. Does he have any knowledge that these people exist/live, or is he just listing arbitrary relations for this "letter"? It's unclear.

You're reaching really hard here, but being a dipshit about Rekieta centered topics really isn't out of character for you based on your history. You're retarded, you've always been retarded, go ahead and sue me if you want you paint chip eating retard.

 

[Space Pope]

Unlike Nick, I do believe in admitting when I'm wrong. I was wrong about Minnesota's version of anti-SLAPP and if it would be applicable to this case. That's what happens when I deviate from my usual schizo posting. I apologize.

I believe that is saying it would apply to existing civil lawsuits that were still pending the day after the governor would sign the bill.

Randazza disagrees:

Randazza was correct to disagree.

I actually think applying a punitive and almost quasi-criminal penalty to pending lawsuits, filed before the plaintiff had any idea there could be such penalties, presents serious ex post facto issues.

Section 17 of the bill clearly states:

This act is effective the day following final enactment and applies to a civil action pending on or commenced on or after that date.

Reading this on it's own it seems to state that it would apply to this case. However, I originally misread the savings clause.

Section 13 of the bill states:

Sections 554.07 to 554.19 do not affect a cause of action asserted before the effective date of sections 554.07 to 554.19 in a civil action or a motion under Minnesota Statutes 2022, sections 554.01 to 554.06, regarding the cause of action.

Given that arguments related to the subject matter covered by the bill have already been made in this case, it would not be retroactively subject to the new law. But if a case was pending before the bill's passage but had not yet addressed any arguments concerning this subject matter, then it would be subject to the provisions of the new law.

The full text of the bill can be found here.

 

[AnOminous]

Section 17 of the bill clearly states:

I already quoted exactly that section and said exactly that. I said it presented constitutional issues of its own and it differs from the model statute in that respect.

For instance, New Jersey passed this:

14. This act shall take effect on the 30th day after enactment and shall apply to a civil action filed or cause of action asserted in a civil action on or after the effective date.

Randazza is the one who (incorrectly) stated the opposite, apparently having only looked at the model statute and not what Minnesota actually passed.

 

[Space Pope]

I already quoted exactly that section and said exactly that. I said it presented constitutional issues of its own and it differs from the model statute in that respect.

For instance, New Jersey passed this:


Randazza is the one who (incorrectly) stated the opposite, apparently having only looked at the model statute and not what Minnesota actually passed.

I was originally wrong. Randazza is correct. The savings clause changes how its applied as I tried to show in my answer above.