Tuesday, May 19, 2015

This looks like good news



So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed
It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.
~ Leonard Cohen ("Death of a Ladies' Man," from the album of the same title, 1977)

"I will not start the fight, but I will finish it!"
~ Leonard Coldwell, everywhere on the Interwebz, constantly



I published a very abbreviated version of this post -- just the above graphic, no text -- when I first received the news on May 19, via email and supporting PDF, that
not-doctor Leonard Coldwell, ex-b.f.f. of imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, had, through his attorneys, voluntarily dismissed his civil defamation case against me (and several other defendants). [Case number 15-CVS-2791, filed in the General Court of Justice, Superior Court Division, Guilford County, North Carolina]

For more details about this suit,
see this post (under "Cosmic Connie and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad lawsuit").

On the following day I temporarily removed the present post for a couple of reasons, though not before receiving a comment suggesting that the picture of the dismissal was fake (see comments). I assure you it is real. Okay, so I did embellish it with a picture frame and Lady Justice, but the document itself is real. I have since received a print copy of said document in the mail, unframed and un-embellished, directly from the lawyer's office. But you don't have to take my word for it, Florian (and any of you other doubters). If you want to verify its reality for yourself, feel free to contact the attorney in question, William F. May of the Greensboro, North Carolina law firm Culbertson & Associates (also known on some Google sites as May & Culbertson Attorneys at Law), whose contact information is on the Notice of Voluntary Dismissal document. Or contact Mr. Coldwell himself, if he hasn't blocked you.

Make no mistake, though: I am not gloating about this. I do not feel that I have "won," mainly because, due to my inability to afford a lawyer and my reluctance to go forth without one, I never really got into the fray. All I did was file a couple of motions on a timely basis, pro se. I first filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Ignoring that motion, the Plaintiff's attorney apparently tried to plunge ahead into discovery -- evidently not giving a flip that discovery works both ways and that his client would have shriveled under real discovery. He even subpoenaed Google for my personal account information, and I was obliged to file a motion to stay discovery pending resolution of the motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. (That second motion did manage to get Google's legal department off my back -- not that they were ever really on my back, because Google doesn't even necessarily respond to subpoenas, of which it receives thousands per year. Here is more information about that subject.)

However, my motions were never calendared (by me), and consequently were never heard or ruled on (by the Court), and the Plaintiff's voluntary dismissal makes them moot. The attorney, when I asked him for a reason for the voluntary dismissal of Leonard Coldwell's defamation suit against Schmidt et al., simply responded that a "non-waivable conflict of interest" had "developed" between the Plaintiff and the law firm, and that the firm of Culbertson & Associates will not be representing Mr. Coldwell with regard to any matter going forward. Make of that what you will. I did not and will not ask Mr. May for details.

But I am not complacent. While it may seem like good news, the truth is that I won nothing. And "without prejudice" means, of course, that Coldwell is perfectly free to turn around and file another sham lawsuit, which I will also be obligated to deal with. On the other hand, neither did Coldwell win anything, except some more legal bills and, possibly, more fodder for lies or distortions, should he foolishly choose to exploit this case the way he did
his sham suit last year against Jason Jones (Salty Droid) and Omri Shabat (Glancingweb), whom the suit mistakenly named as being one and the same person. (In fact, Coldwell was exploiting the failed Droid/Glancingweb case even in the service of bragging about this 2015 North Carolina case, falsely stating on Facebook that Jason had been hiding from service for well over a year. Nothing could be further from the truth.)

Early in this case, Coldwell boasted about it several times on Facebook. Most of the boasts were soon taken down; I speculate though do not know for sure that this was at the advice of his lawyers. But the bragging lives on, in screen shots. Here are two that were up briefly -- posted on February 6, 2015 -- but were soon taken down:





The first picture, which contains a mug of poor beat-up Bernie O'Mahony of GINtruth.com, is particularly disingenuous, not only because of the way that Coldwell had previously misappropriated and publicly lied about that picture in order to falsely and publicly portray Bernie as a child rapist, but also because Bernie was never part of this North Carolina case at all, as he explained in a recent post. In fact despite numerous threats against Bernie, Coldwell has never sued him and more than likely never will, due to a little thing called jurisdiction. When he's not setting Europe on fire with spurious "'Dr.' C. book tours", Coldwell is in the U.S. for the most part (hiding out in one or both of the Carolinas) -- while Bernie lives in Japan, happily, as he has been doing since 1999, contrary to Coldwell's claims that Bernie is "hiding out" in the Land of the Rising Sun. I am pretty certain, however, that if Bernie were in the U.S. he would find a way to sue Coldwell for those outrageous false claims about child rape.

The second picture, the one with the tiger and the threatening "RUN BITCH" watermark, was posted to Coldwell's buddy Abe Husein's page under Coldwell's former alias "Rudi Kauder." Coldwell has written other ridiculous public posts under that name and once he even sent me a personal threat via Facebook using the same alias. "Rudi's" account has since been deleted.

In addition to the general boasts about the lawsuit, Coldwell spewed several profoundly absurd posts specifically about Jason on Facebook, e.g., the usual nonsense about Jason being "in hiding," and other even wilder and crazier false claims about him. I'll leave it to Jason to share those if he wishes to do so.

While the above two Facebook posts are gone, this one, from March 13, 2015, still exists as of May 31, 2015.
You can see how Lenny's little group of sycophants is cheering him on (as always, click on pic to enlarge):

 

And lest you have any doubt that Coldwell was talking about Jason and me in the above, there's this, also from the same day and purportedly written by Coldwell's half-brother Jens Wilhelm Anskohl, whose fake name Coldwell never can seem to spell the same way consistently (Nicholas? Nicolas? Nicky? Nicki?). (Jens, or Nicholas, or Nicky, or Nicki, or whatever you want to call him, is a good-looking ladies' man (reportedly) who, I think, lives in Germany and Las Vegas. Do you really believe he spends his time writing posts on Lenny's Facebook page? Me neither.) Anyway, this post also disappeared soon after its appearance; either Abe wiped it away or Lenny did so himself.
 



On a video posted on April 1 (an appropriate day to be sure), Coldwell can be heard telling conspiracy-fringe radio host Jeff Rense about arrest warrants against un-named perps who were supposedly defaming Lenny, and he mentions having spent... well, I can't quite understand him, but it sounds like he's either saying he spent $6,000.00 or $106,000.00 on legal fees last year in order to finally make these arrests happen. It starts at about 36:00, but if you have some time to waste you really should listen to the whole hilarious thing.

Anyway, to be clear: The case that has just been dismissed was a civil case, not a criminal case. Coldwell never filed any criminal case against Salty and me and the other defendants -- not now and not in the past (even though he has been boasting for years that civil and criminal actions against Salty, me, and various other bloggers are in process). So either Coldwell was flat-out lying about that criminal litigation and those arrest warrants, or, perhaps inspired by false hope imparted to him by his "legal team," he was counting his chickens before they hatched, or even before he had a hen to lay the eggs. Granted, there were indications -- things going on in the background that I'm not going to write about yet -- that Coldwell and his lawyers were trying to trump up some sort of wacky criminal case, but that never happened. And Coldwell's lawyer Mr. May assured me that new pleadings his firm had been working on were also rendered moot by the voluntary dismissal of Case Number 15-CVS-2791.

Although I did not discuss arrest warrants with Mr. May, I can assure you that there never were any arrest warrants for any of the defendants in the case that Mr. May was involved in and that Coldwell had been boasting about on Facebook -- so, again, that clearly seems like a deliberate lie from Coldwell. But maybe you are in Lenny's inner circle and you know something I don't. Fine. If you can present me with evidence that there is or ever was a warrant out for my arrest, or for Jason Michael Jones, or for anyone involved with Rational Wiki (the other main defendant), I will be glad to publish it. For now, I think it is safe to assume that once again Leonard Coldwell was lying about arrest warrants being issued for "defaming" him. Now, that's a big surprise.


Look, I know that many of you are probably tired of reading about this. And indeed, I have so many other things to write about on this blog besides Leonard Coldwell. Heck, even Google -- the search algorithms, not their legal department -- wants to steer me away from Leonard Coldwell and towards a much more popular, much more successful, and much more frequently Googled Leonard C, Leonard Cohen. Google is always trying to complete my search term for me when I'm typing, whether I'm signed in or not, and Google apparently likes Cohen a lot better than Coldwell. Me too.

But I stand by every word I've written about Leonard Coldwell and will continue to do so until and unless I receive credible information that will lead me to modify or retract any of the content. On my numerous posts about Coldwell (as on all of my posts), I have provided abundant screen shots and/or links that you can easily follow yourself and make up your own mind about the subject.


What I am trying to say is that I don't want to bore you any more than necessary -- or any more than I already have -- with this particular subject.


But I suspect this story isn't really over, and as I said, I am not complacent. None of us should ever be complacent where potential SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) actions are concerned. Equally as important, we should never be complacent about the continual abuse of our legal system by public figures such as Leonard Coldwell who file frivolous lawsuits to bully and try to intimidate writers... just because they can. Jason Jones said it quite well in last year's memorandum in support of his motion to sanction Coldwell and his then-lawyer, Dennis J. Kellogg of Chicago:
The legal system should not be a weapon wielded by wrongdoers in the face of well-meaning whistle-blowers, stifling important discussion about matters of public concern, though too often, that is exactly how our system is used. There can be few better examples of suits interposed for improper purposes than the present frivolous and unreasonable Complaint brought by Plaintiff...

...Much judicial ink is spilled opining about the possible "chilling effect" that a given piece of legislation, or legal precedent, might have on the marketplace of ideas. But as the speech function of the fourth estate has become increasingly diffuse, with modern technologies removing most of the traditional barriers to publishing and public participation, the vanguard in the fight for the free exchange of ideas has moved from the newsroom to the living room. It is the constant threat of frivolous, and prohibitively expensive, litigation that is of principal concern for the individual citizen journalist without access to media lawyer representation.
If you haven't read Jason's entire motion, I urge you to do so. It's worthwhile not only for the arguments, backed by case law, but also for the exhibits, which clearly display Coldwell's primary objective of using litigation as a bullying tool. (Coldwell even refers to me in some of those exhibits, e.g., as Jason's "playmate" or simply "the slut.") Despite Coldwell's crowing about the case, Leonard Coldwell's attorney Dennis J. Kellogg filed a motion to withdraw from the case ("for professional reasons") less than three weeks after it was filed, and that motion was granted on March 17, 2014. Coldwell spun that on social media as his having learned that the case was actually a Federal criminal case and therefore he was hiring new lawyers to prosecute it. He also lied that Jason was scared and hiding from him because of the lawsuits, making it impossible to properly serve Jason. And as indicated above, Coldwell continued his lie about Jason being a fugitive from justice when he (Coldwell) was spinning tales about the now-dismissed North Carolina case 15-CVS-2791. His attorney for the North Carolina case apparently even bought that lie for a while, or pretended he did, as Jason wrote about on his February 19, 2015 blog post.

To my knowledge Jason did not follow up on his 2014 motion to sanction Leonard Coldwell and attorney Dennis J. Kellogg, even though legally he could have. This is probably because Judge Lynn M. Egan's dismissal of the case "for want of prosecution" rendered it moot. "For want of prosecution" basically means that nobody -- neither Coldwell the Plaintiff, nor an attorney appearing on his behalf -- even bothered to show up for the hearing that had been scheduled by the Court. And Jason, having been a resident of Ohio for more than a year by that time, didn't want to have to keep going back to Chicago to attend hearings, which he would have had to do had he pursued the sanctions motion. He has a life, after all. But he did file the motion to sanction Leonard Coldwell and Dennis J. Kellogg in the Court, and it is on public record, so Coldwell's recent claim that Jason was lying about the sanction motion is inaccurate.

At any rate, I just thought I should let you know, in case you were wondering, that yet another lawsuit that Lenny was bragging about has ended -- as another Lenny might put it -- on a deeply unimpressive note. 


PS ~ You can view the original Complaint and the Notice of Voluntary Dismissal here.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

FAKE

Bernie said...

As we predicted. And no, it's not fake. Only a moron would say it is!

Melquiades Sánchez said...

Leonard Coldwell es un buen hombre! ¡Mentirosa!

Cosmic Connie said...

M. Sanchez, you just called Leonard Coldwell a good man and you called me a liar. Or were you calling him a liar? I am confused. Anyway, if you are calling me a liar, what is it that you think I'm lying about? Please be specific.

Aunt Alex said...


Melquiades: Coldwell es loca y delirante. Él es un verguenza para cualquier profesión de ayuda .

Anon: Your wishing the document were "fake" is a testament to what a ridiculous failure it is. If it were strong and viable, you'd be waving posters of it from a flagpole.

Connie: As you know, anyone can sue for anything, and this is one of the ways a preposterous lawsuit dies when it should never have been filed in the first place. NO ONE with four brain cells believes anything the little psycho says. In attorneys, he might be able to find the occasional lazy, unscrupulous opportunist to take his money, but they get a clue eventually and abandon ship, lest they get his ick on them. He has NO idea what he's doing. Please don't be concerned about the future -- keep in mind he's failed -- I mean, filed -- lawsuits twice, and still hasn't been able to move past the complaint stage because he's such an idiot. He thinks he's coming at you with an armed tank, but really he's only on a scooter throwing his skittles. (The footboard kind. Not even the kind with a motor. He had one with a motor, but couldn't figure out how to start it. Ah, how he dreams of one day being able to commandeer a segway....)

Cosmic Connie said...

Thank you, Aunt Alex, you said it all quite nicely. One thing, though: Lenny's ick is already on Mr. May and Mr. Culbertson. They should have pulled out much earlier than they did, or better yet, never gotten involved with this daft little perv in the first place. This is a suit that will live in infamy.

Cosmic Connie said...

I posted "publish" before I was finished with my comment above yesterday, then got sidetracked with Sunday stuff. I want everyone to know that while I agree that Coldwell and his lawsuits are just plain crazy, there is a point I still feel I need to add to the above. Despite Coldwell's lunacy and the failure of his lawsuits against his critics so far, I feel it would be a mistake for me to become overly complacent. I deeply appreciate the moral support I've been receiving throughout this whole saga, but moral support doesn't pay legal bills, and when someone is sued, no matter how invalid the lawsuit is, they still have to deal with the lawsuit, with or without a lawyer.

Moreover, lawsuits, no matter how stupid, can still cause enormous stress and disruption, particularly to non-lawyer defendants. It's the kind of stress that causes many to eventually give up (and this is what many nuisance litigators are counting on). This whole thing has been, on one level, very entertaining to those watching from the sidelines, but when you really have skin in the game it's a different story.

And although I remain absolutely convinced that I am on the right side legally and morally, I also feel that Coldwell is unbalanced and desperate and potentially dangerous. If he fails at litigation he may try more litigation, or he may try something even more desperate. We all saw an example of his dangerous desperation when he falsely accused me of killing his dog last summer and published my home address, urging his crazy minions to contact me. At this point I wouldn't put anything past him.

Yakaru said...

Herr Klein should consider himself lucky that you haven't sued *him*, Connie. I remember when I first discovered your blog in perhaps 2006 (?????) I'd already spent about a decade being attacked by my spiritual friends for not complying to the latest dogma/guru/set of allergies. They were always saying to me "Why are you so full of rage?" When I read your blog I thought wow, no one can tell her she's "full of rage" -- she's so calm and funny, engaging, and gently chiding, but true as well. I could understand why people would block their ears and run away, but you have always been so engaging, not just towards various shade of believers, but also at times towards some of the slimy rat-finks themselves who you wrote about.

I'm not surprised scammers and crooks might get upset about having their twisted logic humorously straightened out for them, but I'm completely stunned at little Bernie Klein's behavior. Really, he should just stop everything he's doing and go and jump in the ocean for a nice long swim.

Cosmic Connie said...

Thank you, Yak! So good to see you here. As it happens, I have often been accused of being full of rage... and that was happening years before I ever heard of little Bernie Klein. I've been called hateful, rage-filled, jealous, a loser... and those are just some of the nicer things my detractors have said about me.

Lenny sued me for one reason: to try to shut me up. But I won't shut up, and I am not going away. I disagree with you about the daft little bugger jumping in the ocean, though. Our oceans are already polluted enough.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your friendship and support.

Anonymous said...

Please SHARE this page using the SHARE and LIKE buttons at bottom with EVERYBODY you know! Not only is Dr. Coldwell curing over 92% of those with Cancer compared to Chemo's 2% cure rate but he's also giving free advice on other natural cures that help many other conditions. You can go to his website below and ask his staff about ANY condition and they will give you advice for free! Dr. Coldwell pays these people to help others! How many doctors do you know that do that? That's what doctors are supposed to do! Please share this interview with all those in your Facebook using the SHARE button at the bottom of the page. And also share our other information such as free energy so that the truth can spread around the world.

If you know anybody that has cancer or any other health condition, send them to Dr. Coldwell's website and ask his staff any questions you have.
http://www.drleonardcoldwell.com/

Cosmic Connie said...

Anon June 15: I published one of your other comments on another post (the "Earth Diet Evangelist v Bourbon Diet Buffoon" post from Dec. 2014), and I am publishing this one here because it is not a duplicate, but you sent numerous other duplicates and I have reported all of them as spam, and am not publishing them. By the way, where are the "share" and "like" buttons on my blog? Did you just get drunk and wander here by mistake, thinking you were on Facebook?

I do want to congratulate you for two things: (1) Your utter failure to convince me -- or any of my readers -- that Coldwell is anything but a quack, a fraud, and a liar; and (2) Your incrimination of Coldwell's staff as well as Coldwell. You just confessed that Coldwell and his staff are practicing medicine without a license. And you made a mention of "our" other information, which leads me to believe that you are on Coldwell's staff, so you've incriminated yourself as well. Nice work, spammer.

OMT: I want to point out that I am not afraid to publish pro-Coldwell comments. I just don't publish duplicates that are clear attempts at spamming. Coldwell, on the other hand, is such a sniveling little coward that he refuses to publish any critical comments at all on his blog. And that's the kind of "hero" you've chosen to align yourself with, Anon. You need to choose your heroes more carefully.

longdog said...

Hi Connie... It's that old longdog here again from over the water.

I read through the fatally doomed libel complaint and nearly died laughing at the utter ineptitude of it.

As a matter of fact it inspired me to create my very own blog in tribute to the world renowned... Well... He's a world renowned something but I'll respect the fact you don't swear like a drunk docker like I do.

Hope you don't mind the blatant plug...

http://coldwatch.blogspot.co.uk/

Cosmic Connie said...

Thanks, Longdog, and lovely job. And this is to serve notice to Coldwell and any idiotic lawyers he may try to contact about this matter: This new blog came as a complete surprise, though a welcome one, to me. And Longdog is in the UK, so good luck trying to sue him for telling the truth about a loathsome little psychopath.

Though a surprise, this new blog couldn't have come at a better time, as far as I am concerned. Today, July 14, is the one-year anniversary of the day Coldwell began his false accusations about me poisoning his dog. I will blog about that in a while when I get a chance. Meanwhile, you can read my posts from last year.

http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2014/07/leonard-coldwell-goes-too-far-lies.html

http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2014/09/blue-dies-coldwell-lies-crazy-minions.html

I will not forget this incident and will not let it go, despite the fact that there are more than likely no legal remedies for Coldwell's deliberate attempts to endanger me by lying that I killed his dog, posting my home address, and inviting his crazy minions to get in touch with me. (Some did.)

Thank you again for your support, Longdog. I look forward to reading future installments in the saga of Coldwell's failed lawsuuit against Salty, Trent, and me.

longdog said...

I remember the whole dead-dog incident clearly Connie and as a massive dog-lover and caretaker of four lazy, mooching hairbags I consider dog-killers to be the lowest of the low. Actually there's something lower and that's a lying, psychotic little dwarf who tries to make capital out of the death of his own pooch.

Nobody who matters ever believed for a millisecond you had anything to do with the dog's demise any more than they believe any of the other paranoid ramblings of that poisonous waste of human DNA. Not that that makes Clodwell's actions in accusing you and publishing your personal details any less reprehensible.

Anonymous said...

Note to self: Don't cross Connie Schmidt