Second law journal article finds fault in SPEECH Act: Trout Point Lodge v. Handshoe

An article in the Journal of International & Comparative Law of the Chicago-Kent College of Law has supported the conclusons of another recent law journal article to find that the SPEECH Act, as aaplied by both the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit in Trout Point Lodge v. Handshoe, is overly broad and in sorry need of reform:

the instant case . . . . exposes a potential over inclusivity of the SPEECH Act because of its universal applicability in defamation cases and lack of distinction between illegitimate and legitimate fora. Without the proper ability to distingush between the two types of fora, the SPEECH Act penalizes those plaintiffs filing claims in good faith in appropriate fora.

 The article goes on to speak of a "fundamental failing" of the SPEECH Act, and to state that the Act "should be amended."

Trout Point Lodge was an appelate case of first impression for the 2010 SPEECH Act, which resulted in two American citizens resident in Canada being denied their right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution. An inveterage homophobic blogger, Douglas Handshoe, had targetted Charles Leary and Vaughan Perret for online harassment after his then-web host dropped Handshoe's account for republsihing without permission a copyrighted article that erroneously mentioned Leary & Perret's Nova Scotia business as being involved in a Louisiana corruption scandal.

Attorneys for Concrete Busters amend lawsuit, dismiss allegations against Trout Point Lodge, others

Yesterday, the Smith & Fawer law firm amended its complaint on behalf of Concrete Busters of Louisiana and Waste Remediation of Plaquemines against Frederick Heebe, River Birch Landfill, and others, according to the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system of the federal courts. This follows a bizarre move a couple of weeks ago when the law firm sent out a letter retracting allegations of involvement in criminal racketeering they had made against Trout Point Lodge and Cerro Coyote, stating that their information had come from Doug Handshoe's blog Slabbed, and was actually not true. Trout Point and Cerro Coyote--which operate small hotels and vacation properties--are owned by longtime business partners Daniel Abel, Charles Leary, and Vaughn Perret, who during the 1990s owned Chicory Farm and the Chicory Farm Cafe in Louisiana.

 

This can't be good news for homophobic blogger Handshoe, who is being sued by attorney Abel for defamation, including over allegations of involvement in organized crime first made by Handshoe and then repeated in the Concrete Busters lawsuit. Handshoe was also found liable for $427,000 in defamation damages and costs by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in February of 2012. Enforcement of that judgment in favor of Trout Point, Leary, and Perret is currently before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal in New Orleans.

Trout Point and its chef/proprietors lost a summary judgment proceeding against Handshoe in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi last December. The about-face by Smith & Fawer and its clients is significant because in that decision, the federal court took judicial notice of the Concrete Busters lawsuit's allegations. The court also stated that former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard was a defendant in that Concrete Busters complaint, which was in fact not true, and that Mr. Abel was Broussard's law partner, which Abel has also sworn in an affidavit was never the case. No court filings in that case made such an allegation, which has only appeared on Slabbed itself.

Strangely, a look at PACER revealed the clerk for the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana--where the Concrete Busters complaint is filed--erroneously listed Aaron Broussard, Trout Point Lodge, and Cerro Coyote as defendants in that lawsuit. The error was later corrected, but only after the Mississippi court had made its decision in favor of Handshoe, citing the fact that Broussard was a defendant in a lawsuit also involving Trout Point and Cerro Coyote.

This action against Handshoe was the first disputed case in which a U.S. court applied the federal Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act. Handshoe and blogger Anne-Marie Vandenweghe continued to blog about Abel, Perret, Leary, Trout Point, and Cerro Coyote while the court was making its decision, ramping up publishing about them, seemingly in an attempt to convince the court of the truth of their criminal accusations (which if false would be per se defamatory and actionable in Mississippi). The court's decision states that the court monitored Slabbed, taking note of the large number of posts referring to Trout Point, Perret, and Leary in 2012 alone. The fact that the court relied on the now-retracted Concrete Busters allegations as well as other questionable facts could be significant to the appeal. This is because the court was operating under Mississippi law's requirement that a plaintiff prove falsity in a defamation case, something at times very difficult to do. Abel, Leary, and Perret have always insisted they had nothing to do with the criminal activity alleged over and over by Handshoe. Both the Times-Picayune and Fox 8 WVUE have long ago retracted any erroneous identification of Trout Point Lodge belonging to Aaron Broussard. 

Handshoe says that the retractions were coerced from media as part of a conspiracy and coverup. The Concrete Busters lawsuit, in turn, said Trout Point and Cerro Coyote were "shell companies" used by Broussard and Heebe in a criminal conspiracy, and that Leary and Perret were working to silence a valid investigation through their suits against Handshoe and others, including WVUE. Those accusations have now been officially dismissed in addition to the earlier Smith & Fawer retraction.

In another remarkable twist, Abel wrote a letter to the same Mississippi federal court, attaching as an exhibit the letter from Smith & Fawer. The Mississippi federal judge chose to file Abel's letter and exhibit into the public record available on PACER. The Abel letter refers the court's attention to possible fraud by Team Handshoe. Abel's claim is based on the fact that Handshoe likely knew the Mississippi court was perusing Slabbed while deliberating. Handshoe has not denied the allegations.

 

 

Indeed, not everything went Handshoe's way. The federal court flatly denied Handshoe's motion for attorney's fees and an appeal bond, stating that there was no suggestion the appeal of its own decision by Trout Point Lodge, Leary, and Perret to the 5th Circuit was frivolous. This was despite the fact that the SPEECH Act allowed for Handshoe to recover reasonable attorney's fees. Handshoe attorney Bobby Truitt (who also represents Anne-Marie Vandenweghe) was asking for an extraordinary $60,000 in fees on the summary judgment motions. In its initial decision the federal court also agreed that Handshoe was on a "campaign to damage" Leary, Perret, and their business. 

Abel's lawsuit alleges that Handshoe and former Assistant Parish Attorney Vandenweghe conducted their multi-year campaign of defamation in an effort to sway public opinion in the New Orleans/Jefferson metro area at the same time as the federal criminal probe of Broussard, Heebe, and others was underway. This would have benefitted Vandenweghe's own whistleblower lawsuit as well as the criminal prosecutions. He says that Vandenweghe used multiple online personalities, engaging in sock puppetry on Slabbed and elsewhere. Abel has also pointed to an instance where former Assistant U.S. Attorney Salvadore Perricone (posting anonymously) cast doubt on the Times-Picayune's retraction regarding Trout Point Lodge. Perricone had also speculated that Vandenweghe was indeed Slabbed's alter-ego in the context of an article about Vandenweghe's lawsuit against Jefferson Parish, which remarkably just settled out of court this past week before there had been any deposition of Vandenweghe. Abel also claims someone from the New Orleans U.S. Attorney's Office called Trout Point Lodge and then hung up the phone just as Leary & Perret were first seeking to enforce their $427,000 judgment against Handshoe in the Mississippi court about a year ago.

Abel is currently fighting separate motions to dismiss his lawsuit made by Handshoe and Vandenweghe. Vandenweghe went to law school with both former U.S. Attorney James Letten and his top prosecutor former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Maselli-Mann. Both left the Department of Justice after a blogging scandal involving Heebe unmasking Perricone and Maselli-Mann as anonymous online commenters. Perricone had resigend his post a few months earlier. Abel's brief responding to Vandenweghe's motion unmasks some of her multiple online personae using literary and grammatical analysis, similar to the technique used by Heebe to shed light on Perricone and Maselli-Mann's online activities. Abel says he has an M.A. in English literature.

The suggestion is that Vandenweghe's used her position as Assistant Parish Attorney in charge of Public Record Requests, as well as her contacts, to resolve personal vendettas and gain a lawsuit victory, seriously injuring Abel and his partners as innocent bystanders in the proces.

As previously reported, Smith & Fawer client Waste Remediation of Plaquemines is owned by Hank Lauricella, who was a Louisiana state senator at the same time Vandenweghe was on Jefferson Parish Council. Both represented Harahan, the home of both Vandenweghe and Perricone. Smith & Fawer's predecessor law firm also represented Handshoe's business partner Fred H. Goodson in his criminal trial, in which he was convicted for racketeering, fraud, bribery, and money laundering involving truck stop gambling. Lauricella did not seek re-election after his name came up in the same federal criminal probe of video poker in Louisiana, termed "Operation Hardcrust." Handshoe was corporate secretary for Goodson's company Slidell Motel, Inc., a segment of the O'Aces Casino operation ordered forfeit as part of the criminal conspiracy by the federal court after Goodson's conviction. Checks from Slidell Motel were used to make contributions to Louisiana government officials, according to FBI wiretaps.

Handshoe & "Concrete Busters." Blogger's lies betrayed, no more hands to stand on for Handshoe -- An Easter Surprise!

An interesting letter from a court filing came to light today. Remember that coincidentally just as the Federal District Court in southern Mississippi was considering enforcing Trout Point Lodge's $427,000 Canadian defamation judgment against homophobic blogger Doug Handshoe, attorneys for Concrete Busters of Louisiana just happened to file an amended lawsuit against federal criminal probe target Frederick Heebe that just coincidentally mentioned Trout Point Lodge as well as that very Mississippi lawsuit?

Here's what Handshoe said at the time on Slabbed:
 

Civil District Court lawsuit filed by Concrete Busters against River Birch terms Trout Point Lodge Ltd. of Nova Scotia a “shell company”

They did folks. In fact Concrete Busters amended complaint filed Wednesday against The River Birch Landfill et al unifies several themes we’ve covered here on Slabbed through time. But alas those nasty Goatherders and I have an outstanding  matter in United States Federal District Court in Gulfport before Judge Louis Guirola that my lawyer, Bobby Truitt has me barred from commenting upon. But that does not mean that we can’t let Concrete Busters tell part of that story . . .

Handshoe published a scan of the entire lawsuit he somehow got the same day it was filed, and that self-same scan also just happened to end up published on nola.com too, giving it really wide exposure. The suit was later removed to federal court, and Handshoe published on that too:

Trout Point Lodge, Cerro Coyote, Aaron Broussard and others named as co-conspirators/defendants in federal racketeering suit.

The Concrete Busters suit really helped shore up Handshoe's credibility. The gist was: "If actual lawyers were making these serious allegations about Trout Point Lodge and its owners, there really must be something to it all." It gave Handshoe an excuse for lots of Slabbed posts full of real malice.

Unfortunately for Trout Point Lodge, Charles Leary, and Vaughn Perret, the federal district court in Gulfport, Mississippi, noticed the Concrete Busters amendment as well, and mentioned it's now clearly false allegations that they were involved with Aaron Broussard in criminal wrongdoing in the December, 2012, Order denying that important summary judgment motion--a case of first impression for the federal SPEECH Act. One might say it played an important role in the judge's decision.

Handshoe also used the Concrete Busters suit to accuse Leary & Perret of crimes in a letter he wrote to a Supreme Court justice in Nova Scotia in February, and has published extensively on it since then.

Well of course Handshoe wanted to let the Concerete Busters suit "tell the story"--because it was his own made-up conspiracy theory reproduced word for word in the lawsuit . . .  and now retracted, laying the blame at Handshoe's feet. Here's the astounding letter:

 

 

Talk about an about-face!!! Duping of others in self-interest might be called a theme here.

Concrete Busters was one mighty big piece of seeming justification in Mr. Handshoe's multi-year "campaign to damage" Leary, Perret, Trout Point Lodge, and others. (Those are the words of that Mississippi federal court, which recently also denied Handshoe's request for $60,000 in attorney's fees). Handshoe can probably be held liable for this republication of his false and injurious words too. Surely, Daniel G. Abel--who is suing Handshoe for defamation-- will find this all very intriguing & useful.

Former allegational ringmaster Anne-Marie Vandenweghe, her (sock) puppet Doug Handshoe, and their coincidentally mutual attorney Jack "Bobby" Truitt must not be too happy right now. No wonder Mr. Doug looks so grim . . .

 

Douglas Handshoe, CPA & blogger

Some say public official Vandenweghe had links to people in the U.S. Attorney's Office too, past and present, including some with Italian surnames. . . . including some who, it is said, were once investigating her then-husband Ray Valdes. This was coincidentally the same prosecutors' office pursuing Aaron Broussard and Frederick Heebe. Might she have been duping third parties as well, in the name of self interest?

Vandenweghe surely was connected to federal prosecutors in 2009-10. She was "cooperating" and "informing" for the USAO on alleged Jefferson Parish corruption, according to her own taping of Jefferson Parish President Steve Theriot placing her on administrative leave for blogging on government time about the government back in that year. (As well as in comments made on Slabbed under pseudonyms like "unslabbed"). Vandenweghe's USAO contacts included prosecutors who just happened to also be spearheading the Aaron Broussard prosecution. Could the USAO have been misled and duped by Vandenweghe, just like Handshoe did with Concrete Busters?

Handshoe/Vandenweghe attorney Mr. Truitt was surely really looking forward to his $60,000 in supposed attorney's fees after Trout Point et. al. lost the summary judgement motion. Too bad he didn't get it. Guess that "win at all costs" attitude that federal Judge Englehardt wrote about in the context of the U.S. Attorney blogging scandal might just have transcended the boundaries of that office.

"Discrimination & hatred": The Slabbed Nation's anti-gay hate speech -Updated-

"In addition in the case at hand, the blogs contain comments based on the actual or perceived sexual orientation of the intended targets. Those comments are clearly meant to be derogatory and insulting. I will not reproduce them here. It is the type of expression that engenders harmful results such as discrimination and hatred. It is not the type of free expression that deserves protection and fostering."

Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court

commenting on Doug K. Handshoe's

"Slabbed" in 2011

Though Doug Handshoe is infamous for referring to Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret as "the girls," the words he has published on Slabbed--both his own and what are purportedly those of others--go far beyond that simple misogynistic slur. That's simply what the media picked up on.

After being found liable for defamation in Nova Scotia in 2012, Doug tried to explain his hate-mongering homophobic publications: 

So this brings us to the question of the day and one that has been asked of me by tweeps such as Beth and our own Bellesouth, who both registered their displeasure at me for using the term “girls” to describe Leary and Perret.  After all Slabbed is supposed to be a liberal blog as we have repeatedly called out right wing nuts that scapegoat Hispanics and the poor.  Slabbed is known for supporting the little people aka the common man aka the 99%.  It was so out of character so I well understood why the question was being asked.

Mr. Doug answers why he called Leary & Perret "the girls": "The answer is my eyes have been on a larger prize and using the term helped facilitate the process." That's right, Doug is a good, liberal blogger, supporter of the "little people," and he's not really hateful towards gays. Mr. Doug says: "I have lifelong gay friends that are considered family more than friends. God says hate the sin, not the sinner."

Handshoe is responsible for each comment published on Slabbed. He says his anti-gay speech serves a purpose, and there's no over-arching anti-gay theme to his blog. He says he's not motivated by homophobia and anti-gay hatred for his 3 year campaign to damage Leary & Perret by making false criminal accusations against them across the Internet. 

You decide. 

* * *

A selection of anti-gay speech from posts and comments published by Doug K. Handshoe on Slabbed:

  first up: a comment from Unslabbed:

"Welcome to Slabbed Danny and Carlie and Charlie and Vaughnie and any of you other Special Guys of Trout Point and Wild West.

Now I am VERY curious and inquisitive about you…and ALL your BUDS.

May I suggest BOYS that you all huddle quickly and decide if the Inquisition sure to follow continued attempts to GAG the Slabbed Nation is worth the information which will be elicted [sic] in protracted legal battles on all continents. Please remember that many of us enjoy Dual Nationalities, Counsulate Immunities, and have LONG REACHING tentacles … perhaps longer than yours , although size is not really that important unless you are on the receiving end.

If I were you BOYS I would keep my head down, not bend over to pick up the soap and ride my horses into the sunset on Brokeback Mountain.

I, one Slabbed Nation member, vow to search you all out to the ends of the earth ( Yes in Switzerland, Hawaii, France, Italy, Canada and Spain ) anywhere any of you have any connections.

I have the time, temperament and now the impetus to set myself to this task. Hold on, it may be a bumpy ride for some of you.

See ya soon, Cowboys."

 Followed by a random selection of choice words:

"Damn! Queer (as in goofy as hell) fag (as in deviant perverts) scum (as in lawyers): again, queer fag scum!"

"It’s not untruthful… I wish those two were dead. /malicecontained."[referring to Perret & Leary]

"My comments are admittedly “politically incorrect”, but true. Society would be much better off if “queers” were precluded from donating blood and blood products (the blood supply is NOT AIDS-free, because they’re not precluded), than by “pasturizing” the raw oysters legally harvested in this country, which will benefit ONLY the already-infected, who probably won’t (and shouldn’t) eat raw oysters , anyway. I sincerely hope that none of us require a blood transfusion before we die, which may “hasten” our deaths, from AIDS, due to contamination of the blood supply."

"Whoops! How’d I forget about Drago’s (?) although I’ve never had “raws” there, only “char-broiled”, which I assume KILLS any bacteria. (How about shaking hands with a “queer”?). And make that “violent, unprotected anal sex, which draws blood, and exchange of bodily fluids, which were infected before the event, and have NOTHING to do with eating raw oysters, only each other”."

 "I would think that the Federal Government should use its assets and power to “regulate” things like “unprotected anal sex by homosexuals” which result in things like hepatitis, immune deficiency syndrome and AIDS, which I believe are contagious. Keep the “queers” away from each other, me and oysters, and “Every little thing will be allright”."

 "that didn’t stop Perret from sending his bottom bitch Charles Leary out to mislead and threaten."

 "WTF were these fish-head faggots thinking"

  "I cannot imagine a US Court giving credence to this faggot farce"

 "If these punk-ass fucking faggots think they are going to take up from where TheRiot ran away from they are more fucked up then they have shown themselves to be so far."

"FYI: What "some people" identify as "fever blisters" or "canker sores" may REALLY be pus-oozing bacterial and/or viral eruptions caused by GENITAL HERPES, which has been transferred (or "transmitted") from the genitalia and/or anus, orally, to the mouth, in oral-to-genital-and/or oral-to-anal sexual contact. This type of PATHOLOGY is exponentially more prevalent in the non-heterosexual segment of Society, and its incidence is found more in homosexual males than in homosexual females. This is but one reason why our fighting men should not be required to share a foxhole or a canteen, much less bodily fluids, with a QUEER. The subject of battlefield blood transfusions, and the risks inherent thereto, will be dealt with in a separate Chapter to this Series."

"he, his wife Vaughn Perret and their sugar daddy Danny Abel"

 "Leary and his wife Vaughn Perret, owners of the Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia"

 "Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret and their Canadian Do Bitch Judge Pierre Muise."

  "I purposely satarized [sic] Leary, Perret and Abel by using terms like "bitches" a few times, Like we say down here "if the shoe fits…." Free Speech US style means on occasion things get ugly as does the search for the truth or in colloquial terms "keeping it real"."

"there has been place for every faggot & maggot in three parishes round the campfire! Some like bannana-boy steroided into eunuchdom, some like wiggly-quiggley got to stay with the kiddies at Recreation, a whole nest of ‘em at the Water Dept. from the director -in-drag in his biker leather on down, and let us not forget chrissy-the-sissy who is rumoured to have undergone three failed sex-changes: trying to become a man!!
Any wonder that their favorite R&R is at Grand Isle: home of the jackoffs and jellyfish, mullets and suckers?"

"It is for true folks as Jimbo sez to bend over and grab yer ankles."

"Otherwise bend over and grab the lube, because they are going keep ramming it up there as long as they are able to breathe"

"becum the local distributor for Carmex and to live at 69 Donut Glaze Lane which runs perpen'dick'ular to Ferry Place and Tutti Frutti Freeway"

"That ain't donut glaze on David Vitter's diaper"

"That ain't doughnut glaze on Judge Ross LaDart's Chin! Louisiana 5th Circuit Court of Appeals bitch slaps the inept judge"

" That ain't doughnut glaze on Tony Lawrence's chin!"

" That ain't donut glaze on Tom Wilkinson's chin!"

" The good mens at State Farm squeezed Merlin's balls until he gave them what they wanted and that's not donut glaze on the floor!"

" That ain't doughnut glaze on Costner's (or Magnum's) chin."

"" Talk about “that ain't doughnut glaze on your backside matey.”"

 "Apparently there was a storm in Nova Scotia last May…The fags were flying high!"

"But I've HAD IT with this character "Tom From Mobile". He is switching the subject from alleged CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR to fruit, queer dick-sucking and fudge-packing, and people may be falling for it, because he is so "glib-tongued" (maybe he's had a lot of practice). So I have a proposition for this "TomFrom Moblie" character: I'll release my medical records if you, "Tom From Mobile", and Leary, Perret, Able, Gonzo, Rotary, Jordan and Craig, release YOUR medical records. What say you, "Tom From Moblie"? Now perhaps can we get back to who owned property in Nova Scotia, and who used it, and why and for what, and what they paid for the use of it, and to whom, and leave all of this FRUIT, QUEER oral and anal homosexual SEX behind (no pun intended) us?"