Chilling speech and avoiding discovery: the legal antics of a homophobic Mississippi blogger (he makes enemies everywhere he goes)

 "intrepid, courageous patriots who understand our 
United States Constitution and believe in the necessity for absolute freedom of speech."  

Anne-Marie Vandenweghe describing Douglas Handshoe & 
Bobby Truitt in 2015

Oh, really?

intrepid, courageous patriots who understand our United States Constitution and believe in the necessity for absolute freedom of speech. - See more at: http://slabbed.org/2015/02/05/whistleblower-guest-post-anne-vandenweghe-darkness-allows-evil-to-flourish/#sthash.M56LeYti.UUifuQhf.dpuf

intrepid, courageous patriots who understand our United States Constitution and believe in the necessity for absolute freedom of speech. - See more at: http://slabbed.org/2015/02/05/whistleblower-guest-post-anne-vandenweghe-darkness-allows-evil-to-flourish/#sthash.M56LeYti.UUifuQhf.dpuf

Free speech? For me only, thank you

Sometime recently, homophobic Mississippi blogger Douglas Handshoe sued two newspapers, the Toronto Star and the Halifax Chronicle-Herald for libel. He also sued an investigative reporter for the Star, Peter Edwards. He filed the actions in Hancock County Circuit Court, Mississippi. In 2013, Handshoe sued Nova Scotia legal commentator Michael Coyle for libel, also in Hancock County, for an article on his legal affairs web site that described Handshoe's defeat in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. That same year he also sued Yours Truly, also for libel, also in Hancock County, for writing about his history with felon Fred Goodson. He also sued Trout Point Lodge, Charles Leary, Daniel Abel, Chris Yount, Nova Scotia Enterprises, and Aaron Broussard for conspiracy, abuse of process, and malicious prosecution, also in Hancock County, in retaliation for being sued for defamation over what one federal judge termed his "campaign" to damage and harass.

In each case, Douglas Handshoe used his own lawsuits as fodder for expanding his blog content and/or his Twitter feed.

In the recent lawsuits against the Canadian newspapers, Handshoe has reportedly alleged it was defamatory to publish that he is "homophobic." Handshoe actually alleges that a court of law has never found him to be anti-homosexual. Gee, Doug, guess you have never read the following court decisions:

• Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Muise in 2011: "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."
• U.S. District Court Chief Judge Guirola in 2012: "Handshoe has published numerous entries on 'Slabbed' about Plaintiffs, many of which may be characterized as derogatory, mean spirited, sexist and homophobic." 
• U.S. Circuit Court Judge Walker-Elrod in 2013 on Handshoe's homophobic rhetoric: "grotesque" and "reprehensible."
• Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Coady in 2014: "The statements also contained anti-gay rhetoric and homophobic comments."

 In May of 2013, Handshoe filed a Digital Millenium Copyright Act take-down notice with Google, swearing under penalty of perjury that the Creative Commons photograph of him that appears on this blog was his own intellectual property. His notice was promptly published to the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, where it belongs. Google appears to have ignored him.

Who says the U.S. Supreme Court said copyright was about protecting the right to speak? Not in Mr. Doug's universe. All I can say is, Handshoe gives me chills.

Handshoe also just sued Daniel Abel, Loyola University of New Orleans, university legal clinic attorney Ramona Fernandez, Chris Yount and a law student in U.S. federal district court in Mississippi for "abuse of process" and "malicious prosection." Suing a law school student working in a legal clinic on behalf of a minor child goes beyond the pale; but not for Doug, resolutely supported by his wife Jennifer Handshoe. Such a clinic usually reserves its time and resources to help those less fortunate in need of legal aid; now they will have to waste their time dealing with Mr. Doug over a case where he used a child's sexually-explicit drawing for his own selfish ends.

Catholic school St. Stanislaus alum, Handshoe delved into the divorce court file of Mr. Yount, whose only connection to Handshoe was serving him with legal process, apparently looking for embarassing material to publish on his blog "Slabbed." Good way to try to avoid being served with legal complaints in the future, no?

Seems like Handshoe also publicly accused the Sun Herald newspaper and its Political Editor Paul Hampton of being on the take: "Enter Doug Handshoe of the Slabbed blog, who has a tendency to go off half-cocked."

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2014/08/27/5766185_from-the-im-not-in-it-for-the.html#storylink=cpy

It seems like Handshoe, with the help of his buddy attorneys Bobby Truitt and Connie Sue Montogomery, will stop at nothing to silence words about him he doesn't like. Those words might be on a blog, like this one, in a newspaper, or in a court document.

Handshoe rants about being the ultimate defender of free speech and the consummate enemy of chilling effects. The facts appear to say distinctly otherwise. A bit lopsided in your fervent online advocacy, Doug?

Discover me? No thanks

Handshoe also has a special penchant for fastidiously avoiding discovery, even though he loves filing his own lawsuits and legal challenges. "Abuse of process," anyone?

One has to wonder when the courts--especially Hancock County Circuit Court--are going to wake up and take a full, long look at what's occurring to the integrity of their system. Most often, if Handshoe hurls an accusation against someone, it's because he's truly engaged in exactly the same conduct he's claiming his opponent engages in. "Litigation terrorism," anyone?

On the topic of Handshoe and avoiding discovery, let's review a few examples:
1. In the first Canadian litigation against him, he simply didn't show up, despite being personally served with legal process (by Chris Yount). Thus, no discovery.

2. In the second Canadian litigation against him, court records show he filed an affidavit related to his ultimately-unsupported allegtions of "unclean hands." Under Nova Scotia law, the opposing party has a right to cross-examine a person whose affidavit is submitted into evidence. Handshoe went to the extent of making the extraordinary request to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court to relieve him from the obligation of being cross-examined. He lost, and as soon as he lost, he pulled his own affidavit so that no one could ask him questions under oath. Hmmm, wonder why?

3. In 2014, there was a U.S. district court case in Mississippi between Magnolia Group and O'Dwyer Realty. According to Magistrate Judge Walker, a defendant sought from the plaintiff [not Handshoe] "disclosure of communications among Douglas Handshoe/Slabbed.org and Magnolia Group, Keith Aschliman or William Washburn." The secretive Mr. Handshoe intervened in the lawsuit "in an effort to prevent disclosure" of those communications. "Handshoe seeks to prevent Magnolia Group from disclosing what he asserts are confidential communications," according to the judge's decision. Again, Handshoe lost. "In the instant case, Defendant Bunch is not asking Handshoe to disclose confidential information or the identity of confidential sources. In fact, Defendant Bunch has not requested any disclosures whatsoever from Handshoe or Slabbed.org." Of course, that did not prevent Handshoe from wasting the court's time with his silly motion, trying to chill any speech or disclosure about him that he could not control.

4. In his 2012 SPEECH Act removal case, Judge Louis Guirola noted about Handshoe: "In his Memorandum in Support of his Motion for Summary Judgment, Handshoe represented to the Court that 'disposition of the case need not involve discovery and turns on legal issues which [the] Court [could] resolve by the litigants' respective motions for summary judgment.' The record indicates that there has been no discovery in this action." Enough said.

5. In his failed attempt to get a Canadian copyright judgment against him tossed out under the SPEECH Act, Handshoe filed an anti-suit injunction motion in Judge Louis Guirola's court, trying to get Judge Guirola in Mississippi to order Judge Piper Griffin in New Orleans to put a stop to Daniel Abel's defamation suit against Handshoe. Too bad this violates a basic principle of the federal democracy: The constitutional right of each state to maintain its own independent judicial system for the resolution of legal disputes. This is a fundamental tenet of the USA's federal system of government. Again, legal tactics (or are they antics?) that violate the U.S. Constitution isn't beyond Handshoe.

6.  Right now in that same New Orleans Civil District Court, Handshoe attempted to have the libel lawsuit against him stopped by filing not one, but two anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) motions. Both were denied by Chief Judge Piper Griffin, and the time came for answering discovery. Court documents show Handshoe is, yet again, adamantly refusing to comply with his legal obligation to be discovered. Daniel Abel's motion to get a court order compelling him to answer discovery will soon be heard. A similar motion to compel his discovery is scheduled for May in the copyright judgment case against him   . . .  stay tuned.

BREAKING NEWS on the "famed" Slabbed legal team: Blogger Handshoe's Baldwin Haspel legal team loses on motions to sanction the attorney who is suing Handshoe for defamation, more

On May 9, 2013, Doug Handshoe, CPA, was openly gleeful that federal judge Susie Morgan had issued an Order telling attorney Daniel Abel to show cause why he had issued a subpoena to Jefferson Parish regarding former Assistant Parish Attorney Anne-Marie Vandenweghe's blogging activities. Handshoe even put up a countdown clock on Slabbed, leading to the minute the hearing was scheduled to begin.

Abel was suing Handshoe and Vandenweghe for defamation in federal court. "We’re going for his license to practice in federal courts as Danny Abel has a history, habit and pattern of disobeying the Louisiana and Federal Courts," stated Handshoe. Handshoe was defended in the lawsuit by New Orleans' own Baldwin Haspel, a firm that may now be wondering what they've gotten themselves into with Handshoe, an adjudicated defamer and inveterate blogger, who will even openly and notoriously break federal court rules to continue blogging and tweeting.

A conspiracy theorist, Handshoe has for years accused Abel and his two business associates of involvement in federal crimes related to the criminal investigation, indictment, and guilty plea of former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard. All three men are gay. Broussard, in fact, was never indicted or sentenced for any crimes relating to Abel, his partners, or their businesses, including Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia. Abel is self-represented. Handshoe has repeatedly accused the trio of being members of organized crime, racketeering, and money laundering, among many other unfounded allegations. No one except Handshoe and Vandenweghe have made such claims, and various publications on Slabbed are fervently anti-gay and homophobic.

Judge Morgan had for months not acted on Abel's motion to remand the case to Louisiana state court after Vandenweghe revealed in her first court filing that she now resided in Harahan, Louisiana not Pass Christian, Mississippi. In the mean time, both Vandenweghe and Handshoe tried their best to have the case against them dismissed, revealing their legal strategies in extensive court filings. Last week, Judge Morgan suddenly indefinitely cancelled oral argument scheduled for Handshoe's attorneys, and denied his attempt at getting sanctions against sole practitioner Abel. That was defeat number one for well-reputed firm Baldwin Haspel, followed by a reprimand from the judge after she found out that Handshoe was tweeting and emailing from inside the courtroom during oral argument, which is against the law. He was seated at counsel's table next to his Baldwin Haspel attorneys while breaking the law. Morgan actually reconvened the hearing to advise Handshoe and his attorneys about Handshoe's rule-breaking conduct, apparently after her staff discovered the online publications.

Judge Morgan had allowed Abel to voluntarily dismiss the federal lawsuit (which had been necessitated by Vandenweghe and Handshoe both living in Mississippi) without prejudice, which meant he is free to file against them anew in Louisiana state court. Abel in fact has told the federal court he plans to sue in state court soon. 

Balwin Haspel associates Scott Sternberg and Brodie Glenn then tried to get attorney's fees from Abel by court order, even going to the extent of questioning the judge's prior ruling regarding §1927 sanctions and her decision that Abel could dismiss voluntarily without prejudice. Sternberg is an avid defender of blogger rights and access to public records, however defamation--like publicly accusing people of major crimes and corruption without any proof--is not free speech under Louisiana or United States law. The Baldwin Haspel attorneys claim that Handshoe's allegations were simply opinion or hyperbole, however anyone vaguely familiar with Slabbed would find such a suggestion laughable. Handshoe also claims to be a journalist, and points to coverage of his blog by the Times-Piacyune web site nola.com as proof.

Morgan's decision is legally significant because it means that a special motion to strike under Louisiana's anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) rules does not amount to a motion for summary judgment, at least under federal court rules. To win on such an anti-SLAPP motion, Handshoe would have had to show how Abel's private business was somehow a matter of public interest, and it cannot be so just because Handshoe said it was on Slabbed. 

It is notably ironic that both Handshoe as represented by Baldwin Haspel attorney Sternberg and a self-represented Vandenweghe were opposing Abel's attempts to get at Jefferson Parish public records, as both are prior users of public records laws and Vandenweghe was the Assistant Parish Attorney in charge of public record requests while the Broussard criminal investigation was underway by both journalists and prosecutors. Sternberg has represented two student newspaper editors in cases involving Louisiana public records laws, at Tulane and Louisiana State University.

Judge Morgan today denied Handhshoe and Vandenwege's motions for attorney's fees, blow number three for the New Orleans law firm. It's an open question as to whether Handshoe has paid the firm a cent, as the Baldwin Haspel attorneys seemed desperate to get a fee award, filing multiple briefs to Judge Morgan. The firms advertises on Slabbed's front page.

This setback echoes Handshoe's defeat in Mississippi federal court in February, where Judge Guirola denied he and his attorney Bobby Truitt's attempt to get attorney's fees in another court case where Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret were seeking to enforce a $425,000 Canadian defamation judgment against Handshoe. The federal judge unequivocally denied the motion, and said there was no suggestion that Leary & Perret's appeal to the Federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeal was frivolous.  That appeal is pending.

Final page of Judge Morgan's Order stating that Handshoe's legal argument was "inapposite"

In today's opinion, Judge Morgan noted that Handshoe filed a special motion to strike Abel's lawsuit only after Baldwin Haspel opposed the motion to move the lawsuit to state court, and refused to countenance their complaints that Abel had acted in some vexatious manner. Abel had simply amended his lawsuit once to add new allegedly defamatory statements Vandenweghe and Handshoe had allegedly published on Slabbed. He also filed a brief in Morgan's court making a strong argument unmasking Vandenweghe's multiple blogging personalities, a technique known as "sock puppetry." Interim Jefferson Parish President Steve Theriot had publicly accused Vandenweghe of blogging while a Parish employee and on Parish time. Theriot and Jefferson Parish then sued in defamation trying to get information on anonymous online identities publishing on nola.com and Slabbed. Abel has submitted Public Record Requests to Jefferson Parish relating to Vandenweghe's online activities and that prior lawsuit, which was later withdrawn. Abel stated in court filings that Jefferson Parish had indicated to him that it has documents and records responsive to his inquiries about Vandenweghe.

Abel's analysis of writings on Slabbed is similar to what was done to unmask federal prosecutors Salvadore Perricone and Jan Maselli-Mann as anonymous bloggers, a scandal still reverberating through the New Orleans U.S. Attorney's Office. The unmasking was done by Frederick Heebe, co-owner of the River Birch Landfill, and his legal team. Vandenweghe attended law school with Maselli-Mann and her former boss U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, who resigned amidst the uproar. More recently, attorneys for Waste Remediation of Plaquemines and Concrete Busters of Louisiana retracted and then dismissed allegations they had picked up from Slabbed that implicated Abel, Leary, and Perret's companies in a criminal racketeering conspiracy with Aaron Broussard and Frederick Heebe. The law firm Smith & Fawer laid blame for such false allegations squarely on Handshoe's shoulders.

The U.S. Attorney's Office called off all criminal investigation involving the River Birch Landfill contract in an unprecedented move after Perricone, Maselli-Mann, and Letten's resignations citing "evidentiary concerns." Smith & Fawer has now just dismissed with prejudice the entirety of their lawsuit on behalf of the two competing waste companies, citing the Letten's U.S. Attorney's Office as having "mislead" them with regards to its investigation. 

Today, Judge Morgan termed Baldwin Haspel's legal argument in Abel's case as "inapposite," meaning out of place or inappropriate.

Notably, Handshoe has been completely silent about his losses in Judge Morgan's courtroom, despite his glee in publishing prognostications about Abel's fate earlier in the month. 

Coming soon, more on Handshoe's questionable assertions made to courts in both the United States and Nova Scotia, where he is again being sued in Nova Scotia Supreme Court for copyright violations. 

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.

Federal court says "no" to International Cyber Bully: Appeal not frivolous

Homophobic Blogger Douglas Handshoe

Today Mr. Doug Handshoe is spouting lies again, this time referring to "the frivolous appeal . . . . pending before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals." Yet for some reason, when a Mississippi federal district court filed its decision February 25, 2013, flatly denying the Slabbed blog publisher's motion for a whopping $60,000.00 "appeal bond," it did not end up published on Slabbed.  

Mr. Handshoe's usual dispatch in publishing court documents had vanished. In fact, some web site in Nova Scotia had to break the news. Wonder why? Slabbed blog publisher Handshoe and his attorney had been unequivocal about their money victory:

"This has been a hard fought and significant victory; but, it is not over, as they will now owe you for your attorney’s fees under the SPEECH Act, and they have submitted to the Court’s jurisdiction." Handshoe attorney Jack "Bobby" Truitt, December 19, 2012 

---

". . . .  a litigation instigating loser pays the fees. . . .  Perret and Leary landed themselves in the position of paying for my excellent lawyer, Bobby Truitt. (Thanks guys)  The bottom line is the federal court system has very efficient ways of dealing with frivolous litigation designed to “sue” a journalist “into bankruptcy”."

. . . . .

"As I understand it the court will require the bond before the appeal can move forward. As I understand it my lawyer intends to enroll the award in every foreign jurisdiction these nuts job have property located plus here in the US.
Jr if not for other people’s money Perret would be in a white coat working for Pip Brennan."

As I understand it the court will require the bond before the appeal can move forward. As I understand it my lawyer intends to enroll the award in every foreign jurisdiction these nuts job have property located plus here in the US.
Jr if not for other people’s money Perret would be in a white coat working for Pip Brennan.
- See more at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KrrLI9s5oIIJ:www.slabbed.org/2012/12/28/reality-check-time-for-trout-point-lodge-a-eco-libel-tourism-update/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de&client=firefox-a#sthash.NnxuhKKC.dpuf

As I understand it the court will require the bond before the appeal can move forward. As I understand it my lawyer intends to enroll the award in every foreign jurisdiction these nuts job have property located plus here in the US.
Jr if not for other people’s money Perret would be in a white coat working for Pip Brennan.
- See more at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KrrLI9s5oIIJ:www.slabbed.org/2012/12/28/reality-check-time-for-trout-point-lodge-a-eco-libel-tourism-update/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de&client=firefox-a#sthash.NnxuhKKC.dpuf

As I understand it the court will require the bond before the appeal can move forward. As I understand it my lawyer intends to enroll the award in every foreign jurisdiction these nuts job have property located plus here in the US.
Jr if not for other people’s money Perret would be in a white coat working for Pip Brennan.
- See more at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KrrLI9s5oIIJ:www.slabbed.org/2012/12/28/reality-check-time-for-trout-point-lodge-a-eco-libel-tourism-update/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de&client=firefox-a#sthash.NnxuhKKC.dpuf

Doug Handshoe, December 28, 2012. 

As I understand it the court will require the bond before the appeal can move forward. As I understand it my lawyer intends to enroll the award in every foreign jurisdiction these nuts job have property located plus here in the US.
Jr if not for other people’s money Perret would be in a white coat working for Pip Brennan.
- See more at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KrrLI9s5oIIJ:www.slabbed.org/2012/12/28/reality-check-time-for-trout-point-lodge-a-eco-libel-tourism-update/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de&client=firefox-a#sthash.NnxuhKKC.dpuf

Not only did the judge not award any attorney's fees whatsoever, he also awarded no costs--either for the proceeding before him or for the appeal perfected by the Plaintiffs. In fact, Mr. Handshoe had apparently counted his hens before they hatched, promising to pay lawyers for his defense against defamation claims against him in federal district court in Louisiana with monies from his assumed appeal bond victory:

Slabbed New Media is accepting auditions for the fabled legal team

Folks I am spreading the wealth on my travails with the Aaron Broussard’s henchmen as recently laid out on these pages.

Hasn't anyone told Mr. Doug that he should never assume? Mr. Truitt also had more things to say on Twitter, before the decision:

The Handshoe/Truitt motion did not stop the appeal from moving forward. In addition, the decision  made clear that the Chief District Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi did not find the appeal by Charles Leary, Vaughn Perret, and their business Trout Point Lodge to be "frivolous litigation." So much for enrolling "the award in every foreign jurisdiction these nuts job have property." So much for what Mr. Doug "understood." Should Mr. Truitt really be publicly calling Leary & Perret, his client's legal opponents, "cowards"???


Here's key parts of the decision it seems Handshoe would rather that no one see:

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO REQUIRE COST BOND FOR APPEAL

BEFORE THE COURT is the Defendant Douglas K. Handshoe’s [38] Motion to Require Cost Bond for Appeal Filed by Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs Trout Point Lodge Limited, Vaughn Perret, and Charles  Leary have filed a response, and Defendant Handshoe has filed a reply. The Court finds that the Motion is not well-taken and should be denied.

. . . . .
Handshoe has not provided any documentation or other evidence of his costs in support of his request for a bond in the amount of $60,000.00.

. . . Handshoe argues that attorney’s fees incurred on appeal are not prohibited from inclusion in a Rule 7 bond, but as noted above, the Fifth Circuit has not determined that attorney’s fees should be included in such an order. In any event, Handshoe has not convinced the Court that it should exercise its discretion to order a bond in this case. The Court’s Order on summary judgment involved a matter of first impression for this Court, and there is no suggestion that the appeal was frivolous. . . . Because Handshoe has neither provided support for the amount of security he requests, nor convinced the Court that attorney’s fees are included in Rule 7 “costs,” the Motion will be denied.

In fact, the federal judge never gave Mr. Doug attorney's fees in his original decision. Nor did he ever say that the Nova Scotia judgment against Handshoe was "repugnant." He never called Leary & Perret "libel terrorists" or even libel "tourists." He never criticized the Nova Scotia judge, either. You might think differently reading the homophobic blog "Slabbed."

Mr. Handshoe had crowed: 

Judge Guirola found both the money judgment and Hood’s injunction repugnant to the constitution of the United States  under the SPEECH Act but Perret and Leary are in full tilt damage control mode after Guirola’s decision.  I’d submit Perret, a self proclaimed Park Avenue lawyer is fooling only himself, beclowning himself in the process.

And:

. . . sophomoric antics work up in Nova Scotia, in fact I was counting on it when I termed NS Justice Hood a twit back in the day. The accompanying loss of professionalism on her part was duly noticed and noted by Judge Guirola in his decision.

The appeal to the 5th Circuit Appeal Court is proceeding, according to PACER.The decision was even published, curiously unlike the one denying the Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment.