Gunderson Dettmer Backs WordPress in Its Censorship of Our Aid to Consumers in Foreclosure

June 8, 2009 — badbizfinder

What is the definition of censorship? If a court determines that a preliminary injunction has no merit – how could it determine that a permanent injunction has merit? Anything is possible if you are devious enough and have enough dirty money to spread around.

WordPress has disabled the Consumers in Crisis Blog. We have just about had it with the censorship and “personal attention” we are receiving from Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic, and web host of WordPress.

Today we contacted the attorneys for WordPress, Gunderson Dettmer in Redwood City, California.

Specifically, we sent our message to:
Bob Gunderson, Managing Partner
Scott Dettmer, Managing Partner
Greg Lemmer, Partner, Litigation
Christina Catzoela, Associate/Future Partner, Corporate
Paul Sieminski, Associate, Corporate

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]
Sent: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 2:30 pm
Subject: Your Client: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress)
Good afternoon,

First and foremost let us say that our nonprofit consumer advocacy group is not represented by counsel, maintains a policy of non-litigious remedy to conflicts, and is extremely well-versed on defenses against defamation as well as constitutional issues regarding prior restraint and free speech/press. We exist solely to warn consumers against loan modification and landlord/tenant fraud.

We are absolutely absent a profit motive as we do not accept donations, payment or gifts of any kind. You can view our blog at http://badbizfinder.wordpress.com. We are a grass roots organization that was founded in 1982 and is a strictly volunteer run organization. We don’t “fight the bad guys, ” we warn and help the good guys (i.e., vulnerable consumers in foreclosure and engaged in oppressive rental scenarios).

With that said, at the beginning of January we launched our blog with the above referenced purpose and to date 82, 000 consumers have visited and benefited from our site. We seek to offer objective information based on facts drawn from various sources with links to those sources. We don’t give our opinion, we direct consumers to the facts and to date have saved 12, 567 consumers from being victims of loan modification predators by directing them to a myriad of sources that are free.

That’s a lot of cash that the predators are losing out on. With an average loan modification going for $3, 500, that comes out to be almost $44 million in just 6 months. Well, you can only imagine that this interruption in criminal cash flow creates a few enemies.

The most egregious offender of all is Parsa Law Group (that has at last count 12 aliases), has an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau, and is run by James Parsa, a lawyer that was charged with 8 counts of statutory rape in 2000 and pled guilty to 2, followed up by being charged with child endangerment. Why is he still practicing law? Good question.

He also holds himself out to be a mortgage litigation expert, when in fact, since 1996, he has only filed 21 cases, 20 of which were personal injury automobile cases, and one was a malpractice case for a fellow attorney.

To date we have received 1, 788 complaints about Parsa Law Group and its aliases. We do everything in our power to point out the fact that this organization is one to be avoided. As a result, we were sued for defamation and Parsa sought $20 million in damages and a preliminary injunction against our blog.

Judge Franz Miller summarily denied the motion for preliminary injunction on May 15, 2009. Parsa then went back for a prove-up hearing on the default and pulled some monkey business. We had fax filed our Motion to Set Aside the Default, however, it was not acknowledged at the hearing because the Central Justice Center had experienced a 24 hour power outage from the afternoon before the hearing to the next day at about 2:30 p.m. The clerk told us not to worry as no one was being let in the building.

However, mysteriously, Parsa was able to secure a $650, 000 judgment against us at a hearing set for 11:30 a.m. Who knows? As soon as we found out, we petitioned the court to hear our motion and of course, they agreed under the circumstances and the hearing is set for July 14, 2009 at 1:30 p.m. We are confident, since nothing has changed since the denial of their motion for preliminary injunction that we will prevail as before.

Your client, Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic and the host of WordPress where we have our blog apparently has a collusory relationship with this law firm, Parsa Law Group. We have in our possession 29 emails spanning the last 4 months from Toni Schneider stating that upon your firm’s advice, he was taking action against us by:

(1) threatening to disable our blog;
(2) blocking our tags as they related only to Parsa Law Group;
(3) questioning us inappropriately about our “position” on several different causes of action named in different pleadings written in the lawsuit by Parsa Law Group;
(4) evaluating the legal sufficiency of subpoenas;
(5) passing on your attorney’s interpretation of legal facts pertaining to this action;
(6) hiding 69 posts that have even the slightest mention of Parsa Law Group; and now
(7) disabling consumers from viewing any post about Parsa Law Group.

Remember, he would preface all his emails with something to the effect of: “At the advice of my attorneys….., ” and so on.

Then I come to find out from Ms. Catzoela of your firm that you haven’t even spoken with him for a year and a half, that he is merely a corporate client.

Mr. Schneider illegally provided Parsa Law Group with our proprietary account information and Parsa Law Group stated as such in its pleadings to confirm the identity of our blog owner. Although there was no subpoena, court order, nor any legal reason for him to breach the inherent confidentiality of that information, he did so and he did so at the advice of his attorneys.

Due to every instance over the last 4 months leading up to today, we are steadfastly certain that he is accepting personal financial benefit from Parsa Law Group. There are millions of bloggers on WordPress. It is incomprehensible that Mr. Schneider would spend days and hours engaged in trickery and deceit for one blog without some sort of benefit to him.

We polled 28 different “controversial” bloggers on WordPress and they were appalled at the behavior of your client. After reviewing our site they were even more shocked as our mission is so clearly altruistic and factual. Those 28 other blog owners stated they didn’t even know Toni’s name before we brought it up and they’ve posted far worse data on their sites. This is clearly a case of selective “terms and conditions” in light of personal financial reward.

Due to the fact that the litigation is still pending on this ridiculous defamation case, we would like to request that you urge your client to restore our blog to full capacity and to leave it alone until such time as the litigation is complete and a final ruling is in place.

Furthermore, a fellow consumer advocate from Tennessee agreed to host our posts about Parsa Law Group on her blog “Consumers in Crisis, ” since our Toni Schneider blocked those posts. This morning, Toni Schneider completely wiped out that blog as well which could never have been included in any judgment against Bad Biz Finder.

As we stated before, we are not litigious, we don’t have time or the inclination to fight the bad guys in court or otherwise. However, we hope you can see the merit of a future lawsuit. We respectfully request that our blog be restored to its full capacity by 5:00 p.m. today.

One last note, we wish to commend Ms. Catzoela for her forthright attempts to assist us last Friday. Although she described herself as “the low man on the totem pole, ” we have a feeling she is going to rise quickly as she represents a significant asset to your organization.

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for Mr. Sieminski. We left two messages for him with no return phone call and in fact on Friday, his secretary lied to us that he was in a meeting and could not be disturbed and then turned around and told Ms. Catzoela that she hadn’t seen him all day.

Whatever happened to common courtesy and honesty?

Update: We just received a telephone call from Tom Villeneuva, Partner at Gunderson Dettmer who tried to convince us that Mr. Schneider has been communicating with him all along – just no one else in the firm knew it.

So we asked him, “Tom, are you attaching your name and the reputation of your firm to the emails sent to us by your client (Toni Schneider) that stated that his attorneys were directing him to do certain things?” Well, hem and hah, nothing. We recommended that perhaps he should read the 29 emails before he puts his law firm on the line like that. Boy, is he going to be surprised when he finds out what “he advised his client to do.”

He said to us, “Do you know what an injunction is?” We couldn’t hardly contain ourselves from his sarcasm. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, he laid this on us, “Toni really hopes that the injunction is reversed and reversed quickly.”

We took a deep breath and suggested to Partner Tom that he go back and talk with Scott Dettmer and Bob Gunderson and when they come up with a different solution that won’t choke the life out of their firm’s reputation, to call us back.

Bad Biz Finder