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Declaration of Neutrality in the War Between Marc Randazza and Crystal Cox

April 06, 2012 By: John Kindley Category: Uncategorized

I was predisposed to take Marc’s side in this War. I was the first to comment on the call to arms by Ken at Popehat that made everyone aware of the War, where I wrote:

Now I feel like kind of a schmuck for kind of making fun of everybody for praising Marco in my own post praising him.

In the post I was referring to in my comment, I had written of Marc:

I’ve never detected from him a whiff of the fondness for circle-jerking and (yes, of course, constitutionally-protected, thank God and Marco) internet-mobbing that characterizes to a greater or lesser extent many of his fans.

In line with that predisposition and in deference to Ken, whom I respect and admire as a principled blogger and lawyer whom I believe does what he believes is right, and who had asked his readers not to link to marcrandazza.com, the site from which Crystal Cox is waging her side of this War, I had refrained from doing so, up until my last post.

Now I can’t be so sure.

Here’s the thing. Marc Randazza wrote this in a comment on a subsequent post about the War by Ken at Popehat:

I am . . . not pleased to see that she’s going to take this to the 9th Circuit. [In a comment on Ken’s earlier post, Marc had written: “If this thing goes to the 9th Circuit, I’m afraid it will be an ego trip and not a real desire to clean up the state of the law.”] She’s not about free speech, she’s about ego and insanity. I find it unfortunate that EV [the attorney who is now representing her on appeal] can’t convince her not to appeal. Naturally, if she’s going to appeal, I’d rather someone like EV handle the appeal than let her go pro se and fuck everything up worse than she did in the trial court.

I responded:

I would think that if EV thought CC shouldn’t appeal and had tried to convince her not to appeal he wouldn’t be representing her on appeal pro bono. Seems he would have clarified what he was agreeing to do before entering his appearance in the case. I don’t think EV is being dragged kicking and screaming up to the Ninth Circuit by CC’s ego and insanity.

Marc replied:

I am certain that EV is not being “Dragged” to the 9th. But, here’s what I think:

EV knows, or should know, that the likely outcome of this appeal will not be good for anyone.

EV tells Cox that, and says “you should not appeal.”

Cox says “I’m GoInG tO aPpeal anyHOW!”

EV says “shit, if you’re going to appeal in your own batshit crazy way, I need to go along to make sure that you smear as little shit on the walls as possible. The frigging mess you made at the trial level was bad enough. If I am there, at least I can limit the damage.”

That’s the only scenario that makes sense to me.

But then, there’s this interview, the context of which Crystal Cox describes at her site, and in which she says, “If I do appeal I will appeal with an attorney”:

Then, Crystal posts at her site a lengthy chronology of events leading up to the War along with a bunch of emails, including an email Crystal sent to both Marc and EV which includes this:

[EV] spoke highly of you and even recommended you, thing is I will not speak with anyone on this from the law aspect expect [EV], if he can’t represent me, I will not appeal.

. . .

So Just wanted you to know a bit why, and confirm, Marc Randazza does NOT represent me in ANY way. [EV] represents me, and if he can’t then so be it, I will leave that in the hands of the Great Spirit.  I will not lose my voice, my dignity, and respect in this.  I know my Truth though many others are trashing me, I know my truth.

. . .

I do not want to sit down and shut up, I do not want a back seat in this, though I dont want to interfere or tell an attorney whats best, thing is I know the clerks, the case, the documents and I just want respect for what I have done and not told I messed up.

The only thing about this War I’m relatively sure of now is that this War, like all Wars, is exceedingly ill-advised and exceedingly unfortunate.

 

7 Comments to “Declaration of Neutrality in the War Between Marc Randazza and Crystal Cox”


  1. John,

    It seems to me that you have fallen into a propaganda trap initiated by someone who is very adept at manipulating their words to state whatever they want.

    You have stated no less than 7 times the word “War” in the above post which has not been mentioned by any of the participants other than Crystal herself with her accusations of a conspiracy of unknown proportions to stop her from spewing forth her untruths.

    Whether you think that the action Mr Volokh has initiated is correct or not is beside the point. Remember that even the EFF’s Trevor Timm states that even if the Court had accepted their reasoning in regards to the shield laws the jury would still have come to the same conclusion [ http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/apr/06/problematic-test-case-bloggers-journalists/ ] . Also to base your whole reasoning on one ‘off the cuff’ comment by Marc on Ken’s personal blog is pretty strange when you consider all the other posts others have written and researched fully and are coming to the same conclusion about Cox.

    What you have initiated here with your post is in no way shape nor form a Declaration of Neutrality, in fact it’s placed you in the unenviable position of enabling her to carry on spewing her vitriol to anyone else, you will be quoted and paraphrased and misquoted by her ad infinitum now.

    This campaign of trying to play the white knight, of fighting for perceived corruption and conspiracies by Crystal has been going on a lot longer than the Obsidian situation. It has involved parties as far apart as Sony (and subsidiaries), Apple (their own chief counsel), University of Montana, the Supreme Court of New York & it’s employees, and anyone else who tries to debate using logic and reason with Crystal. This is not about Marc Randazza anymore, it is about protecting those potential future victims.

    Crystal herself stated:
    —-
    http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/12/crystal_cox_oregon_blogger_isn.php#comment-380957435

    I can get on top of the search engine for pretty much any story, person, company i write about and often in a matter of minutes, i am self taught and have put all my money and life into this and I am Damn Good at what I do.. make sure you don’t leak me your real name or I WILL take over the search engines and you will not even see it coming.. See No Degree in Journalism needed as I am a READER.. and well I get this here internet thing even if you don’t like my Hillbilly Twang.. and if you think I am a wanna be.. well asshole I am better at this then you that is for sure.. no one sued you for 10 Million RIGHT? Guess your a wanna be ????”

    —-

    If you want to be neutral on that sort of comment, that is your choice, but this post is in no way neutral. If you cannot see that, well I’m sorry, and I suspect that soon you might find your name on the top of a search engine, where the link is to a site owned by Crystal and therefore by proxy she will own you.

    I hope you take this comment of mine to heart and now have a better understanding of why the appeal is the last of anyone’s worries. It’s happening and until it is completed no-one knows what the outcome will be. In the meantime Crystal is still typing away, still buying domains (with what monies no body knows) and wants above all else to be the hero for whatever perceived wrong or person attached herself to this week.

    Enabling that delusion is not neutral!

    1
    • John Kindley says:

      My point is this: If Marc is really the victim and the good guy here he needs to maintain clean hands, just as he has urged others to do. In the comments I’ve copied above Marc appears to say something significant about both Crystal and her current attorney that he had no reason to believe true and in fact had very good reason not to believe true. I am also bothered by what appears to be the chronology here. I can understand why Marc was upset to learn that Crystal had registered his domain name but so far as I know that was not illegal and her explanation for why she did so is not devoid of plausibility. I can imagine that she did so simply as a form of real estate speculation. Not a cool thing to do with an attorney who is thinking about taking your case but still not proof of an intent to extort? What did Marc have to fear she would do with it at that point in time? If she started writing trash about him maybe then would have been the time to allege extortion. But then she gets word that Marc has been subpoenaed for a deposition. How does the plaintiff in the Obsidian Finance case get word that Marc has relevant information except through Marc? That may have been acceptable because at that point Marc was clearly not going to be representing Crystal and he learned about the domain name after that became clear but it smacks of a conflict. The implication was extortion, which would help the plaintiff’s case, but was it extortion?

      Only after Crystal got word that Marc was going to be deposed did she start trash talking Marc and buying those other domain names.

      It is all well and good that people as you say are looking into what she’s done in the past in other cases. If she is an extortionist she should be exposed as such, so long as those making that charge have solid evidence to back it up. But you and I are aware of Crystal Cox and her alleged misdeeds because of what she allegedly did to Marc, because, in Marc’s words, she made an enemy of him. Given the history Marc’s involvement with Crystal Cox I am not so sure it was wise of him to offer himself up for a deposition and then to provoke a firestorm of negativity towards his former potential client online. Having done so it is imperative he maintain clean hands. By making the statements I’ve quoted above he isn’t doing that.

      2
      • One thing that bothers me about the chronology: if Cox only registered Marc’s name as a domain name in order to handle publicity resulting from the case (which to do so without at least consulting the attorney would drive a big wedge in the attorney’s ability to trust his client), why didn’t she do the same thing with Volokh’s name? Instead, shortly after Cox registered Marc’s name, Volokh registered eugenevolokh.com on his own. It seems to me that if Cox actually had publicity on her mind, she would have registered both names at the same time.

        3
  2. >>> How does the plaintiff in the Obsidian Finance case get word that Marc has relevant information except through Marc?

    The same way as I can access what domain records she has bought and currently owns in the last few years with updates as and when she purchases more. Who is records are public data. Domaintools even have a nicely formatted (though it costs) tool to monitor domains for this specific reason. The plaintiff is concerned about what Crystal is doing whilst case is still ongoing, they monitor the DNS record data. They notice lo and behold Marc’s name pops up. Are you telling me they would not query that? If at the least to see if he is representing her, and if not he like any other person has no ethical reason not to tell them what he has had happen to him, in fact he has a duty to the court last time I checked to report this sort of behaviour if asked.

    As for what Marc might have to fear or not, listen to his interview on OnTheMedia, http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/apr/06/combating-bad-speech-more-speech/ . Again this whole thing you are trying to make about Mr Randazza. His fault if any was not telling the crazyone that he was not taking her case at in iun the beginning, though crazy people are everywhere and if lawyers refused to at least look at their case (especially in the context of this one where it is a specifically niche area of law) then you would never get any clients.

    >>> Only after Crystal got word that Marc was going to be deposed did she start trash talking Marc and buying those other domain names.

    Again that is just enabling her excuse, and is not only IMHO morally repugnant it is also irrelevant to the situation when looking at it holistically. Marc is just the latest in a long long line of people this has happened to by Ms Cox. Hopefully he will be the last though I doubt it, I might be next.

    >>>> If she is an extortionist she should be exposed as such, so long as those making that charge have solid evidence to back it up. But you and I are aware of Crystal Cox and her alleged misdeeds because of what she allegedly did to Marc, because, in Marc’s words, she made an enemy of him.

    Absolutely, though as you know the wheels of criminal law work slowly and identifying reliable evidence is exactly what is occurring at the moment.

    Whether we are aware of her deeds because of what has allegedly occurred to Marc or whether the pixie of truth told us in a dream is beside the point, as long as what is being found is reliable and has providence it is highly relevant to what she has and is doing.

    >>>Having done so it is imperative he maintain clean hands.

    I couldn’t agree more, and I would expect Marc would be better off to remove himself from the matter, let others take over (which is occurring) and act like a nice witness 😉 The conflict of interest serves no-body and leads to detractive situations like this one here.

    On reading all my comments above I do believe I might be the next target. Especially if she finds out I am not a practicing attorney. I’ve got no inclination to sit the bar exams actually.

    Though interestingly, and I know you are reading this Crystal, I do not take too kindly to what she is doing, and also I have a lot more legal tools at my disposal then Marc or even yourself have, though then I will have every First Amendment lawyer screaming at me for daring to do that to a US citizen. Doesn’t worry me either way.

    Don’t reply to this today John, take a break with family and friends. Get away from law for a bit. Smile, it makes everyone wonder what you are thinking (or where you hid the booze)

    4
  3. A. Friend says:

    Dear John,

    I appreciate that you may have a different point of view. I too was unsure when I first heard about Cox. Meanwhile I have done a tremendous amount of digging on this. I have provided a timeline below for your consideration. This is based off of public record of court documents, GoDaddy domain registration site, and Cox’s and Randazza’s own blogs. However, more importantly are recent facts come to light at the bottom of this post. I urge you to review this and do your own research to show that what I’ve provided is an accurate accounting of events. Please understand I mean no disrespect but am simply providing what I hope are a few more data points to ponder. Meanwhile as G. Thompson has mentioned – Cox is already referencing this blog of yours and positioning it as vindication.

    Dec. 6, 2011 – Cox states on her blog she is talking with an attorney – apparently not Marc although she DOES NOT name this person about representing her pro bono on the case. Not sure it could be Volokh as he had initially referred Cox to Marc per her own blog.

    Dec. 7, 2011 – Stephanie DeYoung the person who had provided the evidence per her own blog in the whole Obsidian Finance Padrick affair posts an update stating that Obsidian and Padrick did nothing wrong. At this point I am assuming she was told they would file a lawsuit against her if she didn’t correct it or back it up with evidence. I looked through her site – there was nowhere near enough evidence to stand up in court against Obsidian or Padrick. Like Cox she had a lot of opinions and suspicions and not enough hard provable facts.

    Dec. 10, 2011 Cox states on her blog that she talked with Marc –by her wording it appears to be the first time. She also buys/registers the Marc Randazza domain the same day.

    Dec. 14, 2011 5:00pm – Cox states on her blog that another attorney emailed her at 5:00pm on Dec. 14, 2011 saying that Marc said he was representing her. HOWEVER she does not name that person nor provide any copies of that email. I am having a hard time finding a reason why she would not provide this information to back up her story so this point remains very suspicious to me.

    Dec. 14, 2011 at 5:06pm Cox has email from Marc to Cox saying he wants to represent her but needs to clarify terms of representation. This email is posted on her site. I am ASSUMING she has not altered it on her blog but there is no way to tell as it is not a PDF snapshot copy of the actual email. She is clearly ASSUMING at this point he is representing her but this is not actually yet a done deal as no formal agreement has been reached by both parties.

    Dec. 16, 2011 – Ms. Cox sends an email – copy on her website to Marc saying that Volokh will be representing her and that she felt Marc had been disrespectful to her by telling her she had “messed things up” and apparently he didn’t get back to her quickly enough. Mostly her email to him was about how he didn’t respect her as an equal. She never mentions in this email about Marc going behind her back to talk to opposing council.

    Dec. 16, 2011 – within a few minutes of the above email, Marc sends an email apologizing if he appeared to be disrespectful and still offering to help in the background if needed. Things are pretty civil at this point.

    Dec. 16, 2011 – a little over 5 hours later Cox send another email to Marc accusing him of going behind her back to work out a deal. Thus far I’ve seen no proof of this but assume Marc called opposing council to see what he could find out about the case and determine the merits. Likely Cox just doesn’t understand the legal process.

    Jan. 16, 2012 – she sends the email to Randazza “Hi Marc, hope this email finds you doing well. When I thought we may work together i bought http://www.marcrandazza.com/ – to control the search, and pr on my case, if you represented me.. I manage it now, as ownership is well.. a different story now due to my current judgement .” OK so she is saying her initial intention was only to control the search and PR as it related to her case had Marc represented her. However, the way the email is worded could easily be construed as an implied threat of extortion. I’m not Ms. Cox so cannot definitively say that was her intention but Marc must have been aware of how she used websites with the names of her enemies to attempt to destroy their reputation – after all that’s what the Padrick case was all about. Keep in mind in the last email from Cox she had accused Marc of going behind her back. And, why would she need that domain when any justification for it dissolved when it became certain that Marc was not going to represent her and had no further connection to the case. It’s understandable why Marc became concerned. Unfortunately he then got a bit belligerent with Cox. Both of them have pretty large ego’s so it’s not hard to see how this escalated after that.

    March 7, 2012 – subpoena to Randazza from Tonken Torp attorney David Arman.

    March 8, 2012 – Ms. Cox is informed of the subpoena by her attorney.
    March 10th – Cox states on her own blog, “ I am pissed off and want to Expose Marc Randazza before his deposition, so I buy FuckMarcRandazza.com – MarcRandazzaSucks.com” Expose him for what I don’t know. Perhaps she is unclear that Marc has no choice but to respond to the subpoena since the subpoena is about the domain name in his name. It would not be difficult to conclude the interest by opposing council given the same tactic used against their client. She appears to believe Marc encouraged opposing council to subpoena him. But there are no facts to back this up. It is easy to find websites that have been registered in others names if they are public. And this one was. Anyone searching the Whois function of GoDaddy.com could have easily found this.

    March 12, 2012 – Marc emails Cox – OK you made your point what do you want.

    March 13, 2012 – Ms. Cox buys and registers the domain names of Marc’s wife and child

    March 14, 2012 – Ms. Cox posts some very vile comments about Marc’s wife on the domain site she has created using Marc Randazzas name

    OK – so that is the chronology of the situation up to that point. But I have proof of at least 2 other outright fabrications by Ms. Cox in an attempt to sway the opinion of her.

    First the Popehat site.

    On April 2, 2012 at 9:02am C.S.P. Schoefield posts .

    My hope for Ms. Cox, as I find out more and more about he sleazy behavior, is that she try her extortion on somebody able to make the following interoffice memo come true;
    “Ms. Cox,
    While you were out two large gentlemen named Guido and Nunzio came by. They muttered something about “Kneecaps” and will call again

    April 2, 2012 at 11:57am Marc Randazza posts the following

    Please DON’T ask for or encourage or even joke about that kind of thing. As her only known Sicilian victim, I know that if she winds up meeting with some kind of accident, there will be conjecture that I had something to do with it.

    Plus, remember that we are the good guys. What you should hope for is that the truth about her will be repeated far and wide — and thus, she’ll be incapable of doing this to anyone else.

    April 2, 2012 at 3:31pm Ken from Popehat posts

    Yeah, C.S.P., that comment is going to show up in court documents saying we are threatening her with violence. Use some fucking common sense here.

    April, 2, 2012, at 4:23pm Ken from Popehat posts

    Ok, sorry, that was a little harsh. But she twists everything everyone says, and that sort of thing, even meant in fun, will be used as a weapon against people who stand up to her. Please avoid it.

    And here is where I begin to have some really angst about Ms. Cox and her behavior.

    Point #1

    On April 3, 2012 – the next day, Ms. Cox posts a video on YouTube accusing Ken at Popehat of painting her in a false and fraudulent light and endangering her and committing a crime by supporting Marc Randazza. Sorry but I have a real problem with this. It’s clearly a fabrication and a lie. She deliberately leaves out what Marc and Ken say to C.S.P. Schoefield. And, while one might say Schoefield’s post was in bad taste, it was a joke not a threat.

    She goes on further on her blog to say that Ken White is inciting a lynch mob and threatening to gang up and set her up for extortion threatening physical harm and naming her location and friends. No such thing ever happened. She then goes on to include Forbes, the New York Times, Randazza and others of the same thing.

    Bottom line – she LIED about Popehat and Ken White and Randazza on this.

    Point #2

    She then goes on in her blog about how Marc Randazza must have leaked the fact she had his wife and childs domain names. And I’ve a problem with that as well. First, that is not privildged information – it is public information that anyone can look up on GoDaddy.com.

    Point #3

    On April 4, 2012 at 8:54am Cox posts what she purports to be an email that DeYoung posted to Randazza’s blog. But here is the problem. That comment never made it onto Randazzas blog where it was publicly viewable to anyone else by Randazza. I confirmed this with Randazza by posting on his blog under the name Susan – replied that he never put the comment up because he was suspicious of it.

    The comment was in “moderation status” the same “moderation status” that shows up on the email on Cox’s blog. There is no way in freaking hell that email came from DeYoung because Cox could not have a copy of it on her site 5 minutes after DeYoung supposedly posted it on Randazza’s blog and it was still in moderation status because Cox would have no way to “see” the post on Randazza’s site.

    Additionally, keep in mind Cox filed a lawsuit for damages in the amount of $150M on 5/4/2011 naming DeYoung, as a defendant among many others (20+ people). Given the retraction that was posted on her blog on Dec. 7, 2011 and the suit naming her as a defendant, I find it highly unlikely that DeYoung would be posting an email to Randazza’s blog in support of Cox. She has been clear she wants nothing to do with Cox. Cox FABRICATED this email plain and simple.

    Point #4

    There is a person by the name of Sean Boushie who has had a similar run in with Cox. He lives up in her neck of the woods and apparently works for one of the local universities. Now here I have to say I’ve no proof of this story only what he has told me to date which is this. He claims his run in started with Cox years ago when he sent a letter to the editor posted in a small local newspaper that had nothing at all to do with Cox, and that apparently she disagreed with it and started attacking him online. He then states she sent herself a long rambling email full of misspellings that she claims is a death threat, (sound familiar?) that she claimed Boushie sent to her. He obtained restraining order against her, and says he was able to prove to the judge that she sent it to herself in order to attack him. She apparently violated the restraining order. On another note, on her blog she mentions she has been unable to obtain a restraining order against him and accuses the local sheriff, etc. of conspiring against her. I find it unusual that Mr. Boushie could obtain a restraining order but she could not . That tells me she was unable to provide adequate proof of her claims. The university apparently has received numerous emails from her saying he is using university property to harass her in an attempt to get him fired. Again I’ve no proof of this particular claim but it is consistent with the three points I’ve listed above which are facts.

    Then we have the opinion on the lawsuit. As I read through the reply from Cox, she states that she did not receive in discovery the content she asked for to prove or disprove the allegations against Padrick and Obsidian. It would appear to be by her own admission that she lacked the evidence she claimed earlier to back up her claims of fraud against either Padrick or Obsidian. I don’t have all the background on the case but I have to say that comment alone disturbs me. The fact she is so willing to put up such hatemongering sites to impact the reputation of others when she doesn’t truly have all the facts tells me far more than I’d like about her state of mind. I spent hours poring over the site DeYoung put up and (keep in mind this is my personal opinion only) there is not nearly enough evidence to support the claims being made.

    I first heard of Cox on another blog called the legal schnauzer. I too was leaning towards believing her and that she was likely a victim until I started to dig really deep into the available facts. The situation between her and Randazza I might even brush off as a clash of egos. But her lies about Popehat I’m not willing to forgive. It was a deliberate attempt to smear the reputation of Ken White and he has done nothing wrong.

    Anyway – that is the short version of what I’ve dug up so far.

    5
    • John Kindley says:

      I appreciate your comment. This situation interested me too, as train wrecks will. But if I am going to weigh in I have to be fair and objective. In fact I think that as an attorney I should if anything be inclined to give more of a benefit of a doubt to the non attorney than to the attorney since non attorneys are relatively less powerful than attorneys in the legal system. As I rendered an opinion based on my perception of the facts some real alarm bells went off, not because I cared about pissing other popular attorney bloggers off but because the nature of what was being discussed did not seem appropriate for online airing. It occurred to me if alarm bells are going off by my critical comments directed towards another attorney they should be going off even louder for other attorneys weighing in on the other side. Non attorneys won’t necessarily have the same concerns about how their comments will be construed.

      6
  4. A. Friend says:

    Train wreak is a great description of what’s been happening. Thanks for your review and the thoughtful reply.

    7


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