Worst Dude Hires Even Worse Lawyer to Legally Harass Woman Who Posted About Him

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:04 Clip: Can you show me where that language appears in that opinion? Because this looks like a hallucination.

0:00:18 Lydia: If we could find the right MAGA guy who has been impacted by this, maybe he can presSure his local politician in a red zone who could relay this to Pete Hegseth and Trump?

0:00:34 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1274. I'm Thomas. That over there is real life attorney Lydia Smith. How are you? Oh no, it's Lydia.

0:00:39 Lydia: Hi! Dang it. Credentials stolen.

0:00:41 Thomas: Surprise. Yeah.

0:00:43 Lydia: But yeah, I'm here, so I guess that's good.

0:00:46 Thomas: What? And of course, Jenessa, how are you doing?

0:00:48 Jenessa: I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited for this one.

0:00:51 Thomas: Yeah, me too. Why is Lydia invading the airwaves again?

0:00:55 Lydia: Yeah. Because drama, you guys. That's why. I come on whenever there's something involving the internet, I think. That's a big part of when I come online. But today, specifically, I saw this pop around. I wanted Jenessa's take. And then we decided it'd be really, really fun deep dive about a lawsuit that recently made its way all the way up to the appeals court. We're going to talk all about that. Jenessa is going to break all that down regarding are we dating the same guy Facebook groups?

0:01:23 Thomas: Oh, not you and I. I thought, okay, we're not dating the same guy. We'll find out. Jeez, that'd be awkward. That'd be kind of fun though. Yeah, let's go. Let's go a triple date.

0:01:25 Lydia: Are we? I don't know. That's a conversation we probably have to have off air. I think it would be actually really fun.

0:01:37 Jenessa: Lydia's being a little too humble here. She sent me this case, which was super cool. And then also, if people have not noticed this already, Lydia is like my go -to person for, I can't find this document or I can't find this information on this person. If I can't find it, I go to Lydia. If she can't find it it doesn't exist. It's just not out there it's at least behind a paywall somewhere Lydia brought me this and had lots of extra information on the people behind this story

0:02:10 Thomas: So true. I just had a really funny thought. Like what if the way Lydia was doing it was just paying for every paywall and you were like, God, I can't get, how do I get this one? And Lydia's like, she doesn't understand that you just pay for it. Like you do. They just, it's like she doesn'T know how to enter her payment details or something.

0:02:18 Lydia: Business expense

0:02:26 Jenessa: This podcast has a mortgage taken out on it This thing has everything. There's internet drama there's misogyny, there's dumbass lawyers using AI AI. There's a really cool law in Illinois about doxing that we're going to get to learn about. It's got everything.

0:02:29 Thomas: No, it's not that. Oh, wow. Ooh. Yeah. I'm really excited.

0:02:49 Lydia: It's a juicy one but before we dive into all of that let me first just kind of loop everybody in if you're not deep in this like I am I don't know why I'm on these groups honestly but yeah I'm not like really dating anybody funny.

0:03:01 Thomas: She's just, she's just always in them for some reason she finds it really interesting she'll tell me when like two hey two people in the other side of the country are dating the same guy I'll be like do I know and no there's nothing to do with anyone you know it's lydia on the internet

0:03:19 Lydia: Also, if any mods are listening, I don't disclose any personal identifying information. I don'T share anything, even with my husband. I follow all the rules.

0:03:21 Thomas: Oh that's yeah that's key don't don't kick her out it's all she has don't do not

0:03:28 Lydia: So what these groups are, they started back in 2022, specifically with New York City. This was the first group that started. And it has grown over the years to be a huge network, not just within the United States. There's international groups as well on Facebook primarily that are meant to be women only. And members post photos and names, kind of, they usually do like a first name or they'll do a first and last initial of men that they're dating or that they have dated or that they are considering to date to solicit any concerning information that other members might have about that person or to share concerning information that they've experienced with that person.

0:04:09 Thomas: And let's just stop and say how How bad of an indictment that is on men as a whole, that that has to exist. There's nothing the other way around that I've ever heard of. Maybe there's some obscure, are we dating the same woman group? I've never heard of it. And no one I know has ever heard it. And no man I know is ever used it. But this is pretty commonplace for the other ways around.

0:04:30 Lydia: We have, you know, over 200 chaps. I say we like I'm part of this.

0:04:34 Thomas: Yeah. Lydia's the treasurer.

0:04:37 Lydia: There's over 200 chapters on Facebook I know I'm putting on that hat there's

0:04:39 Thomas: We've now grown to where it really was like corporate. Like you're in the C -suite or whatever. Yeah.

0:04:47 Lydia: Over 6 million members from last I saw across all of those groups there are also significant rules what this ultimately boils down to is it's the whisper network but with more organization and structure and that's why men don't like

0:05:02 Thomas: Right. But there's also, I mean, it's not like there's nothing problematic about it. I do remember there was that during Me Too, there was like that spreadsheet or something that got shared and that was overblown itself. I remember, I think I debunked that one because there really wasn't much to it. But there is a sense that I think is not crazy to be concerned about where it's like, wait a minute, is there some reputation ruining thing? And then is there no check on it?

0:05:06 Lydia: It yeah mm -hmm

0:05:26 Thomas: So if there's somebody makes a mistake, obviously it's okay if people find out they're dating the same guy, whatever. Whatever. It's more like if someone makes a mistake and someone's reputation is potentially being ruined with no check on it, I could see people at least being worried about that. And I'm curious to see how this legal saga unfolded. I'm really excited.

0:05:26 Lydia: Yeah that's a fair point there are concerns I I have seen from men that they are being unfairly maligned, you know, that their perspective of the experience is completely different from what the woman experienced. But I will just say those exact same concerns exist when it's just a whisper network, too. It's just scale is different, I guess.

0:06:03 Thomas: And in the same way, I mean, I think defamation would work that way, too. Like if someone talks shit to one person, they're probably not getting sued for defamation. But, you know, if you can put it out to a million people simultaneously. It might be the same thing you're saying, but it hits more people.

0:06:17 Lydia: Let me just say very, very quickly before we go to break, just to kind of close out this, just from personal observations that I've had without getting into details. I have seen posts where women will say, I was seeing this person and they sleep around, yada, yadda, yedda. They're seeing multiple people. Red flag, red flag, red flag. And then I've seen other women chime in in the comments and say, hey, was there expectation of exclusivity? Was that something that you were told you could expect from him? If that's what he's looking for, that's when he's looking for. I don't think that's a red flag he's being honest. So I think that there is a lot of attempts to police within the community itself. The real focus is on the men that deserve to be there.

0:06:58 Thomas: Yeah. And in the same way, it's also another case of like, men don't trust that women are making these determinations well, where it's like, I'm sure that there's plenty of times where someone would be saying something on about someone on the list and a woman in the group might go, eh, yeah, I don't know if I believe that. And still, you know, it'S like women also have judgment and like autonomy and stuff. I think that's another component of being too paranoid about these things it's not like there's there's no concern with it's really interesting and I'm I'm excited to learn more about it in the situation so why don't we take our first break and then we'll dive even deeper into uh see if the three of us are dating the same man that's that's what it is right I wasn't listening no I'm just kidding all right hey support the show patreon .com slash lock at the goodies the lot awful movies there's a book club what else oh we got lydia here what else we got I took all the good ones sorry

0:07:18 Lydia: Agency. Yep. Yeah, man, we have book club. We have Yeah, no, it's all right. We have an OA exclusive bookmark that was designed by our social media expert. Yeah. With an incredible footnote on the back that I disclose absolutely none of unless you actually get

0:07:52 Thomas: By banksy oh yeah you gotta you gotta buy it.

0:08:02 Lydia: The bookmarked that that Matt Cameron put together the king of footnotes. It's incredible. That's available on Patreon. Even if you're not a patron, you could head over there and buy buy that post by itself. You can buy that for $3. I'm going to send you a bookmark, right? I'm going to spend that to anyone who wants it.

0:08:19 Lydia: If you just throw a couple bucks my way, that kind of helps cover the shipping and the production costs and everything. But we're really, really excited about book club and launching that. By the time this airs, we'll have had our first, which I'm sure is going to be amazing. Can't wait to do it again. And if you missed it this month, be sure to go join over next month so we can keep that train rolling. I know Matt's super excited about it too.

0:08:40 Thomas: Love it. All right. We'll take a break and then we'll get to it.

0:08:45 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:08:45 Thomas: Okay. Who wants to start? Where, where do we begin our saga?

0:08:49 Jenessa: I'm going to focus on how this goes down in the Seventh Circuit in the the Court of Appeals, because that's where it gets dramatic, both for our defendant and his attorneys.

0:09:01 Lydia: The plaintiff.

0:09:02 Jenessa: Oh, right. Yes. For the plaintiff and his attorneys. You're not wrong. Most of the time. Well, he's going to be the bad guy. Don't worry.

0:09:05 Thomas: You sexist. You're so used to the man being a bad guy.

0:09:15 Jenessa: The facts here, what happens? We have the, are we dating the same guy, Chicago? The group, as they will be known through the rest of the brief. And there's this woman, Abigail Rahala. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. She allegedly, all of this allegedly, went on a few dates with this Nico D 'Ambrosio. Here's what she posted in 2023. We met organically in Chicago two and a half months ago. Very clingy and very fast. Flaunted money very awkwardly, and kept talking about how I don't want to see his bad side, especially when he was on business calls. Yeah, I... Yeah.

0:10:04 Thomas: This guy sounds really lame. Sorry.

0:10:04 Lydia: Oh, just you wait. Just you wait?

0:10:09 Jenessa: He came to see me yesterday, and I explained how I didn't really want to stay the night. I just wanted to spend the day together, and this was his response. Her next comment was, After I blocked his number, he texted me on another one.

0:10:24 Thomas: What was his response?

0:10:25 Jenessa: Yeah, so this is what's weird. It's gonna then say the first message is not in the complaint. Why?

0:10:32 Thomas: Tried to keep out the bad, bad information. Okay.

0:10:34 Jenessa: Baffling. Probably. Yeah, after I blocked his number, he texted me on another one, which is the other text screenshot. The first message Ms. Rahala referred to is not in the complaint.

0:10:45 Thomas: That seems important. Like, yeah, right,

0:10:48 Jenessa: Yes, you have to give a complete record when you make a complaint. Put it all in there.

0:10:48 Lydia: Well, it could be because what he said when he found out he was posted, he reached out to her. Is this the one you're gonna read yeah

0:11:02 Jenessa: Yeah, the second message is as follows, with expletives cleaned up for this opinion. Speak for yourself, you ugly, vile, fake whore. For some reason they didn't bleep whore, I don't know. He also spelled vile wrong, so they put the little sic in brackets. Yes, V -I -A -L.

0:11:19 Thomas: No way. Was it a vial?

0:11:20 Lydia: Yeah a vial of fake whore yep

0:11:27 Jenessa: I love when they do the like, I'm going to keep your typo and I'm gonna make sure sick in bracket. Everyone knows I didn't make this typo.

0:11:32 Lydia: That everyone's gonna know about it yeah

0:11:37 Jenessa: Your ego matches that fake F asterisk face where you can't even smile in pictures because your teeth are so F asterisk. The truth hurts B asterisks and my message will stay with you forever. C asterisk.

0:11:55 Lydia: Cool that's a you know totally measured reasonable response when someone said that you you know kind of were flashy with money and they felt you were fast okay yeah

0:12:08 Thomas: Yeah, well, also, whatever the message we didn't see is, right? Like, yeah. It just goes to show it's like, like, oh, I could see like a legitimate concern with this. And then you see who's complaining about it. It's like, well, nevermind. I take it back. Oh my God.

0:12:10 Lydia: Yeah whatever he he responded with initially in that text. Mm -hmm. Yep. Yep, mm

0:12:22 Jenessa: Yeah. On the second phone number because she blocked your first phone number. Yeah. The manner in which she took the screenshot did not reveal the alternate phone number or any other identifying information. Despite several opportunities, D 'Ambrosio never disputed that he sent this last message until oral argument in this appeal. It's going to be a bit of a problem for our arguments here.

0:12:53 Thomas: Yeah. That doesn't really work

0:12:55 Jenessa: No, it's gonna be an issue. The judge will really try to nail him down on this at one point.

0:13:05 Clip: I'd like to focus on the defendant, Rahalas. You've sued Abigail and her parents.

0:13:12 Thomas: For parents.

0:13:13 Clip: What is the basis for any claims against them? The basis, Your Honour, she put the initial post up there. That was an expression of opinion, and I take it a vile message that your client sent to her, correct? Correct there's no first off your honor several things there's no evidence my client since the text message to her that was assumed it has never been disputed by you in the district court or in this court correct your honor we never had a chance to reach discovery to even dispute that matter and there has been no you have the district court made that point and you haven't disputed it in your appellate briefing it's I have no evidence saying that ms rahala made up that that text yes plus yes your honor it's plausible she made up that text I have no evidence what is the basis for that assertion that she that under rule keeping keeping in mind rule 11 of the federal rules of civil procedure what is the basis of the assertion you just made the assertions that my client did not send the text message and that ms rahala made it up is the fact that I believe my client did that send the tax message what's the basis for that belief well I don't want to get an attorney client privilege your honor but I don't want you to do that, but I want you

0:14:27 Thomas: This is great.

0:14:28 Clip: Of Rule 38 sanctions sanctions for the claims against the

0:14:28 Lydia: Judge

0:14:36 Thomas: Oh God. I love this. This who, okay. Who is that?

0:14:39 Lydia: Is great, but yeah.

0:14:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, Judge is great.

0:14:40 Jenessa: Yeah. So this is the attorney for D 'Ambrosio, the plaintiff.

0:14:45 Thomas: Now, it's a real attorney. That's what's, yeah, it wasn't like he was representing himself or something, but yeah. But I love that because he's like, oh, I don't think he sent it. And Judge is like, yeah. Okay, we're doing law stuff. I get you, the person is like no way, but like, okay, law -wise. I love what he's and consider the sanctions that you might get for for this. So why don't you translate exactly what's going on there for us?

0:14:47 Lydia: Yeah, well, I mean, no. Mm hmm.

0:15:15 Jenessa: So that goes on for another four minutes while he nails him down to make him say out loud so you are alleging she lied that's not a real screenshot that's a made up fake text she's a big fat liar right like that's what you're saying keeping in mind rule 11 rule 38 section 1927 those are all sanctions like before you speak yeah so rule 11 is federal rules of civil procedure, the requirement for, in particular, representations to the court. Hey, when you are signing either as the attorney or an unrepresented party and you say, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances, so he's hammering him on, what is the basis for your belief? When you say I think she made it up I think my client didn't send that message you can't just say that

0:15:40 Thomas: Yeah. For what? So can you explain to us like what exactly? Yeah, yeah.

0:16:17 Jenessa: What is the basis for that belief did you do an investigation like you can'T just do that because my client says so and I believe my client there's a screenshot so what makes you think it's made up you know if you say well my client showed me his phone and it's not there you could say well what if he deleted it well I don't think that he did and we need to do discovery to look at records so that's why he's saying what is the basis for this keeping rule 11 in mind he also says rule 38 if a court of appeals determines that an appeal is frivolous it may after a separately filed motion or notice from the court and a reasonable opportunity to respond award just damages and single or double costs to the appellee the person who being appealed against and 28 U.S.C. section 1927, any attorney who so multiplies the proceedings in any case unreasonably and vexatiously may be required by the court to satisfy personally the excess costs, expenses, and attorney's fees reasonably incurred because of such conduct.

0:17:30 Jenessa: I'm going to make you pay, not your client if you are making this up.

0:17:36 Thomas: So to put this in like layperson's terms, we're way past the phase where you can be like on information belief. I kind of don't think you did. Like we're at the point where it's like, and I love this because our entire entire world operates on not this, like our whole politics and our whole world is, are you, wait, are you saying they are lying? I don't know what they, I'm, I're not saying that. I'm just saying, I don'T think that he did, you know, it's like, but I love that this we're past that here. And we're at the phase of court where you're like, well, no, if you're saying it didn't happen, you gotta like, so where did the screenshot come from? Then tell me that, tell me you're not allowed allowed to just go like, ah, Hey man, I'm not saying, you know, which I love that. I wish all of life worked that way, honestly, or at least more of it. But, uh, there is a depth you get to in legal proceedings where it does work that way. Which I think is great.

0:18:28 Lydia: Think it's also really interesting kind of calling out the expectations for not unnecessarily dragging out litigation, right? Not wasting the court's time, because

0:18:35 Thomas: Or the, or the defendant's money in time. Yeah.

0:18:37 Lydia: The whole reason, or the defendants exactly, yeah, the whole reason that we're at this point is because the original lawsuit was dismissed sui sponte.

0:18:46 Thomas: Sui sponte. I almost remember what that means, but not quite. It sounds like fat. There sounds, it sounds like, Hey, go get me my bag. Sui sponte. You know, like it sounds on something like that what remind me what that means you know so

0:18:58 Jenessa: Suis sponte, it's like, um, I don't know the full, the exact Latin translation, but it's, like, of their own accord. Like, the judge just does something without anybody asking.

0:19:05 Thomas: Ah so the judge I think in my world the judge should get a few of those just for free like look at it ah this sucks it's out but that usually means I'm guessing something is like so wrong with it that they're not even getting past that phase kind of thing okay

0:19:19 Jenessa: Mm-hm. So there's a piece of it where that happened, where he named us defendants. Miss Ms. Rahala, the woman who posted it, her parents, because she used their internet to do it. Yeah, that's going to fail pretty badly.

0:19:30 Thomas: Oh come on what a pathetic thing like you gotta be kidding me

0:19:33 Lydia: I'm sorry. Oh, boy.

0:19:38 Jenessa: The group administrators, defendants, two individuals who are co -owners of Spill the Tea, Inc., who will be called STT defendants throughout, Meta, Facebook, basically, for hosting the group, and a whole bunch of unnamed defendants just like people who liked and commented on the post yeah yeah exactly in order to establish diversity jurisdiction and get into the federal court they had to all he's from Illinois they hadと all not be from Illinois and the judge is like okay so the problem is Ms. Rahala her parents the STT defendants Metta they're not from Illinois away, I don't know who these other people are. We have two options. I can either dismiss the entire case because it doesn't have proper jurisdiction, or I can dismiss these Jane Doe's and you will have proper jurisdictions.

0:20:01 Thomas: Or John Does or whatever okay right

0:20:37 Jenessa: So how about that? And he's like, yeah, okay. So that part was dismissed that way. The rest of the case was dismissed on a 12b6 motion from the remaining defendants, which is failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

0:20:54 Thomas: That's like the standard one right or the standard yeah

0:20:56 Jenessa: Exactly. If everything this guy says is true, it's still not illegal. And oh boy, did he try everything. He tried the Illinois Right of Publicity Act, which prohibits the use of an individual's identity for commercial purposes during the individual's lifetime without having having obtained previous written consent.

0:21:13 Thomas: Yeah well that's a

0:21:26 Jenessa: Kinda. So there's that spill the tea ink.

0:21:28 Thomas: Good time to ask you mentioned like an LLC is somebody making money off this is there a business associated with the group or anything yeah

0:21:28 Jenessa: It's the co -owners of the group. And there's advertising on the group, my understanding for people who do like influencer stuff is that can be a lot of money or pennies, the advertising.

0:21:43 Lydia: Understanding from being in the group, and potentially this is colored by what is being presented there is that any money that is being donated towards these efforts is developing a third party app. So they're not dependent on Facebook hosting their spot anymore because

0:21:58 Thomas: Oh it's not a bad idea yeah

0:22:00 Lydia: They keep closing groups and then having to reinstate them and legal fees because this situation that we're in.

0:22:06 Thomas: They're not gonna have better luck with the apple store FYI but okay yeah yeah yeah oh there you go

0:22:09 Lydia: Oh, yeah. So the Apple store actually pulled their app, too. So they've been fighting that and they need to use money to make changes to comply with whatever Apple's reasons were for pulling the app. So there's a lot of things going on there that they have like financial pressure to manage.

0:22:24 Thomas: You can have an app that organizes Nazis to do January 6th and uh probably like pedophilia but you can't have a Me Too app that's no

0:22:30 Jenessa: Oh, no, no. God forbid. Been this is gonna like not apply to this um he tries to apply it to everybody involved they call this a classic shotgun pleading which they have a citation and a definition for yeah not just a shotgun pleating refers to a pleading style in which each count of the complaint incorporates by reference all preceding paragraphs and counts of the complain notwithstanding that many of the facts alleged are not material to the claim. Essentially, you just keep being like, and also all of these people.

0:22:44 Thomas: Good oh wow like shotgun v williams like yeah

0:23:14 Jenessa: There's no sense in which you could allege that against Rahala. How did she have commercial gain? How did her parents have commercial? Like there's no, right,

0:23:14 Thomas: So it's like that group pleading thing with Blake Lively almost most yeah where it's like you put everybody in to things that only apply to certain of them yeah makes sense

0:23:26 Lydia: The blade. Exactly. Right.

0:23:32 Jenessa: You can't do that. That is a huge problem. And it makes it really hard for people to respond to your complaint because now they have to have a response brief that is huge, or they might be limited in their page count, and they're expected to respond to every ridiculous thing that you said for

0:23:47 Thomas: Well and in terms of wasting time and money yeah increases the cost of the burden on the plaintiffs

0:23:52 Jenessa: Everyone. Huge problem there. The plaintiff cited to Jordan v. Jewel Food Stores. And if you're wondering about a Jordan from Chicago, Illinois, you might have a guess. I love this. They don't actually name him. The court says, in Jordan, a basketball star. Pretty sure we're talking about Michael Jordan. A Chicago -area grocery chain ran a full -page advertisement in Sports Illustrated Presents congratulating him for his induction into the Hall of Fame and prominently featuring the store's logo.

0:24:31 Thomas: That's interesting is that not cool it seems like an interesting way to try to do marketing like hey we're just here to say we at uh safeway are just saying great job Michael Jordan.

0:24:45 Jenessa: And so they ruled that it was commercial speech for First Amendment purposes. You don't get extra special protection. They didn't just dismiss it. I don't know if it it went to trial or if they settled, but they said this is worth a trial. They remanded. And essentially what they're saying is your commercial purpose there was obvious. Your brand name is all over this. You weren't just saying this. Yeah.

0:25:12 Thomas: They saw through that ruse. Incredible.

0:25:14 Lydia: Yeah, I mean,

0:25:17 Jenessa: They say like, this is obviously not analogous. The paragraph ends with the case addressed a completely different issue and D 'Ambrosio's name and likeness do not have the same marketing value remotely comparable to Michael Jordan's. That one's a big no. Also, Illinois has very recently the Illinois Civil Liability for Doxing Act took effect in 2024. Never heard of this before. It's a matter of first impression for the Seventh Circuit. They've never had to address this law. Law.

0:25:50 Jenessa: They go through this long text of this and summarize it as six elements. Intentional publication of personally identifiable information, so it can't be an accident. The published information identifies a person without reliance on extrinsic sources. If I give have a little bit of information, and then you are a... Yes. Right. That doesn't count. It has to be identifying in and of itself. Lack of consent to the publication, of course. Intent to harm or harass,

0:26:11 Lydia: And then Lydia jumps in to go find out who it is. Yeah. Because I'm a nosy, nosy person. Oh, yeah.

0:26:29 Jenessa: So it can't be innocent purposes. Knowledge or reckless disregard of a reasonable likelihood of death, bodily injury, or stalking to the person whose information is published and one or more of the listed harms results. You meant to publish it. You meant to harm or harass. You acted with knowledge or reckless disregard of death bodily injury or stalking could happen. There's a whole list of harms and at least one of them had to actually happen, and no consent, and the information is itself enough identification.

0:27:05 Thomas: I'm not seeing much of that in this case.

0:27:12 Jenessa: I kind of like that one. Like, it's pretty strict. Also not seeing that. Yeah.

0:27:16 Thomas: That's a good law. Yeah not really seeing it here.

0:27:19 Lydia: It's almost the opposite of like I'm I'm sharing this information so people don't actually like seek you out and don't actually like work with you at all. Yeah.

0:27:23 Thomas: Date you. Yeah I mean if there was something called the are we dating the same person killer who's like a serial killer who goes like then he'd maybe have a point like that'd be like you know he's in danger did he try to allege that anything happened to him or that he got stalked or anything

0:27:45 Jenessa: And this is the problem. They're like, nowhere in here do you allege any of this. It's not clear how you even are trying to allege legit.

0:27:57 Lydia: Just put in zero work, it sounds like, to even try and say, here's how we meet this.

0:28:02 Jenessa: There are multiple times where they say in this brief, like, it was unclear to the district court and remains unclear to us what he meant when he said blank.

0:28:11 Thomas: Uh never a good sign

0:28:14 Jenessa: Terrible sign for your case. It sounds like a really interesting law. I thought it'd be cool to bring it up. That's just not what happened here. It's his name, his first name, and his face. This is not information that isn't widely available everywhere.

0:28:31 Thomas: Well yeah and you'd have to know him already for that to mean anything

0:28:35 Jenessa: Exactly. You would have to rely on extrinsic sources to get any of the personally identifiable information is usually like non -public things. Your phone number, your address, you know, your adress is actually technically pretty easy to find, but something you would not want people to have. Your name and your face, your first name and you're face is everywhere. You took that picture and you put it on the internet and like somebody else moves it to another location And now it's no, that's not going to work. He tries everything. He tries products liability from Facebook. And they're like, not only did you not credibly allege how exactly Facebook had like products liability here, they respond meta in their brief and they say failure to state a claim. And then when you responded, you said so little. The district court said you have waived your right to respond because your your response was so meaningless and so off topic

0:29:27 Thomas: Yeah but still Bill. Oh, wow. They literally play the... Oh, I always mix up the movie it's from. We're all dumber for having heard this. That was so bad. What is that? A Will Ferrell thing or something? Oh, Billy Madison. Yeah. They should just do that. It should be called whatever that is.

0:29:50 Lydia: No, it's Billy Madison. Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:56 Jenessa: Exactly that your response is just like baffling and unrelated so you have waved your right to like try again to respond and then in this appeal appeal, they say, okay, well, you can appeal whether or not you waived your right, but you didn't. So you waive your right to appeal whether ou not you waved your right. So we're not even going to address the merits of that claim.

0:30:22 Thomas: Get wrecked. Maybe just do better.

0:30:26 Lydia: It's so bad.

0:30:26 Thomas: Just do better at law because you messed up.

0:30:30 Jenessa: It's truly atrocious. His

0:30:36 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:30:36 Thomas: Do we say exactly what he was even trying to do we go through all of his counts or is

0:30:41 Jenessa: Counts were attempting that Illinois statute about your repurposing my likeness, attempting the Illinois doxing statute, statute products liability he did he did try a defamation that was the part that required alleging that the text wasn't real

0:30:51 Thomas: Sure yeah that's no did he try defamation like just plain old okay oh right yeah can't really defame by somebody by being like here's what this guy said that's kind of not really defamation by almost by definition

0:31:15 Jenessa: Yeah kind of a problem he did trying to allege so some person who's not named here because they were just like a commenter posted a like a link to a person who who was accused of sexual assault and like, is this the guy? But like the thumbnail appears of the article that is clearly a different name. She had given the guy's first name and this is clearly not the same name.

0:31:42 Jenessa: And the photo, she had given a photo, here's a mugshot with the thing, clearly a difference. And like, nobody reacted to that. So they were like, okay, so somebody who's who's obviously not you and nobody reacted like it was you. And also you have not named this defendant or figured out who they were.

0:32:05 Thomas: Show me on the facebook post where you were actually harmed you know

0:32:09 Jenessa: Yeah. Maybe that person you could, I don't think you'd win, but like you could try defamation against them, but that's not defamation against Facebook or the group or Rahala who someone commented that on her post, like no to all of this. So they tried the defamation. That failed. They tried everything. And it just is not only dismissed immediately at the trial court, but also loses on appeal here. This guy's kind of a disaster. And I asked Lydia if she could tell me a little more about what a disaster he is.

0:32:42 Lydia: You guys ready for some background on D 'Ambrosio?

0:32:49 Jenessa: Oh, boy. Huh.

0:32:49 Lydia: All right. He's a native of Illinois, born 1991. There's a whole reason why I'm getting into this. Just you wait. Middle child. His father had a criminal record narcotics conspiracy, served some time, served about three years in custody, later died in a car accident in 2020 while high on meth.

0:32:47 Thomas: Hmm sure am

0:33:07 Lydia: At that point, Nico was expected to step up in his family following his dad's death. He took on additional financial responsibilities. He grew up with a learning disability. Well, he grew up having learning disability interventions, but he never was diagnosed with a learnable disability. He suffered a lack of oxygen during birth.

0:33:05 Thomas: Oh Wow. Oh, wow!

0:33:25 Lydia: He meets the diagnostic criteria for mild neurocognitive disorder and other specific neurodevelopmental disorders. And why do I know all of this? Well, all of this history was part of a sentencing memorandum after he was convicted on federal tax charges right after filing this lawsuit against Are We Dating the Same Guy?

0:33:22 Jenessa: Huh I'm

0:33:33 Thomas: Hmm tax charges that was not what I was so you know all this medical information because of tax stuff

0:33:49 Lydia: Yep, because they tried to bring in an expert to say he gets confused with numbers. No, he gets refused with numbers, so that's why he defrauded the United States from potentially over $500 ,000

0:33:53 Thomas: I'm too crazy to pay taxes oh oh okay oh my god what Where is he even getting that

0:34:04 Lydia: Of taxes. He actually makes a ton of money.

0:34:07 Thomas: Money oh geez of course he does I forgot elon musk is the a

0:34:13 Jenessa: Just always amazed when people have these giant tax fraud things because I'm like I wouldn't have 500,000 to defraud you of that's your tax burden what's your

0:34:20 Thomas: Trillionaire yeah yeah

0:34:19 Lydia: Yeah, it was over the course of several years. Yeah. Specifically, he was convicted related to his tax filings for 2018, 2019, and then he never filed for 2020 and 2021.

0:34:25 Jenessa: Income oh it's still

0:34:36 Lydia: 2022 appeared to be false as well, but he was going to remedy that. He was actually sentenced in May 2024 to federal prison for 12 months and one day for each of two counts to serve concurrently and then supervised release after that point in time for a year. He was indicted back on May 22nd, 2023. So he knew that this was happening the entire time. Yeah.

0:34:34 Jenessa: Oh can't do that Wait so that means he was he was in jail the whole time these proceedings are going on?

0:35:04 Lydia: Yep. In federal prison.

0:35:04 Thomas: In jail he actually got time oh wow

0:35:08 Lydia: Yeah, he served a year and a day.

0:35:10 Thomas: That's usually to do tax fraud to the level of like actually going into a facility I think is pretty pretty severe

0:35:18 Lydia: Well, here's the reason why. Why? He actually got a two -level enhancement for obstruction of justice, literally obstruction of justice, because he testified falsely at trial.

0:35:22 Thomas: For just being an asshole yeah

0:35:29 Lydia: He signed his IRS returns and testified that he signed his IRAs returns. And part of signing the IRS return is stating under penalty of perjury that I have reviewed the tax return and it is accurate to my knowledge. That hurt him pretty bad.

0:35:29 Thomas: Oh my god

0:35:47 Lydia: It's so funny. As part of him trying to get out of this, he basically threw his cousin completely under the bus because his cousin works for the IRS and was guiding him in this.

0:35:41 Thomas: Right yeah geez

0:35:59 Lydia: That's his testimony was that his cousin was telling him to do this.

0:35:55 Thomas: Oh my God oh yikes

0:36:03 Lydia: But the government has said, no, D 'Ambrosio was basically preparing everything and then having his cousin, you know, basically say, oh, you can deduct for X, Y and Z. And then, yeah, they were going back and forth on numbers. But D 'ambrosio is not like he wasn't duped into lying on his tax returns. I am really, really curious if his cousin still works for the IRS.

0:36:26 Lydia: That's my next step on this journey is I'm going to be looking that up because I want to know.

0:36:26 Thomas: Yeah She's gonna go on are we using the same IRS agent? Facebook group.

0:36:33 Lydia: Yeah. But it wasn't just that he filed false returns. He then filed amended returns that continued to be false. Then, as he was being investigated before the indictment, he lied to their faces during interviews, to the IRS's faces about his claims.

0:36:50 Thomas: Oh boy. Maybe don't do all that.

0:36:53 Lydia: Let me give you specifically what he said or what he lied about, basically. He worked as a salesperson for an electronic sweepstakes kiosk operator, and the way that that works is he would travel and help install these kiosks, and then he receives money for the lifetime of the machine as it continues to be used. Because he travels for work to install these, it's Illinois -based, I don't know that he necessarily travels out of state to install them, but he claimed that he drove more than 474,000 miles on business -related travel for two years. And then he claimed that he incurred more than $263 ,000 in business -related meal expenses during those years.

0:37:24 Thomas: That's a lot. That's not.

0:37:34 Lydia: When they looked into it and they said, do you have receipts? He found one bill for $130. Yeah.

0:37:34 Thomas: Yeah, but I did this like 40,000 times.

0:37:44 Lydia: He also claimed that He had charitable contributions, including more than $63 ,000 to a Catholic church in Chicago. And a church representative from that Catholic church said he was not a parishioner And there was no record of any donations by D 'Ambrosio in those years.

0:37:56 Thomas: No, the F he didn't. Yeah.

0:38:02 Lydia: This guy sucks.

0:38:05 Thomas: And that really is the lesson. I know we all understand it in theory, but I don't think we all truly fathom as a society, how many of the assholes online are just this guy?

0:38:16 Lydia: Yeah.

0:38:17 Jenessa: Yeah.

0:38:18 Thomas: They wouldn't be listened to in any situation ever. If you actually knew who they were, everyone would go the other way. Like if they were at a party, no one would talk to them. They would go to the other party. And yet, because online is kind of anonymous to an extent, maybe I'm blending in my personal hobby horse here, but anyone who makes a comment about anything sort of starts from the default position of like, they're just another member of society.

0:38:45 Thomas: It's like, I don't know. I think it's mostly this guy. Like it's pretty much mostly in exactly like this kind of person.

0:38:49 Jenessa: This guy's loud.

0:38:47 Lydia: From the sentencing memorandum that his lawyers had put together when they were trying to argue for the judge to be lenient and push back on this enhancement, they said, aside from the instant offense, Mr. D'Ambrosio is someone who has tried to work hard, be kind, arguably except to the occasional dating prospect, and give back to his family and community throughout his entire life along the way and most tragically he was found guilty of cheating on his taxes it's the most interesting memorandum the stuff

0:38:59 Thomas: What the hell was their argument? Well, your honor, he did do everything wrong. I don' t know. I got nothing.

0:39:14 Thomas: Oh my God. Oh, my God, what the hell?

0:39:38 Lydia: That I learned about him because of this is crazy and as part of the sentencing memorandum they also included letters um those weren't available I might pay for them from pacer they weren't immediately downloadable so I did not grab them yet and they included letters from from people speaking to his character, right? It had folks like his sister, understandable, and then an attorney that he befriended at a gym, I guess they've become very close. And then a family friend that is a former judge, they included that. And also a letter from his attorney for the Are We Dating the Same Guy lawsuit, Mark P. Trent, saying that they have become close friends through their work together.

0:39:42 Jenessa: What? Oh.

0:40:06 Thomas: He's great at nuisance lawsuits. Like, I just want to say, you know, like that's my, that's my letter of recommendation for this guy. He's just fantastic at wasting the time and money and resources of women. Just hoping you get the misogynist judge. I don't know.

0:40:19 Lydia: It's just so clear. This guy is a a piece of work and obviously he's going to be represented by pieces of work which apparently bore out in the court

0:40:33 Clip: Rahalas. Now, the complaint alleges that the... Mr. Trent, can I ask you some questions about your brief, please? Yes, Your Honor. Page 4 of you write, quote, courts have acknowledged that algorithmic activity aimed at increasing engagement can implicate the platform in content-based ordinarily this is for your language you're talking about meta ordinarily I would expect that kind of a sentence to be followed by a citation to multiple cases your brief contains no citation to such cases am I missing something yes your honor I'm here to supplement that uh with cases not cited in your brief well cases previously that were well your honor the issue here is on the case with the algorithmic amplification that we're referencing is there was some prior case law with Anderson first tick-tock and lemon for snap these are emerging law your honor in the application here in this cases we ordinarily expect counsel to bring those cases to our attention when they make those kinds of claims while I'm at it let me turn you to page 14 of your brief yes your honor you have a paragraph that starts out first Illinois courts have consistently recognized that quote any other information that can be used to identify a specific individual close quote must be understood contextually so on and so forth again that's the kind of assertion I would ordinarily expect to be followed by a citation to multiple courts yes your honor and there is not I understand that your honor again we're in what is it you understand about that and would account for there being silence about your claim with it

0:41:02 Lydia: Case wow yeah

0:42:18 Clip: Again your honor the case law is emerging case law here there are two cases that are on point or Anderson verse tick-tock and lemon first snap the issue with the cases though and are those the Illinois courts you're referring to here not on the Illinois court you're on oh no okay so what are the Illinois Courts you're referring to you and with those those claims in the complaint I'm talking about just what's in your brief Illinois courts have consistently recognized that quote any other information that can be used to identify a specific individual close quote must be understood contextually well they would be referenced to the Illinois right of publicity act your honor in the sense that with the what I'm gonna ask one last time yeah I'm gonna go to the next problem but what are the Illinois courts you were referring to your honor I can't answer your question that's what I thought in in the next paragraph you wrote the following on page 14 moreover screen names location tags and group context provides the connective tissue that transforms partial identifiers into actionable disclosures this view is supported by broader federal data privacy standards which recognize PII to include quote any unique identifier that permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual, quote, close quote, FTC versus AccuSearch 570 F3rd 1187, 10th Circuit 2009. Have you reviewed the AccuSEARCH opinion? Not recently, Your Honor, I have not. Can you show me where that language appears in that opinion? Because this looks like a hallucination.

0:42:46 Thomas: There's a quote too. This is great. Oh.

0:43:51 Clip: It definitely not as a hallucination, Your Honour. Well, I had assistance with forming the case law with putting together the brief, Your Your Honor. I'm sorry, say that again? My staff worked on the brief with me. I reviewed the full brief. I don't have the case law in front of me supportive of that question. So you're blaming... No, I'm not blaming anybody, Your Honor, everything falls down on me. Correct. I apologize. So where is it? I don' t have that in front me today, Your Honor It is not there.

0:44:21 Clip: So what I'm trying to get across is I'm having trouble believing anything in your brief.

0:44:27 Thomas: That's a nightmare. That is really, really hurting the law. It's interesting, like never before has there been a time where you're questioning someone, you're interrogating someone like, hey, what are these very specific and complicated words mean? And they're like, well, I had nothing to do with writing that.

0:44:31 Lydia: It's embarrassing wow

0:44:48 Thomas: So, you know, that didn't used to happen. Like some Some human somewhere formed the thoughts and ideas that corresponded to those words, usually in history. And you can maybe at least like reference that person if it's not you. Now, it's just like, I don't know. I don'T know what that is. What the website is? That's not a good sign.

0:45:06 Lydia: Do you want to know what the law firm's website is Trent Law Firm. Yeah, their website is marktrent.ai. Yeah. Yeah. He also has other websites under the Mark Trent Network. Injurywins.ai, marktrentwins .com.

0:45:26 Thomas: Why would you do .ai? I don' t even... Why?

0:45:28 Lydia: That is his thing. He loves it so much.

0:45:32 Jenessa: Thomas, I'm sending it to you so you can look at it. They have permalinked it because it's an exhibit in this case now.

0:45:39 Thomas: Am I Mark Trent? Oh, it's Mark with a C. I feel like you should have told me that Mark Trent uses AI to deliver cutting edge legal solutions. And it's a AI image of a robot with a computer talking to a what?

0:45:43 Lydia: And likely AI -generated blog also.

0:45:56 Thomas: Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wow. And I generate a hundred percent AI generated blog. Wow. This is what a dystopia. Yikes.

0:46:06 Jenessa: If you scroll down, it's full of AI -generated legal advice for clients, including a link to 2025 Showdown, Can One Attorney Break Meta's Grip on Social Media Harm? And like a super fun AI -gerated image of some soldier fighting.

0:46:20 Lydia: What a narcissist. Assist his website cursor is also weirdly across like crosshairs or whatever from a gun you know I it's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen

0:46:31 Jenessa: It's bad. It's bad.

0:46:36 Thomas: Boy we need to punish things like this with instant disbarment and like monetary fines you really need to disincentivize this behavior because this is only the start of it I mean there's there could be so much more especially in terms of like it already the capacity for legal harassment was already terrible and now it's like even more so like now it used to be like the the harasser would at least probably have to have the money to do the harassing like Like now, who knows? Now it's like you can just AI your way into legal harassment. And yeah, maybe it'll ultimately be nothing get dismissed, but it costs so much time and money. People just have no effing idea if they haven't gone through it. And this has got to be stopped. Like there's got to Be something done about this.

0:47:25 Jenessa: Well, if you took that judge's tone to mean anything, you are correct. This case ends with a whole section titled sanctions. The appeal is obviously frivolous. The judge lays out all the reasons that is the case and all the reasons they are entitled to bring sanctions, both for the fact fact that the claims are frivolous in and of themselves. This doesn't make sense. It got dismissed for a reason. Yes, you're entitled to an appeal at the circuits compared to the Supreme Court where they don't have to take your appeal. But just because you're titled to it doesn't mean you are allowed to do it no matter what.

0:48:04 Thomas: It doesn't mean it's a good idea to waste our freaking time with it.

0:48:07 Jenessa: Exactly. And not only that, but you're wasting everybody's time with crap you didn't even write. You wrote this, didn't write this at all. You didn't write it or read it. Your intern apparently didn't write it either. Nobody read it, nobody fact checked it, and now I, a judge, have to write a 13 -page decision where I actually take you seriously? Are you kidding me? The judge orders, in addition to dismissed, get out of here, in order to show cause why this court should not impose the following sanctions against D 'Ambrosio and Attorneys Walner, that's the guy who did it at the District Court, and Trent, jointly and severally, attorney's fees for the Rahalas incurred defending this appeal, and double costs payable to the Rahalis for frivolously appealing the dismissal of the claims against them, against Attorney Walner a fine payable, to the Clerk of the Court, for misrepresentations of law in the section of the opening brief concerning the doxing act claim against attorney trent a fine payable to ms rahala for disputing at oral argument without any evidentiary basis that his client sent the text messages she attributed to him and with this order on june 1st the rahalas and the defendants had to put up what were your costs and I looked at the docket and I did see that and then by no later than june 16th today as we are recording walner and trent may file statements as to whether and what extent the court should impose the sanctions proposed above and any objections to the fees and costs it's not on the docket yet so I guess they're waiting till 11 59 p .m to submit.

0:49:23 Lydia: Today

0:50:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, but that's going to be just more AI slop like that's not going to be anything I

0:50:04 Jenessa: Yeah, this judge was not having it. There's also, I suspect somebody is going to file a bar complaint over this.

0:50:13 Thomas: Would hope and the beauty part is it's like not just for the original suit. It's like, okay that was one thing the appeal. Also, you're like double wasting time and you're getting additional sanctions for that potentially or at least they're saying like the defendants can ask for sanctions and let's be real. I feel like they're going to get some sanctions here.

0:50:33 Jenessa: I think this is not going to go well. The AI hallucinations part is clear. They go through in detail in the decision. Like here's the thing that you put in quotes we can't find it anywhere you're saying yes like it's one thing if you say like oh you know first of all you should be able to say where you got your legal ideas from but if it was just a sentence without quotes you could like plausibly try to argue to me you came up with it

0:50:46 Thomas: Quote quotes mean something. Yeah, yeah fudge it a little bit.

0:51:04 Jenessa: If it's in quotes either you saw it somewhere in quotes and you can find it again and so can I or that's made up ai crap

0:51:14 Lydia: Also like like the shocking language too about like Illinois courts consistently hold blah blah blah and with no citation no citation like you're gonna say that Illinois courts constantly hold and then never say like when, what, where, why, like nothing. Wow.

0:51:19 Thomas: Yeah with a quote like one time yeah well that's incredible

0:51:32 Jenessa: Yeah and I appreciate that the judge really hammered him on like are you about to blame somebody else like you signed your name on this brief and that's the end of

0:51:37 Thomas: Yeah also he definitely doesn't have any staff it's just ai like he for sure is just talking about his ai agents

0:51:43 Jenessa: It yeah it's a real mess I wondered to myself who on earth would take such a frivolous case. And then seeing this, it's like, well, that makes sense.

0:51:59 Thomas: You know we didn't even touch on and maybe they don't really exist but we didn'T even touch ON any valid possible concerns with a group like this which I think would be interesting I don'T know if they're lawsuit suit worthy. I could imagine if something crazy happened, like if somebody put information in one of these things that was false, that led to negative consequences for somebody. I think that's a valid thing to complain about, but if it happens, you know, like for sure. And we didn't get anywhere near any of that in this because this was just the worst.

0:51:59 Lydia: Let me share very quickly just kind of what the response was on this subreddit. Our AWDTSG is toxic is the name of the subredtit. Yeah, so this is their idea from one of the posts titled MAGA men to the rescue you via political pressure if we could find the right MAGA guy who has been impacted by this maybe he can pressure his local politician in a red zone who could relay this to Pete Hegseth and Trump and another one are we dating the same guy a symptom of a larger issue and they cite or they cite they screen capture this paragraph from an article that I'm going to send to you after this Jenessa because I would love for you to read this and

0:52:41 Thomas: So a manosphere thing, okay oh my god jesus christ

0:53:15 Lydia: Maybe it's an SIO it's titled false rape reports to police form a very large proportion of cases. And this is amply explained. Is the name of the article in this journal?

0:53:25 Jenessa: Yeah. Oh, I'm sure.

0:53:27 Lydia: The journal, let me tell you, it's just crazy. The specific statistics that they include here is 39 .6 % of this student sample answered positively to varying degree that they're falsely alleging assault against a male.

0:53:25 Thomas: Sure is AI yeah nope sure not sure didn't happen

0:53:44 Jenessa: What?

0:53:45 Lydia: Yeah. So they show this and they say, you know, are we dating the same guy is just a little bit of the problem. And it actually goes much deeper than this because women actually falsely allege this stuff at a rate that is significant. And here's this article from the journal titled New Male Studies, an international journal. Yeah. Yeah.

0:54:03 Thomas: New male studies uh-huh sure

0:54:05 Jenessa: Oh boy. Supposed to old male studies. I need a sound effect. What's that? You remember that thing when they used to do like breaking news, there was always music beforehand like it was urgent but not that urgent we got to play the music first

0:54:15 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:54:22 Thomas: Yeah did they get rid of that once every single thing became breaking news like they change an arms race and everything became breaking news all the time yeah

0:54:27 Lydia: It's just an ongoing like little ticker tape at the bottom of the screen constantly.

0:54:35 Thomas: Like like breaking boner pills like it won't even be anything now just whatever

0:54:38 Jenessa: That used to like mean something horrible or amazing had happened now it's just everything

0:54:44 Lydia: Yeah. War, death. Yeah. But we do have breaking news. We're back.

0:54:48 Jenessa: We do actual breaking news last we spoke it was the 16th and they had to respond to those sanctions by the 16th and we didn't have anything yet we had three characters who had to answer we had Nico D 'Ambrosio our plaintiff because he was hypothetically possibly going to be responsible for some of these damages we had Mark Trent the attorney who did the oral arguments and Aaron Walner the attorney Who wrote the brief as of right now it is the 23rd as we record this a a week later, Aaron Wallner just didn't answer it.

0:55:32 Thomas: That's not normally something that you do right

0:55:32 Lydia: He's MIA.

0:55:37 Jenessa: Um, I can't imagine making that decision. I've literally been sitting here trying to figure out, like, is it possible he doesn't know somehow? I went through the whole docket and I didn't see anything where he actually uploads something or, like files an appearance. So I'm almost wondering, like is it it possible he's not getting, I don't know, notices?

0:55:47 Lydia: Should I message him on Instagram? Yeah.

0:56:06 Thomas: So remind me who's who's what with this what guy's not responding

0:56:09 Jenessa: So Nico D 'Ambrosio, he was the plaintiff, the one who sued about all of the, you posted a nasty thing about me and I think that's illegal for a hundred reasons and I'm wrong. Mark Trent was trentlaw .ai or whatever, the guy who did the oral argument. And Aaron Walner is the one who wrote the brief. Yeah, that has the AI hallucinations in it

0:56:31 Thomas: You wrote the brief

0:56:37 Lydia: And Walner was working at Trent Law, under Trent Law at the time of filing all these things, but he was responsible for writing his signatures on the briefs.

0:56:49 Jenessa: Right so he just just didn't answer and he still just hasn't answered a week later

0:56:55 Lydia: But he no longer works Yeah, so that's part of the issue is the reason why Mark Trent appeared for oral arguments during the appeal is because Walner was fired or left. We don't know the circumstances, but he's no longer affiliated with the firm. It's unclear. There's some just weird stuff going on.

0:57:12 Jenessa: Unclear so who knows it's only gonna get weirder so nico writes he signed this so I don't know if he's writing this like pro se or what the story is but here's a single paragraph that nico our plaintiff has written, I believe that the amounts of fees and costs presented by Rahala, the woman he sued, are both reasonable. I have no issue with paying their costs. As for the attorney's fees and the double costs, I understand the court's ruling and disappointment with my attorney's brief and argument. I never received a copy of the brief for review before it was filed and had no idea he was using AI. I relied on my attorneys related to the filing of this appeal. I request that the attorney's fees and double costs be awarded against the attorney.

0:58:10 Jenessa: I retained the Trent Law firm. I never met or had any form of contact or communication with Mr. Walner. The end.

0:58:19 Thomas: Wow what is happening

0:58:24 Lydia: My first thought was as we were going through our experience with lawsuit, Thomas like reviewed everything before they were filed. And Jenessa, your position, I think it's that this is standard practice. You are required as a lawyer that your client review things before you file them. Is that right?

0:58:35 Jenessa: I think it's an ethical obligation. I wouldn't even think of doing it. It hasn't occurred to me to double check if I could do like you can't do that you just can't do that obviously like when I send something to the client and I say like you know we're gonna file this what do you think the main thing is we're double checking that all the factual things are correct because I wasn't there I'm describing factually what happened and I wasn'T there no no I wouldn't expect them to do that sometimes I do have to they'll come back with like Like I don't like this part and I do have to kind of try to thread the needle on like at the end of the day, this is their filing and I can't file something that they don't want me to file, but I'll try to explain, you know, oh, here's why we wrote it that way. I understand that seems strange, but it's because of this legal thing. It's almost always very straightforward to explain like, oh this is a legal thing and

0:59:06 Thomas: Yeah the client isn't checking your legal citations yeah that that happened a lot yeah yeah

0:59:40 Jenessa: Then they understand. But the client has every right to say, I don' t care. Like that's not a legal argument I want to make. And like you're their employee it's not your filing it's their filing they sign off on everything before you put it in they paid you to file their complaint not your complaint the idea that he did not even see these I would never expect him to check or know that the legal arguments were inaccurate or that they weren't real cases but he didn't see it. He never talked to the attorney

1:00:14 Thomas: So then the judge has gotta be like what I would imagine the judge is gonna want to get to the bottom of that

1:00:20 Jenessa: Yeah and then we got from Trent Mark Trent the one who did the oral arguments he did a very smart thing and he hired an attorney who specializes in attorney ethics

1:00:29 Thomas: Right are you a terrible attorney call me a terrible journey

1:00:35 Jenessa: Complaints we see an appearance filed for that attorney and then immediately after this document 12 pages filed on behalf of mr. Trent where he explains what happened here why he thinks he should should not face sanctions. On the one hand, obviously, this is Trent making an argument to try to save himself. Onthe other hand, it is through an attorney who specializes in attorney ethics complaints, so somebody else is putting their butt on the line here, and I would think that hopefully this is all accurate information, or also that attorney would be subject to sanctions if they didn't do their due diligence to investigate this. So according to Trent, He did argue in the district court. He argued the case. And then when they went for this appeal in the Seventh Circuit, he turned it over to Walner, who was his salaried employee. And he's like taking responsibility insofar as he should have supervised. But he mentions Walner has like 12 years more experience than Trent.

1:01:43 Jenessa: So he kind of just assumed this guy didn't need to be micromanaged. I'm paraphrasing.

1:01:50 Lydia: Managed at all, apparently.

1:01:52 Jenessa: I don't know how you end up with an employee who has 12 years more legal experience than you, but whatever. Somehow that happened. He alleges Walner wrote the whole thing. Trent never even got a look at it, never checked it, didn't see it, just knew it was happening. He also alleges that Walner was using Trent's Pacer account without his knowledge

1:01:43 Thomas: Attorney wow whoa

1:02:19 Jenessa: To upload things so that it looked like Trent was doing the uploads.

1:02:28 Lydia: Yeah, it is a mess.

1:02:29 Jenessa: Yeah, I don't know how relevant that is because at the end of the day, each of the documents is signed by Walner. It has Walner's name and only Walner'S name. It does not have Trent's. It's not like he forged his signature or something. I've never had to do any of this. I mean, I just submit my own stuff or somebody else on the team submits it under their account.

1:02:25 Thomas: Uh this is a

1:02:50 Jenessa: Apparently, like, it wouldn't be super weird for a paralegal who's working for you to submit something using your account. But I looked at the whole docket and I don't see anything that's actually submitted under Walner's account as far as I can tell. So it looks like at every point Trent's account was used. I don' t know if it matters at all. It doesn't ultimately imply that Trent did it, but I suppose it would imply lie that he checked it, but he's your employee. I guess what you would have to argue is like, if you were not even on the case at all, and he was the only person working the case, if he had uploaded it under his account, it would pretty much look like you had nothing to do with the case. And you wouldn't be responsible, right? But at the end of the day, then he did the oral arguments.

1:03:43 Jenessa: He tries to make this argument too, that there is a requirement under rule 11, which is where some of the sanctions would come from, it requires that lawyers do not present to a court a pleading written motion or other paper by, quote, later advocating it. So the court could say like, hey, it doesn't matter that you didn't write it or didn't file it or whatever. You stood up in front of us and advocated for those positions, right? And his attorney on his behalf is arguing, well, there've been cases before that say that's like after learning that it ceases to to have any merit. You filed this. And like, I never learned that because I didn't read it.

1:03:42 Thomas: Mess yeah oh wow

1:04:26 Jenessa: Come on, man. That's, I suppose you have been hired to make the best possible argument.

1:04:33 Thomas: None of this seems like good lawyersmanship this is all a joke what I I think the craziest thing right now from my perspective is that the one person seeming sane is the crazy plaintiff maybe he realizes like oh shit okay this is where this has gone too far uh hey yeah I'll pay their cost don't mind good you know that doesn't that seems reasonable with the lawyers yeah

1:05:00 Lydia: I'm like almost on his side about like filing a complaint like this is insane. Right.

1:05:05 Jenessa: Yeah, and it also makes me wonder, like, how much of the, like wild arguments in here, if it's true, that he really never saw this and, you know, his is signed by himself. So And did no lawyer put their reputation on the line for that? I don't know. But if it's true that he really never saw that, were there bombastic arguments in there he wouldn't have made? I don't want to give the guy too much credit. Obviously, if those posts are real, he's a real jerk to this woman and then sued this woman for tattling that he's A JERK. But at the end of the day, what were these attorneys doing making these arguments without without checking with him, portraying factually what he claims happened to him without checking with him. Yeah, he's the most reasonable at this point, which is wild to imagine.

1:05:58 Lydia: There's also like a weird element to this, too, where correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't Trent say in his filing that he did not converse with D'Ambrosio at all, like he wasn't involved. They never talked about this case, et cetera, et zebra.

1:06:13 Jenessa: Yeah. He pretty much says he was involved in, so he's involved in the district court case. And then when it got to the appeal, he was literally not involved with this appeal until shortly before the oral argument he doesn't give an exact date

1:06:27 Lydia: But then but then here's the other weird part, because then in D 'ambrosio's filing, he says that he's never ever met or spoken to Walner, who is the attorney working on this case. And then simultaneously, I shared with you guys when when D 'Ambrosio was convicted of tax fraud and he had letters of reference, you know, character letters being sent in. Mark Trent wrote him one and said that they've been friends for a long time and they talk daily. Did that just stop? That just happened to stop between district court filing and the appeal. And like then you just never talked anymore. More. I guess he was in prison. So maybe that's part of it.

1:07:08 Lydia: But I like there's just so many weird things happening here. And I don't trust anybody involved. It's the weirdest thing.

1:07:16 Thomas: That's for sure I just pity the judge who I think is probably thinking I don't even care to get to the bottom of this like this is so

1:07:19 Jenessa: Oh god I mean

1:07:25 Lydia: I honestly charge them all.

1:07:25 Thomas: Dumb why are we doing Yeah, you're all guilty. Death penalty. I don't know.

1:07:32 Jenessa: Yeah it's really tough to judge too because without a response from walner I would love to see that he said she said does walner deny that he didn't reach out to D'Ambrosio before filing?

1:07:33 Lydia: Yeah.

1:07:45 Jenessa: Does he deny? Like, what would he say about Trent claiming, like, I never checked his work? Would he say Trent told me to use AI on this? I don't know.

1:07:45 Lydia: Should I stir the pot? Should I like try and reach out to him and be like, hey, I don' t know if you've seen this.

1:08:00 Jenessa: Oh my god, reach out for comment. I mean, if he has any brain, he wouldn't answer. Who cares about clearing your name in the court of public opinion? You need to clear your name on the literal court.

1:08:05 Lydia: Yeah, here's what this guy's saying about you on the docket.

1:08:05 Thomas: Hold

1:08:16 Lydia: Yeah.

1:08:17 Jenessa: You're gonna get sanctioned. You didn't answer god this this thing has been circling the block uh

1:08:19 Thomas: On. We all got to buy some ice cream. Ice cream break. It's the new show tradition. Yeah. How much ice cream are you buying? Like it just knows.

1:08:20 Lydia: Ice cream truck. It knows that Jenessa is waiting to come downstairs to get some ice cream.

1:08:35 Thomas: Putting my kids through college. Yeah.

1:08:36 Jenessa: Truly dan sprints out there most days and picks us up something yeah he has probably attracted her to the block

1:08:39 Lydia: Oh, that's so cute.

1:08:42 Thomas: Well, there's your problem. That's how you pick up stray ice cream trucks. Constructs. What's the verdict on this? Are we waiting for the judge to be like, what?

1:08:57 Jenessa: Yeah pretty much at this point nico has flat out said I'm just I'll just pay these costs but the attorney's fees and the double costs. The judge had already alluded to being more than happy to put that on the attorneys, like alluded to it in oral arguments and in their order. And then Walner didn't respond. So I would imagine you're basically going to get a default judgment on that. And then, I don't know, he'll get a letter and maybe be surprised, maybe not. I have no idea.

1:09:25 Thomas: So crazy.

1:09:25 Jenessa: Is Trent going to get himself out of this by saying, well, at oral argument, the parts that were AI hallucinations, I didn't bring it up. And it's like, yeah, because the judge brought it up before you had a chance to. Will that get him out of it? I mean, I doubt it. I don't know. So we shall see what happens to them. But it felt important to bring up everyone throwing each other under the bus.

1:09:40 Lydia: Think the fight is definitely over this sanctions piece because I just pulled up the receipts that were submitted for costs. And yeah, D 'Ambrosio is not going to care about paying this. It's seven grand.

1:10:04 Jenessa: It's really, yeah it's not that big a deal in the long run it's more the point and really for the attorneys at this point I would be worried about my license at some point I guess if it's your first offense

1:10:16 Lydia: It would be both of their first offenses, too. I looked that up.

1:10:18 Jenessa: A first offense and it's not like stealing so probably not going to lose your license but anything that happens after this is your second offense and you don't want to be in that position so rough.

1:10:32 Lydia: I can't wait to see what the judge says.

1:10:34 Thomas: Well, that was a lot of fun. Thanks so much for taking us through that. Really appreciate it. And yep. Nope. The worst person on the entire internet tried to sue and used the worst lawyer on the internet who used AI and it failed miserably. So what a fun story.

1:10:43 Jenessa: Pretty much. Yeah. Don't do it.

1:11:28 Thomas: Are you a terrible attorney?

1:11:30 Lydia: I'm a nosy, nosy person.

1:11:33 Jenessa: This podcast has a mortgage taken out on it.

1:11:38 Thomas: You're all guilty. Death penalty. I don't know. Breaking boner pills.