After a Minnesota man named Alan Cooper accused Prenda Law of stealing his identity, the porn trolling firm responded with a defamation lawsuit. The lawsuit targeted Cooper, his attorney Paul Godfread, and numerous anonymous Internet commenters. On Thursday, Cooper and Godfread filed a 24-page response alleging that Prenda's lawsuit amounts to an illegal SLAPP suit under Minnesota law, that Prenda can't prove any of the allegedly defamatory statements are actually false, and that Prenda had invaded Cooper's privacy by stealing his signature.

SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation. A number of states, including Minnesota, have laws to make it easy to dismiss lawsuits that are brought to intimidate and silence people who speak out about matters of public concern.

Cooper and Godfread's response illustrates the extraordinary lengths Prenda has allegedly gone to try to silence Cooper. When Cooper first started asking Prenda questions about why his signature was showing up in court filings, Prenda's John Steele called "several times within a matter of minutes" to discourage him from pursuing the matter. Cooper says that after repeated efforts, he couldn't get Steele or his colleagues to give him a straight answer about whether there was another man named Alan Cooper affiliated with Prenda or its clients.

After Cooper filed a lawsuit against Prenda over the identity theft allegations and Prenda responded with the defamation suit, Cooper and Godfread say they were harassed and intimidated by Prenda's lawyers.

"Despite knowing Cooper was represented by Atty. Godfread, Defendant’s co-conspirator, John Steele directly contacted Cooper several times via text messaging and various voicemails," Cooper's and Godfread's response says.

"I can assure you that just ignoring legal matters, it’s not going to go away," Steele told Cooper in one of those voicemails, threatening that "your life is going to get real complicated" if he didn't respond to Prenda's threats.

Meanwhile, Steele's partner Paul Hansmeier was sending threatening emails to Godfread. In a message sent on Feb. 21, he accused Godfread and Cooper of being in cahoots with the anti-troll sites FightCopyrightTrolls and DieTrollDie:

I suspect that you aligned yourself with these defamatory efforts as a marketing strategy. I don't know if these efforts paid off, but I can assure you that making baseless accusations of criminal conduct is not a wise move for a licensed attorney. All of that being said, my client knows that you didn't work alone in these wrongful efforts. If you think we are missing out on more serious actors in your enterprise my client would be willing to consider decreasing your liability in exchange for information about these individuals. Of course, that interest will disappear if someone else comes forward first. Think it over and let me know. If you're willing to take the fall for whole group then you are decidedly a "true believer." Welcome to the big leagues.

Steele and Hansmeier's efforts at intimidation didn't work. Cooper appeared in court last week in Los Angeles to tell Judge Otis Wright about Prenda's conduct. Now, there's a follow-up hearing scheduled for April 2, and Wright has insisted that the Prenda principals show up this time.

Cooper and Godfread argue the purpose of Prenda's defamation suit was "not to win on the merits," but instead to "force Plaintiffs to expend funds on litigation costs and attorney fees," "discourage opposition in Plaintiffs’ Minnesota action through delay, expense, and distraction," and "serve a vexatious or otherwise retaliatory purpose" for Cooper's original lawsuit. They argue this is precisely the kind of lawsuit Minnesota's anti-SLAPP law was designed to prohibit.