The lawyers behind Prenda Law built a business suing thousands for allegedly downloading pornographic movies over peer-to-peer networks. But about a year ago, that business began to collapse as allegations of identity theft and fraud mounted. Waves of judicial sanctions for Prenda and fee awards for Prenda opponents have followed.

When things started to heat up for Prenda last spring, the law firm started digging itself a deeper hole: it sued its online critics for defamation. Comments on anti-troll blogs that called Prenda lawyers "assclowns" and "brain-damaged" were cited as legal violations and were attributed to both Alan Cooper, the man who says Prenda forged his signature, and attorney Paul Godfread.

That defamation suit turns out to have been too much, too late. According to a report today in the Cook County Legal Journal, US District Judge John Darrah has granted the sanctions that Godfread and Cooper asked for.

In their motion asking for sanctions, defense lawyers Erin Russell and Jason Sweet accused Prenda of "lying to court officials, presenting false documents … and at all times following a course of action from which any reasonably prudent attorney would run.”

Darrah ruled from the bench at a brief hearing today, and no written order has yet been published. Russell has until February 6 to submit a list of itemized fees. Prenda lawyer Paul Duffy appeared by telephone. The revenue coming in from various Prenda-linked shells was at least $1.9 million in 2012, according to documents now made public in court; much of that is believed to have gone to John Steele and Paul Hansmeier, two other attorneys who have been linked to Prenda operations but have denied involvement.

Despite an apparent payment in one Prenda case, the other sanction orders against Prenda appear to be headed for appeal. In addition to today's order, at least five other Prenda-linked cases resulted in fee awards, including the original $81,000 sanctions order from US District Judge Otis Wright, as well as the whopper $261,000 award issued just before Thanksgiving in a case in which Prenda sued ISPs.