Transcripts Of John Steele's Phone Calls To Alan Cooper

from the what-lawyer-leaves-voicemails-like-this? dept

The most dramatic part of Cooper's testimony -- and perhaps the most dramatic moment in the hearing -- came when Cooper described what happened when his lawyer Paul Godfread notified Prenda Law that he was suing for the misappropriation of his identity. Within minutes, he said, John Steele began to call him. Steele called many times, and over the course of weeks sent texts and left several voice mail messages. Mr. Pietz played the messages for the court.



In each message, Steele began by telling Cooper that Steele understands that Cooper's lawyer is only representing Cooper in Cooper's lawsuit, not in Steele's and Prenda's and Duffy's lawsuits against Cooper. It's evident that Steele was saying that in an attempt to justify why he would be directly calling a represented party, which lawyers are prohibited from doing by the disciplinary rules of every jurisdiction. In the calls, Steele talked with escalating intensity about how Cooper was now facing lawsuits, that Cooper needed to call Steele to talk about being deposed and responding to discovery, how things were going to "get ugly" now, and how things were now "complicated." On hearing the voice messages, I thought there was only one reasonable interpretation: John Steele was trying to menace and intimidate Alan Cooper to get him to back off from talking about John Steele's use of his name. By the end of the calls, there was a stunned silence in the courtroom, and I suspected that many spectators were sharing with me a deep sympathy for Mr. Cooper and an abiding sense of revulsion for John Steele.

From second voicemail:



It's like if you refuse to, you know, return my calls or -- or engage in mandatory conference, then I'm going to have to be forced to ask the judge to, you know, force you to do things and it just gets ugly from there.



So if you do decide to get an attorney in either of those matters or in the other cases which we're filing against you in the upcoming weeks, please let them -- have them give me a call. This number's fine. Otherwise, I expect to hear from you shortly.



From third voicemail



Alan, this is John Steele again.



You have not responded or contacted me regarding litigation you're involved in. I know you've been served with a third lawsuit. And there are more coming. Don't worry about that.



Well, obviously, if I don't hear from you, I'm going to start filing for certain default motions and start getting relief that way.



I can assure you that just ignoring legal matters, it's not going to go away. I can guarantee you, I'm not going away.



So I highly recommend you at least, you know, follow the rules.... otherwise your life is going to get really complicated.

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One of the big surprise revelations at the infamous Prenda hearing on Monday was that John Steele had been calling Alan Cooper and leaving voicemails for him of a threatening nature. If you haven't been following all of this, Alan Cooper was Prenda lawyer John Steele's caretaker for some homes he owned in Minnesota. Some of the many shell companies that Prenda law was "representing" (and which it almost certainly set up itself for itself) supposedly had an "Alan Cooper" as a representative who "signed" all of the legal documents. At some point, caretaker Cooper learned of this and worried that Steele was illegally using his identity -- leading to his notifying a few judges overseeing Prenda cases of this fact. It eventually resulted in Cooper suing Steele. Steele and Prenda (separately) along with Prenda's only official partner, Paul Duffy, then all sued Cooper for defamation. Oh, and at no point has anyone associated with Prenda done or said anything to suggest that there is a real Alan Cooper who is not the caretaker, but who signed those documents. Steele, at one point, insisted he was real, but declined to provide any more info because (he claimed) of those lawsuits from Alan Cooper. Of course, that makes no sense. If there really was an Alan Cooper associated with AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13, the fastest way to win the lawsuit with caretaker Alan Cooper would be to have the other Alan Cooper show up. But that's difficult if he doesn't exist.Anyway, in the court hearing on Monday, Cooper played a bunch of voicemails from Steele, which Steele had left recently, which do not look good for Steele. Here's what Ken White wrote about the calls in the post he did for us:And... yesterday the transcripts of those voicemails was added to the docket as an exhibit by Morgan Pietz, one of the lawyers fighting against Prenda. The transcripts really are about as incredible as White described -- and really suggest attempted intimidation (poorly done, mind you). You would think that a lawyer would know better than to so clearly threaten someone. A couple snippets:It's just classic bullying talk. Incredible.

Filed Under: alan cooper, john steele

Companies: prenda law