Jason Aaron Kotszker has screwed up seriously. On May 1st the Court, adopting Judge Brown’s Order and Report and Recommendations , ordered that the result of subpoenas, served on Internet service providers, should be delivered to the judge’s chambers, not to the troll. Kotzker has blatantly disregarded the order and directed Optimum Online and Cablevision to send Doe information directly to his basement office.

It may be arrogance; it may be stupidity; it may be a total blackout as a result of a knock-down punch delivered by Jeff Fantalis; it even may be envy to Evan Stone’s infamy. Whatever it is, Kotzker has found himself in a serious situation, which he has undeniably deserved.

When Judge Brown found out about this, he was furious:

Plaintiffs’ counsel is hereby directed to file an affidavit or declaration under oath explaining: (1) the facts and circumstances that led to the issuance of the subpoenas in the form in which they were served, (2) the rationale behind issuing subpoenas directing Cablevision to supply the identity of the John Doe defendants to plaintiffs’ counsel and not to the Court; (3) the extent of Mr. Kotzker’s review of the subpoenas and the Order, and whether he signed them; (4) the identities of all individuals involved in preparing and serving the subpoenas and the extent of their in involvement and (5) any other facts counsel believes might be pertinent in assessing whether sanctions, costs or other remedial relief should be imposed. Plaintiffs’ counsel will al so provide any and all correspondence with Cablevision in this matter, as well as any other documents that plaintiffs’ counsel may wish the Court to consider. Counsel for Cablevision is requested to submit a statement detailing any costs it incurred as a result of the improper subpoena served, including legal costs associated with the appropriate review and implementation of this Court’s order, which the Court may consider as part of a resolution of this matter as well as copies of all correspondence with the plaintiffs’ counsel in this matter.

Judge Brown ordered to show cause why Kotzker shouldn’t be sanctioned, and I hope that this judge won’t back out as Judge Gibney did.

More on TorrentFreak: it was the first to break this news (edit: actually Ray Beckerman was the first).

John Whitaker also predicts that serious troubles await Kotzker.

Updates

Doecumb comments below, and I cannot agree more:

The PR is focusing on Kotzker, when it should shine a light on the entire troll mob. These local lawyers, even if once in a while they have real copyright law background, are serving a greedy apparatus. This apparatus includes a lawyer overseer (out of state), supposed forensic technologists, porn purveyor (usually) plaintiffs, collection agents, dummy corporations, sometimes off-shore havens, and other pieces. If the usual response takes place, Kotzker or his attorney will point to some paper-pushing error as the mitigating factor. The “error” could be due to the disconnect between the local lawyer and the extortion machine. If Kotzker or a local henchman were running the machine, his servants would be directed to serve the subpoenas properly, if at all. But if Kotzker is receiving instead of giving orders, he would not supervise other parts of the machine. The judge asks for “facts and circumstances that led to the issuance of the subpoenas”. This is a VERY GOOD time to compel the local troll to DETAIL his relation, including financial arrangements, to (ALL) OTHER parts of the racket with the names of those racketeers. This is NOT to excuse Mr. Kotzker and his terrible action. It is past time to expose the whole cast of bad actors in trolling. Then troll lawyers will face the danger of all trolls being dragged into the open, in any case. Let’s hope Judge Brown presses for the whole story.

The same TF article describes the second time of a judge admonishing a troll, which happened on July 27th. A DC district judge Ellen Huvelle used even stronger wording to describe troll Paul Duffy’s behavior (emphasis is mine):

ORDERED that, by August 3, 2012, Bubble Gum shall show cause why sanctions should not issue against it for attempting to perpetrate a fraud upon the Court.

There are some interesting developments in this case, and they deserve a more detailed analysis.

08/15/2012

The troll complies (of course) and files a memorandum and a declaration in response to the Judge Brown’s order. In two words, he whines that it was an innocent error and asks the judge to allow him stop eating candies for a week as a punishment.

Following Brett “Pinocchio” Gibbs’s practice, he whines how tough his life is in an apparent attempt to move the judge to pity:

15. I am an active participant in my church and lead a youth group. At the time the subpoena was issued, I was balancing the demands of a busy caseload, organizing a church mission trip and managing increased responsibilities at home caring for my two small children while my wife was eight months pregnant.

See Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct 1.3: A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.

Specifically see comment [2] regarding the rule:

A lawyer’s work load must be controlled so that each matter can be handled competently.

Kotzker basically just admitted to the Court that he is neither diligent nor competent to handle these cases. Oops. Honestly, in a situation like this it is better to just apologize and move on. Trying to make excuses is never a good idea.

Followups