Embattled copyright-trolling enterprise Prenda Law is being taken to task in a Los Angeles case, but there's a judge in San Francisco who has a few questions too.

In the District of Northern California, Prenda shell AF Holdings brought a lawsuit against a San Jose man named Joe Navasca. Once US District Judge Edward Chen ordered Prenda to put up $50,000 bond to proceed with the case, the anti-piracy law firm lost interest and tried to drop the whole thing.

The case is over—dismissed with prejudice. But the judge won't quite let it end until two things happen. First, Navasca's lawyer, Nick Ranallo, has a chance to ask for attorneys' fees from AF Holdings. And AF Holdings' lawyer must explain an unusual signature. Early in the case, AF Holdings signed an "ADR certification" document with the name "Salt Marsh," which was later explained to be a trust owned by Mark Lutz, the official owner of many Prenda shells. That's still somewhat fishy, since "Salt Marsh" claimed to have read certain documents and discussed them with his/her attorney. Chen asked to see the original.

Yesterday, Prenda filed papers saying the original isn't available. Mark Lutz, who owns AF Holdings, and Paul Duffy, Prenda Law's lawyer for many of its anti-piracy cases, are basically blaming former Prenda lawyer Brett Gibbs for the whole thing.

"My practice was to sign [ADR papers] on behalf of the Salt Marsh Trust and return them to Brett Gibbs," wrote Mark Lutz in his declaration. Duffy says he doesn't have the original, and Gibbs' lawyer says he doesn't have the original.

So there's no "Salt Marsh" original signature to be found. That would seem to be a violation of local litigation rules, which require signatures to be kept on file for a year following the resolution of a case. It remains to be seen how the judge will react.

While Duffy has been failing to find legally required documents, he has also been busy sending out a new batch of threat letters demanding that the accused pay Prenda thousands of dollars or have their neighbors told about pornography-related downloading accusations.

Duffy and his colleagues Mark Lutz, John Steele, and Paul Hansmeier all pled the Fifth when they were asked to explain their behavior in April.