Brett Gibbs, an attorney for copyright-trolling firm Prenda Law, is in a tight spot. A Minnesota man named Alan Cooper has accused Prenda of stealing his identity and making him the head of two litigious shell companies called "AF Holdings" and "Ingenuity 13." Earlier this month, an angry California judge ordered Gibbs to appear in his courtroom on March 11 to explain himself, and he invited both Gibbs and defense attorney Morgan Pietz to file written comments on the issue. Both did so on Tuesday.

Apparently realizing the legal danger he's in, Gibbs has hired attorney Andrew Waxler to represent him. As Fight Copyright Trolls notes, Waxler's focus is on "primarily defending lawyers in malpractice actions."

"Mr. Gibbs has strived to be honest and forthright with this Court, and all courts during his legal career," Waxler writes.

Gibbs' defense is that he's just a lowly outside counsel for Prenda, and that as a result he knows almost nothing about the clients he represents. In other words, if Prenda did anything unethical, it was the fault of his superiors, not him.

According to Gibbs, his "only involvement with AF Holdings and Ingenuity was and is as a contracted outside attorney representing AF Holdings in California" on behalf of Prenda.

Gibbs says that he "does not have direct contact with his clients and receives assignments related to the litigation from the senior attorneys. Thus, Mr. Gibbs does not have direct contact with the principals of AF Holdings or Ingenuity. Mr. Gibbs has never met Alan Cooper, and does not know the extent of Mr. Cooper's role is in AF Holdings aside from seeing a signature from an 'Alan Cooper' on the aforementioned assignment and pleadings."

Of course, Gibbs doesn't specify who these "senior attorneys" are, but the Tuesday filing of defense lawyer Morgan Pietz names names. Pietz believes that "Alan Cooper" isn't the only bogus identity Prenda has used in recent years, and he offers still more evidence linking "Cooper" to Prenda puppetmaster John Steele. The real, Minnesota-based Alan Cooper worked for Steele as a caretaker before Cooper raised his identity-theft concerns.

Prenda has identified a man named as "Salt Marsh" as the owner of AF Holdings. Since that doesn't sound like a real name, attorney Nicholas Ranallo did some digging. He was unable to find anyone named "Salt Marsh," but he did discover that a man named Anthony Saltmarsh shares an Arizona address with Steele's sister, Jayme Steele. Pietz suggests that Saltmarsh is Ms. Steele's "live-in boyfriend."

Pietz also reveals the existence of another Prenda-linked company, called VPR Inc. A 2010 filing with the Nevada Secretary of state lists "Alan Cooper" as the firm's only officer, and "Cooper" is listed as having the same Arizona address Saltmarsh shares with Steele's sister.

Finally, Pietz notes that on March 24, 2011, someone registered the domain notissues.com with the name "Alan Cooper" and the e-mail address johnlsteele@gmail.com. Here again, "Cooper" is listed as living with Ms. Steele in Arizona.

If you believe there's really a man who has the name of Steele's caretaker, the address of Steele's sister, and the e-mail address of Steele himself, you might be interested in some unique swamp-related real estate opportunities in Florida, where Steele now resides.

"Mr. Gibbs surely bears a significant amount of responsibility for Prenda’s egregious actions, but he has not acted alone," Pietz writes. "The fraud here is systematic, and part of a conspiracy involving several other lawyers and laypeople." In Pietz's view, these villains include Paul Duffy (nominally Prenda's principal), Steele, Steele's former law partner Paul Hansemeier, and Mark Lutz of Sunlust Pictures fame. Perhaps when the judge is finished grilling Gibbs, he should order these other Prenda-related people to his courtroom to answer questions about their activities.

We've e-mailed Steele for comment and have not received a response.

Listing image by Shawn Hoke