John Steele, the lawyer many point to as the mastermind behind the Prenda Law porn-trolling enterprise, has remained pretty quiet in the wake of Prenda's troubles. At an April hearing in US District Judge Otis Wright's court, he kept silent, pleading the Fifth and refusing to answer any questions. Wright went ahead and bench-slapped Steele and Prenda with an opinion laced with Star Trek references.

But today Steele spoke, in front of Wright, for the first time. After Steele and his comrades had filed a set of motions insisting they had never received the relevant sanctions papers, Wright insisted that Steele fly out to Los Angeles and make that argument in person. And he showed up.

It would seem like the last place Steele would want to be. In the wake of Wright's April ruling, which included an $81,000 sanction and a referral to criminal investigators, Prenda Law has become the most notorious of the so-called "copyright trolling" operations that have sprouted up in the last few years. Like the others, Prenda's business depends on mass-suing thousands of BitTorrent users, alleging they broke copyright law in illegally downloading certain porn titles.

The pro se road to Los Angeles

So how did Steele's second foray into Wright's court come about? It appears that Steele made an effort to paint Wright—as well as opposing counsel Morgan Pietz and Nicholas Ranallo—as having steamrolled Prenda and its cast of characters with no regard for their due process rights.

On June 21, Steele filed an emergency motion asking that Wright vacate orders requiring Steele and his colleagues to pay a bond to appeal the sanctions imposed against Prenda, Steele, and others. The rationale was that Pietz and Ranallo had failed to properly serve them once they became pro se litigants, representing themselves. Steele cried foul and argued the Prenda parties were left in the dark, unable to adequately defend themselves. It was Pietz and Ranallo who deserved sanctions, Steele wrote—he asked Wright to refer the matter to the same disciplinary committee Wright has asked to consider Prenda’s actions.

Steele’s suggestion was rejected out of hand. So Steele asked again, filing a motion to reconsider. The other characters of the Prenda saga simultaneously filed their own pro se ‘notices’ complaining that they had not been served, including a bizarre stream-of-consciousness filing from paralegal-cum-CEO Mark Lutz.

If Steele really wanted to get an up-close-and-personal version of that bright red "DENIED" stamp on his first motion—well, Wright was going to give it to him. The judge set a hearing for July 12. Steele asked to phone it in, but the request was rejected.

Even before this hearing, Pietz and Ranallo had slammed Steele's accusations in writing. Denial of due process rights is a serious charge, so Pietz and Ranallo hired outside counsel (Lawrence Heller) and fired back, pointing out:

A "motion to reconsider" has to provide new evidence or law that wasn't available the first time around. Steele didn't bother.

Team Prenda's professed lack of awareness was of their own making: When they filed the forms to represent themselves, they largely neglected to include their e-mail addresses, fax numbers, and phone numbers, all of which are required by local rules of Los Angeles federal courts.

Steele had argued that “scores” of papers had not been served, but only two filings were really at issue. Moreover, Steele had actual knowledge of the filings, Pietz said—he wasn't in the dark at all. Steele was submitting Pietz e-mails in court, despite the fact that they weren't going through—Steele's own e-mail was "bouncing back." That suggests he got the e-mail after it was circulated by another Prenda-affiliated party. Further, Prenda's lawyer had circulated a draft of an appeal to the Ninth Circuit over the bond issue (an issue which included a filing Steele had not been served), inadvertently including Pietz. Steele replied with suggested changes.

Wright on Steele’s accusations: “Why do I care?”

Steele came to court alone, and left alone. He walked in just a few minutes before the scheduled start of the hearing. A handful of Prenda watchers—former Prenda defendants, EFF representatives, interested defense attorneys, and others who just like a good legal showdown—were already seated inside.

Judge Wright walked in promptly at the scheduled time. The first thing he noted is that Steele and other Prenda affiliates had been submitting last-minute documents to the court, as late as this morning. Paul Hansmeier, for instance, had filed a motion to appear by telephone—“for what, I don’t know,” mused Wright, as Hansmeier’s motion was not the subject of the hearing.

He didn't like all the new filings, either. Among them were thick complaints from Mark Lutz and John Steele to the California State Bar concerning former Prenda lawyer Brett Gibbs. “Why do I care?" snapped Wright. "You assumed I needed more paper?”

Defense lawyer Pietz was working with Gibbs, said Steele. Therefore, Gibbs' misdoings were part of a "pattern of fraud" by Pietz. Wright tossed it aside: The hearing today was about Steele's knowledge of particular filings, he said.

Then the court's flat-screen monitors popped up with a copy of Steele’s substitution of attorney form. Had Steele ever seen this document, Wright demanded to know?

Steele sat for an awkwardly long period of time staring at the monitor before answering. "I'm sure I did at some point," he said. Wright asked if the address was correct, and Steele said that it was not. The incorrect address was listed twice on the form, said Wright—and it was never corrected.

Next method of contact? Steele's e-mail address, which was sending bounce-backs to lawyers who tried to contact him. Steele said that he shut it down because of “spam and hacking and attempts to mess up not only my e-mail but websites.” At some point, he “literally could not open” his e-mail account, he said. He had used an auto-responder to tell people about his alternative address until June, he said.

Wright asked Steele if he had another e-mail address. "I have an old one,” Steele responded. “Were you planning on letting anyone else in on it?" Wright asked, noting that the court’s Local Rules require litigants to provide an e-mail address if they have one.

Then Steele actually tried to argue, ever so briefly, that the e-mail address was really beside the point. The issue wasn't relevant to his overall point: that he had been deprived of his due process rights. Courts had used paper for years, Steele said. He started to make an argument that involved the year 1965, but wasn't quite clear. In any case, he insisted on his right to get notice on paper, saying that he didn't have an active ECF (electronic filing) account in the federal courts system.

Wright's anger boiled over in a sarcastic tone. "Don’t worry about our rules!" he said. "Do whatever you want. When you don’t get served, fly out and complain about it."

Before Steele could respond, Wright started driving through the additional flaws in Steele's "never got served" complaints. Steele’s June motion listed 21 documents that Steele claimed he had not been served with, but only six had been filed after Steele went pro se, Wright noted.

“Six documents!" said Wright. "Six is not scores of documents." In any case, how could Steele not have known? “I know you’re deeply and intimately involved in every aspect of this case.”

“I’m not,” sputtered Steele, arguing that there was “no evidence” that he had received the documents.

As for the other 15 documents, even if Steele wasn't yet representing himself, other Prenda parties had already gone pro se, Steele said. Their failure to get the papers established a "pattern [of] fraud."

Wright was amazed he would even use that language. “I find it laughable that you used the word ‘fraud,'” said the judge.

“You're getting all the due process you can stand!”

Steele also had trouble identifying any legal authority for the motion to reconsider. He kept invoking the Fifth Amendment, saying that alone was the authority.

“How? You got this from the Fifth Amendment? This is absurd," retorted Wright. "Last time I let you assert [the Fifth Amendment], and let you go right back to the airport!"

"That's a different Fifth Amendment right," responded Steele. The court's actions here amount to an illegal "taking," which wasn't right. "My rights... I get them no matter what,” he said. His June motion had not been argued or heard, he said, as it was denied “within minutes.”

“You’re getting all the due process you can stand!” said Wright. Steele’s arguments had been made—by Steele. Steele, growing audibly and visibly frustrated, replied, “If Your Honor doesn’t care, [then] this is an appellate issue.”

Wright didn't exactly need a heads up that Steele was planning to complain about his rulings to an appeals court. “They’ve got a reserved parking spot for you at the Ninth Circuit,” he said.

So far, everything had happened with nary a word from Pietz’s counsel, who had merely recited a few points from the opposition they filed. He got about two minutes in, talking about who was cc'd on various e-mail chains, when Steele interrupted him, saying that he had never said he wasn't in contact with the other Prenda parties.

“Settle down,” Wright ordered. “Do they allow that in Florida?”

“I don’t know," said Steele, flustered. "I’m not licensed in Florida and never practiced in Florida or California. Can I not object?"

“No,” said Wright, turning the floor back to Pietz’s counsel.

Pietz’s counsel asked Wright to issue a preservation order on Steele’s e-mail address in order to determine just what e-mails he did receive. Wright wasn't interested in helping out on that front. He'd tired of Prenda's antics so much that he said he'd rather remain willfully blind. "I don’t want to learn that another forged document” was filed with the court, he said. Pietz's lawyer also asked for a further hearing to discuss sanctioning Steele, which Wright granted.

Wright had only a few more questions. “Who typed your papers?” he asked. Steele sheepishly responded: “I typed part of it," and some of it was typed by others.

“I couldn’t help but notice [that] Peter Hansmeier’s notice, Paul Hansmeier’s notice, Mark Lutz’ notice, and your motion... all followed the exact same format,” said Wright. They even had the same footer. "They're almost indistinguishable. No way they were not typed by the same person."

“It’s called cutting and pasting!” Steele bellowed.

"Raise your voice again and I’m going to introduce you to the United States Marshals," said Wright. "Get out.” Wright stood and walked off the bench.

A couple of hours later, the court clerk posted a minute order. John Steele's motion is currently "under submission."

Adam Steinbaugh writes an uncreatively-named law and technology blog. He holds a J.D. from Loyola Law School and resides in Los Angeles. You could follow him on Twitter if you habitually make poor decisions.